THE JAMES K. MOFFITT FUND.
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
\ GIFT OF
JAMES KENNEDY MOFFITT
OF THE CLASS OF '86.
Acces&qn No,
THE IDEA OF GOD
THE MORAL SENSE
LIGHT OF LANGUAGE.
BEING A PHILOLOGICAL ENQUIRY INTO THE RISE AND
GROWTH OF SPIRITUAL AND MORAL CONCEPTS.
HERBERT BAYNES, M.R.A.S.,
ft
AUTHOR OF ,
' The Evolution of Religious Thought in Modern India,'" "Dante and His Ideal
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH;
AND 7, BROAD STREET, OXFORD.
I8 95 .
3
Heb Dduw lieb Ddim; Duw a digon.
Es rauschen den eingeborenen Ton
Der Wald, das Meer seit Jahrtausenden schon;
Gcschlechter schwanden und sind gekommen,
Sie haben des Urlieds Klang vernommen,
Und konnten aus all dem Wogen und Wehen
Ein einziges Wort nur: ,,Gott" verstehen!
Feodor Lowe.
3 Ev
Zwei Dinge erfiillen das Gemiith mit immer neuer und zunehmender Be-
wunderung und Ehrfurcht, je ofter und anhaltender sich das Nachdenken damit
beschaftigt: der bestirnte Himmel iiber mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir.
Kant.
TO 6'vojud crou.
PREFACE.
When dealing with concepts of languages little known
and understood we have thought it well in each case to
give an outline of the grammar and ideology, together with
the Pater Noster, and in this connexion we gratefully
acknowledge our indebtedness to Prof. Friedrich Miiller's
most excellent Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft.
Nor must we fail to 'mention our obligation to Prof.
Tylor's invaluable work on Primitive Culture, and to Curtius'
Grundzuge.
It is hoped that the various classifications at the end
of the work may prove useful not only to the philologist
but to every one who delights to trace the mental progress
of the race. The psychological classifications are those of
Professors Steinthal and Oppert; the genealogical linguistic
classification is that of Prof. F. Miiller, the theistic is
our own.
109280
CONTENTS.
Page
Preface Ill
Introduction VII
VOLUME I.
THE HISTOKY OF SPIEIT AND THE THOUGHT OP GOD.
CHAPTER I.
The history of Spirit 1
CHAPTER II.
Aryan thoughts of Grod . . \ 19
CHAPTER III.
Semito-Hamitic theology . 41
CHAPTER IV.
The Mongol concepts of Deity 50
CHAPTER V.
The theology of the Nuba race 93
CHAPTER VI.
The Dravida Race 98
CHAPTER VII.
The Basques and the Caucasians 104
CHAPTER VIII.
Hottentot ideas of the Divine 112
CHAPTER IX.
The Papua Race 118
CHAPTER X.
The Negro theology 121
CHAPTER XI.
The Kafir Race . 151
~3H VI HS~
CHAPTER XII. Page
Australian theology 163
CHAPTER XIII.
The Hyperboreans 169
CHAPTER XIV.
The American Race 174
CHAPTER XV.
The Malay Race 194
CHAPTER XVI.
The Idea of God: its genesis and evolution 212
VOLUME H.
ETHICAL CONCEPTS.
CHAPTER I. Page
Right and Wrong in Chinese 3
CHAPTER II.
Semitic ethics 8
CHAPTER III.
Aryan views of good and evil 23
CHAPTER IV.
The concept of Love 52
CHAPTER V.
The moral sense 70
Appendix 81
INTRODUCTION.
HE tendency of modern thought is undoubtedly
toward that unification of knowledge which is so
essential to all human progress. Alike in science,
religion and philosophy there is a call for exact correspon-
dence between external fact and internal thought. Science,
on the one hand, is advancing toward transcendentalism,
combining with its results the principles of philosophy, whilst
philosophy, on the other, is learning to operate only on those
abstract symbols which are the rational equivalents of their
concrete reals. Such, indeed, are the dangers of the spe-
cialist that, unless he occasionally take a glance over the
whole field of research his point of view is apt to be too
circumscribed for him to be able to obtain or retain a far-
reaching generalisation. Particularly is this the case with
the theologian and moralist who, ignoring the comparative
method, have looked each at his own science for his own
special purpose, the result being that neither has often had
a vision of total truth.
Now it seems to us that it is the light of Language
which must be thrown on these sciences in order to reveal
their true nature and significance. In few fields of learning
have such epoch-making discoveries been lately made as in
semasiology. Students of language have brought many costly
gifts to the Adyton of science, and it is some of those
~>t VIII Kr-
gems, those dealing more especially with man's ethical and
spiritual consciousness, which it is here attempted to
lay bare.
Accepting the definition of moral philosophy as 'the
science which teaches men their duties and the reasons of
them' the comparative philologist is able to show not only
what this philosopher or that poet thought of Obligation,
but what has been conceived of Gk>d, of Duty, and of Eight
and Wrong by the universal human mind. Interesting and
important as it is to find out the views of Confucius and
Aristotle on Virtue, of Kant on conscience, of Spinoza on
the nature of the Deity and of Wordsworth on Duty, those
of mankind at large are surely not less worthy of attention.
We have, then, to place under the microscope of the etymo-
logist the words for what Cicero has so happily termed the
igniculi et semina virtutum, quae sunt earum quasi principia
et fundamenta.
And here we must remember that it must be a polar
examination, resulting from the application of the historical
method. That such antinomies of thought as many and
one, whole and part, subject and object, matter and mind,
are necessarily conceived as correlatives is the common
dictum of all philosophies, however otherwise opposed. If
there is a law of consciousness which may be looked upon
as original or final it is surely that which tells us that,
absolute unity is a mere verbal abstraction, that, apart from
phaenomena 'force' has no meaning, can only be known in
manifestation, that the infinite is in the finite, the inner
itself the outer; namely, the law of relativity. The question
mooted so long ago at the first flush of speculative thought:
TTtQs be juot e'v TI id TTCXVT' crrai Kai x^pi? eKacriov; may per-
haps be best answered by a re-statement of the problem.
Every thing is a group of relations, every thought involves
relation, likeness, difference; that is to say, thinking is a
synthesis of thesis and antithesis in rapid alternation. The
~>* IX KT-
proof is not only psychological but also linguistic. In our
own Aryan the same root tak has given us different words
for the deepest of all correlations, that, namely, of thoughts
and things and for the possibility of expressing either or both.
thing : think : : denken : bedingen.
If in the macrocosm two phaenomena A and B habit-
ually appear together and the phaenomenon A is presented
to the senses, upon the state a which is produced in the
microcosm the state b immediately follows representing the
phaenomenon A. But the thought-process does not end
here. Since in the outer world the phaenomenon B is just
as much the antecedent of A as A is of B since the
expressions 'antecedent' and 'consequent' are only applicable
as the order of our experience, it follows that, as often
as the state b is induced the state a necessarily follows.
So long as the relation remains the subject of thought,
there must be this rapid alternation of thesis and anti-
thesis. To use Mr. Spencer's illustration: If the outer lines
and colors of a body are presented there at once follows
on the resulting consciousness the consciousness of something
resisting; and conversely, if in the dark a body is touched,
on the resulting consciousness there follows that of something
extended. But in no case is this all. When the idea of
extension recedes, that of resistance does not wholly disap-
pear. Both continue to be thought of as it would seem
almost simultaneously; and since the two members of the
relation cannot be apprehended in absolutely the same
state of conciousness, since, further, the lasting conscious-
ness of them cannot be one state of consciousness, which
is equivalent to no consciousness, it follows that the seem-
ingly-ceaseless presentation of both is in reality a rapid
alternation, an alternation so swift that it produces the
effect of persistence, just as the changing impressions
to which the retina is subjected by the pictures at the
opposite sides of a revolving thaumatrope induce a con-
ciousness of the two pictures as merged into one. From
a logical point of view Prof. Bain says the same:
'The essential relativity of all knowledge, thought or
consciousness cannot but show itself in language. If every-
thing that we know is looked upon as a transition from
something else, every experience must have two sides, and
either every name must have a double meaning, or for every
signification there must be two names. We cannot have
the perception 'light' except as motion from the dark, our
consciousness is affected in a particular way by the transition
from light to dark and from dark to light. The word
'light' has no meaning without that which is contained in
the word 'dark'. We distinguish the two opposite transitions,
light to dark, and dark to light, and this distinction is the
only difference of meaning in the two terms: 'light' is
emergence from dark; 'dark' is emergence from light. Now,
the doubleness of transition is likely to occasion double names
being given all through the universe of things ; languages should
be made up, not of individual names, but couples of names.'
If, as we have every reason to believe, the residuum
of speech, the root, apperception-stuff or perceptual reflex
were originally either the emotional or mimetic repetition
of a syllable, then we can well understand how, in the
synthesis, one syllable would represent the positive and the
other the negative. Thus in Egyptian we find Menmen to
stand y to move; in Joruba baba great Y small. A diffe-
rentiation would be Rulie- Hurry, etc., metathesis of sound
for inversion of meaning. Of radical polarity we have several
instances, notably in the Hamito-Semitic family of speech.
E. g. Egyptian: Ma to give Y to take; tua to honor Y to
despise; tas to separate jA to bind; dp to meet ]/ to part;
'suo to flow Y to dry up; lah empty]/ full; kef to take]/ to let
lie; ken strong Y weak; tern to cut to pieces Y to unite;
terp to take Y to give, and Ken to stand /to go; hierog.:
laau kopt: le someone Y n one.
-3M XI K~
Hebrew: fcirefc to bless y to curse.
Arabic: bdnnali pleasant scent Y a stench; bdda to buy
Y to sell; asdna lie pushed him back y it pleased him; Mas
force |/" fear; balta to separate y to complete; bdsa'a bihi
to rejoice, make glad y to despise; bdka to weep y to sing;
tabdUada to rule y to be subject; gdt'ama to cleave to the
ground Y to raise oneself a little above the ground ; harada
to take refuge in something Y to separate from something;
Jcdlada to rob y to endow; ddlafa to hurry y to go quietly;
dintulm or dajjantuhu I asked him for a loan Y I received
from him a loan; s&mafa to be quick Y to go with short
steps; sdbaha with its double antitheses: to swim Y to dig
into the ground, to be busy Y to be at leisure; sdgada to
throw oneself down (for prayer) Y to stand upright ; sdmma
to poison Y to set right; asgdhu it caused him pain Y it
made him happy ; sdriba to have quenched one's thirst Y to
be thirsty; safdba to destroy y to repair; tasdfaba it became
united y it became scattered; 3 adala to act justly y to turn
away from the right path; afralia to cause joy y to rob of
joj]fdra3a he went up Y ne came down;/a3a he made his
fortune Y ne died; kara$ahu he made him a loan y he
received from him a loan; kdsaba to spoil ]/" to adorn, and
kasabe to refuse to drink Y to drink.
Aryan examples are: .
Skt: upa above Y below
Latin : sacer holy y accursed ; propugndre to attack y to
defend; praevemre to go before, help y to come
behind, hinder ; curiosus full of care, sad y inquisi-
tive, glad.
Persona y personne; Hem y Bien; Aliquis y Aucun; hos-
tis y guest.
French: prevenir assister y empecher.
German: .Bodett ground y loft; bannen to hold fast
y to exclude; gegen towards y against.
v or THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
~X XII HI-
English: square to agree y to disagree; fast rest
]/ motion; shame modesty y disgrace; ravel to
entangle y to disentangle.
As regards let and cZeave in which different roots have come
to be identical by mere outer change, it is a question
whether, to the English linguistic consciousness, they are
polar words or not.
The early Trainers of speech could only realise thought
by thesis and antithesis, likeness and difference. If great
resemblance had to be expressed it could only be done by
negation; the good was only the relatively bad, until, with
the progress of thought, arose separation and distinction
of positive and negative. Of the three phases of primitive
speech, namely, antonymy (each sound expressing opposed
meanings), homonymy (every sound having any meaning)
and synonymy (every meaning being expressed by any sound)
the first would seem to be alike the oldest and most
interesting, but in our enquiry we must take note of all.
Hitherto students of language have, for the most part, been
engaged in seeking and formulating the laws of phonetic
changes, but a far more important study is that of the
laws of conceptual evolution as manifested in the rise and
fall both of word-meanings and grammatical forms. How
are concepts generated and concatenated? How are im-
pressions co-ordinated? These are the questions that interest
the psychological student of human speech.
By more than one apostle of the mind it has lately
been maintained that all future philosophy will be a philo-
sophy of language. Not only do we find the higher order
of linguistic students renouncing the purely grammatical
and syntactical standpoint for the exploration of the border-
land between philology and philosophy, but psychologists
themselves are beginning to see that language is not so
much the garment as rather the body of reason, and that
the problems of reason, or the mythology of philosophy,
~X XIII Kr-
can only be solved by a critique of Language. It is possible,
no doubt, to think in sight and to see in thought: modes of
mind can certainly be represented in architecture, sculpture
and painting, but no fine art in its richest forms can tell
us such a simple fact as: last summer there was a bad
harvest. Again, in nature everything is either necessary
or contingent; there is no still small voice to whisper: 'thou
canst, for thou must!' In other words, sequence of time
and moral obligation can only be expressed in verbal sym-
bols. We are thus led at once to consider the relation of
language to thought, to seek the origin of Reason, to see
whether the dawn of mind was not also the sunrise of the
moral sense, whether conscience and consciousness did not
rise together.
VOLUME I.
THE HISTORY OF SPIRIT
AND
THE THOUGHT OF GOD.
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF SPIRIT.
F the many realms of knowledge upon which pro-
gressing philology has thrown a flood of light, there
is surely none more fascinating to the student of
man than that of ethical and spiritual concepts. Language
has made most of our riddles in ethics and religion, and
must therefore be made to solve them.
Now, in matters of scientific discovery there is perhaps
no safer maxim than the well-known aphorism of Bacon:
Sola spes est in vera inductions.
But nowhere has it been on the whole so persistently neglected
as in the attempts to explain the rise and fall of moral and
religious ideas. And yet it is precisely in an examination of
the fundamental facts of man's common religious and ethical
consciousness that the inductive method should prove most
fruitful. What philology and ethnology have done to strengthen
the tie that binds the individual to his fellow-man, we venture
to think comparative conceptology will do for the broadening
and deepening of his faith. In dissecting the various forms
of human speech we are not only laying bare the progress
of culture, but are writing the history of the evolution of
the moral sense. Thus, if we wish to know what stage in
the development of ethical or religious thought has been
reached by the different branches of mankind, we must ex-
amine their words for God, for sin and righteousness, false-
hood and truth, good and evil, love and hatred, soul or
spirit.
In the following pages we propose to give such a chapter
of ethics from an analysis of language; to listen to the voice
of conscience in the temple of speech. It is not too much
to hold that, in the multiform manifestation of language
we have a contemporary antiquity and are able, as Goethe
would say, to look into great maxims of creation, nay, into
the secret workshop of God! The consideration of the cell-
element of all religious or ethical thought, namely, the con-
cept of Deity or the idea of right and wrong can thus vie
in interest with the astronomer's study of galaxy and nebulae,
of systems and of worlds. To trace the history of the name
which is above every name, to gauge the supreme concept,
to arrive at a truly scientific derivation of the words for
the All-Father, which, from the cradle to the grave, express
for each his sublimest thought, his best feeling, his loftiest
aspiration, must be to every reverent observer, be he ethno-
grapher or psychologist, historian or antiquarian, a very
choice delight.
On the hypothesis of man's evolution from some lower
organism the question naturally presents itself: is there no
life of the soul in some of the higher mammalia, no poss-
ibility of a pre-human ethical or religious consciousness?
Have not the animals morals and religion? It certainly has
been maintained, and more especially by von Hartmann,
that the attitude of many domestic animals toward man is
undoubtedly of a religious nature. In so doing, however,
there can be little doubt that the unconscious philosopher
looks at the question too much from an anthropopathical
point of view, which leads him to overlook the fact that,
owing to its lack of verbal symbols whereby impressions
become co-ordinated, animal consciousness must necessarily
be too fleeting to be called religious or moral. Surely the
great difference between animal and human^ consciousness
is that, whereas in the one case it is purely substantive with
no differentiation of form, in the other form assumes a
separate existence, a fixity in independent mental images.
The reason why the animals do not speak is in no wise to
be found in externals but essentially in psychical momenta.
It is possible for the animal to grow up in human society
to a great extent as the child does. It not only exactly
apprehends speech-sounds, but can itself produce them and
yet it cannot speak. Nay, it can understand other signs
and can even project itself into the mood of others, fully
taking part in human life, though more as rogue than as a
worker. In many respects it is wiser than 'John' and 'Jane',
and yet it does not learn to speak. Why not? Let us first
of all remember that one does not become wise by speaking;
the animals may be very wise and not a little clever in
adapting means to ends : the lack of language does not make
them stupid. That is to say, it is not the content of con-
sciousness which is immediately affected by language, but
only its form. A talking man may have less mental con-
tent, less mental mobility than the animal, but he has his
content in higher form. Of course, under favorable circum-
stances the higher form will further the content. The form
of animal consciousness is perception, that of human con-
sciousness is apperception, which constitutes the fourth stage
in psychical development. Feeling, sensation and perception
may be completed and thoroughly comprehended without
speech, but apperception is only possible with the help of
language. 'Speech is form, speaking formation.'
