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Xlbe O^cn Court
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE
Wcvotc^ to tbe Science of IRelfoion, tbe IReliolon of Science, an& tbe lExtension of tbe IRcliGious parliament tl^ea
Founded by Edward C. Hegeler.
VOL. XXXIII (No. 11) NOVEMBER, 1919 NO. 762
CONTENTS:
FAGS
Frontispiece. The Kondo, Chief Sanctuary of the Horyuji near Nara, Japan.
National Politics in Its Psychological Aspect. Franklin A. Beecher 653
Confucianism^ Buddhism, and Christianity. Bendy Kumar Sarkar 661
The Frescoes of the Horyuji. (With illustrations.) Harada Jiro 673
Bible Quotations and Chinese Customs. Julius J. Price 688
The Cosmos and Its Meaning. Frank R. Whitzel 693
Mr. Leonard's Fables. Traugott Boehme 709
"Savage Life and Custom." Peter Filo Schulte 712
Book Reviews 715
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Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea.
VOL. XXXIII (No. 11) NOVEMBER, 1919 NO. 762
Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Company, 1919.
XATTOXAL TM)LTT[CS IN ITS PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASPECT.
BV FRANKLIN A. HEFXHER.
/TAWS psychical existence is made up of an unending stream of sense-perceptions and impressions, of sights, sounds, and feehngs, of memories and judgments ; and man is only stirred to action or rctlection hy these impressions when thev hold his atten- tion and are recognized hy him as important for action. These impressions in the matured man do not fall upon virgin soil, hut are predisposed in their interpretation to the beliefs and opinions formed in his previous experience, education, habits of mind, and his notion of personal interest. Thus, his accepted dogma, as well as his economic, political, religious, and social affinities are often ob- stacles that enter into the question as to his acceptance of a new view, for his beliefs, ideals, views of life and of the world largely influence his conduct. Some of our beliefs are founded upon tacit agreement, many others, on mere faith, and the reasons for most of them are never investigated or questioned by the individual, for we accept them on the ''say so" of somebody else. Prof. William James wisely said: "....^^'e all of us believe in democracy and progress and the duty of fighting for 'the doctrine of the im- mortal Monroe.' all for no reason worthy of the name. We see into these matters with no more inner clearness, and probably wath much less, than any disbeliever in them might possess. His un- con\cutionalily' would prol)a1)ly have some grounds to show for its conclusions, but for us. not insight, but the prestige of the opinions, is what makes the spark shoot from them and light up our sleeping magazines of faith."
These psychic elements of the individual find expression in the political conduct of the masses. The proposition may be made that
;-fc'^r^ i^'
654 >
THE OPEN COURT.
what is psychologically true of the individual is essentially psycho- logically true of the collective. The binding tie that holds these units together in the aggregate, or the individual in the collective, is the national consciousness, founded upon association, the result of affection, sympathy, and imitation, or from a political stand- point, the result of love of country, common interests, and the desire of likeness.
Since government, from a psychological standpoint, has its source largely in the desire and ambition of man to control his fellowmen and to have them live according to his way of thinking, it follows that politics, in a narrow sense, is the psychology of government. The old political doctrine of intellectualism, founded upon the primitive psychology of common sense, that man acts solely from self-interest is fallacious and contrary to the teaching of modern psychology, for the psychological fact is well established that a large number of his acts are done unconsciously and in- voluntarily, and therefore without foresight. In a social as well as in a political sense man is a custom-making animal, and there is a strong inclination in his nature to persist in repeating what he has once done, and the tendency to repeat the action increases with the number of repetitions. Furthermore, there is a strong tendency in man to make others do so, without their questioning their own interests, and, owing to this tendency in man to imitate others, little compulsion is required to make him respond to sug- gestion.
Suggestion, as applied to the domain of politics, may be used: (1) as stimulation by association, i. e., the suggestion is based upon the doctrine of association of ideas; (2) as the transmission of an idea by hint, intimation, or insinuation; (3) as a means of modi- fying and creating belief. Suggestion has been defined by Prof. Baldwin to be the abrupt entrance from without into consciousness of an idea or image which becomes a part of the stream of thought and tends to produce the muscular and volitional efifects which ordinarily would follow upon its presence. Suggestion may be divided into direct and indirect. Direct suggestion is more effica- cious upon a crowd already under the influence of a dominant will, while indirect suggestion is more efl^ective between indi- viduals. Thus the process may be described in general as fol- lows. When the suggestion of an idea is made, it is born and falls in a network of emotions, traditions, and beliefs, of which the individual mind cannot easily divest itself. For this reason it meets ■,with opposition and resistance at first. Then, by continued affirma-
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NATIOXAL rOLITICS IX ITS PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT.
655
tive repetition of the suggestion, the idea begins to be tolerated, when it spreads Hke contagion in the consciousness of individuals until it enters the stream of popular consciousness and seeks pres- tige in the popular mind through discussion, by which means it becomes transformed into popular opinion. This transformation takes efifect oftentimes without discussion, which depends upon the nature of the sul)ject-matter of the idea and the manner of its suggestion. In the formation of this opinion, reason does not always predominate, for emotional ideas are more readily spread than ideas of an intellectual nature.
Political action is seldom the result of well-reasoned conduct. In illustration of this process the instance of the Blaine-Cleveland campaign will prove interesting. This campaign was bitterly fought on personal lines as well as otherwise. Blaine was charged with being a Catholic, which he vigorously denied, vindicating himself by obtaining from his wife's priest a certificate that he was not a Catholic. He was further charged with impropriety as to financial transactions while in the service of the government. For this reason, public opinion, particularly in New York, was strongly against him. To check this trend of public opinion a counter- suggestion was made by a party of clergymen calling upon him for the purpose of showing that the pulpit had not lost confidence in his integrity. But at this meeting a minister by the name of Burchard unfortunately threw out the suggestion that Blaine was fighting nun. Romanism, and rebellion, meaning thereby that the Democratic party was the party of rum, Romanism, and rebellion. The suggestion fell upon fertile soil. The hostile press took it up and spread it broadcast. Xo denial could stem the tide. It con- tributed to Blaine's defeat.
The suggestion in itself was slanderous, but lies and slanderous statements in political campaigns are frequently successful for the purposes intended. In the Jackson-Adams campaign — the so-called campaign of lies — the suggestion of the false idea was thrown out that Henry Clay had sold his political strength for the cabinet position of Secretary of State, which was untrue. This suggestion was reenforced by John Randolph exclaiming in Congress : "Let Judas take his thirty pieces of silver." Counter-suggestions of false ideas were made, yet the campaign lies favored Jackson, who was elected.
In more recent times, it has been the policy of campaign man- agers to hold some false ideas or slanderous statements back, usually based upon half or distorted truths, ready for suggestion at the
:'■; 4». 4 % fl 4i * ■ t « II .^
^. ^ s; # -^3^ . ■
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654 - - . THE OPEN COURT.
what is psychologically true of the individual is essentially psycho- logically true of the collective. The binding tie that holds these units together in the aggregate, or the individual in the collective, is the national consciousness, founded upon association, the result of affection, sympathy, and imitation, or from a political stand- point, the result of love of country, common interests, and the desire of likeness.
Since government, from a psychological standpoint, has its source largely in the desire and ambition of man to control his fellowmen and to have them live according to his way of thinking, it follows that politics, in a narrow sense, is the psychology of government. The old political doctrine of intellectualism, founded upon the primitive psychology of common sense, that man acts solely from self-interest is fallacious and contrary to the teaching of modern psychology, for the psychological fact is well established that a large number of his acts are done unconsciously and in- voluntarily, and therefore without foresight. In a social as well as in a political sense man is a custom-making animal, and there is a strong inclination in his nature to persist in repeating what he has once done, and the tendency to repeat the action increases with the number of repetitions. Furthermore, there is a strong tendency in man to make others do so, without their questioning their own interests, and, owing to this tendency in man to imitate others, little compulsion is required to make him respond to sug- gestion.
Suggestion, as applied to the domain of politics, may be used: (1) as stimulation by association, i. e., the suggestion is based upon the doctrine of association of ideas; (2) as the transmission of an idea by hint, intimation, or insinuation; (3) as a means of modi- fying and creating belief. Suggestion has been defined by Prof. Baldwin to be the abrupt entrance from without into consciousness of an idea or image which becomes a part of the stream of thought and tends to produce the muscular and volitional effects which ordinarily would follow upon its presence. Suggestion may be divided into direct and indirect. Direct suggestion is more effica- cious upon a crowd already under the influence of a dominant will, while indirect suggestion is more effective between indi- viduals. Thus the process may be described in general as fol- lows. When the suggestion of an idea is made, it is born and falls in a network of emotions, traditions, and beliefs, of which the individual mind cannot easily divest itself. For this reason it meets \with opposition and resistance at first. Then, by continued afifirma-
NATIONAL POLITICS IX ITS PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT. 655
tive repetition of tlie snggestioii, the idea begins to be tolerated, when it spreads like eontagioii in the consciousness of individuals until it enters the stream of popular consciousness and seeks pres- tige in the popular mind through discussion, by which means it becomes transformed into po]nilar opinion. This transformation takes effect oftentimes without discussion, which depends upon the nature of the subject-matter of the idea and the nianner of its suggestion. In the formation of this opinion, reason does not always predominate, for emotional ideas are more readilv s])read than ideas of an intellectual nature.
Political action is seldom the result of well-reasoned conduct. In illustration of this process the instance of the Pdaine-Cleveland campaign will prove interesting. This campaign was bitterly fought on personal lines as well as otherwise. Blaine was charged with being a Catholic, which he vigorously denied, vindicating himself by obtaining from his wife's priest a certificate that he was not a Catholic. He was further charged with impropriety as to financial transactions while in the service of the government. For this reason, public opinion, particularly in New York, was strongly against him. To check this trend of public opinion a counter- suggestion was made by a party of clergymen calling upon him for the purpose of showing that the pulpit had not lost confidence in his integrity. But at this meeting a minister by the name of Burchard unfortunately threw out the suggestion that Blaine was fighting rum, Romanism, and rebellion, meaning thereby that the Democratic party was the party of rum, Romanism, and rebellion. The suggestion fell upon fertile soil. The hostile press took it up and spread it broadcast. No denial could stem the tide. It con- tributed to Blaine's defeat.
The suggestion in itself was slanderous, but lies and slanderous statements in political campaigns are frequently successful for the purposes intended. In the Jackson-Adams campaign — the so-called campaign of lies— the suggestion of the false idea was thrown out that Henry Clay had sold his political strength for the cabinet position of Secretary of State, which was untrue. This suggestion was reenforced by John Randolph exclaiming in Congress : "Let Judas take his thirty pieces of silver." Counter-suggestions of false ideas were made, yet the campaign lies favored Jackson, who was elected.
In more recent times, it has been the policy of campaign man- agers to hold some false ideas or slanderous statements back, usually based upon half or distorted truths, ready for suggestion at the
656 ' ■ " THE OPEN COURT.
closing moments of a campaign, for the purpose of forestalling any discussion or vindication of the party accused. Oftentimes dis- cussion and arguments are futile against a suggestion of an idea, whether based upon falsehood or truth, that appeals to the natural prejudices of mankind or those of a class. Reason seldom sways the masses. It is usually a subtle suggestion or a change of temper in the masses which brings results in the political field. Discussion may offset the effects of a forcible suggestion of an idea. Thus, when Bryan, in the Democratic convention of 1896, made the sug- gestion of the idea of the cross of gold by exclaiming: "We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them : 'You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns — you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,' " the imme- diate effect was overwhelming. It spread with increasing rapidity, and there is no question that if the election had taken place the day following this outburst, Bryan would have been elected presi- dent, in fact for some time after, but discussion after a while caused a change of sentiment. However, it is difficult to say how much is due to discussion for change of sentiment and how much due to money, for money plays an important part in political campaigns.
The suggestion was the climax of an oration. It appealed to the emotions, and therefore found fertile soil for the rapid con- tagion. It was sentiment, lacking logic. How the suggestion of an emotional idea may change the tide of sentiment, based upon vituperation and calumny, is demonstrated when Cleveland was first nominated for the presidency. During the session of the con- vention a Tammany leader delivered a tirade against Cleveland. But when General Bragg in his reply threw out the suggestion of the idea by exclaiming: "We love Cleveland for the enemies he has made,'' enthusiasm became contagious and spread rapidly.
The suggestion by means of advertising is well illustrated in the McKinley-Bryan campaign when the idea of the "full dinner- pail and what it meant" was diffused by large posters being placarded on billboards. The effect was convincing.
The fickleness of the popular mind is well presented in the convention that nominated Garfield. A strong effort was made to nominate Grant. The leaders representing Grant's interests had arranged to pack the galleries with the veterans of the Civil War. It was then that Conklin, who championed Grant's cause, threw out the suggestion that every delegate of the convention should bind himself to support the nominee of the convention, which was en- thusiastically received by the convention. A counter-suggestion
NATION. \I. Tdl ITUS IN ITS I'SN CI K U.i n ',l( \L ASl'KCT. 657
was made ])y a dolci^ate from X'irqinia. of tlic idea that ho could not bind himself or his colleaj^ucs until he had eonsidted with his constituents. This suggestion was met with groans and hisses until Garfield in a \igorous sj)eceh full of suggestion defended the ]iosi- tion of the delegate. — and the ctn-rent of the jiopular mind was changed. Conklin tried to stem it hy further eounter-suggcstions, but was hissed and forced to stop. ( )r take the Dewey instance. The suggestions product- d 1)\- his actions in the war proclaimed him a hero. The enthusiasm aroused in the American jieople was so great that they would have bestowed u])on him the highest office of the land, irrespective of the question whether he was fitted for it or not. Rut later, when the people made him a present of a home, and he transferred it to his newly-wedded wife, popular sentiment changed, and he became as unpopular as he was popular after the battle of Manila T^>ay.
The popular mind or consciousness is susceptible to suggestion when the ideas thrown out fall within the subject-matter agitating the popular mind. Tndi\iduals. groups, classes, comnnuiities. and nations li\e in a continuous stream of suggestions, emanating from various sources. But it is onlv those stiggestions which hold the attention of the popular mind that may take efifect and stimulate popular opinion, for the suggestion of ideas which run counter to the common prejudices, traditions, and custr)ms of a peo])le are generally ineffectual, at least momentarily, r^fomentarily — because if the suggestion of an idea is thrown out in advance of its age, it may lie dormant, or take root and germinate in secret, shaping the unconscious mind of a few individuals of the next generation who disseminate the idea more widely. When the hour has come, and the man. action is taken, making it expedient to modify popular opinion as to common ])rejudices. beliefs, traditions, customs, and governmental policies. lUit if the suggestion accords with, or is allied to, the subject-matter which occupies the popular mind, popu- lar opinion may be formed instantaneously without agitation or dis- cussion ; while on the other hand, if the suggestion is incongruous with the spirit of the times, popular opinion may be formed only by agitation and discussion.
Free speech, free assemblage, and free press are the means by which the characteristics of the popular mind are changed and popular opinion is modified by creating a new sjMrit of the times. Popular opinion is transitory and is formed upon a concrete case, wdiile the spirit of the times is more stable and lasting, being ab- stract and general in content. It is owing to this fact that the spirit
658 ' THE OPEN COURT.
of the times during any decade in the nation's history may be isolated and investigated. The prevaiHng thought may be analyzed for the purpose of finding its temper and style, also the mode of discussion which caused the change of thought. It is by means of free discus- sion that all subjects are brought in the limelight, for nowadays there is no subject too sacred for discussion, nor is there anything of concern to human beings which may not be profitably discussed in the right spirit, by the right person at the right time. But it is not infrequent that the impulsive desire in man to control others and have them live according to what he considers the right stand- ard of living, and his desire for them to adopt his world-views, should under the present freedom of discussion where no subject is barred, give rise to absurdities and inconsistencies in his demands which are apt to create an irrational and intolerant public opinion, one that defies the fundamental principles of our government.
A nation is made up of groups of all kinds. In general they may be classified into political, social, religious, ethical, scientific, and economic types, but all of them are pervaded, more or less, with economic considerations for the reason that economics is the basis of the order of organized society, and the principles, doctrines, and creeds they advocate or stand for, are frequently even domi- nated by economic considerations. Especially is this fact true of the subgroups of these types, so that their principles, doctrines, and creeds lack at times that free expression and force which is so essential to gain prestige in the popular mind. The psychic aspects of the subgroups of these types may be competitive, antagonistic, or harmonious. In some instances even the general types may be antagonistic. The views held by some of these subgroups may be antagonistic to the political organization of the government. Thus, as merely illustrative and irrespective of the merits of the con- troversy, the quotation from the opinion of a prominent judge ren- dered many years ago will be to the point : "And it is a matter to me of deep regret, to see the citizens of age, intellect, and influence, and among them moral and religious teachers, so far forget their duty as such citizens, and so far lose sight of the great value of our constituted system of government and the fundamental principles of the Christian religion, as to enter into the political contest, touch- ing the adoption of the act in question, openly proclaiming that they did not care whether the act was constitutional or not : they were determined to support and enforce it ; if it was unconstitutional, the judges would not dare to declare it so for the act could be carried at the ballot box by ten thousand majority. Such a doctrine is of
NATIONAL rol.lTUS 1 X ITS I'SVflloLOC.UAI. ASl'KcT. 659
evil tendeiicv. and treasonable in principle. It is the open incnlca- tion of a total disre<:^ard of established government and fundamental laws, and if persisted in, must have a most pernicious inlluence, especially among the rising generation. Such conduct is in the highest degree reiu-ehensible, and sliould e\er l)e rcprol^ated and condemned, and the perpetrators spurned as traitors to their gov- ernment, and enemies to the best interests of their fellowmen." Another illustration of \ iews held by iutlividuals and some sub- groups is here given by a recent occurrence where a minister pub- licly charged a ])ublic school teacher with improper conduct, and when called upon by the ]n-operly constituted authorities to submit the facts, he refused, under the pretext, the purport of which was, that he was only amenable to his God for what he said concerning tlie charges against the teacher.
Among the political types there are subgroups such as the an- archists, who are opposed to all government, and such as the so- cialists, who are antagonistic to the economic or industrial order or system of organized society.
Again there are those of the economic-type subgroup of organ- ized capital who are antagonistic to organized laljor in the endeavor to better its condition. Labor, in turn. oi)poses all efforts to further the interest of organized capital. Special interests of all sorts of social, religious, and economic subgroui)s are opposed to reforms and changes in their condition.
Among individuals, it has been said that there are those who hold tlie view as to economic reform that successful crime in the commercial world should not be condemned because it was success- ful, that the trader should not be scourged but only coaxed out of the temple, that peace is more desirable than jnirity. Others there are who believe that whatever is must continue to be, and who are constitutionally a\erse to all reforms because they involve changes and readjustments which are inconvenient.
Thus, an effort has been made to give a cursory psychological A iew of the attitude and contents of the individual and popular minds in their relation to political matters and government. In the practical carrying-out of the political schemes and policies the electors are the elemental factor. They consist of native and naturalized citizens. The naturalized citizen must usually remodel his national conscious- ness and his political conceptions before he can grasp the spirit of our government and liecome an independent elector. It is for this reason that he is more easil\- led during the formative period than the native-born citizen.
660 " THE OPEN COURT.
There are about one third of the qualified electors who exer- cise their elective franchise. ■ and of these only one sixth vote intelligently. A larger number of the remaining two thirds, among whom are some of the leading and best citizens, do not exer- cise their rights because they are not interested, and if they vote, they do so without any consideration of the act. Again, there are quite a number of electors who are so engrossed in their businesses and making money that they have no time to attend to their political duties ; while another class are so busy in providing for themselves and families that they cannot devote their time to political duties. Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered that the average voter has no clear insight into political questions, nor into the nature of our government and its political principles, and therefore he is a good subject for the suggestive treatment by unscrupulous poli- ticians, who have no compunctions of how they attain their ends. It is clear that under such conditions the professional politicians and political bosses thrive, for the masses of the voters do not think, they are led. Ignorance of the nature of our government, indiffer- ence to it, the selfish interest of a class who have no regard for the welfare of others, and the lack of individual thinking and action, are the causes for the few controlling the many.
These factors contribute to the immoral conduct in politics. It is for this reason that money can be used so successfully in politics, and that it is the most powerful weapon by which the popular will may be thwarted, stifled, or moulded, according to the purpose for which it was intended.
Politics in practice is not as moral as it might be. Every scheme, device, trick, deception, and mendacity are usually resorted to in political campaigns. Calumny finds ready application, for the principle has its foundation upon the theory that "unquestionably the calumniator will always find a great number of persons inclined to believe him, or to side with him; it* therefore follows that when- ever the ol)ject of such calumnies is once lowered in credit by these means, he will soon lose the reputation and power founded on that credit, and sink under the permanent and vindictive attacks of the calumniator."
There is no reason why the standards of conduct in politics should be lower than those which apply in the ordinary walks of life. The great moral reserve force which is so essential to the existence of a free government should be exercised by the people, for if they, as individuals, do not exercise a high standard of con duct popular govenunent is impossible. The rules of conduct which
COXITCIANISM, r.lDDlI ISM, AND Cl 1 KI STl A N TIV. 661
may be deduced from the I'ill of Ri^lits should form one of the standards of our political CDiidiicl — for it is not law, nor the forced imposition, bv the creation of an intolerant popular oj)inion, upon the masses bv a few or a class of their ideas as to ])roper conduct and the rig^ht way of li\inc^, irrespective of the opinion of others, that control the conduct of men : l)ut it is the exercise of the moral reserve force, in that the citizen must respect the rii,dits of his fellow citizen and the ric^hts of the collective, and abo\e all must not ask of others what he would not ask of himself.
COXFUCTAXIS^F. r.rnDTIlSAF, AXn CHRISTIAX-
V,y I!i:.\(>\- IvIMAR SARKAR.
Mcfliod of Af'proach. "XTfE propose to re\iew brietlv three great religions of mankind » » in their historical as well as ])svchological relations. Let us assume for our present consideration the fad that e\-ery religious system advances, in the first ])lace, a set of h\])()theses generally known as theological dogmas, in the second ])lace. a bo(l\- of ])rac- tices and notions that in the absence of a better term ma\- l)e called superstitions, and in the third ])lace, a cod? of moral sanctions. .\s a rule, it is the higher intellectuals in a comnnmity that are inter- ested in the doctrines of thcolog'y, while the mrui in the street is more attracted by the theatrical, scenic, or anecdotal asj:)ects of God. the soul, and the other world. The morals, however, though they de|)end in the last analysis on the individual's status in the econoiuic grades or classes of a people, may for ordinary pur])oses be taken to be the outcome of the ]K'0})le's general consensus of o]iinion and collecti\'e tradition. In a stud\- of com])aralive religion we must take care to point out exactly which of these three piiases of socio- religiotis life we have singled out for discussion, for it is clear that it would be unscientific to compare the popular su])erstitions and folk-l)eliefs of one faith with the metaj)hysical specidations in which high-browed Doctors of Divinity indulge, in another.
As it is always convenient to ])roceed from the known to the unknown, we shall begin with Christianity, or rather, use Christ- lore as the peg on which to hang liuddhism and Confucianism cum
1 A lecture delivered at Amherst College.
662 THE OPEN COURT.
Taoism for analytical and historical investigation. And instead of dealing with abstractions we would appraise each of these world religions in its concrete embodiments. • ■ -
• - • Clirist-lore in History.
Dante, the greatest poet-saint-mystic of Roman Catholicism, was very much agitated over the "she-wolf," the moral and political muddle of his time. He used to predict the advent of a "Grey- hound," a "V^eltro." or deliverer, who would restore on earth the Universal Italian Empire, both temporal and spiritual. His proph- ecy finds expression in several eloquent passages of the Divine Comedy. Thus \'irgil, the "master and guide" of the poet, gives the following hope in the first canto :
"This beast At whom thou criest, her way will suffer none To pass, and no less hindrance makes than death : To many an animal in wedlock vile She fastens, and shall yet to many more. Until that Greyhound come, who shall destroy Her with sharp pain. He will not life support By earth nor its base metals, but by love, Wisdom, and virtue; and his land shall be The land 'twixt either Feltro. In his might Shall safety to Italia's plains arise. For whose fair realm Camilla, virgin pure, Nisus, Euryalus, and Turnus fell."
The same apocalvptic faith in a yoogavafara or god incarnate in man has maintained the optimistic Hindu in all ages of national distress. The advent of IMessiahs to embody each successive Zeit- geist is thus guaranteed in the Gceta by Lord Krishna himself :
"Whensoever into Order
Corruption creeps in, Bliarata, And customs bad ascendant be,
Then Myself do I embody. For the advancement of the good
And miscreants to overthrow And for setting up the Order
Do I appear age by age."
Medieval Christianity did not produce only one Divine Comedy. Each of the Gothic cathedrals of thirteenth-century Europe is a Divine Comedy in stone. It may be confidently asserted that the spiritual atmosphere of these noble structures with their soul-inspir- ing sculptures in alabaster and bronze has not been surpassed in the
COXFL'CIAMS.M. lU'l >! >I I ISM . A N O (, 1 1 Rl S 11 A N ITV. 663
arcliitccturc of the I'^ast. Tho pillars at (liartrcs with their has- relicfs of images and tlowers cduUl he hodily transtorred to the hest rcHgious edifices of lluddhist Asia. 'J"he elongated \'irgin at the Paris Xotre Dame is almost as conventionalized as a Korean Kwan- non. The representation of virtues and vices on the Portal of the Saviour at the Amiens Cathedral suggests the moralizing in wood- work on the waJls of Nikko in Japan. And scenes from the Passion on the tympanum at Strasshurg or from the Last judgment on the tympanum of the north door in the Cathedral at Paris are oriented to the same jisvchological hackground as the hasreliefs depicting incideiUs in the hol_\- career of r)uddha with which the stoopas (mounds) of Central India make us familiar, or of the Tibetan Dalai Lama on the surface of the marble pagoda at Peking.
We shall now compare a few specimens of Christian folk cus- toms. On Christmas and New Year days the folks of Christendom are used to forecasting their lot in the coming year according to the character of the first visitor. And what is the burden of their queries? 'A\'hat will he the weather?" they ask, and "what the crops?" How, besides, are they to "fare in love and the begetting of children?" And a common superstition among the Haiisfraiioi enjoins that wealth must come in. and not be given out, on these days. Such days and such notions are not rare in Confucian-Taoist and kluddhist Asia. It is well known, further, that in southwest England as well as in j)arts of continental Europe there are several taboos in regard to food. Hares, rabbits, poultry, for instance, are not eaten because thev are "derived from his father," as the peasant believes. There is nothing distinctivelv Christian in these customs and traditions. Asians can also heartily take part in the processions attending the bathing of images and other customs with which the rural ])0])ulation of Christian lands celebrate their Ma\' pole dances or summer festivities. And they would easily appreciate how men could 1)e transformed into wolves through the curse of St. Natalis Cambrensis.
Would the ritualism, the rosary, the relic-worship, the hagiol- ogy, the consecrated edifices, the "eternal" lamps in churches and chapels, pilgrimages, prayers, votive offerings, self-denial during Lent, fasts and chants of Christians alienate Shintoists. Buddhists, or Taoists? By no means. Indeed, there are very few Chinese, Japanese, or Hindus who would not be ins])ire<l by the image of Mary. Xations used to the worship of Kwan-yin or Lakshmec could not find a fundamentally new mentality or \iew of life in the atmosphere of a Greek or Catholic church ser\ice. And the doctrine
664 THE OPEN COURT.
of faith (bJiakti, soddlia), the worship of a personal God. and pre- paredness for salvation ( uiookti) are not more Christian than Bnd- dhist or Hindu.
Men and women who do not feel safe without postulating a God would produce, if they should happen to be intellectual, almost the same philosophy of the Infinite and of the immortality of the soul wherever they may live. If they happen to be emotional or imaginative, as human beings generally are. they would create more or less the selfsame religious arts (images, pictures, basreliefs, hymns, prayers, rituals, fetishes, charms). Humanity is, in short, essentially one — in spite of physical and physiognomic diversities, and in spite of age-long historic race-prejudices. The effort to understand the nature of God or the relations between man and Deity is the least part of a person's real religion. The clan vital of human life has always and everywhere consisted in the desire to live and in the power to flourish by responding to the thousand and one stimuli of the universe and by utilizing the innumerable world forces.
Confucian' s}]i and Buddhism .!nalyccd.
Hut before we proceed further it is necessary to have definite connotations of the terms Confucianism and Buddhism, so that we may know precisely to what phenomena they correspond in Chris- tianitv. For the terms are reallv aml)iguous and elastic.
In the first place, Confucianism is the name wrongly given to the cult of public sacrifices devoted to Shangti (the One Supreme Being), the Tao (or the Way), and ancestor-worship that has been obtaining among the Chinese people since time immemorial. This cult of what is reahy an adoration of nature forces ha]~)pens to be called Confucianism simply because Confucius (B.C. 551-479), the librarian at Loo State in Shantung, compiled or edited for his countrymen the floating ancient classics, the Yi-king (Book of Changes), the Slioo-king (Book of History), the Sh'h-king (Ijook of Poetrv). and others in which the traditional faith finds ex- pression. The work of Confucius for China was identical with that of Ezra (B.C. 450) of Juda who edited for the Hebrews the twenty-four books of the Old Testament that were in danger of being lost. In this sense, to use the misnomer, Confucianism had existed among the Chinese long before Confucius was born, in the same manner as the Homeric poems had been in circulation in the Hellenic world ages before Pisistratus of Athens had them brought together in well-edited volumes.
coNFrriAXisM, r.rniniisM. and ciiKisri am rv. 665
In the scooiul place, C'onfticianisni is often considered as not beini^- a rclii^ion al all. h.canse it is wroni^ly taken to lie e(|ni\alent to positivism, i. e.. a ^^^ocUess system of mere morals, and hence necessarily inade(|nate to the spiriinal needs of man. The fact, however, is (jniie otherwise. The Socratic sayini^s of t'onfucius that are jireserved in the . /;/c//r(-/,s-. in the Ihu-trinc of the Mean, and other treatises. ha\e indeed no reference to the sni>ernatural, the unseen, or the other world. The fallacy of modern sinologies consists in reqardiny- these moralizinfj^s as the wlujle messai::e of China's su])erman. Strictly speakinin;-. they shonld he treated only as ])arts of a system which in its entirely has a ])]acc as much for the gods, sacrihces. prayers, astrolot^y. demonoloi^y. tortoise wor- shij). dixination, and so forth, of Taoist China as for the ])urely ethical conceptions of the duty toward one's neighbor or the ideal relations between human beings.
Thirdly, this alleged positivism or atheism of Confucius, and the pre-Confncian religion of ancient China which for all ])ractical purposes was identical with the ])olytheistic nature-cult of the ear- liest Indo-Germanic races. ha\e to be shar])ly distinguished from another Confucianism, b^or since aliout the tifth centtiry A.l). the worshi]) of Confucius as a god has been ])lanted firmly in the Chinese consciousness and institutions. This latter-day Confucius cult is a cult of nature forces affiliated to the primitive Shangti cult. Heaven cult. Tai ( motuUain ) cult, etc.. of the Chinese. In this Confucianism Confucius is a god among gods.
Similarly in lUtddhism also we have to recognize two funda- mcntalh- different sets of phenomena. There are two Pniddbisms essentially distinct from each other. The iirst is the religion or system of moral discipline founded Ijy .Shakya ('r).C. 563-483). the son of the {^resident or archon (raja) of the Sakiya re])ublic in eastern India, who came to be called the Ihuldha. or the ICnlightened (the Awakened). Shakya found, d an order (saiiitjha) of monks, anrl adumbrated the j)hiloso])liy oi the twelve H;(/(//a/,T { links between ignorance and Inrtli ) and the ethics of the Eightfold I'ath. In this branch of lUiddhism, which should really be called ."^bakyaism. Buddha is of course neither a god nor a ])rophet of (nxl. but only a preacher among the preachers of his time. The system is generally known as Ilinayana or the Lesser \'chicle of r.uddhism. Its most prominent tenet is that of Xirvana or the cessation of misery (an- nihilation of pain).
But there is another faith in which Buddha is (/ or rather tlic god. This r>uddha cult, or B.uddhism strictly so called, cannot by
666 THE OPEN COURT.
any means be fathered upon Shakya, the moraHst. It chanced to evolve out of the schisms among his followers. Buddha worship was formulated by Ashvaghosha and came into existence as a distinct creed about the first century A. D. in northwestern India, during the reign of Kanishka, the Indo-Tartar emperor. This faith, also called Mahayana (the Greater Vehicle), was theologically much allied to, and in ritual and mythology did not really differ from, the contemporary Jaina and Puranic Hinduisms of India. It is this Buddhism with its gods and goddesses that was introduced from Central Asia into China in A. D. 67, from China into Korea in A. D. 372, and from Korea into Japan in A. D. 552.