We have, then, to do with man, and when we say with
man we mean, with the author of Genesis, O^N D^X. It is
not necessary for our purpose to determine the dimensions
of the protogenes Hackelii or to investigate the capabilities
of Huxley's bathybius. All we say, is that, what the Turanians
call JH, the Semites rf?p, the Hamites | e. > , and what we
Aryans call 3gcT or Aoyog is to be found in man alone,
however long it may have been evolving. It is astonishing
how firm a hold this truth had upon the best minds of the
Roman world. Cicero says of man: 'Deus homines, primum
humo excitatos, celsos et erectos constituit, ut deorum cogni-
tionem, caelum intuentes, capere possent'. 'Sed nostra omnis
vis/ writes Sallust, 'in animo et corpore sita est; animi im-
perio, corporis servitio magis utimur; alterum nobis cum
Dis, alterum cum belluis commune est. Quo rnihi rectius
videtur ingenii quam virium opibus gloriam quaerere.' And
Ovid sings:
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus
Sic, modo quae fuerat rudis et sine imagine, tellus
Induit ignotas hominum conversa figuras.
As Prof. Steinthal well observes: 'If we are told that the
Hottentots and Bushmen are nothing but simiae lingua
jiraeditae, we answer with the king and poet of the Hebrews
when he says of man (psalm 8): attamen paullulo tantum
Deo est inferior.'
In seeking the spiritual history of the various races of
the globe let us begin by asking: what is the etymology
of spirit and of soul? For, the biography of the word
will show us how the concept was framed and named, and
how man came to believe he could know so much more
than he ever can know, to realise a world of thought far
removed from that of sense.
Now, as is well known, our word spirit is the Latin
spiritus 'breath', from spir-are (for spis-a-re, speis-a-re, spois-
a-re) 'to breathe'. The root is spu which underlies pus-ula,
pus-tula blis-ter; Sanskrit puppu-sa-s 'lung'; Greek qpu-aa
windbag'; Lithuanian pus-ti 'to blow', and pus-le 'bladder'.
From this root comes also the Greek ipuxn (= spu-ch-e),
which was destined to play so great a part in the history
of philosophy. The direct descendants of 'spiritus' are the
following :
yspu
Spanish :
Oldform :
Old-French
English:
Welsh:
Italian: spirito
Roumanian : spirit
Portuguese: e-spirito
Catalan: e-sperit
French : e-sprit
e-spiritu,
e-sprito
e-spir
spright, spirit
y-sbryd.
Here we find the primary concept to be 'breath' or 'wind',
and the question naturally presents itself: is this true of
other words for spirit? Let us examine a few. The root
of 'animus' and 'anima', 'mind', 'soul', is an 'to breathe', as
may be seen from the following list of cognates:
SJct.:
Send:
Greek:
Irish:
Latin :
French:
Gothic:
VAN
an-a-s 'breath', ^fonq an-ila-s 'wind'
an-i-mi 'I breathe', MnlcMj an-ika-s 'face'.
A^jyjx) ain-ika 'face' (originally 'mouth').
av-e-uo- 'wind'.
an-a-m<m 'revelry'.
an-i-mu-s 'mind' ; an-i-ma 'soul' ; an-i-mal.
a-nae.
J\N-ST 'grace, favor'. nz-jVN-j\ 'I expire'.
Old High German: un-st 'wind'; an-do 'anger'.
Ags.: an-da 'anger'.
Old Norse: 6n-d 'soul, life'.
Swedish: andedrag 'drawing the breath'.
An-de 'spirit'; hellige Ond 'Holy Ghost'. (Norsk).
The change of meaning has nowhere been so great
as in Latin. When, for instance, Cicero says: 'quaedam
animalis intelligentia per omnia ea transit', we have to trans-
late: 'a kind of living mind goes through them all.'
The mystery of breathing was the first to wake the
wonder of our Aryan ancestors. When, wandering on the
banks of the Sarasvati and looking up at the blue dome
above, the venerable B,si asked himself whence this great
creation sprang, he could not but break forth into 'mystic,
unfathomable song':
'The birth of Time it was, when yet was naught nor aught,
Yon sky was not, nor heaven's all-covering woof;
No life, no death, no amplitude of breath was sought
In those primeval days. What clouded all? what roof
Of many twinkling eyes, if need of such could be?
Unknown alike were sun and moon; no light or sound
E'er broke the awful sameness of that vast, wan sea;
The One alone breathed breathless, waiting, self-profound!'
Rgveda x- 129.
A matchless line, unrivalled in the poetry of any nation!
Similarly from a root VA, metathesized AU we get:
Gothic: j\hwj\ 'spirit', Ahma sunjos 'the spirit of Truth'.
yAU'VA 'to breathe, blow'.
Skt.: cnfw 'I breathe', srro^ va-ju-s 'wind'.
Sd.: )jjjo(> vaju 'wind, air'; ^jj\)(> vaja 'The Death-Bird',
which conducts the souls of the dead into the
Beyond.
Gh: y&f d-w 'I breathe', d'-og TrveCjua, d'n-jui 'I blow',
ar|-Tr|- 'wind', au-pa 'breath', d-rip (= d/ep) 'air',
'mist'; d-'i-(J0-iJU, dd-Z-uu, do-0-jLia 'difficult breathing'.
Lat.: ven-tu-s, ven-ter.
Eccs.: ve-j-a 'I breathe'.
Lith.: ve-je-s 'wind', 6-ra-s 'air, weather'.
Goth. : Y^- l f* H ' to blow, to breathe'. Ah-ma = d'rj-ua vi-nd-s
'wind'.
H* 7 H-
An expansion of this root (AU-T-) gives us the follow-
ing important words:
Skt.: MJI^H at-man 'breath, soul, self.
Gk.: di)T-jLir|V 'breath, incense'; di-|Li6-g 'mist, smoke'.
Old Saxon: ath-om. Old High German: at-um 'breath'.
Ags.: 8e$-m 'breath'. Modern High German: Od-em.
Irish: adh-m 'cognitio', adh-ma 'gnarus'.
Again, from the root PNU come:
Gk.: TTve-uu 'I blow', TrveO-jna 'breath, spirit'; Trveu-juuuv 'lung';
ire-Trvujaevo-g 'intelligent'; Trivu-ir| 'understanding'.
Lat.: pul-mo(n) 'lung'.
Eccs.: plus-ta 'lung'.
Lithuanian: plau-czei 'lung'.
Yet another root, with the same fundamental concept,
has given us words for 'thought, spirit, soul'.
VD'U
Skt.: vjpftfti d'u-no-mi, ^ d'u-ta 'I shake, kindle'; VIJTH d'u-
ma-s 'smoke'; vjfa d'u-li 'dust'.
Sd.: /A3/)^ dun-man 'mist, incense'.
Gk.: 0U-U) 'I rave, roar, sacrifice'; GU-V-UJ 'I storm'; 60-vo-q
'assault'; 0u-eX\a, 'storm- wind' ; 0u-uo-$ 'courage,
passion, emotional frame of mind; soul'; 60-|ua,
6u-aia 'sacrifice'; 0ur|-i-? 'odorous'; Gujuouavxi^
'having a prophetic soul'.
Lat.: fu-mu-s, 'smoke'; sub-fi-o 'I fumigate'; sub-fi-men
'incense'.
Russian: #yxi> 'spirit'; ,nyxT> CBHTOH Duk' svjatoj 'Holy Ghost'.
Boh.: du-ch; Pol.: du-ch; Cro.: du-h; Gypsy: du-k 'spirit'.
Eccs.: du-na/ti 'to breathe'; dy-mu 'smoke'; du-chu 'spirit';
du-sa 'soul'.
Lith.: dii-mai (pi.) 'smoke'; du-ma-s 'thought'.
Goth.: daun-s 'odor'. Ohg.: tun-s-t 'storm'; tou-m 'vapor'.
ON.: du-s-t 'pulvis'. Eng.: du-s-t.
~X 8 *~
The conceptual evolution here is very significant:
a) cVumas 'smoke'
p) Gujiiog 'soul'
Y) dumas 'thought'.
Anglosaxon gdst 'spirit', gdst-bana 'devil', i. e. 'spirit-
murderer', G-erman Geist, English Ghost all point to the same
idea, for, they are connected with gas, yeast, geyser.
On the other hand soul is connected with sea and swell.
ysu
Skt: fHifa su-no-mi 'I press juice'; HcTR sav-am 'water';
|RTW su-ma-m 'milk, water'; *RH su-na-s 'river'.
M>r.:sav-itu 'rain'.
Gk.: u-ei 'it rains'; u-e-TO- 'rain', creiuu (== cr/e-juj) 'I shake';
crdXo-s (for cr/d-Xo-) 'oscillation, hesitation'; crdXa
'sieve'; craXcrfri 'tumult'.
Lat.: salu-s, salu-m = crdXog.
Goth.: Sj\iys 'sea'; Sjuyj\Aj\ 'soul'.
Ohg.: swe-11-an 'to swell'; wider-swal-m.
Ags.: j-apul 'soul'. Dan.: siel. Isl.: saal. Dutch: ziel.
Ger.: See, Seele, schwellen. Eng: sea, soul, swell.
Compare for a moment now we know the etymology,
English soul, German Seele, French dme, with Geist, esprit,
spirit. *
All three former words may be said to denote the whole
of consciousness idea, feeling, will, though not quite in
equal degrees. Soul, Seele, ame form the world within, the
Kocrjuoc; vonios as Plato would say. These forceful and
beautiful words express that deep and mysterious well whence
issue and flow the streams of our manifold being. "Who can
say when it will be exhausted? How truly the poet sings:
'Kein Dichter hat sein Tiefstes ausgesungen,
Kein Maler je sein Tiefstes hingestellt,
Tief liegt es in der Seele Dammerungen
Ein dunkles Sein, von keinem Strahl erhellt.'
i See Prof. C. Abel's "Psychology of Language."
^>* 9 K~
But it is different, as Prof. Abel well points out, "if,
dividing the soul into its various capacities, we endeavour
to mark out the proper sphere of each. Geist, esprit, and
spirit indeed concur in that part of their comprehensive
signification which approaches closely the meaning of soul,
Seele, ame; the difference mainly consisting in soul empha-
sizing the capacity rather than its application, while spirit
and its foreign kindred do the reverse. But the moment
this capacity, which they all equally recognise, begins to
enter on the sphere of action, the genius of each nation
profits by the opportunity for the display of its own peculiar
calibre and taste. The German Geist discovers the more
delicate features, resemblances and dissemblances of things,
without expressly attending to their more patent qualities,
qualities which they have in common with many other things
and which reason and sense suffice to ascertain. Geist
endeavours to penetrate the essence of matter I had almost
said, to enter into the Geist of a thing, so identified is the
term with inner individuality and special type. French
esprit certainly proceeds on the same lines, but, in con-
formity with the peculiar workings of the Gallic mind, shows
a tendency to illustrate speciality by strong contrast, and,
as brief and daring comparisons are apt to be incorrect,
frequently succeeds in being more brilliant than true. As
regards the English term spirit, in this particular appli-
cation, it is essentially a sensible quality, but it is sense
shaded off with a warm appreciation of what is correct, right
and true. Instead of pretending to weigh, gauge, and assess
the very soul of a person or an object, as the German and
French relatives of the English term undertake, spirit is
content to discern main facts and clothe them with colors
supplied by principle and sense alike. The diversity of
national character stands out well in these various ways of
distinguishing the leading forces of the soul. The German
endeavours to penetrate the inner essence of things by patient
B
~3* 10 HSr-
research; the French attempt to reach the same goal by
brilliant leaps; and the steady-going, confident, and hearty
valuation of surrounding objects by English sense equally
betray some of the leading characteristics of the three
national types compared."
This examination of the more cultivated idioms has
shown us that, roots, be they reflected sound-gestures or
evolved phonetic types, are for the most part indicative of
human action, pointing thus to the significant fact that, man
was, before all, conscious of his own activity, that it was to
him the best known, the -most intimate of all. And this
truth will become clearer when we go on to consider the
speech of tribes of the lowest order.
Among the West Australians we find the same word
for 'breath,' 'spirit,' 'soul,' namely, Wang, whilst in the Netela
language of California Fiuz means 'life, breath, soul.' To
the Malays of Java 'breath, life, soul' are all expressed by
nawa, which at once reminds us of the Hebrew and Arabic
$BJ nefes, Jt*-*^ nafs, nVl ruak 5 , -^ ruh r , the stages of
development being identical. Of the Seminoles of Florida
we are told that, 'when a woman dies in childbirth the
infant is held over her face to receive her parting spirit,
and thus acquire strength and knowledge for its future use.'
At the death-bed of an old Roman the nearest kinsman
used to lean over et excipies hanc animam ore pio to.
inhale the last breath of the departing!
The various terms life, mind, soul, spirit, ghost are not
so much descriptive of really separate entities, as rather
the several forms and functions of one individual being.
Indeed, the doctrine of Animism, so admirably enunciated
and worked out by Dr. Tylor in his 'Primitive Culture,'
lies at the root of primitive man's philosophy of life.
According to Malagasy psychology, the saina or mind
vanishes at death, the aina or life becomes mere air, but
the matoatoa or ghost hovers round the tomb. The Karens
distinguish between the Id or kelah, the personal life-phantom,
and the t'dli, the responsible moral soul. In the same way
the Fijians make a distinction between a man's 'dark spirit'
or shadow, which goes to Hades, and his 'light spirit', which
is a reflexion in water or a mirror, and stays near where
he dies.
In savage biology the functions of life are said to be
caused by the soul. Of one insensible or unconscious it is
alleged, in the language of the South Australians, that he
is wiljamarraba i. e. 'without soul.' Some of the Burmese
tribes, the Karens, for instance, "will run about pretending
to catch a sick-man's wandering soul, or as they say with
the ancient Greeks, his 'butterfly' (leip-pja), and at last
drop it down upon his head." According to the Caribs,
the chief soul of man, which is to enjoy the heavenly life,
is to be found in the heart, hence jouanni means 'soul,
life, heart.'
Again, Soul has been conceived as the phantasm of
the dreamer and the visionary, that insubstantial form which
is like a shadow and indeed has been often identified with it.
In Arawak, for instance, ueja means 'shadow', 'soul,' 'image.'
Amongst the Algonquins a man's soul is described as
otdhk'uk 'his shadow,' and in kik'e we have natub for 'shadow,
soul,' whilst the Abipones employ the word looked for 'shadow,'
'soul,' 'echo,' 'image.' Similarly amongst the South African
tribes we have Zulu tunsi and Basuto seriti for 'shadow,
'spirit,' 'ghost.' Of the latter, indeed, it is said that 'if a
man walk on the river bank, a crocodile may seize his
shadow (seriti) in the water and draw him in.' The people
of Old Calabar identify the spirit with the ukpon or 'shadow,'
the loss of which is fatal. Nay, even in Christian Dante's
Purgatory we find the dead know the poet to be alive,
because, unlike theirs, his figure casts a shadow on the
ground. According to Dante the dead soul forms for itself
a shadow-body from the air by which it is surrounded. In
~* 12 K~
that lovely and touching scene in the Purgatorio (xxi. 130)
between Statins and Virgil, when the former learns that
Virgil is before him, he bends at once to kiss his feet, but
Virgil holds him back with: 'We are both but shadows'; and
he: 'Now thou canst measure the greatness of my consuming
love for thee, which led me to forget that we are shadows,
and to clasp shadows as though they were solid bodies.'
In the Hebraic doctrine of the D^D*| Repaint and the more
or less obscure teaching of the ekimme in Assyria and Baby-
lonia we again meet with the 'shadow-soul.' When the body
dies, there is detached from it a sort of impalpable and in-
visible image or double, the ns^Rapeh which descends intoViKt^
seol, the Shadow-land, the Ekimmu which goes down to Aralu
'The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns.'
And now that we have learned a little about the rise
and growth of the concept, it seems almost ludicrous to
think of the amount of useless speculation as to the seat
of the Soul. Aristotle placed it in the heart, Plato in the
brain. Herakleitos, Kritios and the Jews sought for it in
the blood, Epikouros, on the other hand, in the chest. More
recently Ficinus placed it again in the heart; Descartes
in the pineal gland a little organ situated in the centre of
the brain, containing sandy particles. Sommering declared
the soul's seat must be in the ventricles, and Kant in the
water contained in them, whilst Huxley can only think of
it as a 'mathematical point.' 'The brain,' says Biichner, 'is
not merely the organ of thought and of all higher mental
faculty, but also the sole and exclusive seat of the Soul.'
Already our study has shown us how great is the
difference between the outer and the inner, the body and
the soul of language, nay, between thought and its ex-
pression! Who would have thought that the same radical
idea, the simple act of breathing, would have given us words
for Mind and Wind, for Thought and Dust, for very Soul
~~ 13 H$~
itself? It is a remarkable fact in Sanskrit that the oblique
cases to the substantive svajam are formed from atman, and
there can be no doubt that the Greek CCIJTOS comes from
the same root an to breathe, just as in Arabic we find
nafs-u 'self, and 1m 'he', havyat 'ipseity' from hava 'to breathe,
be'; and nafs 'breath, soul'.
animus : d'vejuo^ : : cVurnas : dumas.
It is perhaps not unnatural that 'the act of breathing,
so characteristic of the higher animals during life, and
coinciding so closely with life in its departure' should have
repeatedly been 'identified with the life or soul itself.' But
what a gulf between the breath of a savage and the Atman
of the Vedanta, the udgit'a, the Om, the Brahman of the
Aryan world, representing the high-watermark of speculative
thought and finding its best expression in the Upanisads!