The contrast between Shakya the preacher and Buddha the god, or Confucius the moralist and Confucius the god, has its parallel in Christology also. Modern criticism expresses this con- trast, says Bacon in The Making of the Nezv Testament, in its dis- tinction of the Gospel of Jesus from the Gospel about Jesus. The distinction between Shakyaism and Buddhism, or between Confu- cianism as the system of tenets in the body of literature compiled by Confucius, and Confucianism in wdiich Confucius figures as a divinity on a footing with Shangti, is the same in essence as that between the teachings of Jesus the Jew and the teachings, say, of St. Paul about Jesus the Christ who is God in man.
The Doctrine of Avatara {Deification of Man). The incarnation myths of the Ramayana and similar legends of the Jatakas (Birth Stories) must have developed as early as the epoch of Maurya imperialism (B. C. 322-185). While the poets of the Rama legend sang, "For Vishnu's self disdained not mortal birth, And heaven came with him as he came to earth," and Krishna proclaimed in the Geeta section of the Mahahharata, "Forsake all dharmas (ways, taos, creeds), make Me alone thy way," the sculp- tors of India were carving basreliefs to represent scenes in the life of Shakya deified as the Buddha. The post-Asokan but pre-Chris- tian sculptures at Bharhut (second century B.C.) leave no doubt as to the prevalence of a faith in Buddha whose birth was believed to be supernatural and whose career was to anticipate ideologically the holy ministrations of the Syrian Messiah. Besides, the mind of India had become used to such emphatic pronouncements as the following :
"I am the Father, and the fostering Nurse, Grandsire, and Mother of the Universe, I am the Vedas, and the Mystic word,
COXFL'CIAXISM, lUl U ) 1 1 ISM , AND CI 1 KI STI A N ITV. 667
The way, support, tlic witness, and tlio Lord. The Seed am I, of deathless quickening power, The Home of all, the mighty Refuge-tower."
The Bucklha cult was thus l)orn and luirtiu-cd in a perfectly congenial atmospiiere.
The Tauhnc tloctrinc of Jesus as an az'ntara, i.e., god incarnated in man, was also ((uitc in kee])ing with the spiritual milieu of the age, rife as it was with tlie notion (if redeemer-gods. Here an Osiris, there a Mithra was commanding the devotion of the civilized world as a god who was resurrected after death to save mankind- Parallel to the development in Iran which transformed Zarathustra from the man-proplu't-singcr of the (iaihas into a supernatural and semidi\ine ligure, there was in Israel the continuous and progressive re-interpretation of traditional lieliefs and symbols, as Canon Charles points out in the Rcli(/ioits fh'Z'clo/^iiiciit Bctzcccii the Old and Xczv Tcstaiiioits. From the third century B. C. on, as a consequence, whole histories centered roimd such concej)tions as soul, spirit, Shcol, Paradise, Messianic Kingdom, the ^Messiah, the Resurrection. The idea of the Redeemer was taking defmite shajKN for instance, in the following verses of the Psalms of Solomon composed about the first century B.C.:
"Behold, O Lord, and raise up unto them Their King, tiie son of David, At the time in which thou seest, O God, That he may reign over Israel Thy servant, And gird him with strength that he may Shatter unrighteous rulers And that he may purge Jerusalem from Nations that trample her down to destruction."
In India the rhapsodists of the A^almikian cycle were singing of the advent of the Messiah as Rama, and Shakyan monks elabo- rating the Buddhist stories of incarnation (Jataka) in the selfsame strain. Nor was China to be left without an avatara or a deified human personality. In the fourth century B. C, IMencius, the St, Paid of Confucianism, calls his great master chi ta-chcng, or "the embodiment of highest perfection." Three hundred years after his death, Confucius w^as made duke and earl. Sze ]\Ia-chien, the Chi- nese Plerodotus (first century B.C.), describes him as the "divinest of men." But by the end of the first century A. D. the birthplace of Confucius had become a goal for the pilgrim, and even emperors wended their way thither to pay their resi)ccts at his shrine. In A. D. 178, says Giles in Confiicia}iism and Its Riz'als, a likeness of
668 THE OPEN COURT.
Confucius had been placed in his shrine as a substitute for the wooden tablet in use up to that date. In 267 an imperial decree ordered the sacrifice of a pig, a sheep, and an ox to Confucius at each of the four seasons. The first complete Confucian temple was built and dedicated in 505. About 555 it was enacted that a Confucian temple should be built in every prefectural city, for the people had come to "look upon Confucius as a god to be propitiated for the sake of worldly advantages."
This heroification and deification of Confucius was not an isolated phenomenon in the Chinese world, for China was also simultaneously transforming Lao-tze, his senior contemporary, into a divinity. The Taoist writers had begun to describe their great prophet as an incarnation of some superior being coming among men in human shape in every age. They also told the various names under which he appeared, from the highest period of fabulous antiquity down to as late a time as the sixth century, making in all seven periods.
Indeed, the spiritual experience of the entire human race was passing through almost the same climacteric. Zoroastrianism was evolving Mithraism, Chinese classics were evolving the worship of Confucius and Lao-tze, Hinduism was evolving the Buddha cult, Krishna cult, Rama cult, etc., and Judaism was in the birth-throes of the Christ cult.
Rapj^rochoncnt in Religious Psycliology.
LIow much of this common element in Confucianism, Bud- dhism, and Christianity was the "joint product" of the same socio- religious antecedents? How much again was autochthonous in China, India, and Asia Minor, i. e., absolutely independent of mutual influence? The question of the indebtedness of one race to another in metaphysics and religion cannot be solved satisfactorily for want of positive evidence. But the historic background was unified and internationalized enough to admit of an extraordinary fusion of cultures. One theater of such cultural intermixture was Central Asia. Here, during the early centuries of the Christian era, police notices were written in Chinese, the letters being inscribed in a form of Sanskrit. But the strings with which the wooden tablets were tied were sealed mostly with Greek seals bearing the image of Athena or Ikracles. Here, then, as Laurence Binyon remarks in Painting in the Far East, we touch three great civilizations at once: India, Greece, China.
This race-fusion or cultural intermarriage must have been ir
COXl-TflAX IS.M , lUDIill ISM , AND ( 1 1 K 1 S II A M lA'.
<:/)<)
full swiiii^ while the incarnation-niyths of the Hindus, Jews,, and Chinese were in ihe iiericnl of ^-eslalion. i. e., durin_<^ the last three centuries of the pre-C hristian era. I "or. cmiscious and deliheratc internationalism was the distinctively original contrihution of Alex- ander to the cixilization of hair-Asia. The whole epoch he.c^inning with his accession to the throne may he said to ha\e heen one. in which racc-houndaries were hein«^ ohliterated, cultural aiii^ularilies rounded off. intellectual horizons enlar<jed. antl the sense of uni- versal humanit\- generated. It was a time when I'latonists. Aristo- telians. C'ynics. and Stoics were likely to meet apocaly{)tists. Zoro- astrians. Confucianists. Taoists, Xirvanists. and ^'ojLi^aists on a common platform, when the i^rammarians and logicians of Alexan- dria were prohahl\- comjKirins^ notes with the Hindu Paninians and Darshanists, when the Charakan Ayoor\edists (medical men) of India could hold dehates with the herhalists of Asia Minor, when, in one word, culture was tending to he developed not from nationrd angles hut from one international view-point and placed as fai: as possihlc on a cosmopolitan hasis.
The courses of instruction oliered at the great universities of the world, e. g.. those of Honanfu, Taxila, Patalipootra, the Alexan- drias, and Athens, naturally comprehended the whole encyclopedia of arts and sciences known to hoth Asia and h^urope. The literati, bliikslioos, uuu/i. and saiixasiiis of the h'ast could not fail to meet the mystics, sophists, gnostics, and ])erij3atetics of the West at out- of-the-way inns or caravansaries or at the recognized academies and seats of learning. What we now descrihe as a "T'niversal Races' Congress" and international conferences of scientists may then have been matters of course; and everybody who was anybody^llindu, Persian. Chinese. Jew. Egyptian, Greek — was necessarily a student of ll'cltlitrratnr and a citizen of the world. Idic socird systems of the different races who were thrown into that whirlpool were pro- foundly influenced by this intelkctual expansion. Interracial mar- riages may he belie\ed to ha\e been things of common occurence, and everywhere there was a rapprochciiiriif in ideals of life and thought. Mankind was fast approaching a common consciousness, a common conscience, and a common standard of ci\ilization.
One of the forms in which this uniform psychological devel- opment of the different races was manifesting itself consisted in the elaboration oi "great exemplars." crratanis. or "su])ermen." The types of ethical and spiritual ""iJcrfection," i. e., the highest ideals and norms in human ])ersonality that, during the i)receding centuries, had been slowly acquiring prominence in India, in the
670 THE OPEN COURT.
Hellenistic world, and in China, at last began to crystallize out of the solution of race-experience, and emerge as distinctly individual- ized entities. The world forces or nature powers of the antique world, viz., Mother Earth and the elemental energies, furnished no doubt the basic foundations and the nuclei for these types or patterns. Folk-imagination in brooding over the past and recon- structing ancient traditions had sanctified certain historic personal- ities, legendary heroes, or eponymous culture pioneers, and endowed their names with a halo of romance. Philosophical speculation had been groping in the dark as to the mysteries of the universe and had stumbled upon the One, the Unknown, the Eternal, the Absolute, the Infinite, the Ideal. Last, but not least, are the con- tributions of ''the lover, the lunatic, and the poet" — the Luke, the John, the Mencius, the Valmiki, the Ashvaghosha — who came to weld together all these elements into artistic shapes, "fashioning forth" those "sons of God" — concrete human personalities to em- body at once the man-in-God and the God-in-man.
The Ethical Postulates of China, India, and Christendom.
The ethical conceptions of a race are bound up so inextri- cably with its economic and social institutions that for all practical purposes they may be regarded as almost independent of its strictly religious thought, its theological doctrines, and the hypotheses of its prophets or thinkers regarding the nature of the Godhead, the soul, and the relation between man and the Creator. While, there- fore, the "whole duty of man" is sure to dififer with race and race, nay, with class and class, and also with epoch and epoch in each race and in each class, it is still remarkable that the most funda- mental categories of moral life all the world over have been the same. The ethical systems of historic Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity are broad-based on almost identical notions of the Good and the Right.
But here it is necessary to make a few special remarks about Confucianism. In the first place, suggestive sex ideas associated with such concepts as the "immaculate conception" in Christ-lore, or "energy" (shakti, the female "principle") in Buddhist mythology, have absolutely no place either in the Classics compiled by Confucius the man, or in the religion in which Confucius is a god. From the standpoint of conventional morality. Confucianism is the most chaste and undefiled of the great world-religions.
In the second place, one must not argue from this that the Chinese mentality is what Confucius presumes it to be, for China
coNi-"L'ciA.\is>r. r.ri)i)ms.\r, and ciiristiamtv. 671
is not merely iDnfucius iiias^iiified. I'.wrv (.'hinese is a I'onfucianist, and yet somelhiiiL;- more. Like llie Japanese who is at once a bo- ]ic\er in Shinto i the "Way of tlie (lods," a polytheistic cult of nattire forces) and a l')Uddhi>t. so the men and women of (diina, almost each and all. are 'J'aoists ( followers of Lao-tze's mystical cult) and P.uddhists at the same time that they offer sacrifices to Confucius and Shanqti. When the head of the family dies, says "Wti Tiui^-fans,'-, the funeral ser\ ices are conducted in a most cosmo- politan way, for the Taoist priest and Ihiddhisl monks as well as nuns are usually called in to recite prayers for the dead in addition to the performance of ceremonies in conformily with the Confucian rules of propriety. 'J'he iiidrcs of L'hinese life, eclectic as it is, cannot thus all he found in the teaching's of the L'hisslrs alone.
One need not he surprised, therefore, to fmd in the t "hinese Weltanschauung a place for the pessimism that one nuets with in the pronotmcements of Jesus, "lie that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me," said he. And further, "If any man cometh tmto me, and lea\eth not his father and mother and wife and children, he cannot l)e my disciple." Here is the origin of the system that, backed by .St. Lauks recommendation of celibacy for Christ's followers, ultimately dexeloped into Christian uKjuasti- cism and the ethics of retreat from the "world and the llesh." The selfsame doctrine of holiness by means of asceticism and self- mortification has had a long tradition in jire-Confucian China as well as in China since the age of Lao-tze and Confucius. Even in the earliest ages of Chinese history perfection, holiness, or divinity were held to be exclusively attainable by dispassion, ajxithy, will- lessness, unconcernedness about the pleasures and pains of life, quietism, or wH-iL'ei. Emperor Hwang-ti of hoary antiquity is men- tioned by Chwang-tze (fourth century B.C.). the great follower of Lao-tze, as having retired for three months in order to prepare himself for receiving the Tao from an ascetic who practised free- dom from mental agitation.
Along with this pessimistic strand of Christianity, Chinese moral consciousness can also display the mystical leanings of Jesus as manifest in such declarations as "The Kingdom of God is wdthin you," or "j\Iy Kingdom is not of this world." Thus, says Chwang- tze, "Be free yourself from stibjcctive ignorance and individual peculiarities, find the Tao in your own being, and von will be able to find it in others too, because the Tao cannot be one in one thing and another in another." And according to the Tao Teh Kijig. the Bible of Taoism, "mighty is he who con(]uers himself." k\irther,
672 THE OPEN COURT.
"If you keep behind, you sHall be in front," or "He who is content has enough." These are the tenets of passivism and non-resistance that Jesus stood for when he advised his followers to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."
We need not dwell on the ascetic or pietistic ideals and insti- tutions of Buddhism, as the Plotinuses, the St. Francises, the Jaco- pone da Todis, the Boehmes, the Ruysbroeks, and the Guyons of India are too well known. We have rather to emphasize, on the other hand, the fact that transcendentalism, idealism, or mysticism is not the only attitude or philosophy of ethical life advanced by, or associated with, the religious systems of the world. Not less is the ethics of positivism, i. e., of humanitarian energism (viriya) and social service or brotherhood (sarva-sattva-uiaitrec) , a prominent feature in Buddhism, in Christianity, and in the moral dicta of Chinese sages like Confucius, Moh-ti, the preacher of universal love, and Mencius, the advocate of tyrannicide. There is no doubt a great difference in the manner in which the categories have been stated in the three systems, especially as regards the intellectual analysis or psychological classification of the cardinal virtues and vices. But from the view-point of moral discipline, none but a hidebound linguist or a student of formal logic can fail to notice the pragmatic identity of life governed by the "Eightfold Path" of Shakya, the "Five Duties" of Confucius, and the "Ten Com- mandments" of the Bible. Nay, like the Mosaic dictates, the Con- fucian and Shakyan principles are too elementary to have been missed by the prophets of any race.
The most important tenet in Confucius's moral creed is to be found in the idea of "reciprocity." It is thus worded in his Doctrine of the Mean : "What you do not wish others should do unto you, do not do unto them." In a negative form this is indeed the golden rule of Luke : "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." In any treatment of fellow-beings Shakya's injunction also is "to put oneself in the place of others" (attanam iipaiiiaui kofz'ii) . We read in the DJiammapada:
"All men tremlile at punisliment, all men fear death: Putting yourself in the place of others, kill not nor cause slaughter.
All men tremhle at the rod, all men love life. Doing as you would be done by, kill not nor cause to kill."
Reciprocity is thtis the common golden rule of the three world- religions.
The formtilation of this rtile was the distinctive contribution
Tiir: FRESCOES OF TiiF HoKvrn. 673
of I'onfucius to C'hiiicso life. llis c;ilcelii>in nf nigral (lisci])line points out. further, that the duties of uuixersal ohh^ation are U\c, and the moral i|u;dities hv whieh the\' are carried out are three. The duties are those hetween ruler aud suliji'et. hetweeu lather .and son. hetween hushaud aud wife, hetweeu elder hrotiier and younj^er, and those in the iutereourse hetweeu friends. Intellit^cuce, moral character, aud courage, these are the three universally reco,i;uized moral (|ualities of man. 'Jdie ])crformauce of these duties is the sine qua }ioii of "!.,food manners."' In the ("onfucian system the tenet of reciprocity leads thus to the cult of "propriety." lu the Shakvau discipline also we ha\e the same pro])ri.ty in the doctrine of sccla ("'conduct"'), 'ihe path leadiuLC to cessation of misery is descrihed in the D'uiha Xikaya as consisting- in ri^ht helief. right resolve, rijj^ht speech. ri<^ht hehavior. risj^ht occupation. ri<,dit elYort. riglit contemplation, and right concentration. It is ohvious that some of the conditions stated here. es])ecia]ly those in regard to speech, hehavior. and occupation, are "other-regarding." i. e.. ha\e a social signiticance in the system of self-culture.