To the uncultured mind it is simply 'in breathing see breath,'
but to the philosopher, to the pandit of Aryan thought it
is: 'know the Self by the self,' i. e. know thyself to be a
limited reflex of the eternal Self, that thy spirit is part
of Spirit supreme! Hence Sadananda, the author of the
Vedantasara exclaims :
Akandaih Sak'k'idanandamavan-manasagok'aram |
Atmanamak'ilad'aramas'raje 'b'istasidd'aje ||
'In order to obtain my heart's desire, I flee to the indivisible
Self of the World (Atman), the Upholder of All, beyond
speech and reason, and consisting of Being, Thought, Joy!'
Indeed I am not sure that we should not be justified
in translating Atman 'the Prayer of the World.' It is the
\OYO of feeling, the incense of the heart, the Breath of
the Eternal! What to the Hebrews was objective "1HJJ
the smoke of the sacrifice, was to the Aryans intensely
->* 14 *$-
subjective, was, in fact, the aspiring will of man: Brahman
(j^barh), Atman, euxeaOai, MOJIHTLCH, orare, precari, bidjan.
Unlike the children of Israel, the Arabs seem ever to have
depended more ,upon the inner than the outer: *yoo (from
How great, again, is the difference between the
of the Greek peasant and that of the Homer of philosophers !
It has been truly said that, if not the best, Plato's definition
of the soul is certainly one of the best ever written: TUJ
juev 9eiuj mi dGavdiiu mi vonTtp mi juovoeibeT mi dbtaXuiuj
Kai dei djaauTius mi Kara rauia EXOVTI eauiuj ojuoiOTdinv
eivai ij;uxn v - 'The soul most nearly resembles an essence
which is divine, immortal, intellectual, homogeneous, in-
divisible, and always and uniformly the same.' Accepting
the oucria or Eternal Substance of Parmenides, Plato argues
that the forms of this universal oucri'a are certain eternal,
simple and self-like (oiuoiiLjuctTa) pictures, which exist in the
human soul as vormaia, immutable concepts. It is these
alone which really exist, id ovia, OVTUJS 6'via, and form the
xocTjuog vor|T6g. From them come all ideas of the True,
the Beautiful and the Good, whilst the world of sense,
KOdjuos 6paTO, has no real existence, is, in fact, the OUK
6v. Indeed, the whole system may be described as a
philosophy of the soul (cpiXo(TO9ia ifjs MJUXHS)- God (6 vous)
has created the human soul immortal as part of himself,
because it is itself the cause of motion (auio auTO KIVOUV),
and because it is the necessary antithesis of the death of
the body. The ipuxn has two parts (juepn) by which it is
united with the body: whilst the XOTICTTIKOV Tf| vyuxns or
the vous has its seat in the head, the animal part (TO
dXoYiCTTiKOV or eTriGujunTiKOv) is to be found in the abdomen,
the GUJLIOS or the 0u)uoeibe<; in the breast. The souls of men
have not always been bound to this weak body; they might
indeed be enjoying the eternal contemplation of the
~3* 15 Kr-
but having turned away from them, they have sunk into
mortal bodies, wherein by memory (dvdjuvncri<;) they pant
after the eternal types!
It was, doubtless, in recognition of the instinct of im-
mortality that the Greeks and the Karens were led to
adopt the butterfly as the emblem of the soul. Dr. Owgan
has well shown the twofold analogy between the two cases.
Firstly, between the three states of existence through which
the insect passes, and those through which the human being,
if immortal should also pass. Secondly, between our spiritual
instinct which leads us to anticipate another life, and that
evident instinct which guides the lower animal to make
preparation for the transformation of which it is impossible
that it can have any fore-knowledge; from which it is
^naturally inferred that, as the instinct of the butterfly is
infallible, so also is man's.
Between ipuxrj and irveOjua there is precisely the same
nuance of thought as between $SJ and n^, ^Lij and .^.
Perhaps this is nowhere so clearly seen as in Isaiah xlii. 1 :
nnr\
Hen abdi et'mak-bo bk'iri razt'ah nafsi nat'ati Ruk'i
alaiv mispat lagojim jozi.
'Behold my servant, whom I will uphold; my elect, in
whom my soul delighteth: I have put my spirit upon him,
that he may bring forth justice to the nations.'
As quoted in the New Testament:
'!6ou, 6 mxis juou, 6v fipencra, 6 dfttTrnTo^ juou, 6v
euboxncrev rj yvxfy juoir Grjcruu TO TrveOjud juou err 3 aurov,
Kai xpiaiv roTg 6vecnv d7TafTeXei.
The Arabs distinguish not only between ^Jj Nafs and
^ Ruh but between J^ JJi* Akl-i-kul 'Universal Reason',
'Cosmic Intelligence' and J^ J^3 Nafs-i-kul 'all-embracing
~3* 16 X~
Spirit, Over-Soul', which, as an emanation from God, is
subordinate to the former.
It was the TTveu.ua ayiov of which, on the day of
Pentecost when the whole house was filled with the sound
of a mighty, rushing wind, the Apostles were full. Nay,
of the Eternal himself it is said that, He is Spirit: TTveGua
6 Geog ! This is the supreme revelation of the Son of Man
to the children of God!
Spirit of all the spirits of our race,
Who of all souls art ever Over-Soul,
Thine is the crescive secret, thine the roll
Of aeons and the stately stretch of space.
In thine infinitude for each a place
Be found as facet, jewel, or as Scroll
Whereon the alphabet of love, the whole
Of being, thought and joy thou mayest trace.
Son of Man! the brotherhood of man
And sisterhood of woman in one faith
And fire of heart art thou, and thine the plan
Of service, till the gentle hand of death
Reveal the banner of all souls unfurled
In thee, o Heart, whose nutters fill the World!
Having thus traced the development of the concept
Soul from the simple act of breathing to the sublime thought
of God, let us go on to consider the predicate of Deity,
which will show us how, in all ages though in different
ways, man has been conscious of dependence on a Higher
Power, a Nobler will than his own, and has panted after
God as the hart after the waterbrooks.
The idea of God: was it evolved, revealed, or arrived
at by a play of subjective intellectual activity?
In discussing this important question philosophers have,
for the most part, employed the deductive method. Thus,
so subtle a thinker as Hume tried to show that the idea
of Gods arose out of the ignorance and fear which personi-
fied the "unknown causes" of the accidents and eccentricities
of Nature, the idea of one God Monotheism out of the
~>; 17 HS~
gradual concentration of flattery and offerings on one of
these personifications. According to him polytheism is the
deification of many unknown causes of natural phaenomena;
monotheism the deification of one unknown cause. Comte
supposed the so-called primitive fetishism to spring from
infant or savage by a tendency which it had in common
with dog or monkey to ascribe to natural objects organic
or inorganic, a life analogous to its own. In Comte's view
the individual passes, as the race has passed before him,
through three states, the theological or fictitious, the meta-
physical or abstract, and the scientific or positive. He says :
"En etudiant ainsi le developpement total de Fin-
telligence humaine dans ses diverses spheres d'activite,
depuis son premier essor le plus simple jusqu'a nos jours,
je crois avoir decouvert une grande loi fondamentale, a
laquelle il est assujetti par une necessite invariable, et qui
me semble pouvoir etre solidement etablie, soit sur les
preuves rationelles fournies par la connaissance de notre
organisation, soit sur les verifications historiques resultant
d'un examen attentif du passe. Cette loi consiste en ce
que chacune de nos conceptions principales, chaque branche
de nos connaissances passe successivement par trois etats
theoriques differents; Fetat theologique ou fictif; Fetat meta-
physique, ou abstrait; Fetat scientifique ou positif. En d'autres
termes, Fesprit humain, par sa nature, emploie successive-
ment dans chacune de ses recherches trois methodes de
philosopher, dont le caractere est essentiellement different
et meme radicalement oppose; d'abord la methode theo-
logique, ensuite la methode metaphysique, et enfin la methode
positive. De la, trois sortes de philosophic, ou de systemes
generaux de conceptions sur Fensemble des phenomenes
qui s'excluent mutuellement ; la premiere est le point de
depart necessaire de Fintelligence humaine; la troisieme,
son etat fixe et definitif ; la seconde est uniquement destinee
a servir de transition."
c
~>> 18 H~
In his 'Descent of Man' Darwin combines the various
elements of an ascription of life to natural objects, dreams,
fears, &c. Mr. Spencer considers the propitiation of dead
ancestors, who are supposed to be still existing and to be
capable of working good or ill to their descendants, the
rudimentary form of all religion. Sir John Lubbock is
perhaps the only man of any authority in England who
considers that tribes of the lowest culture, representatives
of primitive man, are utterly destitute of belief of any kind.
The transition to fetishism he describes as arising partly
from dreams and disease, and, in some cases, owing to
divination and sorcery.
With the exception of Comte's, all these theories agree
in the following propositions: a) that primitive man had no
kind of idea of a God; p) that the animism of savagery
was the rudimentary form of all belief; and Y) that, in the
progress of the species from savagery to advanced civili-
sation, anthropomorphism grew into theology.
That these propositions, arrived at by the deductive
method, are not tenable, we hope to be able to show by
the application of the method of induction, by national and
international linguistic analysis. We want, in fact, fewer
theories and more facts; and for these facts we must look
to the Logic of Signs or, in other words, to the Science
of Language. It is customary with logicians to assume that,
all objects of belief are susceptible of prepositional form;
but the evidence of language when examined ideologically
will, I think, conclusively prove that, confidence in a Divine
reality may be expressed in other than our familiar affir-
mative forms of language.
19
CHAPTER II.
ARYAN THOUGHTS OF GOD.
To begin with our own Teutonic concept of Deity, what
is the etymology of "God?"
"Parmi les noms europeens de Dieu", says M. Ad.
Pictet, "qui n'ont pas de correlatifs orientaux, mais dont
quelques-uns peuvent etre fort anciens, je ne m'occuperai
ici que du gothique Gutli, et de ses analogues germaniques.
Les essais multiplies qui ont ete faits pour 1'expliquer
montrent bien a quel point nous sommes livres aux incerti-
tudes etymologiques quand les termes sanscrits ou zends
nous font defaut," Starting from the base guta M. Pictet
would naturally look for a Sanskrit form ^ guta. Not
finding this, however, he suggests that the Gothic word
came from ^<r huta (yHU), which has the double sense
of sacrificatus and is cui sacrificatur, "et ce dernier con-
viendrait parfaitement a Dieu," giving us the formula
Now, though this may at first sight seem a tempting
etymology, especially as we have the analogue usra jagata,
AJK>A)jAyv> jasata, ^\>^, jasddn and Isten (yJAG), yet I
cannot but agree with Ebel that Gud and not Guth is the
true Gothic form, as the corresponding term in old High
German is Kot.
That "God" cannot come from "Good" will, I think,
be no longer doubted by any competent philologist. Not
only is it that in Gothic the vowels are different, Gud in
the one case and god in the other, but there is the never-
failing distinction between the long and the short vowel in
H3* 20 H~
Anglo-Saxon. Let us take, for instance, two passages from
Beovulf (15541563):
And halig God
Geveold vig-sigor, vitig drihten.
J>at vas vsepna cyst,
Buton hit vas mare bonne senig mon 6Ser
To beadu-lace atberan meahte
God and geatolic giganta geveorc.
And in the following verse from St. Luke (viii. 19):
Da cwseft se Hselend: hwi segst $u me godne. nis
nan man god buton God ana.
In Gothic:
Kvath than du 'irnma Jaisus. hva mik kvithis godana.
ni ainshun gods niba ains Gud.
In Norsk :
Men Jesus sagde til ham: Hvi kalder du mig god?
Ingen er god, uden Een, nemlig Gud.
The forms Gud and god in Gothic become, according
to a phonetic law affecting the Aryan stratification of speech,
Kot and kuot in Old High German. Of the former we
have proof in a translation of St. Ambrose's three Hymns,
beginning :
Kotes kalaupu dera lepames
Dei fide, qua vivimus, etc.
whilst in the word kuotchunti for Gothic godlcundi 'gospel',
we have an interesting verification of the latter. It is a
law as well understood and as regularly applied as the
so-called 'Celtic process', according to which initial con-
sonants are changed into others of the same origin, to
denote a diversity of logical or grammatical relation. For
instance,
Tad 'father'
Ei Dad 'his father'
Ei Thad 'her father'.
& 21 K~
In his Etymologisclie Forsclmngen Prof. Pott suggested
the root sud* 'to purify', but we know that sud is a cor-
ruption of hud" or kvad' (cf. Ka0-apo<;, cas-tus, cis-tu) which
could only give us Hud or Haid in Gothic.
Similarly when Ebel connects Gud with Sanskrit gad
(Ku0-ov, KeuG-uj, cus-tos), the reply is that an Aryan form
ktida would have given us what in fact we find, namely,
Huda, hide, Hut.
Nor do I think Schweitzer and Leo Meyer have been
more successful. The hypothesis of the one being Guth =
ved. D'uti, because, forsooth, skt. d is sometimes reduced
to h, and li = g Gothic ! whilst that of the other is that
Gutha is the original form and corresponds with Guta.
No, if we want an etymology which is to be of any
scientific value, we dare not disregard the Lautverschiebitngs-
gesetz. If the exact phonetic equivalent cannot be found
in Sanskrit, let us turn to Ancient Bactrian.
"What I venture to submit is that the word 'God' is
derived from the Eranian verbal adjective JUKUMOAJIX) ftaddta,
meaning 'self-evolved' or 'self-determined', 'obeying one's own
law', as opposed to AJWAW^JK?.Q stiddta 'following the law of
the world'. So far from agreeing with M. Pictet when he
says : 'le g gothique, en eifet, ne saurait en aucun cas
repondre au q zend', it seems to me that a sound which
is the equivalent of Pahlavi and Persian &' cannot have
been very different from Greek x> which is the normal ex-
ponent of Gothic g.
Very remarkable are the passages in the Avesta in
which the word Kaddta occurs. I shall quote at least three,
firstly word for word, and then in M. Darmesteter's ex-
cellent translation.
jOr .yX
self-determined Universe Zoroaster thou Invoke
high-in-action. Vaju boundless Time
-X 22 K-
|| Nisbajaguha tti Sarat'ustra t'wasahe k'ad'atahe
Srvanahe akaranahe Yajaos uparo-kairjehe ||
'Invoke, o Sarat'ustra, the sovereign Heaven, the bound-
less Time, and Yaju, whose action is most high'.
Vendidad xix. 13 (44).
having-its-own-law place Misvana I call upon
Masda-made. K'invad bridge
|| Nisbajemi Misvanahe gatvahe k'acVatahe k'invad-
peretum Masdad'atam ||
'I invoke the sovereign place of eternal weal, and the
k'invad bridge, made by Masda'. y. 36 (122).
The last is a very obscure passage from the Yendidad
Sadah, and M. Darmesteter has to confess that his trans-
lation is doubtful.
most warlike Self-Existent Ancient Meresu I call upon
Mighty. Creation of-the-two-spirits
|| Nisbajemi Meresu P6uru-K'ad c at6 juid'isto
mainivao daman savaghaitis ||
M. Darmesteter translates: 'I invoke the ancient and
sovereign Meresu, the greatest seat of Battle in the Creation
of the two spirits'. If I venture to give another version it
is because I feel that I am supported by the note of a
distinguished Eranian scholar. In his Handbuch der Awesta-
sprache (p. 111. n. 2) Dr. Wilhelm Geiger, referring to
this passage, says: 'Das Folgende . . . ist vollkommen un-
erklarbar. Bemerken mochte ich nur, dass in Qadhdta ein
Eigenname vorliegen konnte? This is the more probable,
because P6uru-K'ad c ato is the subjective case, so that I
should render the sentence as follows:
~>; 23 *-
'I call upon Meresu. In the creation of the two spirits
the Ancient-of-Days, who follows His own law, was a mighty
warrior.'
K'ad'ata is composed of K'a 'self, and data, the perfect
participle passive of jAla (Skt. d'a, Gk. 0e) 'to lay, make,
create'. Hence 'law' as that which is 'laid down'. The
Sanskrt equivalent is ^aroTcT svad'ata, for, Old Bactrian
x)tA> Ka is another form of AWOJO hva which represents
Skt. ^g sva. We have seen that it is used hoth as an
adjective and as a substantive, and I think it is not going
too far to hold that we have here an Aryan phonetic type
expressing a concept of Deity.
To this etymology proposed hy me, it is only right to
state that, Prof, de Harlez has objected on the following
grounds: firstly, that the expression svad'ata is not Aryan,
that, outside the Avesta it is nowhere to be found; secondly,
that it never designates the divinity. Ahura Masda is not
described by K'ad'ata. He argues that, in the third century
of our era when the Germans already used the word GHith
the Persian-Pahlavi k'udat was nothing but a transcription
of the Avestic and that the k'uda of the fifth and sixth
centuries had the exclusive sense of 'king', 'master', 'chief.
"How should the Germans", he asks, "who were besides in
the north of Europe, have understood and borrowed a term
unknown beyond certain mountainous districts of Asia?
What motive could they have in adopting and applying it
to God?"i
Now, in the first place, my answer is that, although
the form Svad'ata is peculiar to the Avesta, the expression
Svad'a feral), which is a personification of wra, is thoroughly
Aryan, and is used in connexion with the worship of de-
ceased ancestors. Thus, in the B'agavad-Gita (ix. 16) it
is the solemn religious exclamation of those who offer an
* The Babylonian and Oriental Record: Vol. 1. No. 7. pag. 109.
24
oblation to the Manes. And though Ic'ad'ata is not speci-
fically applied to Ahura Masda, it is applied to Srvana-
dkarancij boundless Time, by which deity, according to at
least one sect of the Persians, Ahura Masda was created.
Alike from 'Sahrastani, from the reports of the Armenians
Esnik and Eliseus and from Damascius, as Prof. Spiegel
informs us, we learn that, the Zervanites hold that Srvana-
akarana is really the eternal unconditioned Ruler, that he
created Fire and "Water and that from the union of these
two elements Ahura Masda arose.
Thus ^gvrr and AJtoAx^vo may well have been per-
manently before the Aryan religious consciousness, nor is
it more surprising to find k'ad'a among the Goths as
Gud than to know that an obscure son of Aditi wr has
become the Supreme Being to the Slavonic nations EOFR
Let us but look at the following list of cognates:
Aryan:
Old Bactrian:
Pahlavi:
Parsi-Gugarati.
Persian :
Kurdish:
Pastu:
Osseti:
Kdsmiri:
Sind'i:
Urdu:
Datiani:
Muslim-Bengali
Xynay
Svad'ata
K?ad c ata
K'utat
K'odao
K c uda
K'ode
K c udai
K'uzau
K'udain
K'uda
K c uda
Kuda
K f oda
-> 25 K?~
Kumildan: \^. K'ucla
Gothic: rnj\ Gud
Icelandic: Gu$
Swedish:
Anglo-Saxon: God
.Low German: God
Frisian: God
Flemish: God
Zto7i: God
English: God
German: Kot
Thus, alike in extension and intension, this Aryan con-
cept of Deity is a truly noble one; it is the absolutism of
the supreme 'Law unto Himself, Lawgiver to man.
'God is law, say the wise, o Soul, and let us rejoice,
For if He thunder by law, the thunder is yet His voice.
Law is God say some; no God at all, says the fool,
For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool.
And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see,
But if we could hear and see this vision were it not He?'
And what of Slavonic EOFL, which is to Russians,
Bulgarians, Servians, Slovenians, Croatians, Bohemians,
Wends, Slovaks and Poles the supreme thought? As
already hinted Kfi, modern Eon, Bog is really the Vedic
wr B'aga, one of the sons of Aditi. Here again, however,
it is not to India but to Eran that we must turn for the
supremacy of the concept. In the Veda the place of B'aga
is always one of subordination. Even amongst the Aditjas,
the phases and forms of the Infinite, he is by no means
chief. Thus we read (ii. 27. 1):
26.
srenft srafi 1 sisr: u <i n
|| Ima gira Aditjeb'jo grtasnuh |
Sanadragab'jo guhua guhomi
Srnotu Mitro Arjaina B'ago nah |
Tuvigato Varuno Dakso Amsah || | ||
'May this song be poured forth to the Aditjas:
I bring the offering to the Kings of long ago!
May Mitra, Arjaman, B'aga hear us!
Varuna, Daksa, Amsah, the mighty-born!'
Nowhere do we find vm as a synonym of cr deva
Braliman or ^ir+H Atman. In the minds of those
early Aryan poets he was but one of the many sides of
the 4j|fdfrl Aditi by which they were surrounded.
But to the dwellers in Eran he had become Ahura
Masda himself. In an Inscription of Alvend we read:
|| Baga vasraka Auramasda hja imam bumim
God great Ahura Masda who this earth
ada hja avam asmanam ada hja martijam
created, who that heaven made, who man
ada hja sljatim ada martijahja hja darajavaum
made, who plenty made of (= for) man, who Darius
k'sajat'ijam akunaus aivam parunam k'sajat'ijam aivam
king made one of the many kings one
parunam framataram
of the many rulers. ||
Again, in the Avesta there are at least three passages
where Baga cannot but apply to Ahura Masda. In one
of the hymns addressed to Haoma, the Vedic Soma, we
read: (Jasna x. 2627).
27
Aurvafitem t'wa dami-datem Bago tatasad hvapao.
The God who fashioned thee, the swift dispenser of
wisdom, was a supreme Artist!
Prof. Spiegel translates:
'Dich, den grossen Spender der Weisheit, bildete ein
kunstreicher Gott.'
The same sentence follows, with f\>jo(3AJoy nidat'ad for
tatasad.
Then, in the 19th Fargard of the Vendidad, which
constitutes the framework of the whole book and gives us
the wonderful history of Sarat'ustra's temptation and victory,
we find the following (78):
>\Jy-V/AJ?-)c>3^l() .f
Aad Vohu-mano-nidaitis suro-tVarstanam raok'agam
jad he staram Bago-datanam aiwi-raok'ajaonti.
And the prayer of man shall be under the mighty
structure of the bright heavens, by the light of the God-
given stars!
Now, wr Raga comes from Yvm frag just as A>pAn
Baga, is derived from Yyx>\ bag, the fundamental meaning
being 'to bestow'. Hence from this root we have many
words expressing fortune, property.
to bestow, to obtain.
Sid.: b'aga 'son of Aditi, fortune, happiness, wealth';
b'agavat 'adorable'.
Sd.: baga 'God, the Highest Good'; bag-a-s 'piece'; bago-
bak'ta 'God-given'.
~3H 28 HE-
Persian: bak'-t 'fortune'; bad-bak't 'unfortunate'.
Buss.: Bog 'God'; boga-tiii 'rich'; u-bogii 'poor'; bogat-stvo
'riches'; bog-inja 'goddess'; bes-bosie 'godlessness'.
Lifh.: bago-tas 'rich'; na-bagas 'a poor man'.
Gk.: qpaT-eiv 'to eat'; cpay-a-g 'devourer'; qpctY-ov-es 'teeth'.
Goth.: ga-beig-s 'rich'; manna gabigs 'a rich man'.
Eng.: big.
Welsh: ffaw-d 'fortune, luck'.
Irish: fuigh-im 'I get'; fagh-ail 'getting'; fuigh-eall 'profit'.
Ski.: wi B'aga
Sd.: AJOAJ> Baga
OP.: j:KE Baga
Pvi.: 9^ Bag
Pers.: ^ Bag
PJirg.: BcrfaTos (Zeu$)
Sd.: Compounds: AJWAW^-^PAJ^ Bago-data God-made.
Persian: Mjob Bagdad, the City of Irak,
built A. C. 762.
Bog
^>ol?
Bou
Old Slavic:
EFT*
Russian :
Bon>
Polish:
Bulgarian:
EOFL
Wendisli :
Slovenian:
Bog
Croatian:
Servian:
Bory
Bohemian :
Slovak:
>6f>
Tungusic:
Baga.
Hence B'aga, is God as the great Bestower, the All-
giver, the bountiful Dispenser of Riches. Few, if any, of
the sons of Aditi have had so interesting and important
a history. Whatever be the view taken of the Aditjas,
whether solar or meteorological, certain it is that the wr
of the B,g-veda has developed not only into the AJOAM of
the Avesta and into the Clan-God of the Cuneiform In-
scriptions, but has actually become the TTpOuTr) 0eou evvoicc
of all the Slav nations.
->* 29 *E~
Of the Timgus Tatars Castren tells us that, besides
the Sun and Moon, Heaven, Earth and Water, they worship
a Supreme Being whom they call Buga, and perhaps it is
not going too far to hold that it was through tliis channel
that the Slav peoples obtained and retained their thought
and predicate of God. Whilst worshipping the forces and
beauties of Nature it is hardly to be wondered at that one
of the Turanian tribes should have adopted the Eranian
generic name for deity, especially when we remember the
etymology which, in this case, seems never to have been
lost sight of.
The history of this Name is interesting in many ways,
and especially as an illustration of the law so clearly per-
ceived and so poetically described by Dante in the Paradiso
(xxvi. 130):
Opera naturale e ch'uom favella.
Ma, cosi o cosi, natura lascia
Poi fare a voi secondo che v'abbella.
Pria cli'io scendessi all' infernale ambascia,
I s'appellava in terra il sommo Bene
Onde vien & letizia che mi fascia;
Eli si chiamo poi: e cio conviene;
Che 1'uso de' mortali e come fronda
In ramo, che sen va, ed altra viene.
In dealing with the great Aryan family of mankind, to
which we ourselves belong, let us not forget those thoughts
of the Eternal which have sprung from the primary con-
cept 'to shine', 'to be bright', from the ever-growing con-
sciousness that 'God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.'
To the early Aryan framers of thought and speech,
to the Rsis of our race all atoms in space were mirrors,
fronted with the perfect face of God! The sun, the moon,
the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains were or deva,
'hright\ from the root fe^ div 'to illuminate'. And the sky
was ci xar' eHoxnv, it was aft djo 'the Illuminator', from
the metathesized from of the same root zx dju. Nor was
~>* 30 K~
this all. In some of the oldest hymns of the Rg-Veda we
meet with the great Asura afte Djaus, Heaven, the su-
premely Bright one, and more especially in that close
connexion with fam pita, 'father', which is so familiar to
us in the religion of Greece and Rome, dim fun I Djaus-
Pita, points to a primitive Aryan arorT Dju-Patar 'Heaven-
Father'. 'This discovery of Dyaushpita', says Prof. Max
Miiller, 'was like finding at last, by means of a powerful
telescope, the very star in the very place of the heavens,
which we had fixed before by calculation'. Thus we read
(Rgv. vi. 51. 5):
llfvyfg JTTrT:
HHH ^Tt I
Djauh Pitar iti Prt'ivi matah ad'ruk |
Agne b'ratah vasavah mrlata nah ]
'Father Heaven and kind mother Earth,
Brother Fire, bright spirits, have mercy on us!'
He is often invoked as dim fun I ^facrr Djaus pita ganita
(= Aryan Dju-patar ganitar), Zeug irarrip T^veinp, Ju-piter
genitor 'Heaven-Father creator'.
In Homer we read:
ZeO udrep, r\ frd TK; da-d Ppoxdiv dir' direipova Y a ictv,
"0(m<; r dGavdroiai voov xai juf^nv dviijjei;
Heaven-Father, who of mortals on the boundless earth
Can now the immortal mind and will speak forth?
And in those beautiful lines of Sophokles:
Gcipaei jaoi, Gdpaei, T^KVOV.
gri laeYa? oupavuj
ZU<; o<; dcpopa iravra Kai Kpatuvei-
CD TOV
Courage, courage, my child;
Still is in heaven mild
Almighty Zeus ; he, watching, ruleth as of yore :
To Him commit thy grief exceeding sore,
And be not wroth henceforth for evermore!
-> 31 K-~
Amongst the Eomans we find besides Jupiter the form
Diespiter. Thus Horace (lib. I. xxxiv):
Xamque Diespiter,
Igni corusco nubila dividens
Plerumque, per purum tonantes
Egit equos volucremque currum.
There is a passage in Ovid which gives us in two lines
the two other forms:
Di pia facta vident. Astris delphina recepit
Juppiter et stellas jussit habere novem.
In Welsh we have the striking motto:
Heb Dduw heb ddim: Duw a digon.
Without God without Everything: God is enough!
And this name, once found, was never to be lost. There
has been no solution of continuity. Subject, as every other
name, to dialectic growth and phonetic decay, it has sur-
vived in many a forceful way to bear witness to the eternal
truth that God is our Father and we His children! Whether
uttered on the Himalayas, amongst the oaks at Dodona, in
the Eoman Capitol, on the Welsh hills or the plains of
Brittany; whether whispered in the forests of Germany,
proclaimed from the peaks of Scandinavia, the heights of
the Isle of Man, or wafted across the lonely lakes of Scot-
land and of Erin it is the selfsame word.
DIV:DJU
Ski.: tcre devas 'God'; aft djo 'Heaven, Day'.
Sd.: joMjvjo* daeva bou'iuujv
Gk.: Zeu$, Ai/-og; Aum/n; baijuiuv.
Lett.! >eea?8 'God'
Lith.: >iea>6 'God'
Samo: SDieroas 'God'
Lat.: Deus; Diov-is; Ju-piter; divus; div-initas; Diana;
dies; sub clio.
-X 32
Pali:
Mar aft:
Sinhalese:
Gypsy:
Persian:
Tosk:
Geg.:
Welsh:
Armoric:
Irish:
Gaelic:
Manx:
eTR
Jebba 'God'
devane 'God'; Devane
'God'
'God'
Dew-el
&> dev
Tia, in the compound TTepviia = Paramdeva
Peren-dia = Paramdeva.
Duw 'God'
Doue 'God'
Dia 'God'
Dea 'God'
G-i = Dji 'God'
Rom. (Oberl.): Deus
Rom. (Engad.}: Deis
French: Dieu
Vaudois: Diou
Roumanian: Ze in the compound Dmneze Dumnedeu
= Dominus-Deus
Italian: Iddio, Dio.
Piedmontese: Diou, Iddiou.
Catalan: Deu
Spanish: Dios
Portuguese : D eus
Prov. : Dieu
Old Norse: Tivar 'gods'
Gothic: Tius
Old High German: Zio
English: Tues-day.
Of the tribes Non- Aryan who have adopted this word
we find many in America, doubtless owing to the presence
of the Spaniards:
Totonaki: Dios
Ajmara: Diosaja
Mayan: Dioz
Paeses: Dios
Lules: Lios (for Dios)
Abiponese: Dios
Color ados: Dios
Timukua: Dios
^* 33 HS~
Of the Malay race there are two instances:
Kdgufl: Dew-se
Batta: A ^ X Del) - ata
Amongst the Dravidas we find at least two examples :
Telugu: ~^ ?^j Devvada
Konkani: Devata
In his Hibbert Lectures of 1878 Prof. Max Miiller
says of this pre-eminently Aryan concept:
"Five thousand years ago, or, it may be earlier, the
Aryans, speaking as yet neither Sanskrit, Greek, nor Latin,
called him Dyu patar, Heaven-father".
Four thousand years ago, or, it may be earlier, the
Aryans who had travelled southward to the rivers of the
Penjab, called him Dyausli-pita, Heaven-father.
Three thousand years ago, or, it may be earlier, the
Aryans on the shores of the Hellespont, called him Zeu$
Train p, Heaven-father.
Two thousand years ago, the Aryans of Italy looked
up to that bright heaven above, hoc sublime candens, and
called it Ju-piter, Heaven-father.
And a thousand years ago the same Heaven-father and
All-father was invoked in the dark forests of Germany by
our own peculiar ancestors, the Teutonic Aryans, and his
old name of Tiu or Zio was then heard perhaps for the
last time.
But no thought, no name, is ever entirely lost. And
when we here in this ancient Abbey, which was built on
the ruins of a still more ancient Roman temple, if we want
a name for the invisible, the infinite, that surrounds us on
every side, the unknown, the true self of the world, and
the true self of ourselves we, too, feeling once more like
E
~5* 34 Kr-
children, kneeling in a small dark room, can hardly find
a better name than: "Our Father, which art in 'Heaven'."
Another Aryan thought of the Deity is that of Ruler
or Commander, from the root ^r, often in conjunction
with param, 'supreme'.
A /
ylS to rule, have dominion
Sanskrit: 4'*5R Is-vara, ^r Is-a Lord, God.
Kait'i: RR Is-ana
Parbuti: ^ c( t Is-vara
Multani: 6^f7^^ Is-ranai
Sand: jjj Is to rule.
Bengali: ^T^Jl Is-wor God; ^^tf ois-worjo
'Power, might'.
Hindi: ^5R^ Is-varane
Mondari: m.4*eHi Param-Esvara 'supreme Ruler'.
G-urmutii: ^^ Param-Esura
Umbrian: Es-unu 'sacrum'; Etruscan: Aes-ar 'deus'.
Irish: Aes-ar, Aes-fhear.
Perhaps the modern Bengali will serve best as an
instance of the use of this word for the Supreme. In the
Tota-Itihasa we read of a certain Sultan Ahmad who was
a man of great wealth and power. 'A thousand horse, five
hundred elephants, nine hundred camels, with their burdens,
were wont to stand ready at his gate'. But he had no family.
f&ft
Ei karon tini dibaratri, o prate o sondjate
Iswor-pugokerder nikote gomon.
-2w 35 K~
'On this account he day and night, morning and evening
was in the habit of going near worshippers of God'. Thus,
by means of worship, he made request for the gift of a son.
An extremely interesting and significant Aryan thought
of God is that of the Armenians, which seems peculiar to
themselves. Nowhere in the Realm of Language do we
find such a consciousness of the omnipresence of the Deity.
The word is ^ U uini.ui& Asdouaz, meaning He-is-hcre. The
beautiful Gospel message of St. John iii. 16 is thus trans-
lated into Armenian:
tlniilil[ uftplrg ui^juuip ^^, J^li^L. tip
hn Jjiui&nL f|/ I 7/ r " ififii_iui_. np uidl^L nJ nn uilntn ^tui iiiuntii
Inkou wor Asdouaz anang sirhz askar he, minkjev wor
miazin Worgin dwau. Wor amen uv wor anwor hauadaj
Ifgorsoui, habajauidhnagan gjanke entouni.
'For God so loved the world that He gave his only-
born Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life'.