Lest the social energism of Shakyan morals he ignored, it is necessary to point out that af^paiiiada. or vigilance, streuuousuess, and activity, is the first article in the Buddhist monk's creed of life. ''By rousing himself, hy earnestness, by restraint and control," says Shakya in the Phamiiiapada. "the wise man may make for himself an island that no flood can overwhelm.... Marnest among the thoughtless, awake among the sleepers, the wise man advances like a racer leaving behind the hack.... 'fhe mendicant who delights in earnestness and looks with fear on thoughtlessness moves ahotit like fire, burning all his fetters small and large." It is moral and intellectual gymnasts such as these. "mo\ing about like fire." that built the first hospitals of the world for men and animals, estab- lished rest-houses and planted trees for wayfarers, popularized the trial 1)v jury and the methods of election, \oting. quorum, etc., in democratic assemblies, and founded imiversities, academies, and other seats of learning in India, China, and Japan.
THE FRESCOES OF THE ITORYUJI.
liV HARADA JIRO.
TO\'KRS of old art of Japan are much concerned in the rare V frescoes of the Horyiiji near Xara. the oldest Piuddhistic temple in Japan. Our government has taken an active interest in them and the Department of Education has recently made an appropriation
674
THE OPEN COURT.
and appointed a committee of eight to investigate the ways and means for their preservation.
Hekiga, or wall-paintings,^ are extremely rare in Japan, and those of the Horyuji are considered to be most important from
No. 1.*
both an historic and an art standpoint. The frescoes in question are on twelve walls : four large and eight smaller ones, the largest walls m^suring ten feet in height and over eight feet in width,
^Hcki-ga is tlie Japanese name for fresco, hcki meaning "wall" and ga meaning "painting."
* For titles and explanatory notes see end of article.
TIIK l"Ki:S(.(ii;S OK Till'. IIORVI'J
675
while the others are the same in liei^ht and ahoul live feel in width. The fonr large freseoes. a])i)arently representing,^ domains in fonr direetions of the nniverse. are not located on the four sides of the hall as might naturally he expected. There are. to be exact, one on the east wall south of the eastern entrance (the building has entrances on four sides), another on the we.st wall south of the western entrance, and one on each side of the north entrance to the huildin>:. The eiuht smaller walls at the four corners of the build-
U
So. 2.
ing are also covered witli ])aintings. there being only one small fresco on either extreme of the south side of the building, at the middle of which is the front entrance. Besides these, there are between the ceiling and the horizontal beams, a number of narrow parts of walls, upon which are painted llying angels and rakcDi in the mountains. -
- Rakait (Skt. nrhant, Pali arnliat) is translated "a true man.'' wlio through discipline has reached the last stage of human development and needs only one more existence to attain Biuldhahood. A rakaii, at the end of the trans- migration of soul, .shall not be born again to die; he has destroyed all evil thoughts in his mind, has nothing more to learn, is able to make others happy, and conforms to the truth.
676
THE OlMLN COURT.
These walls are on the inside of one of the main buildings of the Horyuji named Kondo, the chief sanctuary, erected for the wor- ship of Shaka-muni.'"' The Kondo stands opposite the Five-storied Pagoda. These two structures, together with the San-mon, the gate,"* are the oldest wooden buildings in Japan, being the remnants of "the -^original edifices of the Horyuji, which was found;d by Shotoku-Taishi, the Constantine of Japanese Buddhism, and corn-
No. 3.
pleted in 607 of the Christian era. "The Kondo now contains a wonderful collection of art treasures, the acme of ancient Bud- dhistic art in Japan, .\mong them are the Tamamushi-no-zushi,"' of
'^ Sbakya-nnini (Skt.) is called Shaka-muni in Japanese.
•* A saii-iiion is a big gateway, or a gatehouse, for it is generally in two stories with a roof, and in the shape of a house with big portals, which are often guarded by immense figures of ni-o (two deva kings), Indra and Brahma, who keep guard at the outer gate of temples to scare away demons.
5 A portable shrine magnificently decorated with carvings and paintings. Wings of the taiimnmslii (an insect) are held under carved metal work for decoration — hence the name. Hardly any wings now remain. Ziishi is the Japanese name for a framework in which sacred images are kept.
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No. 4.
678 THE OPEN COURT.
wonderful workmanship, some hammered figures and other un- rivaled works in metal, Shaka-muni. Yakushi,'' and several other images in bronze, and Shitenno,' Kwannon, and other wooden sculptures. They all occupy a very important position among our "national treasures."'* Whenever I meditate among these venerable objects, I cannot help being deeply moved by the very spirit of these wondrous figures — by that precious something which seems to ethe- realize the hard substances of which the images are made, to a vision of truth conceived by the great spiritual teacher of the East. Here the spiritual atmosphere, with its mysterious vibration, is overpow- ering. Some of the figures stand as living witnesses of the univer- sality of truth, the oneness of the light toward which all souls turn.
The fresco paintings present to us an interesting phase of foreign influence upon our art. It is apparent that Hindu and Persian influences are discernible in them, in general form and features of the images, in the quality of lines, in feeling, and in technique. Whether these influences have come direct from their sources, or through Chinese or Korean channels, is still a matter of dispute among our scholars. Not only that, but we have been unable to agree upon the period of the paintings on these walls, much less upon the artist who painted them. According to the tradition handed down at the temple, the wall-paintings were executed by a Korean priest, Doncho. So far, investigations seem to indicate that the walls and paintings are as old as the building, with traces of restoration at a later period. Only one wall is an exception, the large wall on the east, which seems to have been reconstructed and newly painted in the Kamakura period." However, this is by no means conclusive.
To add to our troubles, we are not quite clear even upon the subjects of these paintings on the walls — at least, not upon most of them. The four large walls have group subjects, while the eight others treat single figures. According to an old catalog which has
6 Yakushi is the Healing Buddha. He heals all kinds of diseases and is also called upon to heal in the next life the miserable condition of man's pres- ent existence.
^ Shi-tenno, meaning "four heavenly kings" — who guard the world against the attacks of demons, each defending one quarter of the horizon.
^ By a committee appointed by the government art objects in possession of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines are examined from time to time and worthy objects are classed as "national treasure" to be taken care of by the government.
^ The Kamakura period begins with the year HSO (according to the Chris- tian era) when Yoritomo established his capital at Kamakura, and lasted about one hundred and fifty years. It was in the latter half of this period that the minute and realistic style of Buddhistic paintings was first highly developed.
No. 5.
680 Tllli OPEN COURT.
long been considered authentic, the central figures in the groups of the four big walls are: Amida (Amitayus)^'^ south of the west entrance, Ilosho (Ratnasambhava) south of the east entrance, Yakushi (Bhaisajyaguruvaiduryaprabhasa-Tathagata) east of the north entrance, and Shaka-muni west of the north entrance, there being no mention of the minor wall-paintings. However, the de- scription does not seem to suit some of them. The names for the single figures on the eight smaller walls have not been agreed upon either. The difficulty lies chiefly in our inability to determine the sutra in which the artist must have sought for inspiration, though it is now conceded by many — and not without reason — that the subject must have been drawn from the Konkoinyo Siitra.'^^ The dispute can only be settled by further'study and investigation. As shown in the reproductions, the frescoes are badly cracked and partly obliterated by time, but they stand unicjue in our art.
An appeal is being made by certain scholars to take a radical step for a permanent protection of these irreplaceable art treasures of the East. It has been suggested that the best way would be to construct a suitable museum building on the temple grounds, to which the walls should be moved bodily and kept in a horizontal position under glass. However, the difficulty is that the paintings are not only an object of art but of worship, inseparable from the sanctuary erected some thirteen centuries ago for the worship of Shaka-muni. So it is needless to say that the temple authorities are adverse to the proposition. It has been decided for the time being that the paintings will be kept in their present position under cover.
For us it is extremely interesting to consider, in this connection, the intimate relation of art to religion, of the sense of beauty to the spirit of worship, and to ponder upon the wonderful works of art produced in ancient times when Buddhism was strong in Japan, the best examples of which are yet to be found in the temples at Nara, the ancient capital of the empire, and in those of its vicinity, such as the Horyuji, Yakushiji, and Toshodaiji.
^° Amida is the Japanese name for Skt. Amitayus or Amitabha. By com- bining the two names Amita was obtained, and the Japanese Amida is derived from it. Amida was originally an al^straction — the ideal of "boundless light." In some sects Amida is a powerful deity dwelling in a lovely paradise to the west.
1^ The Konkoinyo Sutra is composed of four volumes with eighteen chap- ters. It was preached widely since the Nara period (from 709 to 784 in the Christian era, when Buddhism flourished in Japan). It contains teachings now upheld by the Tendai sect. The following are the six principal denominations of Buddhism existing to-day in Japan, classed in the order of their numerical importance : Zen, Shin or Monto, Shingon, Jodo, Nichiren or Hokke, Tendai.
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No. 6.
682 THE OPEN COURT.
NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS. - /
The Horyiiji consists of a group of buildings. Ji at the end of the word is the Chinese pronunciation of a character which stands for "temple" in English. It is tcra in Japanese and refers only to Buddhist temples. The term is also used for "monastery." A tcra may be a single building, but strictly speaking it should con- tain the following seven structures :
San-nion — a gateway. '
ButsH-dcn — a large building containing images of the Buddha and saints, Bntsu meaning Buddha, and den a hall or building.
Ho-do — ho meaning the Law and do meaning temple or hall. The hall in which Buddhism is expounded and preached.
So-do — so meaning priests. A building for the priests to live in.
Yoku-do — a bath-house.
Kuriya — kitchen.
Kazvaya — water-closet, a separate building which hundreds of worshipers may use.
Some temples have additional buildings. The Horyuji has many, such as the Go-ju-no-to ("Five-storied Pagoda"), the Yume- dono (literally "Dream Hall," which was used for meditation), etc.
The Kondo ("Golden Hall," kon meaning gold, and do a hall) is the main building, the chief sanctuary, corresponding to the Butsu-den in the list of buildings given above. The name kondo is used only in large and important temples.
No. 1. The Kondo and the Five-storied Pagoda of the Horyuji.
No. 2. The painting — Amida and a group of Sonja (high-souled venerable disciples of the Buddha) — on the large west wall of the Kondo.
No. 3. The painting — possibly Hosho-butsu and a group of Sonja — on the large wall east of the north entrance of the Kondo.
Hosho-butsu is one of the Buddhas and controls the life of all things with a power to bestow the enjoyment of life.
No. 4. A part of the painting — possibly Ashiku-butsu and a group of Sonja- — on a large space between pillars on the east wall of the Kondo.
Ashiku signifies non-movement, immovability, and non-anger. Butsu is honorific. According to a sutra, countless ages ago, Ashiku, through the influence of Dai-nichi Nyorai, turned to religion, dis-
No. 7.
684 THE OPEN COURT.
ciplined himself and attained Buddhahood and built a land of purity (an imaginary region) where he still preaches.
Dai-nichi Nyorai is the personification of wisdom and of ab- solute purity.
No. 5. The painting — possibly a Bosatsu — on the partition on the east wall of the Kondo at the southeast corner.
A Bosatsu is a Buddhistic saint of high attainment, struggling to obtain perfect enlightenment and seeking to save the world : sub- mitting himself to discipline with great craving for wisdom from above and for mercy to bestow upon those below him in the world.
No. 6. The painting — possibly of Sho-Kwannon — on the par- tition on the south wall at the southeast corner (facing the afore- mentioned Bosatsu) of the Kondo.
Sho-Kwannon is one of the six forms of Kwannon, goddess of mercy. Sho-Kwannon stands for wisdom and generally has a lotus bud in her left hand, and is showing the form of an opened lotus flower in her right hand. This form signifies her power to open to full blossom the hidden possibilities in men.
No. 7. The painting of Fugen Bosatsu on the partition of the north wall at the northeast corner of the Kondo.
Fugen Bosatsu is the highest among the Bosatsu and is always associated with Monju Bosatsu. Fugen stands for compassion. Monju for wisdom. Fugen rides on a white elephant, while Monju rides on a lion. The attributes of Fugen are symbolized by the elephant, vi/hich stands for the latent power that endures and accom- plishes things, while Monju symbolizes the power of wisdom to destroy sham and find the truth with the keenness and force of a lion in attack. Fugen and Monju are seen attendant on either side of Shaka-muni (the Perfect One, the founder of Buddhism). Fugen also has power to prolong one's life.
No. 8. The painting — possibly Juichimen Kwannon (eleven- faced Kwannon) — on the partition of the east wall at the northeast corner (facing Fugen Bosatsu) of the Kondo.
Juichimen Kwannon is one of the six forms of Kwannon, god- dess of mercy. It has ten small heads on the head of the main figure, the three front heads bearing a countenance of compassion, the three to the left one of anger, and the three to the right showing teeth. They represent the attributes of Juichimen Kwannon as rejoicing at the good and sneering and laughing at the bad. The main face is neither laughing nor sad, showing the bigness of the soul to swallow both good and bad, the pure and impure. The small head on the top shows the face of a Buddha of true enlightenment.
No. 8.
THE OPEN COURT.
No. 9.
No. 9. The painting — possibly Miroku Bosatsu — on the parti- tion of the north wall at the northwest corner of the Kondo.
Miroku Bosatsu stands preeminent for his compassion and wis-
FK1-: SCOLDS c»F Till': ii(imr[i.
687
dom. According to one \orsion. Mirokn l)ci,fan striving- for per- fection many years before Shaka-mnni aiul is to appear in this world as a perfect P.nddlia at a time in the future to take the place of Shaka-muni in Icadiuij men to salvation.
.No. 10.
No. 10. The San-mon, the gateway, and the Five-storied Pagoda of the Horyuji.
688 THE OPEN COURT.
BIBLE QUOTATIONS AND CHINESE CUSTOMS.
BY JULIUS J. PRICE.
SCHLEIERAIACHER has well remarked that "no religion is wholly new, as the same basic ideas reappear in all."^ And if one considers the universality of some practices'- he might believe that it points to a time when the ancestors of all nations lived to- gether and so derived the knowledge from a common source. But in spite of this fact, each religion tries to realize that only in its respective religious consciousness can the truth be possessed.^ On the other hand, if we examine the sacred books of the three great religions of the world, it becomes evident even to the most casual observer that there are common basic ideas in all of them. It is now an accepted fact, advanced by theologians, that Christianity bor- rowed largely not only from Judaism but also from the pagan cults with which it came in contact.* Mohammedanism in its turn bor- rowed from both Judaism and Christianity. And so we could con- tinue comparisons'' to show that no religion alone "is wholly new, as the same basic ideas reappear in all."
In the light of such facts it is not to be wondered at, then, that on comparing the sacred writings and customs of the Chinese with those of the Old and New Testament," a similitude of thought as well as of ideas becomes evident to the student.' The following few examples will illustrate this contention.^
In Isaiah Ivii. 6, we read, "Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion ; they, they are thy lot ; even to them hast thou poured a drink ofifering, thou hast offered a meat offering." The worship of smooth stones'' is attested by many ancient writers to
^ Stade, Akadcuiische Rcdcn, etc., Giessen, 1899, p. 57.
- Com])., e. g., Lansdell, The Tithe in Scripture, p. 18.
" Hegel's Gcschiclite der Religion, Vol. I, Chap. 5.
* Conybeare, Mytli, Magic, Morals (passim).
5 Reinach, Orpheus, a History of Religions (passim).
^ See Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics.
"^ Baron von Hiigel, Mystical Elements of Religion, Vol. I, Chap. 2.
s Loisy, The Religion of Israel, p. SO.
" Comp. Talmud : "R. Simon ben Yochai said, 'A precious stone was worn round the neck by our father Abraham, and every sick man who beheld it was restored to health. When our father Abraham died God suspended the stone from the sun.' Abbaye said, 'This accounts for the proverb, When the sun rises the illness decreases.' " — "Baba Bathra," 16B.
im?LE QUOTATIONS AND Cll 1 N I'.Sl-: CL'STOMS. 689
have been an outstanding feature in tlie character of heathen wor- ship. Tlieophrastus well remarked that "jiassini^ by the anointed stones in the streets, the heathen takes out his x'vaI of oil. jjours it on them, and ha\ins:;[ fallen on his knees and made his admonition, he departs." Amons^ the Semites'" there must have been a belief that a stone was the hal>itation of the deity. Herodotus" tells us that the Arab had j^rcit reverence for stones, lie must worship cverv white and beautiful stone, and when it was impossible to find such, he was so crude as to worship a hill of sand. Tiefore de])artin<^ on a iourney, the Arab would take with him four stones, three of Avhich were to serve the purpose of a hearth, the fourth to be used as an idol. In cases where stones were not a\ailal)le. the Aral) while on the road would worship any stones or heap of sand that he found in the neis^hborhood.^- "The adoration of stones anions: the Ish- maelites." says Ibn Ishak. "ori,<jinated in the custom of men carrying a stone from the sacred enclosure of Mecca ; where they went they set it up and made circuits round about it as al)out the Kaa1)a. till at last thev adored everv goodly stone they saw, forgot their religion. and changed the faith of Abraham and Ishmael into the worship of stones." The Deuteronomic historian regarded the downfall of the people as due to the erecting of stones by Juda in Israel.