As to the etymology of Greek 0e6g much has already
been written. Many have attempted, notably Prof. Max
Miiller, to connect it with the root div, which has given
us Deus, but the initial seems to me an insuperable
difficulty. On the whole I venture to think that Doderlein
has found the true solution. He connects it with jAGeo"
which we find in Gecr-ad-jnevoi (= aiincrdiuevoi), 0eo*cr-e-cr0ai
(= aireiv, iKeieueiv), 0eo-g standing for Gecr-o-q as a sub-
stantived adjective.
to beseech, pray to
Greek: Oeo-s for 0ecr-o-s God ; Tro\u-0ecr-TO- much-beseeched ;
-^, Gea-itup.
-^ 36 HS~
Latin: fes-tu-s, fes-tu-m, fes-tivu-s, fer-iae.
French : fe-te, foire.
Port. : feira.
Prov.: feira. Span.: feria. Jt: fiera.
Eng.: fair (cf. German: Messe = mass).
Hence Oeoc; is 'He4o-whom-prayer-is-made'. From this
root, too, we learn how all holidays were originally lioly
days, nay, how even the fair itself was a place, a time of
prayer!
Xenophanes says:
Eic; 0eo<; e!v Te GeoTai KCU dvOpuuiroiai jueficJToc,
00 TI b^iac, 6vr)ToTai 6|uoio^ cube vornaa.
Of gods and men One God alone is Lord
Nor unto mortals like in form or word!
Again, in Theognis:
0eo!<; euxou, Geou; darw TU KpdToq-
OU TOt CXTp 0GIJUV
dvOpujTroi<; OU-T' dydG' ou-re
But it is in the New Testament that the word has
been hallowed and endeared to us all.
Mrj TapacrcrecrGuu ujuujv rj Kapbior TriaTeOeTe ei<g TOV 0eov,
Kai ei? 6]ue TricrreueTe.
Before taking leave of Aryan theology let us not forget
the specifically Hindu view of the Eternal as subjectively
^JiTr*R Atman objectively sraR^r Brahman. We have already
seen something of the evolution of the former concept, but
the rise and growth of the latter are not so clear. There
can, however, be little doubt that Brahman comes from
l/"gr| barh 'farcire', to cause to swell, so that it would at
first seem to mean 'flood', i. e. prayer, whereby man's
aspiration is met by God's inspiration. As soon as the
individual soul, the givatman, has learned to see that it is
really part of the Over-Soul, the Paramatman, Mukjatnian,
->; 37 K~
Aupanisadatman, it becomes one with Brahman and lives
the life of Prayer.
n
Sarvarii kalv iclam Brahman; tag-galan; iti santa
upfisita. K'andogja-Upanis'ad: iii. 14.
All is indeed Brahman; in Him it breathes, begins
and ends; so let every one adore Him calmly!
irtcfl 1
Brahman satjam, gagan mit'ja, givo Brahmaiva naparah!
Brahman is true, the world is false; the soul is Brah-
man only and no other!
When a man has once had this vision he exclaims:
HrT C^T tat tvam 'that art thou' and loses himself in Self
supreme, in gfegflR^ Sat-Kit-Ananda 'Being-Thought-Joy'!
This final solution of the search of the Hindu mind
after the Eternal and the Infinite I have endeavoured to
express in the following sonnet:
seeker after God, eternal rest
Alone in Self is found! All else is part
Of this great whole. See here, in this my heart
1 feel its streams of light and life. No quest
Of first and last can now the soul molest;
For shines not 'neath the veil of soul, athwart
The vast .dim sea of space, whose atoms dart
Refulgent through the worlds, supremely blest,
The beauty of the Self? No longer now
Do shadows of duality appear.
The sward of being rises; sweet and low
Come murmurs of glad music; crystal clear
The streams of peace upon the spirit fall:
Existence, thought, love, bliss the all in all ! *
1 The Evolution of Religious Thought in Modern India (S. P.
C. K.) p. 36.
-> 38 K~
Of Indo-European thoughts of God which have become
polarised in speech there yet remain for examination:
vvxjrx)* Masdao, *rv^ MdnraJi, ^l^> Jahdn, o^f?. Jasdan,
and jlx.*^JLc Manistdr.
t>\>^ Jasdan, like D^rfttf Eldlnm, is a plural form, and
may be taken as the Persian subsumption of the henotheistic
phase of religious thought. In the Gulsan-i-Ras or Rose
Garden of Mystery by Sa'd ud Din Mahmud Sabistari,
which is a compendium of Sufi thought and faith we read:
Knan tan Gabr Jasdan Ahriman guft.
'E'en as those Guebers speak of Jesdan and of Ahriman."
As already hinted (p. 19) the fundamental meaning is
He-to-whom-sacrifice-is-made'. From the same root comes
the Greek <rfio$ 'holy'. And what is still more remarkable
is the fact that, the Magyars, a Non- Aryan people, have
adopted this very word for God, in the form Isten. Let
us look at the congeners:
|Ai5T JAG to offer, to sacrifice
Sanskrit: zrarrftr jag-a-mi / offer, icorship; UOTH jag-jas to
be revered.
Sand: ^^ jas to offer to, praise; wwc\'f* jasata veneraUe.
Persian: >^ jasd, ^\^. Jasdan God.
Greek: erf* aZ!-o-uai I revere; ay-\o-<; (=jag-ja-s) Iwly;
af-vo-<;pure; 0.^-0$ consecration ; a^ilojloffer.
Magyar: Is-ten God.
Just as in Iran the Hindu $& deva, God, became
\w\>\ daeva, devil, so in Mesopotamia the Persian >^
jasd, God, became Ised, devil.
"The Izedis or Yezidis, the so-called Devil-worshippers",
says Dr. Tylor, "still remain a numerous though oppressed
->* 39 KT-
people in Mesopotamia and adjacent countries. Their ad-
oration of the sun and horror of defiling fire accord with
the idea of a Persian origin of their religion (Persian ized
= god), an origin underlying more superficial admixture
of Christian and Moslem elements. This remarkable sect
is distinguished by a special form of dualism. While re-
cognizing the existence of a Supreme Being, their peculiar
reverence is given to Satan, chief of the angelic host, who now
has the means of doing evil to mankind, and in his restora-
tion will have the power of rewarding them. 'Will not
Satan then reward the poor Izedis, who alone have never
spoken ill of him, and have suffered so much for him?'
Martyrdom for the rights of Satan! exclaims the German
traveller to whom an old white-bearded devil-worshipper
thus set forth the hopes of his religion".
The Persian word ^>U^. Jdhdn God goes back to Old
Baktrian juy.uj^o from the root AM yuo jd 'to go', so that Jana
is really the 'going' to the gods, i. e. prayer, supplication.
And this is the etymology of the Latin Janus.
JA to go
Skt.: ZIR jana a going.
Sd.: AJ/AXUVO jana a going, prayer, salvation, blessing.
Pers.: c;U^?. Jahan God.
Lat.: Janus, janua, janitor.
Assamese wvqj Manrah God, and Persian
Mdnistdr Over-Soul or Supreme Spirit come from the root
man, which has given us nearly all our words connected
with mind. This is very significant: if, as has been often
held by philosophers, there be nothing great in the world
but man and nothing great in man but mind, then the
Eternal must not only be spirit but mind supreme. 3 Ev
6
~>~ 40 H~
1/W5T MAN to think
Sanskrt: wfar man-mi I tlmik; *T=TH mind; irf?T3[ ma-tis
opinion.
Sand: jw man to think; eo^xy^? rnan-agh mind, man.
fyjoe .>eo\j(> Vohu Mano Good Thought, the
first of the Amesa Spentas.
Assam: irv^n? Man-rah God.
4-*
Persian: ^LXx^oLo Man-i-star Over- Soul.
Greek: (iiev-og mind, mood; Mev-Tuup; Moucra = Movna.
Latin: Men-s; Mon-i-tor; Miner-va; Mone-ta.
jAtt\rx-- Masddo, the Supreme Being of the Parsis, pro-
bably conies from an extended form of the same root. The
primary form seems to be ma 'to measure', the secondary
man 'to think', and the tertiary mad" 'to meditate, ponder'.
Just as nasdista = nedist'a and mjasda = med'a, so S VW^A>*
= ihn Masddo Med'd cosmic Intelligence. The word is
usually found in connexion with AJ^HJOAJ Ahura, the breathing
or living one, so that the thought is: Living Mind! Some
have held that it is a compound, namely, TAJ? mas great,
and v uv^ Dao knowledge, which would amount to an in-
tensification of the same idea.
Sand: Ahura Masdao
Old Per s.: Aura Masda
Pahlavi: Oharmasd
Persian: Orrnusd.
Let me close the Aryan thoughts of God with the
Persian ^>L*. ^U^. Gan-Gan from the root 5R gan (Sd. ^r
san) 'to produce' which has given us gen-ius and (g)natura.
Truly a beautiful thought: Life-Life!
"'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that I want."
S* 41 Kr-
It was Life and abundance thereof that the Shepherd
of Souls brought for His true followers: eru> rj\0ov, wa
uur|V exujcri Kai Trepio~o~6v exu^v- And as the king and
poet of the Hebrews sings:
ki inika mkor kajjim; borka nireh-or.
'For with Thee is the Fountain of Life ; in Thy light shall
we see light!'
CHAPTER III
SEMITO-HAMITIC THEOLOGY.
In trying to penetrate the hallowed precincts of the
Semitic religious consciousness, to watch the first attempts
to express the Inexpressible, to utter the Unutterable, we
might a priori conclude, from the mould in which the mind
was cast, that we should not find such an expression as
'Heaven-Father' or even 'Heaven' to be the symbol of
the Divine. Whether we find him in Siclon or Tyre, in
Babylonia or Mesopotamia the leading idea of God in
the mind of the Semite was that of Strength, Awe, Sover-
eignty:
rrn;
Ani El-Saddai: hit'halek' Ipanai vehjeh t'amim!
'I am God, Almighty, walk before me and be thou perfect!'
Gen. xvii. 1.
This name of God, El, ^^ ^\ ismi c asim the Great
Name, as the Arabs call it, is found not only in Hebrew,
but also in Syriac, and Himyaritic and Babylonian In-
F
~3H 42 H$~
scriptions. The fundamental meaning of the root was 'to
be thick' and then 'to be flesh and stron'.
AL
Hebrew: h* El Deus; DVftg h Deus Deorum; jrtjj *?
Deus altissimus; ^ T1K cecZn divinae; ''Tin
^ monies divini
Himyar: A.J& Al
Syriac- ^J Al
Arabic: Jj^ II
Samar: IfllA Ail
Assyrian: ^-f or >->- Ilu (rod. E. g.:
E-a Samas Marduk ilani
The gods Ea, Samas and Merodach.
Another well-known Semitic form is niVg Eloali, Arabic
*V1 J^/?, from a root meaning 'to be perplexed, confused',
'to be afraid', the transition of ideas being Fear, Object
of Eeverence, God. In Hebrew it is the plural form
D^r6 Eldhim with which we are more familiar, and which,
from being originally opposed to the D"nt? S'edwi or evil
spirits, came to be the subsumption of the henotheistic
phase of the Hebraic religious consciousness. Compare,
for instance, Deuteronomy xxxii. 17, with Genesis i. 1:
Jisbbohu lassedim 16 Eloah: Elohim 16 idaum!
'They sacrificed unto evil spirits, (things that are) not God :
to Gods whom they knew not'.
Bresit' bara Elohim et' hassamajim v' et' haarez.
'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'.
-sx 43 K-
But it is amongst the Arabs that this form has become
supreme, for <UJ1 Allah stands for rtll j\ 4Z .ZZfl/i. The
key-note of Islam, nay, of Sufiism itself is the oft-quoted
sentence ascribed to Muhammad:
Kan Illahu, va lam jakun malm se!
'God was, and there is nothing but He!'
The realisation that Allah alone is Being, all else
being Not-Being, is termed by the Sufis J^-y* tavlnd or
'assertion of the Divine Unity'. One of the great objects
of Sufiism is the attainment of this consciousness of the
identity of the individual soul with the Over-Soul or Divine
Essence, which state, when it is merely a temporary ecstasy,
during which the soul beholds, as it were, its own Apo-
theosis or Absorption, is called JU*. Hal, corresponding
to the 2KCFTao~i or arrXiJuais of the Neo-Platonists. The
next state, which is that of utter selflessness, is called Ui
<3JU\ <3 fana fi 'llah 'Annihilation in God', evuumq or 0euu(Ti$,
such as that of Moses on Mount Sinai. At this stage the
Traveller on the Path is said to be (jlL* v-j^J^o magsub
Mutlak 'drawn into the Absolute' or o MjT dsdd sara'
'released into the Eternal Law'. There is yet another stage,
which is considered final, namely, <OlJb *Uo l)dkd hi } lldh
'abiding in God'.
* ALAH to be agitated, fear
Hebrew: JTK Eloah
Arabic: <UJ\ = Jl J\ Allah = Al llah
Judaeo- Arabic: n^ Allah
Karsun: oJ Allah
~>~ 44 *-
Aramaean: ;ji Alaha. E. g.:
Melta d' Alaha de-kabbel:
'The Word of God, which he had received'.
Alaha de-saged att leh va-sa'em att leh besme'
va-sema't ket'ab'au.
'God, whom thou honorest, and to whom thou
bringest sweet savours, and whose books thou
hast heard'.
Phoenician: - Alilat,
We now come to what the Rabbis call the
'the isolated Name' or Dty^n D^ 'the secret Name',
namely, ffiiT.
From the third century B. C. down to our own day
there seems to have been a shrinking from uttering the
true name of the God of Israel. A passage in the Talmud
runs:
'Said the Holy One, who is Blessed: I am not read
as I am written. I am written with Joel, He, and read
with Aleph, Daleth'. To this day in the Synagogue, when
he stands with the roll before the Ark, the priest pro-
claims the eternal truth:
mrp tt'rftK nirr hvrtir*
nr t v* vi ;T t A" ' s *
Deut. vi. 4.
but instead of saying:
Sma' Jisrael, Jhovah Elohemi Jhovah ek:ad!
he chants it:
Sma' Jisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai etad!
Hence the true sound of the most important Name in
the whole realm of pre-Christian religion is still a matter
of uncertainty. As regards the first two letters, however,
there can be no doubt, for the Psalms are full of that
majestic paean: nn^n Hallu-Jah 'Praise the Lord'.
.->; 45 K~
Now, according to Theodoret and Epiphanies, the Name,
in the fifth century of our era, was pronounced IABE, and
from this statement Reland and Ewald have concluded
that the true vocalisation is njJT Jahveh.
But there is another form given by Diodorus Siculus
and St. Irenaeus (2nd cent. A. D.), by Origen (3rd cent.)
and by St. Jerome (4th cent.), namely, IAQ or JAOH,
i. e. niiT. On the other hand, St. Clement of Alexandria
writes it IAOY, which would exactly represent the Hebrew
form irp.
Rev. C. J. Ball in an article on this subject con-
tributed to the Babylonian and Oriental Record suggests that
Yalnvali or Yahawah was the true vocalisation of the Tetra-
grammaton, and gives in support of this hypothesis two
names found in Babylonian contract tablets ; >~*3f J
Ga-mar-ja-a-va = rnrTHDJ i. e. the Nethanjahu and Gemar-
jalm of the Masoretic text of the Old Testament.
It would thus appear that the Holy Name KCIT' Hoxr|V
in the fifth century B. C. was pronounced by the Jews of
the exile Jahava and by those at home Jahu. And this is
just what we should expect. In Arabic ^ l lid is pro-
nounced both liu and huva, $ being alike vowel (u) and
semivowel (v). Nay, the emphatic form for God in Arabic
is ybb Jdliu He! So that we have from the same root
the formula:
ybb : 1,T : : ybb : nin^
Jahu : Jahu : : Jahuva : Jahava.
The human heart yearning, in dumb yet trustful fashion,
after the Eternal, finds It, as the Hebrew of old and
the Arab of to-day, to be Being, and exclaims with the
Ansariah :
46
Jahu, Jahu, ja man la jaalam malm illahu!
'0 He who is, He who is, He whom none knows what
he is but Himself!'
jri HAVAH to breathe, be
Hebrew: rtt!T Jahavah, nj Jdh God; Ktii Sw he.
Arabic: y>b JaTw God; y& 7ift he; &* huvijat Ipseity,
Being.
J-J God.
From this root comes also that revelation of the
Eternal in Exodus iii. 14:
Yajomer Elohim el Moseh: Ehjeh aser Ehjeh. Yajonier
koh tomar libne Jisrael: Ehjeh slakani alekem.
'And God said to Moses: I-will-be that I- will-Be. And
He said: Thus say unto the children of Israel: I-shall-Be
sent me unto you'.
Now, we know that Moses was learned in all the lore
of the Egyptians, so that it is quite possible he may have
been aware of the forceful fact that, when the religious
Egyptian died, he had inscribed on a sacred scroll these
remarkable words, which were his sublime thought of
God:
AAAAAA
AAAAAA
Nuk-pu-Niik 'I am that I am', which is the exact
counterpart of rrng 1$K HVW Elijeli-aser-Ehjeli, as in this
case it is certainly open to us to translate the future by
the present.
~>5 47 ;<~
We have thus seen how man- Aryan, Semite and Hamite,
from the simple act and image of breathing has been led
on to sublimest thought of the Infinite and Eternal!
In Arabic there are three concepts of Deity which
are very striking and which we shall do well to consider
here. Besides ^JJ\ Allah, which is understood all over the
Muhammadan world, we have y~T Amm, ^1*3 Vahhab,
and J^v. Haiti.
The first is from a root meaning 'to be stable', 'firm',
and means Faithfulness, Loyalty-to-Truth, Amen!