In China, a water-worn stone ele\ated upon a rude altar repre- sented the shaysliJi. or gods of the land. I'efore this altar, incense sticks were constantly Ijurned. Every village and every street of twenty-five families erected one of these altars, and in the s]iring and autumn worshiped the deities su])posed to be enshrined ujion it. These gods were held in j^articular veneration bv the agricultural classes, who with the aid of the priests invoked a blessing u]:)on the season at certain times, generally on the second of the second month. The i)riests. three or four in number, not loath to perform so jovous a ceremony, arri\-ed dressed in robes of yellow and green, accom- panied bv a few musicians with their instruments. Thev were at- tended l)y their emjdoyers, and a ser\ant bearing a tray filled with cakes, preserves, and meats proceeded them, followed by another carrying several small cups and a can of spirits. On approaching the altar the eatables were ])rescnted before the stones, and then the jjriests made a libation bjfore .and uj)oii ii of three cups of spirits.
^" Comp. Gen. xxviii ; comp. also tlie Greek boclutus. Tlie PlKcnicians also worshiped stones in the temple of Melkart at Tyre, comp. Herod., II, 44.
1' Comp. Herod., Ill, 8.
^- Can this be a remnant of the Canaanitcs' custom against whicli the Deuteronomic Code was issued? Comp. Deut. xii. 3, also xvi. 22.
690 THE OPEN COURT.
At the sound of a flourish upon a gong and trumpet, the priest mumbled over the prescibed form of blessing upon the neighboring fields, which was not understood by reason of its rapid enunciation. After the prayer, a second libation was sometimes poured out before the priest and attendants passed on to the next altar. During this ceremony, great glee was manifested by all spectators, caused no doubt by the seemingly good humor of the priest. The landlord, considering the expense incurred, did not show so jovial a coun- tenance. One can almost imagine a similar custom to have existed in the days of Isaiah.
In Proverbs xxv. 3, we read as follows: "The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable." In comparing the following aphorism from the Ming-sin Paou Keen, we seem to find the very same thought. Here we read, "The fish dwell in the bottom of the water, and the eagles in the sides of heaven ; the one though high may be reached by an arrow, and the other though deep may be angled for ; but the heart of man at only a cubit's distance cannot be known. Heaven can be spanned, earth can be fathomed, but the heart of man cannot be measured."
In Eccl. vii. 6, we read, "For as the crackling of thorns under a pot so is the laughter of the fool." The coarse grass which grows upon the hillsides in the islands about Macao is used by the poor Chinese as a substitute for wood, which is too expensive for cooking purposes. It consists for the most part of a species of Andropogon. The natives cut it in the autumn and store it in bundles for winter's use. In its unsubstantial nature it resembles the dry thorns used for fuel in Judea ; and its crackling blaze and great flame and noise giving no heat in the burning or coals in the embers, reminds one of the laughter of a fool.
In Job xix. 23-24, we read, "Oh that my words were now writ- ten ! oh that they were printed in a book ! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!" Engraved rocks, to commemorate remarkable events, are seen in China, though not in such vast numbers as in Persia and India. This is explained by the fact that the literature of the Chinese obviates the necessity for such crude expressions of commendation. The smoothened surface of rocks in Asitu, when they lie in spots esteemed lucky, are en- graved with characters under the direction of geomancers or fung- shzviiy doctors. Characters of this order are supposed to exert a beneficial influence upon the surrounding country. Great skill is often displayed in the cutting of the sentences and names on the pillars and door-posts of the temples. These inscriptions are em-
nUU.K (jroTATKiNS AND ( 1 1 1 N l-.SK Cl'STOMS. 691
ployed to commemorate distiiii^nnshecl and lionored individuals, but often are merclv um-hI for ornament's sake. Just as the Romans anciently published their Twelve Tables, so the Chinese government also employed this mode of establishing laws and regulations. The characters are jjlainly and deeply engraven upon the marble, and the slab is set np in a conspicuous place, in such a manner as to shelter it from the destroying influence of climatic conditions.
If we turn to the New Testament and compare several of the customs alluded to therein, with those of the Chinese, we shall be able to tind a ver\- similitude between them and those of the early inhabitants of the Chinese Empire. The more we examine the old in a new illustration, the more we become aware of their exactitude.
In Matthew vi. 7. we read, 'T.nt when yon pray, use not vain repetitions as the heatlien do : for they think they shall be heard for their much sjx^aking." The following passage from the books of the Buddhists may show' why such a caution had to be given by the writers of the Xew Testament as well as by later Chinese authorities. It is sup])Osed to be a canon delivered by Fuh to be repeated for the prevention of all misfortunes and for the attaining of life in the world to come. The prayer is supposed to be repeated three times. It reads as 1 ha\e it b.'fore me: "Xan-mo ( )-me-to po-yay, to-ta-kae to-vay, to-te-yay-ta, ( )-me-Ie-too po-kwan, O-me-le-to, seeh-tan-po- kwan, ( )-me-leto, kwan-kea-lan-te, O-me-le-to, kwan-kea-lan-te : kea-me-ne, kea-kea-na, chih-to-kca-le po-po-ha."
This prayer is unintelligible to the average Chinaman. It is stated on very good authority that not one out of every hundred priests in China understands it. It is composed of bare sounds of Sanskrit words expressed as nearly as possible by Chinese words. The order of procedure with regard to this prayer was as fol- lows: wliile the pri'.st would rcju-at the prayer very (|uickly another priest would beat u])on a drum in order to arouse the god. This dnuii was always made of wood inasmuch as it was a common belief that the e\il spirit could not attack a drum made of wood. The above jumbled phrases were mumbled in a miserable fashion by the Chinese priest. Translated as well as ])ossible, they mean: "The God Ometo (Amita ) rests on top of the heads of those who repeat this prayer in ord;:r to save them from their enemies, to render them safe and comfortal)le in life, and to confer on them any mode of future existence which they may at the hour of death desire." I have been informed, if the prayer is recited thirty myriad times, the person reciting it can have anything he desires and will be sure to be at no distance from the personal vision of the god ( )meto.
692 THE OPEN COURT.
Later Chinese theologians as w:ll as the author of the above- quoted Xew Testament verse began to condemn those who repeated their prayers innumerably.
But to proceed. Tn Matthew xx. 3, we read, "And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market-place." If one was to pass through the streets of Peking or Canton, one would be impressed with the crowds of porters or coolies waiting at the most public corners in the hope of a day's labor, or of being hired for a week or more. Each individual or couple is provided with a carrying pole and a pair of rope slings ; and with these they perform all the services which fall to their lot. They are divid d into companies and claim to do all the porterage in their districts. In such towns where the coolies are hired by the month, these men often stand idle the lifelong day, through want of employment.
In ]Mark vii. 11, we read, "Rut ve sav, if a man shall say to his father or mother, it is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatso- ever thou mightest be profited by me ; he shall be free." In China, it is the custom for Buddhist priests to take an entire farewell of the parents or other relations, or as they express it. chuh kca, "to go out of the family," and separate themselves from the world. They no longer owe any duty to their parents, and according to their doctrine, "have aught to do for their father or mother." But this tenet is as directly opposed to the ethics of Confucius as to the Fifth Commandment, and is consequently practised by none other than the devotees of Buddha. It is among the Buddhists as it was among the Pharisees, an unnatural doctrine of the sect.
In Luke vi. 38. we read, "Good measure, pressed down and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom." The Chinese, Japanese, and Loochooan costume consists of a number of long robes similar to nightgowns, which overlap in front and are secured 1)y a girdle at the waist. One of the gowns is fashioned and used extensively to carry articles. These capacious receptacles often hold writing-materials, tobacco, pipe, and pouch, and numerous other commodities, without inconveniencing the wearer. The an- cient Greeks and Hebrews were also accustomed to carrying articles in this manner. And it is the marvel of the careful observer that they were able to appear so well in such comely garments.
In John ii. 14, we read, "... .and the changers of money sit- ting." The practice referred to here, of persons keeping small tables where money can be changed, is more common in China, perhaps, than in any of the several Asiatic countries where it is
Tllli: COSMOS AM) ITS .MKAMN'G. 693
in vogue. Tho>c who engage in tliis profession usually provide themselves with a small tahlc ahont three feet long hy fifteen inches wide, iuu\ estahlish it in anv hns\- thoroughfare. The market, tenij)le, and street corner ]>ro\ c their ]>articnlar haunts, .and the garrulf)nsncss of the money-lender adds to the general confusion of the street noises. The strings of copper cash, often secured to the tahle hy a chain, are piled u]) on one side, and the siKer together with the small ivorv vard with which it is weighed is ke]>\ in drawers. Their sign is a wooden tigure car\-ed in the form of a cylinder to represent a string of cash.
THE COSMOS AXl) ITS Ml'.AXJXG.
r.V I-KA.VK R. WIIITZF.L.
[hi tlic following;' article. ^Iv. Wliitzcl offers a ])hilnsnpliic interpretation of tlie tenets of the Psycliical Research Society. W'liile fundanient.'illy dis- agreeing with liini on the subject, Thr Of'cii Cmtrt presents his paper as an able statement of what some regard as the only escape from intellectual and moral despair. — Kd.]
^T() one can a\-oi(l holding some idea, clear or hazy, in regard to - ^ the mechanism and the general purpjDse of the universe. Since the dawn of studv e.xplanatorv tlieories ranging froiu crudest anthro- {)omorphisiu to purest suhjecti\isiu have hcen advanced and, as knowledge increased, discarded or luodified : hut inherent weaknesses still render (hjuhtful every possil)le h\-polhesis. The prohlem has heen approached through three principal chainiels, philoso])hy. reve- lation, and science.
Philosopiiw Ancient ])hiIosophv, hegiiming with high confidence, was in the end unahle to answer the skeptics, who denied that anything could be really proven since all our faculties were liable to error: hence, it was constrainefl to adiuit that the iuu\-crse might ])ossiblv be but a mental illusion. In luodern philosoi)hy the system known as ideal- ism, perceiving that nothing can be known save as it presents itself to consciousness, asserts that ])hysical nature is the expression of thought, necessarily of a divine thought. Realism, more jirosaic, assumes external nature to be a fact and also accepts the fimda- luental data of science, but it is com])elled to do both practically on faith since they constitute an objective reality outside of conscious- ness. Pragmatism, a species of realism now in vogue, argues that,
694 THE OPEN COURT.
inasmuch as man is obliged to accept some things he cannot demon- strate, he should accept those ideas that prove most useful : they are true if they work.
The weak point of all philosophy is the fact that we are con- nected with external phenomena through our consciousness alone ; that is, judgments can be formed only through our physical senses and our reason. Now, both of these are admittedly fallible ; hence no reliable criterion of truth exists, and we must fall back on the uncertain ground of probability or the common experience of man- kind. Thus, both ancient and modern philosophy reach the melan- choly conclusion that all knowledge, save only of the existence of consciousness, is of doubtful validity.
Revelation.
Present-day religions originated in prescientific ages and are therefore much alike in their cosmology. They display very ad- mirably man's conceit in thinking himself the most important prod- uct of the universe and his incorrigible habit of ascribing to some one else his own fine fortune or achievements, giving credit to a god for the good of earth but excusing him for the evil. All re- ligions adopted at their origin the current conceptions of the cosmos and very soon came to ascribe its existence to the creative act of Deity and knowledge of it to revelation ; hence their horrified oppo- sition to new ideas in science. The outer universe, so they taught, revolved around the stationary earth which itself was an oblong plain surrounded by waters and roofed by the firmament, above which dwelt the celestial spirits busied in regulating the stars and opening the windows in the firmament to let the rain fall through. Somewhere in the lower regions was the abode of fallen angels and lost human spirits, ruled by the Enemy, the rival of the King of Heaven. In the upper world a single perfect God had gradually evolved from the previous multiplicity of human-like divinities, and continual war was represented to be waging between the good and the evil angels. Man was the prize of victory as well as a combatant and was thought to have fallen from a perfection which his religion might enable him to reattain.
Buddhism.
On this basis, with individual modifications, are builded the
three great religions in which we are interested. Christianity and
Mohammedanism accepted it frankly, and the latter is so devoid
of originality that it warrants no independent treatment. Gautama
THE COSMOS AXn ITS MKAXIXG. 695
Siddhartha knew of no king-doin of c\il, whose j^lace was taken in the system of his people by soul-transmigration. This belief, how- ever, he reconstructed in a singular manner. Tie asserted that the total result of the activities of an individual, his karjiia, imme- diately ujion his death incarnated in a new life; but he denied that there was any indwelling soul which passed from one embodiment to the next. preser\ing its idcntilv throughout, ^'et he further taught, that by gradually overcoming the desires of the self through life after life, the soul, whose existence he had to all intents denied, might tind Xir\ana and cease rebirths. The contradiction is ob- vious and is sufficient to render pure Buddhism repugnant to the modern world in spite of the worth of its ethical content.
Christianity.
Jesus of Nazareth, less abstruse but more practical, taught that belief and righteous action would enable man to escape Sheol and enter at one step the Kingdom of Heaven which was to be established immediately after the destmction of the world, then impending. He had nothing new to oiler as to the scheme of organization of either the material or the spirit world and but deemed himself a chosen, though a human instrument to save his people. He was unsuccessful in his mission, quite unknown at his death and mistaken in four fifths of his beliefs. His successors, in winning their tremendous victory, idealized the man out of all resemblance to the Gospel portrait and added a complex body of doctrine to which, save in its ever valid ethics, he was a total stranger. The (ieinile invitation and all the great Christian tenetS; Atonement, the Sonship. the \'irgin Birth, the Trinity, were later developments.
It is hardly necessary to outline what the Church for more than a thousand years taught to be the tnfe organization of the unseen world since now it is .all r|uietly disregarded. The dogmas and the childish beliefs of orthodoxy have been transformed beyond recognition or sent to oblivion, until to-day the best exemplars of Christianity mean Ijy the word something wliolly different from what Augustine or Ambrose deemed all-essential. Most of them look upon Jesus the man as an excellent but impossible example and have a hazy idea tliat. as a vague sort of sa\iour. he mav in some unknown manner help in a still less understood salvation. This is not to be construed as an attack upon the historical origin or tiie ethical spirit of Christianity. It is merely a statement of an obvious fact, that the orthodox teachings of revelation in regrard
696 THE OPEN COURT.
to the order and arrangement of the spiritual universe are no longer seriously believed.
Futility and Uncertainty.
As rationalism has upset the metaphysical basis of Christianity, so have the discoveries of modern science shattered the physical foundations of our religions. Their priesthoods, after vainly strug- gling against the facts, have been reduced to pretending that these facts do not matter. And now we have the spectacle of all our great religious systems based wholly upon a scheme of creation that no intelligent man believes for a moment. The ancient crude ideas of the cosmos permeate all sacred writings to such an extent that, removed, little is left save a lifeless system of morality, correct but commonplace and expressed in the outworn terms of a false cos- mology. The orthodox God simply will not fit present-day ideas of the universe, since he must be reduced to the lordship of our pitiful little planet alone — and this raises again the suggestion of a multitude of gods — or be exalted as ruler of the entire cosmos, in which case he has duties so tremendous as to render absurd the idea that he could notice such an insignificant grain of sand as the earth.
Some perhaps irreverent people have even asked why a God at all? How comes it that one spirit is so superior to all other spirits? \^'hy should not the celestial world have a democratic form of government such as on earth we have found most attractive, rather than conform to the Oriental despotisms which ruled mankind when orthodox cosmogony was begotten? Is political progress im- possible in spirit land? This is, of course, idle speculation. All we can say certainly is that revelation, like philosophy, in an efifort to supply a rational explanation of the cosmos, definitely fails.
Science. Dualism and Its Shortcomings. Science ofifers two principal theories explanatory of the cosmic order, dualism and monism. Dualism contends that all reality is divided into two fields, mind and matter, God and nature, the former dominant and exhibiting moral purpose. It is supported by immemorial opinion, l)y the countless tales in history and legend of contact with a world of spirits, by the presence of intelligence in nature and contrivance in organisms, but chiefly by our well-nigh invincible inner conviction. The first two have little or no scien- tific sanction, the third is susceptible of another explanation, and the last may be quite deceptive, most of the tangible evidence
THE COSMOS AXl) ITS M l-'.A X 1 .\( I. 697
ptjintin!^ tliat waw I'.ul it is with tlio <4rcat fonmlation theories of modern knowledi^e. conserwition and continuity, that (hudisin di- rectl\- colhdes. The exercise of \oHtion. personal initiation of any thought, independent control of the physical hy the mental ]irocesscs, these wonld he a creation of energy, hence <|nite inipossil)le nnder conservation. As for continuity, like results must always follow like conditions or else all certainty of conclusion, even any possi- bilitv of progress in deci])]icring nature is ]ircc]udcd. And indeed. so far as exhaust i\e experiment can determine, cause and ettcct are vmiversal and infallil)le. whereas ca])riciotis or at least inde])en- dent action. ])h\-sical as well as mental, shduld ])e ])atent if, as dualism holds, nature is governed hy a self-moti\ating mind. A ( lod who does not rule becomes a "superlluous hypothesis."
}fo)iisiii and Its Difficulties.
These considerations have led science to the general adoption of monism, which asserts that in the cosmos there is hut a single substance having merelv different manifestations, all being modes of motion and strictly mechanical. This is the theory in its extreme form to which its logic leads if unswer\-ingly ])ursued, but the less dogmatic of its adxocates fa\"or certain reasonable modifications. Tn general. howe\er. monism accepts determinism, which teaches that the whole of reality is governed by changeless mechanical laws, that all phenomena, mental or physical, including the close relation between the two, are unalterable and are due to previous fixed conditions stretching back in unbroken order to the beginning of time. It follows that life is reduced to terms of ])hysics and chemistry and that a living body is but the harmonious union of its parts.
()bjections at once arise. To say nr)thing of the |)ractical im- possibility of lindiiig anv single sul)stance capable of manifesting itself at once as mind and it-^ ol)ject, there is ()l)\iouslv something indefinable by science but none \hc less real in a lixing organism which is not in a non-li\ing. something self-suj)porting, self-renew- ing, self-impelling, something which may depart ne\-er to return though the body remain undamaged. The relation of thought to action, or more precisely, of mental to the accom])anving j)hvsical phenomena, is wholly inexplicable if mind is nf)t permitted of its own choice to control. A mechanical connection not only caiuiot be obser\'ed but is opjiosed to all our ideas of the mode of this interaction. And if it be mechanical, then there is no room in the system for volition, no jjlace for initiation, persuasion, emotion, no
698 THE OPEN COURT.
meaning in achievement or renunciation — all are but inexorable results ; even cause and effect cjuite lose their character and become mere secjuence in time. But no one, not even monists, can actually live in accordance with such a theory. Forgetting or defying con- tinuity, they yield in their daily life to the power of their own intuition and assume to be free agents, not passive automatons as the strict logic of the mechanical theory recjuires. In this they are no more inconsistent than dualists who must in their research work, like all true investigators, adopt the doctrine of continuity, perhaps unconsciously but as implicitly as the most uncompromising monist.
Doubtless both theories contain much truth, but as correct and complete explanations of reality both seem to succumb, dualism to the necessity and observed presence of continuity in physical nature, monism to the irresistible appeal of volition and the caprice of mental activity.
Further Enigmas.
If attention be turned to the facts of nature the problem ap- pears equally insoluble and the mechanical theory betrays grave weaknesses. To note but a few of the perplexities. Certain stars are moving through space at a velocity ten times greater than can be accounted for by gravity, the only known source of stellar motion. Gravity itself seems to act instantaneously and at a dis- tance without a connecting medium, an absurdity in mechanics. This same force, being wholly unresisted in space, should draw all celestial bodies toward their common center of gravity ; and as past time is held to be infinite the whole stellar universe should long ago have coalesced into a single compact and stable system. Space and time defy all analysis, so much so that great thinkers have denied them objective reality and termed them mere "modes of intuition." Matter becomes unintelligibly complex. Its indis- pensable attribute is weight, yet it is alleged to be made wholly out of electrons which have no weight at all. It is perfectly permeable by these electrons in the form of ether ; that is, a given space holds free ether to the utmost limit and in addition holds the ether of which is composed any matter that happens to be there. This ether is affirmed to be of astounding density yet unresisting, perfectly continuous yet differentiated, incompressible yet infinitely elastic, having internal motion rapid as that of light but with no impulse to initiate or maintain it. Though of all theories of matter the electronic is by far the most strongly attested, it yet contains many almost hopeless discrepancies.
Turning to conditions of life on our planet, we find evil to be
THE COSMOS AND ITS M EAX I XC. 6*7-'
ubiquitous and tniashamod. Animals cruelly destroy each other, and man destroys them all. Part of th.e slaughter may be wanton, but much of it seems quite imavoidable. Social institutions have developed into a system wherein the vast majority must toil that the few mav eniov, even so in our own country where the harsh conditions are somewhat softened. \'iewing the horrors of natural selection with its indiscriminate and merciless butcheries, contem- plating the protluct of societv in its slums and crime schools, even looking at the middle section with its lack, and the higher with its waste, of opportunities, who has not felt that if creative power had been his he would have fashioned a far better world, or else have stayed his hand?
Fiua! Xcgafio)i. Thus, in all theories of existence are to be found aji]iarently fatal defects. We are encompassed by darkness and contradiction which no thought of the brightest minds has been able to illumine, or reconcile. In cosmic processes results alone are to be observed, not moral design. The nature and purposes of reality have been found so ambiguous that philosophy has not seldom given them up and with the courage of despair preached morality for its own sake alone. After more than two millenniums of patient study physical reality has proved inexplicable.
Basis of Reconstruction.
Constructive criticism, though more useful, is far harder than destructive, yet surely it must be possible to find something in nature to replace the mirages of philosophy which thus so readily dissolve. On the whole life is sweet, and no man willingly con- cedes that the grave is its final goal. Rather does he cherish an ineradicable faith that all this living and dying has a meaning which somehow, somewhere, sometime is sure to be made plain. Other- wise life is but ashes in his mouth.
P.ut in the face of nature's puzzling contradictions, what ra- tional explanation of it can be imagined? Take the case of matter. If a thing absolutely inconceivable be non-existent, and if it be inconceivable that matter either was created out of nothing or has existed from all eternity, must we decide that it is all an illusion ? This seems like the only conclusion left us, and it is not so absurd as at first appears. Why are octaves in a musical scale identical in tone? Simply because the human consciousness, functioning through the ear, so interprets them. Now, if every living conscious- ness should be so organized as to interpret the field of activity alike,
700 THE OPEN COURT.
for example in the form of the physical universe, then for each one that universe would be, or at least seem, real, no matter what it might be in fact. All creatures would see the same world and their experiences would be mutually consistent. If after death our consciousness survives it may conceivably enter a state where its environment is interpreted differently ; and if all minds should still function alike, there would then be for us an environing cosmos differing from the present one but equally real.
Under this theory — a form of subjective idealism — we might perceive a different and seemingly genuine universe in each of a series of existences, nor recognize the true one until our minds were freed from all possibility of error. Two objections present themselves. Common sense refuses to consider external nature as aught save a concrete reality. And existing consciousness bears too absurdly small a ratio in both quantity and time to the whole cosmos for that cosmos to be in fact its mere appurtenance. Let us see if a more tolerable solution may not be discovered.
The mental horizon of mankind has always been too circum- scribed. Ancient sages saw only the middle countries of the old world, India and the Mediterranean littoral, which they imagined to comprise all the universe that mattered. After Columbus the view broadened, and men thought similarly of the earth in its en- tirety, or of the solar system. With the discoveries of modern science the field again expanded, until now it embraces all the stars, seen and unseen, "that dapple vacancy." If still we find no reason- able answer to our incessant "why," perhaps it is because our view is still too narrow, and there needs another widening to take in realms as yet unguessed.
N^ecessary Assumption.
It is impossible to avoid making some kind of an assumption a1 the starting-point of any system which attempts to explain reality ; the best that can be done is to choose one that is supported by the strongest inferences and restricted to the lowest reducible terms. Let us, then, make an assumption which will likely command the assent of all save the incorrigible pessimist. Though at first thought is may seem to discredit the whole of the preceding argument, it will perchance on further examination be found compatible there- with.
The universe is purposive.
A\'ise men have found it irrational simply because only a small part of it has been open to their inspection. Seeing one term of
THE COSMOS AND IIS MKA.MXG.
701
the cciualion bul not the factor that completes it, they very naturally are nonplused and inclined to pronounce it insoluhle ; they ri_<,ditly tuid contradictions. lUit can the uni\erse, its apparent discordances conceded, he heliewd an accident? Can any one contemplate the vast and wondrous lirmameut doltrd ])y stars in millions, some so huge otir sun might he their i)lanet ; can he rellect on the immeas- urahle voids that separate celestial hodies, not forgetting that our heavens form hut a single galaxy, and of galaxies there may he many so unthinkahly distant they appear to us mere hlmy nehulas ; can he turn from these to note organisms so ephemeral that sun and sun enclose a lifetime or so minute as to defy strongest lens or finest filter, known only hy the disturhances they induce ; or can he consider etheric vihrations ranging hetween those slow enough to he made visihle and those whose infinite rapidity hank- ru{)ts the imagination; and after all this, hearing in mind that every element in the stupendous whole, ultra-microscopic cell no less esteemetl than majestic constellation, moves in harmonious ohedience to changeless law, can he entertain the fancy that it all is htit a creation of hlind chance, destitute of intelligent purpose?
Supporting Evidence.
As a preliminary it may he remarked that the stage of matter is adequately set. Suns are ohserved in every phase of development, from star mist through nehulas and jilanetaries to dying and even, it is helieved. to dead smis. cold and dark ; any conceivahle quality of j)h\-sical life might find a fitting ch^micile.
We need not ground our assumption upon an inner-' feeling of its truth. This, indeed, statmchly assures us that so vast" a pro- duction cannot he meaningless, and inner feeling has such potency that it overbears every argument advanced against freedom of "the will. But to some subjective considerations we may fairly appeal. Our consciousness tells us directly that we ourselves are actuated by purpose, and this cannot be denied without impeaching the in- tegrity of consciousness itself, the final arbiter of valid knowledge. From this ptirpose. intuitively and immediately known, we can argue without hazard of refutation to the reality of a greater cosmic purpose.
The existence of what is called conscience is also evidence of telling force on the side of cosmic design. No individual is without it be he ever so ignorant or uncivilized ; in fact, the savage is alleged to barken to it more obediently than his enlightened brother. But no one can live quite uj) to the standard of his conscience. • To
702 THE OPEN COURT.
every person it speaks from a plane of morality many degrees higher than his own, frequently to his distress, always to his ethical ad- vantage. Its origin is unknown, its personal benefit doubtful. Often it approves actions that bring no selfish profit and causes anguished remorse for those that do. We stand before it dumb and naked while unerring, implacable, it reads our inmost heart. If divinity i.^., it is divinity ; and it oft'ers unshakable testimony in favor of a pure purpose behind reality.
Of objective evidence, strong support is afforded our assump- tion by the unchallenged sway of the principle of cause and effect. Dare we affirm that the sum of all is exempt from the law which governs every part and parcel? Intelligence is present in the uni- verse. It requires a cause in intelligence just as imperatively as does the physical in the physical.
Even a stronger argument is to be found in organic evolution. Despite many stumblings and backslidings its course has ever been substantially upward. The earliest life on the planet was the simplest, and development has been at all times toward complexity and specialization, which means toward higher organisms. The line of succession was marine to terrestrial, mollusk and worm to verte- brate, fishes to batrachians to reptiles to birds to mammals.
Man, the highest, was the latest comer, but he made entry in a state little different from the more advanced ape. Untold and toilsome ages elapsed before he achieved sufficient mentality to be able to record his struggles ; thenceforward his career is open to our view. We need examine but a single collection of writings, the Bible, to be impressed by the extraordinary advance in ideals and by the never failing upward tendency in morals. From human sacrifices plainly indicated by the stories of Isaac and of Jephthah's daughter, the Jews attain to x\mos in the eighth century B. C, who quotes Yahweh as saying, "I hate, I despise your feast-days ; burnt offerings and meat offerings I will not accept" ; and to Hosea, 'T desired mercy and not sacrifice." More and more strongly do the prophets urge that righteousness consists not in ceremonies but in dealing justly and showing mercy, hating evil and loving good. What an improvement over the false and bloodthirsty God of the Patriarchs !
Profane history offers equal evidence of constant, if slow, improvement in man's moral ideals and conduct. Wars of conquest, enslavement of the conquered, butchery of prisoners, assassination of political opponents, bills of attainder, torture and barbarous executions, even undue cruelty to animals, all once thought perfectly
TlIK (.OSMOS AN'I) ITS M i:.\ X I NT,. 703
proper, are now iini\ersall\- reproljated. I'lisinrss and ])(ilitical moral- ity has often receixed ju>t censure, but .i^reat lias l)een the chanijje for the better within the last two deeades. while the contrast is strikinj; with the customs of the Middle Ai^^es or with those earlier tia_\-s when Jacol) and I .ahan hilked each other and the same word meant both robber and nu'rchanl. Time was when a need of indi- vidual or nation justitled any method of supi>l\in<;- it. I'nt the sense of rii^ht and wron^;' waxed e\er stronger nnlil now, though donlit- less still immature, it is so powerful lli.at the world alihors a word- breaker and niillii)ns i;n cbeerfnlK' to death fur an idea, ("an this proi:;"rcssive betterment of (.-ouscience and morals, to be obser\ed in politics ami business, in diplomacy and raci.al intercourse, in re- liq'ion, in s])iritual asjiirations, and in private conduct, clearly evident from the earliest times down to the present day, be ])urely fortuitous, unmeaning? It seems too orderly, too consistent despite occasional slips, to be witlunU an intelligent impulse behind it,
ContiiK/cJif Truths. That the uni\ersal cosmos is to be inter]M-eted in terms of purpose is a generalization which, like all others, has value in proportion as it leads to more specific knowledge. Certain im- portant deductions issue necessarily therefrom and must coinci- dcntly be accepted. ( )nly four of the more significant can be men- tioned, btit many others just as inevitably though perhaps not always so ol)\iously follow.
1. Intelligence is the most ])recious quality.
The brain has developed in animal structtire from a mere swelling of the nerve at one end of the notochord into a large and comj^lex organ to which every unit and function of the body sub- serves, while the mind, from being barely able to supply the rudest of living needs, has synchronously expanded until it can comprehend the mechanism of the universe and grapple with the deepest prob- lems of eternity. Cn-owth. snail-slow at the beginning, has been at a constantly accelerating rate, and the reward has been physical comfort, a bettered environment, conquest over nature, conscious- ness of invincible power.
2. ^loralitv. individual character, is the highest valtie.
From its first dim glimmer man's moral sense has expanded, as already pointed out. until now it is the dominating force which determines the conduct not of indi\iduals alone but also of all en- lightened nations. The morality of to-day, faulty as it is, only a few centuries ago would have been deemed fantastic sentiment,
704 THE OPEN COURT.
possible only to a divinity. But it finds reward in a satisfied con- science and in the respect and honor of mankind.
3. Effort is not wasted.
Only through sustained effort has mankind made progress. To this assertion of its value all will agree. But it is not so easy to see intelligent purpose in the wholesale destruction of potentially useful vital energy. Life, animal and vegetable, is produced with limitless prodigality, all but the merest remnant doomed to imme- diate extirpation. Some defense of the necessity for this massacre is possible, but hardly so, in the present state of our knowledge, is a real justification ; and the fact must remain an argument in the mouths of those who can deny the presence of design within the cos- mos. To all others it is but one of our many unsolved problems.
4. All values are preserved.
Science has fully demonstrated that no smallest mote of phys- ical value is ever lost no matter how often or how completely it may be transformed. Bodily appetites are adapted to insure the preservation of the individual, secondarily of the race ; similarly, the concept of immortality furnishes the means and the incentive for development of the higher mental qualities. As personal right- eousness is the very highest of these and has advanced far beyond collective morality, so we may know that not a racial ideal or some abstract spiritual entity but the individual unit is the object of nature's solicitude. Paramount significance is given to character and intelligence ; for the cosmic forces to destroy the individuals in which these qualities are personified would be to defeat the very ultimate of their own purpose, and is not to be imagined.