J1^> b
Amin ja Rabba '1 aalamin
Amen! o Lord of the Worlds!
AMAN 'to be firm', 'stable'.
Hebrew: fi&N Emet' stability, faith, truth.
|K Amen true, truth, so-be-it!
Arabic: cxH' Amm faithfulness, God.
The second is the form used more especially by a sect
which, in our own day, has been distinguished for its fanat-
icism. t->l*3 Vahhab means Bestoiver and is therefore the
Semitic equivalent of Aryan wn B'aga, of which we have
already treated.
Vahhabu'l eataja blk^Jl <_;l^
'God, the Bestower of Benefits!'
<3*. Haiti, is a most important word in the East. Alike
to Arabs and Persians it means Truth, 'The Truth', God.
Of Him, whom St. John describes as the Ao^o^, the Arabs
speak as j^UJ JU KaWl Hakk, Word of God. But it
was through 'the friend by whom the head of the gallows
was raised', namely, Hussain Manssur, Hallag, the wool-
--3H 48 *-
carder, that the word has become world-famous. He was
born at Baid'a, a borough in Persia, and brought up at
Yassif. His mystical writings, his eloquence, and the belief
that he possessed the power not only of divining what went
on in the homes but also the most secret thoughts, attracted
many friends but made even more enemies. He was the
first in Persia to spread the doctrine of the unity of the
knower and the known, which he expressed in the memor-
able words:
Ana'l-Hakku j^T\ U \
'I am the Truth 7 .
On returning from a journey to India, Transoxana and
China, whither he is said to have gone in order to bring
those lands to a knowledge of the One True God, he was
charged with heresy and unanimously condemned to death
by the Imams of Bagdad. After suffering the most fearful
torture during which he constantly repeated the above words,
he was hung as a heretic in the year of the Higra 309
(921 A. D.), under the Chalifate of Muktedir Billah.
Passing on to Hamitic concepts we come to Egyptian
(j Nuter, which is derived from a root meaning 'to crush'
rzi AAAAA
'to destroy'. It is also found in Hieroglyphics as |
^ /WNAM -~ ^ ^
and ^ ^ and in Demotic as C/, Cp, V, Koptic
In the Turin Papyrus of Aufank we read:
O
AAAAAA
Enoik Nuter da tioper t'esef: I am the great God, the
Am God great existing self [self-existent!
Again :
^^ D t^\ _jj_ |\ AAAAAA < ~ > ^= (|
Nenek pu amen ren-f er nuter-u
'I am he whose name is more hidden than that of the gods!'
->* 49
1^ r-1.9 Q /WWV\ /--\ ft
T^ 1 T ' ^ m < j
Nuter ud ante em mdtu dr enti-u Mm unen-tu.
'God only living in truth, Creator of-that-which-is, Fashioner
of-beings!'
The Koptic form may best be studied in translations
of Holy "Writ. Thus: 'And God blessed Noah' is ex-
pressed by
TO? cVq^JUV GII2C6 <|)-h 6IJNO6
Uoh afsmu enge P'Nuti en-Noe.
'And blessed (Norn.) God Noah'.
VNEK : NUT
AAAAAA ~.
nek to sca tter; E=snN\ nes-t to strike.
c~^=~^ \
rA^AAAA i 1 r ] [Tl
^ JVt^r God; Nuter-u, gods.
Demotic: C 9 ^7w^ God.
Koptic: <|)t p'Nuti God.
SaJtidic: uois-c concutere; MOTTG Deus; UMTMOTTG di-
vinitas; UMTUMTMOTTG divinitatis essentia.
Mempliitic: OMTT contundere, molere.
In the languages known as Ethiopic, Amharic and
Tigre we find a most remarkable conception of God: it is
that of the rich Eealm-Holder, the Land-Lord.
Egsidbeher: i. e. Egsm land, Belier Lord.
In Ethiopic we also find the expression AMh Amldk,
King. In Galla the thought is
T^r (j/"^) WdM-jo Potter
E. g. Kan nu hume Wakajo: 'He who has made us,
is God'.
Nam-ni Wakajo sagada: 'Man God reveres'.
~X 50 *-
On the other hand, in Bogos we have
(jar Heaven
E. g. Duva takalan! ji ganat aiiir G-ar-li dabiu gun-la ;
intin inti ganat 4r-li dabdanni-ma: 'Say, ye daft ones!
I bury my mother in Heaven; will ye not also bury your
mother in Heaven?' Nan aw&gin? Gar inahadila! 'What
shall I do now? G-od help me!'
Alike in Kabyle, a Hamitic idiom, and in Barea, a
language of the Nuba race, we find the Hebrew ^2fi EdbU
Master.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MONGOL CONCEPTS OF DEITY.
In nearly all the idioms known as Turanian we find
it was the turkis-vaulted dome of the sky, the broad and
beautiful firmament that seemed the Unchanging, the In-
finite, the Divine.
'Aspice hoc sublime candens, quern invocant omnes
Jovem' said Ennius to the Roman world, and, with equal
truth, under another name, he might have said it to the
Indians of North America and to the dwellers on the
tablelands of Asia.
". . . . the whole circle of the heavens, for him
A sensitive existence, and a God,
With lifted hands invoked, and songs of praise".
Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the speech
and thought of the Chinese. 5; T'jan Heaven is not only
the $fe Kill, the Principle, Origin, Being, but the synthesis
of fig and $& Jjg Wu Kill Being and Not-Being, namely,
rfc Jig T'ai Kih Great Principle, First Cause.
~$* 51 H$~
It is the secret of |$g Jen and |JJ| Jan Rest and Motion,
the norm of $ K l ian and j:i|l .TTtw the male and the
female elements in Nature.
Thus we read in the Si-Kin (iii. 1. 1. 7) or Book of
Odes and in the T ( ai-Jdh-tu or Table of the Primal Prin-
ciple (I. a.):
Saii T'jiin k'e zai: wu seii wu k'au, ol si zao hwa k'e k'u nju.
P'in we k'e kan ti je.
Translated into Mangu it is:
Dergi Abka-i baita de, gilgan ako, wa ako bime, jar-
gijan-i bangibure wembure horgiko ^o sohon, eiten gaka-i
fulehe da ohobi.
'High Heaven's works are without tone and without
aroma (i. e. immaterial), and yet indeed they are the axis
and source of life and death, the root and origin of every-
thing'.
Chinese: 3 Tjcln God, Heaven.
Accadian: jfcZ Dingir, Heaven, God.
Mongolian: ' Tengri Heaven, God.
Turkish : ^yoll* Tangrl
Jakut: Tanrapa Tangara.
Him: Tang-li.
Korean: ^ A Ttiien.
* O
The Jakuts divide their gods into white and black,
good and evil. At the head of the former stands Tangara,
at the head of the latter Abarj. Every disease has its
~3H 52 K~
Siuliiikiun or black god, who is propitiated by pouring
vodka on the burning coals and throwing tobacco and
horsehair upon it. In ascending a ridge the Tungus and
Jakuts avoid loud talk for fear of offending the mountain-
spirit, who will then send a destructive snowstorm. 1
In Mangu the expression for The Highest is
V Abhai Egen Heaven-Lord, which is the exact equivalent
^> of ^ Tjan Ku, the title adopted by Pope Clement XI.
O ^ in 1715 to designate God in Chinese.
^! The first Jesuits who visited China, notably Eicci,
Y^ had chosen the word T'jan alone, but when the Do-
^minicans arrived in 1631, a long controversy on the
subject arose.
'On accusa les Jesuites', says M. Piry, 'de chercher,
par ce choix du mot T'ien et 1'autorisation qu'ils accordaient
a leurs neophytes de continuer leur culte a la memoire
des ancetres et du Sage Confucius, a assimiler la doctrine
du vrai Dieu a la religion des Chinois. La question fut
portee devant Innocent X. qui, en 1645, condamna les
Jesuites ; mais, dix ans plus tard, Alexandre VII. leva cette
sentence en declarant que les rites chinois en litige etaient
purement civils et ne pouvaient d'aucune fagon porter atteinte
aux dogmes de la foi chretienne. La question en resta
la jusqu'en 1703, date a laquelle Clement XI. condamna
de nouveau les Jesuites, enfin, en 1715, ce meme pontife
decida que pour designer Dieu en chinois on conserverait
le mot Tien, mais en y ajoutant Fepithete Chu, Seigneur,
Maitre Quant au choix du mot T l ien pour designer
Dieu, le Pere Premare dans sa "Lettre Inedite sur le
Monotheisme des Chinois, 1728", deplore la decision du
Saint-Siege qui le condamne; on sait en eifet que ce savant
sinologue, et beaucoup d'autres apres lui, ont voulu demon-
See "To the Arctic Zone" by a Russian Exile.
~$H 53 ,<-
trer que le T'ien ou SJiang-Ti J- ^ des classiques chinois
possede les principaux des attributs du vrai Dieu.'
The Hsjao Kin or Book of Filial Piety speaks of the
three supreme Powers: ^ Tjan Heaven, jfa Ti Earth, A
sin Man. Thus we have ^ , g T'jan ki Kiii 'the
immutable Law of Heaven'; Jjj , H Ti 1ft I 'the Justice
of Earth'; JJ f 'ft Min la Hsin 'the Obligation of the
People'.
In the Lu 'Su we read:
5c B It Tjan ju 'sin Heaven is called God.
ft ^ S iSt Tjan ta kwo 'sin Heaven is greater than
the gods.
^ _t *ri? Tjan jii 'saii Ti Heaven is called the
Supreme Being.
But we must not forget that a very powerful Being
amongst the Chinese, amounting in fact to what we in the
"West should call the Monon, is jj| Tau meaning primarily
The Way, from Radical 3^ 'to go'. Its Aryan equivalent is
^RrJ Rta or X^AJ A'sa the Path of Righteousness, the Norm
of Being, AoTog. In China's oldest historical book ^ g
'Su Kin, we find the Emperor Kin, of the Kau dynasty,
directing three of his highest officers of State 'to discuss
the Tau, to govern the States, and to harmoniously regulate
the Jen and the Jan'. But the Tau Kjau or Doctrine of
the Monon was most fully worked out by the philosopher
Li Er' or Po Jan, generally known as Lau Zo, in the
7 th century B. C. His celebrated jf fg g Tau te Kin,
known to the Japanese as Dau-toku Kjau, or Classic of
Reason and Virtue, begins with the following remarkable
words:
it w 3t * n m
Tau k'o tau fe kari Tau. Reason which can be em-
bodied in speech is not the Eternal Reason!
-S^ 54 HS-
*.' H a. ' * jt a
Min k c o min fe kan Min. The name which can be
uttered is not the Eternal Name!
According to M. Stanislas Julien jg Tau is almost
equivalent to falniff Nirvana. In his preface to the Tau-
te-kin he says: 'Dans Lao-tseu et les plus anciens philo-
sophes de son ecole anterieurs a 1'ere chretienne, 1'eniploi
et la definition du mot Tao excluent toute idee de Cause
Intelligente, et qu'il faut le traduire par Voie, en donnant
a ce mot une signification large et elevee qui reponde au
langage de ces philosophes lorsqu'ils parlent de la puissance
et de la grandeur du Tao.
Lao-tseu represente le Tao comme un etre depourvu
d'action, de pensees, de desirs, et il veut que, pour arriver
au plus haut degre de perfection, 1'homme reste comme le
Tao, dans un quietisme absolu; qu'il se depouille de pensees,
de desirs, et meme des lumieres de 1'intelligence, qui, suivant
lui, sont une cause de desordre. Ainsi, dans son livre, le
mot Tao signifie tantot la Voie sublime par laquelle tous
les etres sont arrives a la vie, tantot 1'imitation du Tao,
en restant, comme lui, sans action, sans pensees, sans desirs'.
As an illustration of the variety of views on this ques-
tion, let us compare our own translation of Lau-zo's opening
sentences with that of M. Pauthier on the one hand, and
of M. Julien on the other:
Via quae potest frequentari non aeterna-et-immutabilis
rationalis Via.
La voie droite qui peut etre suivie dans les actions de
la vie n'est pas le Principe eternel, immuable, de la Eaison
supreme. (Pauthier).
La Voie qui peut etre exprimee par la parole n'est
pas la Voie eternelle. (Julien).
Nomen quod potest nominari, non aeternum-et immuta-
bile Nomen. (Pauthier).
~$~ 55 <-
Le Nom qui peut etre nomme n'est pas le Nom eternel
et immuable.
(Julien).
Again, it is said of the Tan:
ft -:i- = = *
Tau sen ji ji seii 61 61 sen san san sen wan u
Tau produced One; One brought forth Two; Two begat
Three; Three gave rise to all things!
Passing to the Land of the Rising Sun we come to
the 'Way of the Kami'
'Jj H J H f Kami-no Miti
of which we may read more especially in the Ko si Id or
Furu Koto Bumi. Who or what these ^ ^ Kami are, it
is perhaps at first sight a little difficult to determine. In
all likelihood the Kamino Miti or |i}i jj 'sin Tau as the
Chinese call it, does not much differ from the Chinese
worship of ftji 'sin and j^| Kwe, their divine Ancestors.
'The Japanese', says D r Tylor, 'are a comparatively civilized
nation, one of those so instructive to the student of culture
from the stubborn conservatism with which they have con-
secrated by traditional reverence, and kept up by state
authority, the religion of their former barbarism. This is
the Kami-religion, Spirit-religion, the remotely ancient faith
of divine spirits of ancestors, nature-spirits, and polytheistic
gods, which still holds official place by the side of the im-
ported Buddhism and Confucianism. In this ancient faith
the Sun-god is supreme. He is Amaterasu oho Kami the
'heaven-enlightening great Spirit'. Below him stand all
lesser kamis or spirits, through whom, as mediators, guar-
dians, and protectors, worship is paid by men'.
Here, then, we have as supreme Spirit
3 7 7- > ? * a * 7,
Amaterasu Oho Kami
Japanese thought, speech and writing owe a great deal
to the Chinese. When, in the third century of our era, the
~3H 56 H~
Japanese came in contact with the Chinese, the literature
of the latter found its way into Japan, and with it, Chinese
writing. But the characteristic ideology of each nation is
still preserved. Thus, whilst the Chinaman says: No pu Jci
Hi 'I not know that', the Japanese says : Watakowa Korewo
sira su 'I that know not'.
In structure Japanese resembles the undeveloped langu-
ages of the Altaic peoples, Mangu and Mongolian, but
differs from them in its lack of vowel-harmony. The local
relations of the noun are sufficiently indicated by phonetic
means, and even for the purely grammatical relations such
as subject and object there exist elements of which the idiom
makes excellent use.
"Whilst the language lacks definite verbal forms, it
possesses a great number of gerunds and participles, which
doubtless explains the lack of a relative pronoun.
Within the sentence the denning element precede's the
thing denned, that is to say, the genitive comes before the
noun to which it belongs, the object before its verb, the
defining sentence before the one it more nearly defines.
Numeration in Japanese seems to be based on the
decimal system:
1 fito 40 go-so
10 too 50 it su-so
20 futa-zi 100 momo
30 mi-so 1000 zi
From an ideological standpoint the language is indirect,
the formula being 1. 3. 5. Ill; i. e. Genitive + noun, adjec-
tive + noun, object + verb, subject + verb.
In Korean, as in Chinese, we find as the expression
for the Highest not only I A Tk'ien Heaven, but
A O
-* Tjiu Lord, and not infrequently in combination. For
n
~3H 57 HS~
instance, Tkien-tjiu-oi tieh-mo God's holy mother. lettin
b-ro tjiu-ral Iwhkientiata to honor God with devotion.
Like Japanese, Korean has a tolerably-well evolved
noun, but a wholly-undeveloped,' flexionless verb, which is
nevertheless rich in various turns affecting the relation of
the speaker to the one addressed.
The subject is only denoted when it is defined, but
the object characterized by a sign of its own. The attribute
is distinguished from the predicate, and the thing defined
always comes after the defining element. The subject with
its qualifications opens the sentence, the verb with its pre-
ceding object closes it. The language possesses no relative
pronoun, but several forms of the gerund. Its ideology is
the same as that of Japanese; namely, indirect: 1. 3. 5. 8. III.
Here, too, it is the decimal system of numeration.
1 K'ana 30 t'ielk'on
10 iel 40 mak'on
20 t'omul 50 t'uin
St. John 111. 16 is thus translated into Korean:
VI J
a
^
H
~>i 58 H~
Most interesting is the thought, most curious the spreech
of the Bodpa, the dwellers in Tibet. The language consists
of monosyllabic radicals, the structure of the sentence de-
pending partly upon combination, partly upon the addition
of particles which in certain cases become suffixes by
amalgamation.
There is no difference between noun and verb, the
latter itself being really a noun, and the two most important
cases lack a distinctive sign. As in active transitive sent-
ences the nominative cannot stand to designate the agent,
but the instrumental, we have the remarkable fact in Tibetan
that, nominative and accusative or the subject-case can
never appear in one and the same sentence. Number,
spatial case-relations and the relation of dependence are
denoted by annexed particles.
The verb is really a noun which expresses a state the
bearer of which in a neutral sense is denoted by the naked
stem (nominative), in an active-passive sense by the in-
strumental. In Tibetan there is no active verbal expression
with subject and object; even in passive constructions, in
which we conceive the subject in the nominative, it is
generally put by preference in the dative. Thus, on the
one hand, the language lacks the conception of the subject
as something acting, and, on the other, that of the object
as something affected by the action.
In the sentence the verb stands at the end; the de-
fining expression precedes the thing defined, the genitive the
noun, the object the verb. Only the instrumental or ex-
pression of the agent has a freer position; if the object is
in the dative, it can either come before or after it. So
that Tibetan ideology is really natural, the order being
1. 4. 5. 8. I, or genitive + noun, noun + adjective, object +
verb and subject + verb. And with this goes the decimal
system of numeration.
~3* 59 HS~
Now, in the language of the Bod-pa there are two ex-
pressions for God which seem to represent the high-water
mark of the Tibetan religious consciousness, namely:
~\r
Ml<og, pronounced Koa, The Best;
Lha, pronounced La
^ Lha-sa = deva-nagari City of God.
Lha klu mi sogs-kjis saris-rgjes-la phjag bjas so
(la lu mi sog-tji sari-dja-la 'kag ga so)
'By the gods, snake-deities, men and others adoration was paid
to Budd'a-' The form used by the missionaries
Kon-Koa. <&!3e>ZJl T Ko is applied by Budd'ists to the Trratna.
Passing on to Burmese we find it to be a language
consisting of monosyllabic root-words; but possessing a
great many dissyllabic nominal expressions which have been
borrowed from the ecclesiastical language of the Southern
Budd'ists, namely, Pali. Indeed, in one particular the lan-
guage itself goes beyond Isolation, by prefixing a- to the
verbal stems for the derivation of nouns and by combining
synonyms with the verbal and nominal composition for the
nearer determination of the concept.
The various case-relations are indicated by annexed
particles. There is no pure nominative or subjective, but
the objective is known not only by its position in the sent-
ence but by a suffix. The verb rests upon a nominal basis,
though there are indications of a closer definition.
In the sentence the subject stands at the beginning,
the verb at the end. The defining element precedes the
thing defined; hence the subordinate sentence must be en-
cased in the principal sentence, which involves a certain
-X 60 H$~
looseness of construction sometimes almost amounting to
unintelligibly.
Burmese possesses three modes of intonation:
a) the natural tone (without modulation of the voice);
p) the rising tone;
Y) the falling tone.
In a language of monosyllabic construction there is
really no distinction between root, stem and word. Nay,
from a morphological standpoint there is no difference
between noun, verb and particle. Use only can determine
to which category it belongs.
As regards the noun there are three points to be not-
iced. In the first place substantives are often derived from
stems which signify a general quality by the addition of
the prefix a. The result is that the meaning of the word
is very general. For instance, from the stem kaunh signify-
ing 'good, to be good,' we have a-kaunh 'the good, goodness.'
But the nouns proper, or underived, are monosyllabic and
are not intimately connected with any verbal root. E. g.
lu 'man', re 'water', ne 'sun', Kweh 'dog'.
Then, the greatest number of compounds consists in
expressions for definite persons and things combined with
expressions denoting general categories and determining the
former. E. g. mranh-ta-zili horse-a-riding-object = 'a horse';
lu-ta-kiij man-a-body = ''a man'.
Lastly, the various case-relations are throughout ex-
pressed by annexed particles of definite meaning. It is
only the subjective, objective and genitive which, from their
unique position, can dispense with them. For instance:
Lu-kah man.
Singular Plural
Nominative Lu-kah lii-to-kah
Agent (Norn. Inst.) lu-t'i lu-to-t'i
Accusative lu-kii lu-to-kii
~2* 61 X~
Singular Plural
Approximative )
\ lii-t'o lu-to-t'o
(spatial ace.) J
Genitive lu-i, lii-twari lu-to-i, lu-to-twan
Dative lii-ah lu-to-ah
oca lu-nhaik lu-to-nhaik
Instrumental lu-p'ran lu-to-p'rari
Social lu-nhan lu-to-nhan
Ablative lu-ka, lu-rnha lu-to-ka, lu-to-mha
Causal lu-kraun lii-to-kraun
As an attribute the adjective may either come before
or after the substantive to which it belongs. In the former
case it appears with the relative suffixes $i, and fan, in the
latter it is the crude form. As predicate the adjective is
equal to the verb and is put after the subject, receiving at
the same time the suffix t E. g. llia-t'l meimma 'a beautiful
woman'; meimma lha-t'i 'the woman is beautiful'.
There is no relative pronoun in Burmese, but, by way
of compensation, we have a series of participial and ge-
rundive formations.
With regard to the verb, it may be said to be quite
formless in respect of person. If person is expressed at all,
it is done by means of an accompanying noun or pronoun.
In its inner form the Burmese verb often resembles the
Tibetan, and in one respect it reminds us of Korean and
Javanese, namely, in the distinction it makes between in-
feriors and superiors. The tenses fall into two categories,
actual and representative. Of actual or immediate action
we find four forms of the present and three of the preterite,
whilst the tenses of representative action are a) two forms
of the future; (J) two necessitative forms, expressing necessity
both near and distant.
Burmese numerical expressions are based upon the
decimal system. Like Tibetan, Burmese is natural in its
ideology, the formula being 1.4. 5. 8. I.
^H 62 Kr-
As a specimen of the language we may take the
following:
Manl -krih-t 'i : mi-b'urah-ihrat ! ria-ah kjari-ra
King -the: great queen! to -me work -thing
kauri-ra-t'au t'ari-i wut ma-kon-t'au-krauri
completion-thing of thy business not-finished-on account of
nhit-loh ma-t'a-si-t'i lib ma-hot, tapah-t'au akraunh-to-
mind troubled is alike certainly not, others causes
krauri nhit-loh ma-t'a-si-ti lib ma-hot,
on account of mind troubled is as also certainly not.
Divine sovereignty seems to be the Burmese view of
the Eternal, for, the word for God is
OOCp B'ura Lord
L
The language of the Siamese known as Dai is the purest
example of a formless, wholly undeveloped monosyllabic
idiom. In form all parts of speech are alike, the meaning
alone determining which part it shall be. As regards the
noun, there is no designation of number, and the spatial
case-relations are only expressed by prefixed particles. The
verb, too, does not denote either person or number.
Indefinite is the position in the sentence. The defining
element follows the thing to be defined without distinction.
Alike the genitive and the attribute are put after the
expression which they more nearly define, as also the com-
plement of the verb, namely, the object. Hence the pre-
dicate, which likewise follows the subject, is really indist-
inguishable from the attribute.
Like Chinese, the language distinguishes honionymous
words by intonation, there being no less than five distinct
tones in Siamese. Thus,
a) the natural tone (without modulation of the voice)
P) the higher rising tone (a quarter upwards)
Y) the lower rising tone (a third upwards)
UNIVERSITY
->, 63 K-
6) the higher falling tone (weak rise and then sinking
to the fundamental)
e) the lower falling tone (a fifth downwards).
Every word in Siamese being a root-word, it is the
lexicon and not the grammar which determines whether a
word shall be taken in this or that sense. Nouns are either
simple, such as (p) Hwa 'head', (a) tin 'foot', (j) fa 'heaven';
or compound, as in the three following modes:
A. DERIVATION FROM A NOMINAL EXPRESSION.
1. Genitive relationship:
(e) ma- (Y) na 'mother of the water' (river); (e) ma-
(a) mj 'mother of the hand' (thumb); (a) luk- (a) mi 'son
of the hand' (artizan).
2. Determination:
(a) wat- (a) wa 'temple' (p) bai- (e) lai 'leaves', where
the second members wa, lai in themselves mean nothing.
B. DERIVATION FROM A VERBAL EXPRESSION:
(a) gwam- (a) riam 'thing-beautiful' (beauty); (e) p'u-
(a) taj 'this three-die' (dead man).
The cases being known for the most part by their
position, it is well to pay particular attention to Siamese
ideology. The subjective precedes the verb, the objective
comes directly after it; thus: (a) fai (e) hmai (a) rien 'fire
burn house'. The genitive is expressed either by putting the
defining element after the thing to be defined, or by com-
bining the latter with such words as (p) k'on 'thing', (6)
hih place. For instance, (a) Bien (p) k'oii (a) naj (a) dahan
'house thing leader troops' = the house of the leader of the
troops. The dative and ablative are expressed by prefixing
(6) ka 'to', 'after', and (6) ta 'from' respectively. Thus, (e)
p'u- (T) s5 (e) hai (a) n6n (6) ka (e) p c u- (P) k c aj 'this there-
buy give money to this there-sell' = the buyer gives money
~3H 64 H~
to the seller; (a) ma (6) ta (a) mjan (a) dai (f) lau 'come
from kingdom T'ai already' = he has come from the king-
dom of T'ai.
Whether as predicate or attribute the adjective comes
after the substantive to which it belongs: e. g. (a) kien (|3)
sun 'house high' = high house, and, the house is high.
As in the Further Indian idioms generally pronouns in
Siamese were originally nouns and vary according to the
social position of the person addressed.
The verb dispenses alike with person and number.
Not infrequently the verbal stem is joined to another of
general meaning, as in Burmese. Thus, (e) wa- (a) pai 'to
talk' (say-go); (a) tok (a) Ion 'to fall down' (fall-descend).
Numeration is based upon the decimal system, but the
substantives do not immediately follow the numbers, a
numeral word such as 'person', 'tail', 'piece' being put be-
tween the two. E. g. (a) pla (g) hok (0) han 'fish six tails'
= six fishes.
Siamese ideology is direct, namely, 2. 4. 6. 7. VII, or
noun -j- genitive, noun -{- adjective, verb -|- object and
verb + subject.
The Siamese thought of God is identical with that of the
Burmese, namely
E Bra Lord.
St. John 111. 16. is thus translated into Siamese:
If we pass up to the K'asia Hills of Eastern India we
find that the language of the K'asia is one of peculiar inter-
est, for, although it is a monosyllabic idiom, it expresses
-3H 65 H$~
the various relationships of the outer world by means
of particles rather than by position within the sentence.
K'asi is thus the exact opposite of Chinese. Indeed there
air not a few signs of agglutination and several poly-
syllabic forms which have been borrowed from Bengali.
It is noteworthy, also, that gender and number are re-
gularly denoted.
As regards form there is really no distinction between
noun, verb and particle, differentiation being effected by
means of suffixes. In the formation of the parts of speech
the pronoun plays the chief part.
With the substantive gender, number and case are all
distinguished, but the form of the noun remains unchanged,
these functions being performed by the personal pronoun
of the third person. Thus we have:
Xom. u briu 'the man', ki briu 'the men'; ka in 'the house',
ki in -the houses'.
Whilst the nominative as the subject-case generally
comes before the verb, the dative and accusative follow it:
e. g. U Blei u la t'au ia ka pirt'ei 'God created the Earth';
U Garka u la pin-ih. ia lia ia uta u him '6ark f a showed
me this mountain'. In the genitive the definable expression
precedes the defining, and not infrequently the word goii
'thing' comes between the two; thus, u kun u briu 'the son
of man'; kipa gon ni 'father our'; ka kti goii me 'thy hand';
ka in goii ria 'my house'. Then there are the dative, loca-
tive, ablative, comitative and instrumental, which are formed
regularly.
When used attributively the adjective has a special
form: it is derived from verbs or adverbs by means of the
prefixed relative particle 6a; e. g. ba-lih white, ba-k'am-lih
whiter; ba-b'a good, ba-k'am-b'a better. The adjective can
cither come before or after the substantive to which it
belongs; in the former case the relative pronoun which serves
I
-s* 66 HS~
as a demonstrative adjective or article must agree with the
noun in gender and number. For instance, u kulai ba-lih
'the horse white'; u him ba-k r rau 'the mountain high'; ki
dok'a ba-Va 'the fishes good'.
The K'asi verb is just as immutable and indefinite as
the noun; all relations and definitions of time, mood and
person are expressed by auxiliary verbs, particles and pro-
nouns. In fact, except for the meaning of the stem, there
is no distinction between noun and verb. E. g. u ioh
4 he has', u briu 'the man'; ka pom 'she breaks off', ka
briu 'the woman'. The tenses are the following: an aorist
present, a durative present, an aorist preterite, a durative
preterite, a durative perfect, a preterital perfect (= plus-
quamperfectum), an aorist future, a definite future and an
imperative.
Numeration in K'asi is based upon the decadic system.
As a specimen of the language we may take the Lord's
Prayer :
Ko kipa gon ni u- ba ha binen, Ion ba-kiiid ka
O Father who our He who in heaven, be holy the
kirten gon me, wan ka hima goh me, Ion ka
name which thine, come the kingdom which thine, be the
mon gon me ha ka kindeu kum-ba ha binen, ai
will which thine, upon the earth so-as in heaven, give
ia ni m_nta ka gin-barn gon ni ka ba-biaii, map
to us now the food which our the sufficient, forgive
ruh ia hi ka rinkan gon ni kum-ba ni map
also to us the transgression which our so-as we forgive
ia ki-ba leh sniu ia ni. Wat ialam ruh ia ni sa
to those who act badly to us. And not lead also us into
ka ba-pin-soi, hinrei sumar ia ni na ka ba-sniu, na-ba
the temptation, but shield us from the evil, for
~3H 67 HS~
ka hima ka bor ruh ka burom ruh ki gon me
the kingdom the power and the glory also which thine
hala karta. Amen,
eternal time. Amen.
We have seen that K'asi ideology is hybrid, namely
2. 4. 6. 8. VI.
Like Burmese and Siamese, the K'asi thought of the
Supreme is that of divine Sovereignty:
Blei Lord (= B'ura, Bra).
|| Blei u la pin-mi ia ka pirt'ei da ka gin-p_u-iap u kun gon u
God made living the world (earth) by the death (die-make)
of His Son!'
Having thus followed the language of Indo-China and
the course of theologic thought amongst the nations of this
vast area, it may be well to understand their mutual re-
lationship and interdependence.
Now, indo-chinese philology is a science of yesterday.
Were we to question a sinologist of any school of 50, nay,
20 years ago, as to the origin of the Chinese, he would
emphatically declare that, from time immemorial they had
occupied the same ethnic position, and for five thousand
years had had an isolating language and even a mono-
theistic religion. That is to say, hitherto the history of
China has been conceived as that of a gradual self-devel-
lopment of a homogeneous stem, possessing almost the whole
land, from savagery up to a culture to which five hundred
years ago no Western nation had attained. From the
existence of this supposed self-rise and progress of an im-
portant focus of culture definite conclusions alike for political
and historical philosophy have been drawn.
The origin of the misunderstanding with respect to the
political and ethnological state of ancient China is remark-
able; it is to be found in the special divisions of the Chinese
annals and in the peculiarities of the geographical division
H2H 68 K~
of the empire for the purposes of administration. It was
thus that Klaproth was misled in his 'Tableaux historiques
de 1'Asie'. The three thousand volumes of which the his-
torical annals consist are not by any means a finely-spun
narrative of all the political, social, artistic, scientific and
economical subjects which, according to our "Western notions,
constitute history. They are rather analytical and encyclo-
paedic: every thing is considered simply. First come the
imperial records containing the purely political relations
of each reign, and more especially the deeds of the Emperor.
Then follow sections on chronology, prescriptions, politics,
political ecomomy, music, geography and literature. In
the last division of each part of the annals, where all the
facts and relevant details are given, the immigrants who
were not subject and, although within the Chinese Empire,
were not Chinese, namely, the Mjau, Man, Lan, Pan, Ngu, etc.
are treated as foreigners. The history of China having thus
been mostly taken from the chronological parts of these
annals, the Chinese seem always to have been in full poss-
ession of their empire.
Who, then, are the Chinese? This is a question which
would seem to involve a reference to the very densest stratum
of nebulous thought. It has been said of Art that 'with
a special tenacity she has wrapped herself about in the
grateful gloom of a mystic twilight', and with equal truth
it may be said of China; for, indeed, in walking down a
street in Hankow or Pekin 'we survey a living past and
converse with fossil men'. Though known amongst them-
selves as Po Hsin, 'the Hundred Families', we must not
forget that the Chinese form a third part of the whole
human race, and that this colossal agglomeration of 420
millions of human beings is cemented solely by the tradi-
tion of the Elders. Notwithstanding the fact that we possess
a vast literature on both the race and language of this
wonderful country, and despite all that has been set forth
by chinamen as to the possession of an unbroken history,
we cannot rest satisfied that three is nothing more to be
learnt about them. Consulting the first chapters of this
venerable history we find the representation of a small band
of Chinese immigrants settling down in what form the
North Eastern province of the present empire, that is to
say, in a territory surrounded on all sides by autochthonic
t rib os. These strangers are said to have been possessed
of arts and Sciences by means of which they were able to
exercise lordship over the more ignorant natives of the
country. But then we at once ask: whence came these
foreigners? From whom had they learnt astronomy, the art
of writing and the science of government?
The only way of satisfactorily answering these questions
is by national and international linguistic analysis. In dis-
secting words we are in reality writing the history of civili-
sation. As regards China the linguistic problem is undoubtedly
that of evolution. According to Schlegel and others matter
and form in Chinese remain distinct, on the other hand
Humboldt and Bopp have declared that the Chinese lan-
guage is without all form, without organism, without grammar.
Wherein, then, lies the difficulty of general exegesis if not
in a right view of the Law of Evolution? Be it natural
or mental science, the student presses the law of the deve-
lopment of organisms or of the modes of thought and speech,
which he accepts, with a magnificent and often enough
successful onesidedness, as though he were obliged to derive
everything exclusively from this. On the one hand the
positive and inner formative causes are brought to the front,
whilst on the other everything is explained by external pro-
cesses.