Since this is the most important point as it is the most nearly novel in the entire discussion, it is worthy of special emphasis. If, lying back of the cosmos, there is an intelligence at all its grand object must be to develop mental power and moral character. The strongest single force tending to foster them, particularly morality, has been the belief in a system of future rewards and punishments. Where do we now see these qualities most clearly displayed? In the nation? In the city? In the community? Not at all. The morals of a state always come far short of those of its best citizens. It has been abundantly demonstrated that men will do for their country base deeds to which they would scorn to stoop on their own account. Nay, executives of a business corporation will sanction in that com- pany acts which for their individual profit they would shrink from in shame. And, like its morals, the intelligence of a community is invariably less than that of its wisest citizens who must yield some-
THE COSMOS AXl) ITS M i:.\ N I XG
705
thing of their hcttor jiul.i,nncnt to the ignorance of their associates. Plainlv the (luahties of inchistry. scholarship, sympathy, justice, r.ll those suhsunied under the names of virtue and knowledge, hnd their highest expression in individuals, not in groups.
This is surely intentional. ( Hherwise nature, if intelligent, stands convicted of failure: or, if unintelligent, must be supposed to have wrouglit blindly the same result that intelligence would bring about designedly. Since both sup])Ositions are absurd, it seems clear that tlie develojiment of personality is nature's conscious method. Such being the case, is it thinkable that the cosmic mind would carelesslv exterminate tliose person.al luiits who, as such. are farthest on the road to accomplish its design and devote ex- clusive attention to a transitory society which lags far rearward? The annihilation of the individual would be an act of idiocy quite inconsistent with any intelligent cosmic purpose. Therefore, we must either deny that there is any rationality whatever behind the created universe, or else we have a sure basis for belief in the preservation, along with other and minor values, of our integral identities.
rifiiiiafc Pcsiiiiy.
Rearing in mind these necessary deductions from the purposive interpretation of the cosmos, let us endeavor to see what is the goal toward which humanity is imi)elled. Mathematicians can plot a curve from three given points. The straight lines in a picture, if projected, meet at a center. Tn like manner, viewing life as but a segment of reality, we should be able with some confidence to trace forward, perhaps also backward, the course of its journey.
Intelligence and morality have steadily increased. What can be the goal but perfect intelligence and perfect morality^ These are unattainable in our physical existence. P.ut we have already seen that phvsical existence is irrational, al>o that our ])ersonal identitv is jirolongcd beyond the material condition ; hence s])rings the valid inference that the goal lies in another sphere of being. Granted such a sphere, and without it there is no escape from the irrationalitv of creation, our j^roblem at once becomes easier of solution. The danger lies in its being too easy and in the tempta- tion to solve all difficulties by speculation and guesswork. r)Ut let ns trv to admit only those inferences which seem indubitable or at furthest to keep within the bounds of a reasonable probability.
That a spiritual realm is within such bounds is indicated by the work of those who have devoted their talents to psychical research, even if their ultimate conclusions cannot yet be universally accepted.
706 THE OPEN COURT.
These investigators have collected a prodigious store of data which will bring to a careful reader, if not conviction, at least the opinion that a spiritual existence is no mere fantasy and that it may in time even be proven. Their methods are correct and their work deserves support and enlargement.
Unfortunately their conclusions, even if we accept them, do not wholly read our riddle. Rather do they indicate that the world immediately contiguous to our own is equally irrational. Evil men become evil spirits ; ignorance and maliciousness abound ; even the better of the alleged communicators seem subject to human limi- tations and imperfections. The spirits are apparently much like ourselves ; and if we may believe their unanimous testimony, exist- ence in their world involves difficulties, effort, achievement, and even so failure as it does in our own. Perhaps we have no right to expect otherwise, but the conclusion inevitably follows that if that life _ is also irrational, it, too, is not the final life. There must be other and higher realms beyond. In the same way there may be phases of existence prior to our own. The chief point is that the only way to find rationality in the cosmic order is to postulate several phases of existence of which ours is but one.
Objections of Science. Mallock's Paradox. The scruples which science entertains in regard to such a theory are based upon unsupported negation, and it has been well said that no department of knowledge is competent to enter com- prehensive denials. When the basic contradictions of purely phys- ical science are considered, its summary rejection of the possibility of a supersensible existence need not disturb us. In fact, Mr. W. H. Mallock has founded upon these very contradictions a specious argument for our spiritual destiny. If, says he, we can and do believe in time and space, in mass, motion, energy, ether, directly in the face of the nullifying contraries which inhere in their very nature, we are warranted in believing in God, immortality, and moral responsibility in spite of the no worse contradictions which those conceptions involve. If we can accept the contradictions of physical nature in order to live at all, we can accept those of abstract phi- losophy in order to live well ; that is, to progress in morality and spirituality. There seems no serious objection to this reasoning, yet it shows again the courage of despair, not of hope, unless we broaden his conception of spiritual nature until physical nature shrinks to a comparatively unimportant part of the whole, and expand his idea of the cosmos into a creation large enough to bar-
TIIF. COSMOS AND ITS MKAXIXG. 707
monize all those phcuomona which, seen onl)' in part in our narrow rciiifion. we are cieeeivetl into rei^arclini,f as irreconcilahle.
77u' Oiit'stio)i of Moiiory.
Ae^ain. the utter hlank in memory touching experience in any existence previous to the present is urged against the ]:)Ossihility of such existence. Two replies are jxissihle. If the totality of the existence of each individual l)e made up of a succession of lifetimes, or of distinct periods of sensihility corresponding to that now known as a lifetime, some one of these nuist he the f'lrst. and the series may conceivahly hegin with the present life. I'ut this answer r:i)])ears unconvincing. Human intelligence, it would seem, develops too rapidlw and in its hesl estate attains far too lofty heights for it to have heen initiated with the life in which it now finds ex- pression. A better answer is, that memory is suppressed at birth. Such an inhibition of faculty is supported by many analogies; in truth, that portion of the memory termed specifically recollection, tricksy and uncertain even at noriual, is exceedingly easily tmdone. .'-Severe illness, physical or mental shock, violent stress of emotion, each has been known to cause interruption or complete submergence of all power of reinembrance. In cases of split or multiple per- sonality total arrest of memory between the diti'erent states of consciousness is often observed. \ ery evidently the crisis of birth, the necessity of beginning the human career in a bodv immature to the point of vacuity, the advantage of undivided attention in coping with earthly environment, perhaps, too, the will of the cosmic intelligence, very evidentlv these are am]:)lv sufticicnt to account tor all amnesia. .\nd we may legitimately ])resume that memory will eventually be regained in some luore ad\anccd stage of ex- istence.
Science does not preclude the sort of organization of the cos- mos which is suggested ; it merely demurs that we have no valid evidence, while in general holding aloof from examination of the phenomena alleged to be evidence, largely because these ])hcnoiueTia do not readily lend themselves to exact experiment. Hut more and more the attention of competent investigators is turned toward such study, and we have reason to exjject in no great while definite results from their labors.
The Cosmic Content. The result of our in(|uiry may now be stated in simple terms The cosmos is rational and purposive. But so far as our direct
708 THE Ol'EX COURT.
exajTiination of it can determine, it is neither rational nor pur- posive, as shown by the failure of philosophy, revelation, and science to otter any acceptable explanation. Hence the conclusion follows coercivcly that we are able to examine only a segment of the. whole cosmos, and that the whole cosmos consists of a series of phases of existence leading upward through reality, of which our, own phase, the material, is but one, possibly a minor one. The chief purpose of the cosmic process is the development of intelligence and character, its goal, perhaps unattainable save in infinity, being perfect knowledge and perfect morality. The intelligence behind the cosmos, proved by the presence of intelligence in material nature, is unknowable to us in this sphere of existence, and speculation on its possible personality or attributes is useless ; but of its real existence. we can have no doubt.
This theory seems to solve at least in a measure our most puzzling problems, such as the presence of evil and the apparent futility of effort. An enforced morality is no morality, hence is worthless. '\Ye must achieve moral character through our own exer- tions, and the possibility of such voluntary achievement involves the possibility of failure. Unless the cosmic intelligence keeps hands off we can win but a vicarious morality, and if it does keep hands oft" our failures must engender evil. It is our task to over- come this evil. As to animals, their development doubtless is left as free as our own. The horrors of nature are, therefore, a normal product and but constitute the price which all sensate creation pays for being free, not slaves of some outside power.
Our Jlsioit Cleared.
But under this conception how greatly all these evils shrink ! How trivial do our harshest troubles seem! If this life is but one of many stages on our immeasurable journey, what matter if it be cut short a few inconsequential months? Of what account our petty pains and trials? They become like the frequent stops of a train that bears us homeward, annoying perhaps but of no real moment. Life, instead of being the whole of existence, appears only as a day in our experience. It is to be improved to our very utmost, but after all it is but a day and could be omitted without appreciable loss. The worries that torment us hour by hour will be forgotten on the morrow or remembered with a smile, and ages hence in some far off' higher sphere we shall look back upon this life as we do now upon the half-forgotten troubles of our childhood.
Sic transit diim crcscct animula.
MISCKI.I.AXnOL'S. 709
-Misci-:llax1':()US.
MR. I.I'OXARIVS I'AP.LES.i
nV TK AlCnTT BOEll ME.
The .T'l'^opian taMe IkuI lost it.s vitality as a full-!;r<i\vn type nf literature with the (lawn of the nioclern worUi. It coiitiiuied to he taken '-eriously only in sehools and pnlpits as a \'ehicle for morality in eilueatin,^ ehihlren an<l simiilc folk. La Fontaine. Gay. Gellert, Lessiny, and others endeavored to hring the primitive charm of .TIsop's fahles up to date. They enriched them hy the com- plex social experiences of the age of Louis XIV ; they overcharged them with the niceties of enlightened reason; they embellished them with all the pol- ished artistry of language, diction, and meter relished during the rationalistic age of poetry. P.ut they hardly dep.arted from the primary jinrposc of the .Esopian fable, which had been no other than to teach morality, or rather mores, to help the youngsters grasp and mind the rules of good behavior and social wisdom which their elders had inherited in turn from their own fore- fathers. The Age of Reason was naturally attracted toward a type of poetry that lent itself so easily to the task of dealing out a fixed system of ethics in small doses for educational purposes. These fable-tellers had their vogue while the rationalistic standard of ethics remained intact. Nowadays they are for- gotten, except for a few masterpieces which survive in readers for the ele- mentary grades.
It is a safe prediction that the fables of Jisop and Ifyssol^ will never be reduced to a simil.ar stale of literary "li\-ing death" in the schoolbooks. Teachers may and will appreciate this version of .ICsop as a stimulating revelation of human nature, but it will re(|uire boldness on their part to put it into the hands of children. Pervading the entire collection there is a calm but merciless disregard of the conventional moral creeds. Some of the "morals" may appear quite harmless to the unheedful; but how "carefully formulated" they are. is often revealed if they are taken in connection with the preceding tale. Then their real, and mostly "wicked" character comes out. They .are either pointed as-ertions of the profound amor.ality of man. or ironical illus- trations of the futility or hypocrisy of moralistic moti\ation. This "ethical naturalism" is diametrically opposed to the dogmatic conceit of the rational- istic fable-tellers, but it is not entirely irreconcilable with the spirit of good old practical .Esop. In Mr. Leonard's hands, however, the homely humor of .■Esop assumes an intensity, a subtle force w'hicli the original never possessed These fables not merely expose the folly of men's conduct, but also the fallacy of their reasoning about their conduct. But the humor, if tragic, is virile; and there is a note of heroical defiance and the optimism of an ethical freednm.
It is preeminently through this novel method of "formulating the morals'" that Mr. Leonard has succeeded in awakening an almost extinct type of litera- ture to a new and vigorous life.
1 Jisop and Hyssop, Bcinfi Fables Adapted and OrU^inal witli the Morals Carefully Forintilated,\>y \\'illiam Ellery Leonard. Open Court Pul)lishing Co.
710 THE OPEN COURT.
In the "Original Fables," more fantastically daring in vision and words than the adaptations, still another new factor is introduced. They are used as instruments of trenchant personal confessions and invectives; a human tragedy of overshadowing magnitude looms up behind the studied playfulness of many of these side-glimpses into a "universe of pain and yelling."
While I have rather lengthily dwelt on the general character and ten- dency of the fables, I do not underrate their purely artistic qualities. There is a quaint concreteness, a friendly intimacy about the animal world of these fables which I do not recall to have found anywhere else. Those animals and birds and insects and plants are not merely pegs on which to hang a moral; they live and feel and are our brother creatures. This nearness to nature, this home-flavor of things and beings reminds me of Chaucer, who seems to have also been one of the models for the author's management of the language.
The English deserves a more detailed appreciation than I can give here. It is no castrated poet's English. There is a resourcefulness in the choice and order of words, and a versatility in the use of vocabulary and syntax that gives its peculiar atmosphere to each fable, whether it be honest rusticity or learned punctilio. The mother-tongue seems to be teased that she may betray some hidden aspects of her temperament. The fabulist plays tricks with accents and rhymes ; he experiments with many meters, from classic distichs to old ballad verse and elaborate Renaissance stanzas ; he "dances in chains" and enjoys his triumph over the language doubly under self-imposed severities.
Only a reader equipped with an extensive literary training will be able to recognize the finer values of such work. Mr. Leonard has sacrificed old ^sop's democratic popularity. But to speak of a sacrifice is an injustice to what he has achieved; just as it is unfair to blame Hoffmannsthal for the lack of Sophoclean simplicity and grandeur in his stirring Elcktra. What Mr. Leonard offers in place of that primitive naivete is of infinitely higher interest to intellectuals of the twentieth century.
[To illustrate some of Dr. Boehme's points, we wish to quote a few of the fables, though Dr. Boehme himself did not select them. — Ed.]
From "Fables Adapted from /Esop" (pp. 13, 54, and 73) :
THE DOG AND HIS IMAGE.
A Dog, who clenched between his teeth a bone, Was crossing, as it chanced, a bridge alone, Intent upon a thicket where he might Unseen indulge his canine appetite : When looking down beside the plank he spied His image in the water magnified. "Another Dog, and a more tempting bone ; In size," he thinks, "at least two times my own.' He makes a savage spring with opened jaws And loses both the edibles, because :
Moral. One must acquaint oneself with Nature's laws.
Mist i;i. LAN KOUS. 711
Till". TKi:i'.s AND Tin-: Rrs'iic.
A Rustic Fellow to tlu' fjjrecnwood went.
And looked about iiiui. "What is your intent?''
Inquired the Beecii. "A stick of wood that's sound
To serve as handle for the ax I've found."
The Trees politely grant a piece of ash ;
Which having fitted, he begins to thrash
And lay about him stroke by villain stroke;
And Beech and Ash and Hickory and Oak
He fells, the noblest of the forest there,
And lea\cs a wilderness of stump and weed.
Moral. Of all concessions unto pri\ate greed. Ye Forests and yc Waterways, beware.
TIIK COAT AND THE GOATIIKRD.
A Goatherd in a fit of scorn Cracked with a stone a Nanny's horn. Unskilled to mend with paste or plaster, He begged her not to tell his master. "You're quite as silly, sir, as violent — The horn will speak, though I be silent."
^fo^■al. Man oft repents of what he did — For wicked deeds cannot be hid.
From "Original Fables" (pp. 123 and 146) :
THE BE.\R AND THE OWE.
.A. famished Rear, whose foot was clenched Within a murderous engine, wrenched And bounced about in fright and pain Around the tree that held the chain, Emitting many a hideous howl. His state was noticed by an Owl. Who, perched abo\ e him fat and free, Philosophizefl from out the tree: "Of wh.'it avail tliis fuss and noise? — The thing you need, my Bear, is poise."
Mora!. Such counsels are most sage, we know — But often how malapropos !
THE AS.S .\ND THE .SICK LION.
An Ass mistook the echo of his bray For a celestial call to preach and pray ; And his own shadow, big upon the wall.
712 THE OPEN COURT.
He deemed the everlasting Lord of All.
Besides he had some notions how to treat
Sinners and fetch them to the mercy seat.
So in a broad-cloth tailored coat, combined
With a white collar buttoned up behind,
He got himself a parish. In his flock
Was a sick Lion, panting on a rock.
(It was an arrow from a huntsman's bow
That laid this miserable Lion low.)
Him on his pastoral rounds the Reverend Ears
One morning thus addressed : "These groans and tears,
How base and craven in the King of Beasts !
You need a moral tonic ! Godless feasts
And midnight games and evil Lionesses
Have brought you, brother, to these sad distresses;
Think not that I will comfort or condole — ■
j\Iy cure is drastic, but 'twill save your soul."
Whereat he turned and in the Lion's face
Planted his hoofs with more of speed than grace.
Knocked out the teeth, and blinded both the eyes.
And left him, dying, to the sun and flies.
Moral. This little fable, children, is a proof That no profession, purpose, or disguise Can change the action of an Ass's hoof.
"SAVAGE LIFE AND CUSTOM." To the Editor of The Oj^oi Court:
In the articles on "Savage Life and Custom," by Edward Lawrence, that you have published in The Open Court, some views are expressed which show that the author's knowledge of the race problems is very piecemeal. If your magazine represents the monistic trend of thought, of which the late Dr. Paul Cams was such an able exponent, such articles should find no place in your magazine unless the peculiar views of the articles are corrected. It was a peculiarity of the late Dr. Carus that he was inclined toward cosmopolitanism, while as the same time he was inclined to be nationalistic. This was a point where I seemed to find inconsistency in Dr. Carus, but I am convinced that if I could have stated my views to him fully, he would not have differed from me. Although Dr. Carus was an incessant student, versed in all departments of knowledge, yet I think he never studied the race problems fully.
The monistic philosophy of life, of which the late Ernst Haeckel was the chief exponent, would be in favor of eliminating and exterminating the lower races, rather than trying to civilize them and to favor their intermixture and consequent amalgamation with the white race. After an elaborate study of the race problems, it is clear to me that to assimilate the savage races is a score or more times as cruel as to eliminate them, since to intermix with and assimi- late the lower races involves centuries of evil social conditions in which life
MISCELLANEOUS. 713
will not be fit to li\c for a high t\pc of people endowed with sympathy. The root evil of our present social conditions is race intermixture. A social mil- lennium is not possible unless we have a homogeneous race and one without class distinctions. The correct view of life is also required.
The principal ideals of the monistic philosophy of life arc:
1. To work in agreement with the evolutionary creative plan of God and to favor and foster the improvement and increase of the higher grades of people: to favor the development of a race of people of high-grade intellectual, physical, esthetic, and moral qualities:
2. To eliminate the evils from life, and to bring ahunt a state of society in which all people will be tolerably, equally well supplied with material goods.
I belie\ c no higher realizable ideals can be stated.
The white or European race is, without doubt, superior to tlic non-white races on the following points :
1. Physicallv:
2. Intellectually;
3. Esthetically, or as regards the form and beauty of body and face;
4. In the value of life. Ernst llaeckcl regards the value of the life of the lower sa\ages of man as not much above the higher mannnals. I agree with him.
As regards morality, we fnid numerous indi\iduals of the white race that are low indeed. But if one regards the situation squarely, the while race stands, in general, superior to the others in regard to morality ; although I ha\e no objection if a white man wants to regard himself morally not Ijettcr than the lowest savage. What is an abomination, is the high-browed and self-conceited sense of justice fif the white people. The defects in morality of the white people as compared with the lower savages arise mainly from their wrong-headed view of life.
The European people are hybrids or intermixtures and have no race solidarity. The chief fault of the white race of people is that they have no race pride, no race ideals ; while at the same time they have excessive national pride. The w'hite man judges people by Hieir citizenship rather than by bio- logical race differences. The wdiite man is a fiend and a traitor to his own race. This arises mainly from his wrong-headed Christian view of life with the obvious falsehood that "all men are created equal." The more I think about Christianity, the more defective it appears to me as an ethical system. I think some one wanted to put a curse on the European people, so he invented Christianity. I have always held the view that the Christian view of life would lead to race intermixture, race deterioration, and bring overpopulation and severe economic conditions, resulting in the most disastrous wars. This has been "proved to a finish" by the world war.
The author of "Savage Life and Custom" does not seem to know enough about biology and the evolution of species to know that the interests of widely different races are in irreconcilable conflict. For instance, the conflict between the Mongolian and the white races is irreconcilable. On the other hand, the interests of such closely related peoples as the Germans. English, and French run together. For them to disagree is hazardous, for them to quarrel is dis- astrous. War between them is a w^ar of self-extermination. The European race has received a setback of over twenty million in number as a result of the world war. This cuts like an exponential function into the future.
714 THE OPEN COURT.
The laws of evolution of life are in constant operation. The white race has been found wanting in morality. The Slavic branch of the white race and the Mongolian race, or perhaps a hybrid of these two types, will dominate the Eastern Hemisphere in the future according to the present outlook; and in America we will develop a race of mixed breeds and mulattoes.
The interests of the American Indians and the European people were in conflict in America and the intermixture of the Indians with white people deteriorates them. I suppose the author of "Savage Life and Custom" would have left, in the name of justice, the United States eternally to be inhabited b}' less than one million savage Indians.
The European peoples have ascended from a barbarous or savage state and have superseded the other races in progress. The superior race is con- taminated by contact and intermixture with the savages rather than the savage by the white man. But if the savage degenerates when he comes in contact with civilization, as the author of "Savage Life and Custom" argues,, that only proves the inferiority of the savage. The white people degenerate morally by excessive wealth and luxury; most lower races degenerate by mere contact with civilization, that is true.
Such fundamental facts as the following should be kept in mind. The world cannot support more than twice the present population on an adequate standard of living. The United States cannot support more than 300 million on an adequate standard of living. Germany, for instance, had a population of 67,800,000 in the year 1914. I estimated, before the war, that Germany could not support more than about 45 million on her soil products on an adequate standard of living. This has been corroborated during the war. Germany had a rate of increase of 15 per cent, in excess of emigration before the war. Her economic and industrial expansion was desirable, but the fiends of the white race attempted to thwart her, with the consequent disaster. If the European countries become overpopulated, it is much better if the people expand into other countries and displace the backward peoples instead of killing each other. The ability of population to increase exceeds all bounds of food supply and, in fact, exceeds standing room on the earth. It was shown by Lamarck, Dar- win, and Haeckel that the rapid increase in numbers is an important factor in the evolution of organisms and a necessary factor in the displacement of lower grades of organisms by higher. This applies also to the races of man.
The highest ideal of life is to favor the plan of nature (God) — to favor the development of a race of people of the highest grade, till a certain degree of perfection is attained. The population may then remain stationary in num- ber. Having also attained the correct view of life and complete knowledge of nature a millennium will be possible. The monistic philosophy points out the way.
You may print this letter if you wish. People have such an aversion to truth that they rather choose ruin than to face the bold facts. People seem to be unwilling to learn the lesson of life except by hard experience — by being chastised with diseases, wars, and death. The Creator of life must know what he is doing when he lets such scourges as the world war prevail. It takes such experiences to make people think and to drive a new idea into the recalcitrant human mind.
Peter Filo Schulte.
MiS("i:i,i..\xKoi's. 715
BOOK REVIEWS.
Dkvii.s ; BiniE \'KKSts Pacan. or 'I'iik Pkoiu.km or l\\ii.. P.y //, R. Bnuh-r, P.P. lllustralotl. Pul)Iislied l)y tlic author. 1 larri-l.urij. Pa. [1918.] Pp. x^ 130.
The hook uiuKt ro\ic\v is composed of two parts, the first of wiiich was originally puhlished iiiulcr the title Tlir Bible Peril. This has heen here re- printed witliont change, hut to satisfy tlie (|ueslions "of P.ilile te.icliers wlio desired information upon m.any points tliat did not ci>nie within the compass of the tirst echtion" (p. 71). a second part lias heen added under \\h:it is now the title of tlie whole hook. There are twehe chapters under sundry headings, sucli as Teachiiitr of the ( )ld 'i'evtament, l)e\ils or I K'mons, Tlu- Pagan Devil, The Prohlem c^f l-Ail, Pre\alcnce of DnaliMii in the Days of (dirist, Paul's "Thorn in the Flesh." etc.
The aim of the author is to estal)lish the purely monotheistic character of the Christian religion, which, as he clearly perceives, is somehow punctured hy the doctrine of the Devil. He claims that the traditional conception of the Devil as a "personality" is not P)ihlical at all hut is fashioned after Milton's creation. Says he ( pp. 76f) :
"The dualistic teaching of the pagans seems to have come hack, or to liave been revived within the Church. All contrasts lictween the Bible and the pagan Devil disappeared; and the pagan Devil, as a fiendish, supernatural per- sonality, clothed with the attrilnites of a rival Deity, became the popular faith, whose harvest was the witch mania that overran Europe like a pestilence of darkness. L'nder the invisible pressure of this popular conviction, our King James translation of the Scri])tures appeared. Milton gave the pagan concep- tion of the Devil respectability, and the King James translation gave it author- ity. Xot until the Revised \'ersion of the Scriptures appeared were these old implications of dualism taken seriously. Since then, in thought centers the old conviction of a personal, supernatural, historical Devil no longer exists."
To ju.stify these contentions, all references in the Bible to "The Adver- sary," "Satan," "The Devil," etc., must be explained away. Thus we read on page 27 :
"The Adversary in Job symbolizes an accusing attorney at court, in har- mony with .\siatic custom. The Adversary is not the ruler of a kingdom, located in a dark underworld. He has no distinctive hideousness, nor in any sense is he a rival ruler, set against the Kingdom of ("lod; nor is he a fallen angel. He assembles with the Sons of God; is not reproved for being out of place, and is entirely subject to Divine authority. He acts only by Divine per- mission, in order that, by a severe test, the possibility of an unselfish devotion to righteousness may be made manifest."
The story of the Temptation of Christ is, of course, incapable of literal interpretation — these temptations are "visions." But we may gently remind the author that a narrative of visions of a Tempter presupposes belief in the existence of this Tempter — or else it is fiction. The same line of argument is continued in the second part of the book, where we find the first serious dis- cussion of the New Testament stories of demons cast out by Jesus. To quote the author's words (pp. 125f) ; "Also, what we now call hypnotism, telepathy, and clairvoyance, as psychic forces of human life, the Old World attributed
716 THE OPEN COURT.
to the action of demons, resident in the bodies of men.... The wisdom of Christ is apparent in his custom of meeting the multitude on their own ground. The only method of progress was to drive the demons out of their minds, by healing them of their maladies. .. .Accordingly, Jesus rebukes the devil or demon as though he were a person." (The italics are ours.)
However, a belated stud}' of the Avesta leads the author, after all, "to conclude that there existed a strong disposition in the people toward dualism" after the Exile (p. 103), and he even admits that in the days of Christ the Jewish masses, "cursed by the Pharisees, and then wandering abroad as sheep without a shepherd" (p. 120), had become imbued with the spirit of dualism, in spite of the teaching of their Prophets. Now, it is a well-established fact that the religion of the ancient Jews originally knew nothing of the Devil, that God tempted David to do wrong, etc., etc. But the other fact is just as well established that it was the very study of the Bible, revived by the Refor- mation, that led the people of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as their spiritual leaders to that insane fear of the Devil and his servants which characterizes the private and public life of the whole age. The fact is, there is a Devil in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, and if that doctrine is proven to be illogical, to be inconsistent with the doctrine of monotheism, this argues nothing in favor of Christian theology in general. It simply shows that the Devil is making himself so obnoxious in modern Bible interpretation that he must be got rid of at almost any price.
Finally, even if we discard all dualistic teaching of the Bible, what is thereby gained? A more logical system, to be sure, but the problem of evil, figuring in the title of Dr. Bender's book, remains as unsolved as ever, simply because theology cannot solve it. The best the author has to offer in this re- spect is the time-worn theory of contrast: "If we shrink in horror at man's capacity for brutal degradation, it is that we may better appreciate the out- come of man's redemption" (p. 130). Notice, besides, that here — unconsciously, we take it — -for "the evil outside of man," the "moral evil within man" has been substituted. Such solutions of the greatest ethical problem there is will satisfy nobody who is not contented to cover up the defects of this best of all possible worlds with platitudes and sophistry.
We do not doubt that the book will.be read with interest by ministers and Sunday-school teachers.
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Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers
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This volume contains a translation of the two very important memoirs of Georg Cantor on transfinite numbers which appeared in 1895 and 1897. These memoirs are the final and logically purified statement of many of the most important results of the long series of memoirs begun by Cantor in 1870. A very full historical account of this work and the work of others which led up to it is given in the intro- duction and the notes at the end contain indications of the progress made in the theory of transfinite numbers since 1897. This book is a companion volume to Dedekind's Essays.
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ANATOLE FRANCE
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The Philosophy of B rlr nd R ss II
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Tlicre is a great deal to be said for any philosophy that can stand a joke. Philosopliies are usually too dignified for that; and for dignity Mr. P.*rtr*nd R*ss*Il has little reverence (see Chap. XX, "On Dignity"). It is a method of hiding hollow ignorance under a pasteboard covering of pomposity. Laughter would shake down the house of cards.
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The views of Mr. Russell oflfer a valuable study for people who are interested in knowing something about the causes of war, and probable rivalry which the future may bring about, the prospects of permanent peace, America's policy, etc. It is important that, after peace, the nations should feel that degree of mutual respect which will make co-operation possible.
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The Rival Philosophies
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EDUCATION IN ANCIENT ISRAEL
from earliest limes lo 70 A. D.
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Fletcher Harper Swift, autlior of Educntiou in .liicicnt Israel, is a professor of the History and Philosophy of Education in tlie College of Education, University of Minnesota. Professor Swift graduated from Dartmouth College in 1898, received the degree of B.I), from tlie Vn'ion Theological Seminary in 1903, and the degree of Pli.D. from Columliia University in 1905.
Professor Swift's little volume, though modestly professing to represent a mere heginning, is, nevertheless a genuine, an important and much needed contrilnition to the historical literature of education and social evolution. He traces, following the lines of the best contemporary scholarships, the develop- ment of Hebrew social, religious and educational conceptions and institutions from the school-less days of nomadism up to the system of universal compulsory education established shortly before the fall of Jerusalem (70 A. D.). He dis- cusses not only the training given in the family and trilje, the evolution of studies and of social and educational ideals, the rise of schools, and the part played Iiy parents, priests, Levites, prophets, and scribes as teachers, but many aspects and factors for which one searches in vain in other accounts, such as military training, athletics and games, adolescent rites, industrial training, ■ the teaching of manners, conception of child nature and doctrine of the divine right of parents.
The treatment is divided into si.x chapters: I, general historical survey of the Pre-exilic period; H, education in tribe and family during the Pre-exilic period; HI, general historical survey of the Post-exilic period; IV, education in the family after the Exile; V, education in school and society after the Exile; \T, women and the education of girls. Students will be greatly aided by the analytical table of contents, the center and marginal topical headings, frequent footnotes, selected bibliography, and an imusually carefully prepared index.
Education in Ancient Israel will be heartily welcomed the world over by students of education and of religious, moral and social evolution who have long felt tlie need of such a volume. Coming at a time when a world war has forced an unprecedented universial understanding of the necessity of knowing the historical genesis of contemporary social ideals and institutions, its appear- ance is particularly opportune.
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LETTERS TO TEACHERS
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CIVILIZATION must not only be preserved, but re- constructed. Everywhere the problems of political and economic reconstruction are being discussed ; but underlying these and, even if less immediate, more essential than these are the problems 'of educational reconstruction. LETTERS TO TEACHERS is devoted to the consideration of the problems of educational reconstruction as they affect the public schools of the United States : the fundamental question which they treat is. What should our public schools do to preserve our democracy and to promote the finest Americanism? No ])roblem is more pressing for consider- ation not only b}^ the teachers, but also by the public of America.
In the general view of the problems of education pre- sented by LETTERS TO TEACHERS attention is given to the significance of pageantry as a form of community art which the schools should cultivate. The author. Professor Hartley B. Alexander of the University of Nebraska, is qualified by experience to speak upon this interesting ques- tion. He has taught aesthetics for a number of years and has written not only upon the theoretical side of the subject (among his books is Poetry and the Individual), but is also the author of several poetic works. He has also composed a num])cr of pageants which have been successfully pro- duced, including the "Pageants of Lincoln" for the years 1915, 1916, 1917, and University pageants, 1918, 1919. One feature of Mr. Alexander's work has been his use of American Indian mythic materials. For this work he is quali- fied by special studies. He is the author of the volumes on the mythologies of the Indians of North and of South America in the ]\l3^thology of All Nations series (Boston, 1915 ff.), has written numerous articles on American Indian religion for the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics and two brochures published by the Open Court Publishing Com- pany, The Religious Spirit of the American Indian, and The Mystery of Life (1913) — the latter a poetical pageant founded uj^on the beautiful ritual of the Plako or Wa-Wan ceremonial.
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