Beginning with national analysis we must bear in mind
the truth so well enunciated by Wilhelm von Humboldt
that the mental peculiarity of a people and the form of
its speech stand to each other in such/intimate relationship
tliat, the one being given, one should be able to completely
deduce the other from it. For, intellectuality and language
only admit and induce forms which are mutually correspond-
ent, Applying this to the Chinese, we are not surprised
to find that the principle which shows itself in their prac-
tical life, that, namely, of undifferentiated unity, is also the
principle of their speech. The inner form is lacking, having
become pure externality. Only by the external order of
words are the inner relations and interdependence of con-
cepts expressed. It would seem that the richness of Chinese
linguistic phantasy has resolved itself into music. Position
and intonation decide the meaning of the sentence. But
what is the origin of the Sen or tones? 'The salvation of
science', says Prof. Steinthal, 'must ever mostly depend
upon a correct statement of the question; for every question
contains its answer in itself, and if the former is wrongly
stated, the latter is necessarily wrong. "With new questions
begin new epochs'. If, therefore, we have before us an
organism of data, we have to ask, not so much after the
How and Why, as rather after the What. Strange though
it seem, it is to these 'Sen that Chinese owes its mono-
syllabism. This ingenious musical device has been brought
about solely by phonetic decay. It is a phaenomenon which
is found, though in a less degree in many African dialects,
where it has produced the same result,
'To understand their origin', says Prof. Douglas, 'we
must remember that on entering China the Chinese found
the country occupied by races more or less civilised, with
whom they freely mixed to a greater or less degree as
circumstances determined. From this inequality of inter-
course betwen races speaking languages with different mor-
phological constructions, in which great importance was
attached to the quality and quantity of vowels for the
meaning of Words, there resulted a condition of phonetic
poverty owing to contractions and elisions of the initial,
~5* 71 XT-
medial or final syllables of their words. By the movements
of the organs of speech and the ordinary principle of equi-
librium the place of these decayed articulations has been
supplied by differences of tone in the pronunciation of the
vowels, a system which, by the facility it gives for the
economy of language, has received a full development'.
The Chinese written language (Kjai-Su) is a word-
writing; every sign represents a concept. But since the
number of the simple conceptual signs was limited, new
concepts were formed partly by reduplication and to a
great extent by addition. A calculation based on the Im-
perial Chinese Dictionary show that, at present, the Chinese
language is represented by about 50,000 characters. Of
these at least 13,000 are utterly irrelevant and consist of
signs which are alike obsolete, incorrectly formed, and un-
explained. In ordinary literature we do not meet with more
than 4000 signs. A knowledge of only 2500 characters will
enable one to understand the writings of Confucius and his
disciples, in fact, almost any Chinese work on history and
philosophy.
Now, the Kjai - Su does not date further back than the
4 th century of our era. It is a modification of the more
rounded and thick writing known as Li-s'u i. e. official script,
which is ascribed to Kin-mo, rendered possible through the
improvements in the scribe's apparatus, namely, his paper
and hair pencil. The Chinese emperors have always con-
sidered it their special function to uphold orthography and
have repeatedly tried to fix by law the form of the written
signs. Hence, since the days of the Zin dynasty the Li-s'u
had been the official text. It will easily be seen that, when
once there was a deviation from tradition and new forms
were created, there would arise the danger that, in the far-
reaching provinces of the Chinese empire, independent forms
would be developed and the highly-important unity of written
language be destroyed. The character composed of meagre
->* 72 f<~
and monotonous strokes which had immediately preceded
the Li-su was the Sjau-kwan which was written on a bamboo
with a stylus. But this again was an official modification
of the ancient mode of writing called Ta-kwan in which,
among the different States which had once been subject to
the dominion of the Kau, many and great variations had
been developed. Formed by the historiographer C S6 Kau
at the instigation of one of the greatest monarchs of the
Kau dynasty, King Sim, the Ta-kwan was an undertaking
in which the written character was reconstructed as one of
hieroglyphics.
Having come thus far by an analysis of the Chinese
language itself, let us now, under the guidance of that emin-
ent philologist, Prof. Terrien de Lacouperie, apply our
second canon of research, namely, international linguistic
analysis.
The modern characters can be traced back through
the changes they have undergone, partly in obedience to
political necessities, in the fourth century and during the
Zin (B. C. 255200) and the Kau (B. C. 1122255) dy-
nasties, to a time when they were used to phonetically re-
present an agglutinative or amalgamating laguage. 'We
have multifarious proofs that the writing first known in China
was already an old one, partially decayed, but also much
improved since its primitive hieroglyphic stage. Although
many of them had kept their early pictographic and ideo-
graphic value, the characters, selected according to their
sense, were used phonetically, isolated and in groups, to
represent the monosyllabic and polysyllabic words as well
as the compounds of the spoken language. At that time
the writing of the Ku-wan was really the phonetic expression
of speech'. By an analysis of the old inscriptions and frag-
ments and by the help of the native works on palaeography
M. de La Couperie has compiled a dictionary of this period.
With the results of Jan Hjun's researches in 25 dialectic
regions and by a comparison of the various idioms of modern
China with those of the aborigines we are enabled to read
the characters as the subjects of the Zin dynasty read them.
The outcome of this process has then to be compared with
the rhymes of the Si-Kin or 'Book of Odes' and with the
languages of the offshoots from the ancient Chinese con-
federation, such as the Siamese, the Burmese and the Anna-
mites, and even with those of remoter kinship.
We have already spoken of that characteristic of Chinese,
namely the Sen or tones. Now, a comparison of these tones
as they are developed in the speech of the Middle Kingdom
with the double initials in Burmese, Siamese and Sinico-
Annamite, and with the mute letters in Tibetan, completes
the evidence required to prove that they are the modern
representatives of decayed syllables. As an instance of
the transformation of ancient Chinese words we may mention
the equivalent for 'eye' which, as Prof. Douglas has pointed
out, from a combination of two words, mut and Jean, becomes
mukan, as it is at the present day among the Panicoochi
tribe of aborigines. As this word gradually became the
property of tribes some of whom laid greater stress on the
final and other on the initial parts of their words, it was
successively metamorphosed on the one hand to mang, ngan
and the modern jen, and on the other hand to muk and mult.
Thus, notwithstanding its excessive attenuation, and
disguised as it is by the influence of idioms belonging
to a different morphology and conceptology , the Chinese
spoken language is nevertheless an ancient member of that
great family of speech which is known as Uralaltaic. And
here it may be well, as Prof, de Lacouperie suggest, to
establish a third division of that family, which might appro-
priately be called Amardian; a group in which the first
division embraces Akkadian and its dialect, and the second
division Proto-Medic, Susian and Kossian.
The ideological characteristics of Chinese, coupled with
K
~>r 74 ~3~
its peculiarities, place it as a link between the Amardian
division and the Ugro-Finnish group. It is true that ancient
Chinese shares certain very marked grammatical affinities
with the Ugro-Finnish tongues, hut its phonetic degeneration
and its choice of certain articulations more closely connect
it with the Akkadian and Susian dialects. To quote but
a few instances of this linguistic relationship:
Akkadian Chinese English
lu li cow
uniu mu mother
sik sik cloth
gan gun cloud
ka ko mouth
Of the Akkadian hieroglyphics there have as yet been
deciphered rather more than 500, and it is very remarkable
that Chinese tradition fixes the number of the original
characters at 540.
'Results no less remarkable', says Prof. Douglas, 'are,
however, brought to light by a comparison of the social and
religious institutions of the two peoples. In the early leg-
endary records of China we find the first place in the list
of the five Sovereigns who bore rule at the dawn of history
occupied by Hwaii-ti, anciently Kon-ti, whose family name
is said to have been Nai or Nak. This ruler is credited
with having invented astronomy, music, medicine and the
other sciences, as well as the arts which contribute to the
comfort and well-being of man. If we examine the old form
of his name as preserved in the Kwen-zo-wd and the Su-su-
fum-lui we find it to be composed of one group of charac-
ters to be read Nak-Konti, a name which strangely coin-
cides with Nak'unta or Nak'unte mentioned in the Susian
texts as the chief of the gods. This name was added to
their own by the oldest Susian Kings, as we find in the
case of Kudur-Kak'unta who ravaged the country from Ur
to Babylon and founded the dynasty called by Berosus
~2* 75 r<-
Medic (B. C. 2285). Again, tradition tells us that the in-
ventor of Chinese writing was Zan Hie, or, as his name
was pronounced in old Chinese, Dum-Kit, who is said to
have been an independent chief, though by some writers he
has been described as reigning in succession to Fu-Hi and
by others as a minister of Hwan-Ti. The resemblance be-
tween his name Dum-Kit and that of Dungi, King of Ur,
who succeeded the famous Sikbagas or Likbabi on the throne,
is curious, and the interest in the comparison is heightened
when we recognise that the meaning of the Akkadian charac-
ters composing the name Dungi is the man of the reed tablet'.
Turning now to the political institutions of the early
Chinese we find in the fragments of Susian history as yet
made known complete explanations on two points which
have hitherto baffled the investigation of scholars both native
and foreign. In the second chapter of the 'Book of History 7
we are told that the Emperor 'San (B. B. 22552205) 'gave
daily audiences to all the pastors', who are understood to
have been the Princes of the various states; and, in another
passage, that 'he sacrificed specially, but with the ordinary
forms, to God, and with reverent purity, to the Six Honored
Ones. 7 The epithets 'pastors 7 , as applied to Princes, and
'Six Honoured Ones 7 have been much commented upon, but
no satisfactory explanation has been offered of them. Now,
however, that which has been a riddle to the people them-
selves for tens of centuries is made plain to us by the Susian
texts. There we are told that the Princes of the second
rank were called 'pastors 7 , and that in the Divine hierarchy
there were next in order to the principal god six deities
of the first rank'.
And here we must stop to notice what is, after all,
the most important work in the whole realm of Chinese
literature, namely, the Ji-Kin. It was of this book that
Confucius said that, if he had 50 more years to live, he
would devote them to the study of the original text, which
consists of short sentences arranged under certain diagrams,
formed by the combination of straight lines.
'As a matter of fact', says Prof, de Lacouperie, 'the
Ji-kin is the oldest of the Chinese books, not certainly as
it now stands, but as far as concerns the greatest part of
the documents which are compiled in it. Some of these
parts are most likely contemporary with the early leaders of
the Chinese Bak families (Poll-Sing). It has all the appear-
ance of being a series of notes, documents, and informations
collected by the early chiefs of the Chinese immigrants. It
looks like a repository of indications drawn up by the early
leaders of the Bak families, for the guidance of their officers
and successors, in the use of the characters of the writing,
by the native populations with whom the newly - arrived
people had to deal, for the customs, the produce of the soil,
the animal kingdom, etc.; and it is in this sense that the
Ji-kin is the most valuable of the Chinese classics, the one
in which, according to the non-interrupted and unconscious
feeling of the Chinese themselves, was embodied the wisdom
and Knowledge of the sages of yore'.
The work is attributed to the legendary Emperor Fu-Hi
(B. C. 2852) and seems to have been first arranged under
the Hia dynasty (22051766 B. C.). The fact that 1450
works on the Ji were selected for the library of Kien-Lah
shows pretty clearly the inability of the successive early
commentators Wan Waii (B. C. 1150), k'au Kim (B. C.
1120), and Kuh-pu-zo (B. C. 500) to understand the book.
Native and European scholars have alike supposed it to treat
exclusively of philosophy and divinatory lore, but the researches
of Prof, de Lacouperie and his collaborateur, Prof Douglas,
prove that 'the original text consits to a great extent of
vocabularies in which important words and their characters
are explained in the (probably eight) different dialects spoken
within the limits of the Chinese supremacy, and in which
to other words are appended lists of their equivalents. Inter-
~>< 77 ws-
iningled with these vocabularies are important records of
unusual interest, such as ephemerides bearing on the ethno-
logy and history of the ancient East'.
Now, it would seem that these Chinese vocabularies
Iisive been framed in obedience to the same principles, very
much with the same materials, and according to the tradition
of the old syllabaries of South- Western Asia. Both in Elam
and China we find not only the phonetic vocabularies, but
also the converse system, namely, lists of the words or
characters which have a common meaning, Thus we have
many proofs of a theory which has been held by Prof, de
Lacouperie for many years, that before their emigration to
the far East, the Chinese Bak families had borrowed the
pre-cuneiform writing and elements of their Knowledge and
institutions from a region connected with the old focus of
culture of Susiana. There is, however, evidence of a multi-
farious kind to show that the borrowing took place after
the Semitic influence had been brought to bear upon the
Akkadians and Sumirians, and at a time when 'the cunei-
form strokes already introduced were not yet exclusively
used to draw the characters, straight and curved lines being
still used at the same time, and the introduction of the
wedge-shaped implement had not effaced the pictographical
forms of the signs'.
To historically determine this remarkable propagation
of culture, we must remember the following interesting and
important facts, which have been pointed out by M. de La-
couperie.
1. The writing was communicated with all its peculia-
rities and complexity of ideograms and phonetics, the latter
keeping their sounds, and the former receiving sometimes
new appellations in the language of the borrowers according
to their picture-meaning.
2. The characters were still in the plastic stage which
allows a certain range of alterations and occasional variations
~3* 78 K^
for the facility of the compound characters. A comparative
analysis of the compounds in the early Cuneiform characters
discloses this parallel fact, and it is a feature of the so-called
Hittite characters, which on the inscriptions are modified
according to their position as opposed to the rigidity of the
Egyptian hieroglyphs more early crystallized.
3. Many characters were still pictographic, but a great
number had lost their original hieroglyphic shape and had
assumed apparently arbitrary forms.
4. The writing had not been drawn at first by an ob-
lique eyed people.
5. The facing process, upwards or downwards, of draw-
ing the pictographic characters, had been preferred as
often as possible to the profile process (Egyptian and Hittite),
probably to avoid the boustrophedon.
6. At the time of its propagation to the Chinese Bak
families, the pre-cuneiform writing was disposed in horizontal
lines, but it had been written previously horinzontally and
vertically, according to the size of the characters as in
Egyptian and so-called Hittite hieroglyphs.
7. The borrowers, perhaps in imitation of the knotted
cords and notched rods previously used by them, disposed
the writing in vertical lines instead of horizontal, and for
that purpose had to put up the characters single a com-
pound not easy to disintegrate, which had too much width
for the regularity of the lines. The putting-up of the picto-
graphic characters was ruled by the figure of their subject.
8. In the script borrowed, the characters were used
phonetically in the formation of compounds, without neglec-
ting their ideographic values, which were taken into account
and ruled their selection; their reading was from left to
right or from top to bottom.
"We have thus answered the question with which we
started. The early leaders of the Chinese borrowed their
culture from Elam, that confederation of states of which
-> 79 t<$~
Susa was the chief town, and the Kussi the chief population.
'From a body of evidence', says M. de Lacouperie, 'it results
that they were at first settled south-east of the Caspian Sea;
and that, in order to escape a heavy yoke, they extended
on the east, along the head -waters of the Oxus, following
its main affluent, the Red Water (Kisil Su), and then passing
into Chinese Turkestan along the other Kisil-Su, the head-
waters of the Ka'sgar River (the Tarim), which conducted
them after a time to the Yellow River and 'The Flower Land 7 ,
of which the fame was without doubt already attractive
enough to make it a suitable place of colonisation'.
The same distinguished scholar suggests that the break
up which happened in those states and resulted in the con-
quest of Babylonia by the Elamite King, KaduixNalninta,
in 2285 B. C. was also the cause of an Eastern conquest
and a settlement in Bactria, and that this would account
for the old focus of culture coeval with the earlier period
of Assyrian monarchy said to have existed in Central Asia.
Now, the .two ethnic names which were those of the
future Chinese invaders, namely, Bak which is the ancient
form of Poh (Poh Sin Bak families), and Kutti or Kutta
(now Hia) are not foreign to these regions; nay, is it not
likely that the Chinese Kutti and the Kussi, the Chinese
Bak and Ball (Bak'-di: Bactria) are the same?
Tho population of Indo-China thus consists for the most
part of ethnic elements previously existing in China, so that,
to fully understand the ethnology of the whole peninsula
and adequately to appreciate the necessary interdependence
of various human races, we must study the Chinese immi-
gration itself.
As we have seen, the results of ancient Chinese philo-
logy point to the fact that China received her language and
the elements of the arts, sciences and institutions, from the
invasions of the Ugro - Altaic Bak families. These tribes
came from Western Asia about 2300 B. C. under the leader-
^H 80 f<~
ship of men of high culture who, through their neighbors the
Susians, were acquainted with the civilisation which came
from Bahylon and was changed in the second focus.
When these Bak families came in contact with the
aborigines they found tattooed tribes, two stems indeed,
whose characteristics strike the traveller even to-day. One
was a race of dwarfs, the Tjau, who are still represented
by a) the Trau, in the east of Bienhoa in Cochin China,
well-nigh the smallest of the human race; (3) the Hota e - c San,
Southwest of Junnan; y) the Minkopies of the Andamans;
6) the Simangs of the Malay peninsula, and e) one of the
native Formosan stems. These races are all representative
of the once so widely-spread Negrito stem. Near the first
Chinese colony on the Swan ho was the other stem of the
Kan Kjo, the 'long-legged'. The French scientists of the
expedition du Mekong observed that the Mois, P'nohs and
K'as of the Southern Indo-Chinese peninsula had long legs.
Since at that time the Chinese knew nothing of the regions
and races South of the Jan-zo-Kjaii, since, further, the
present representatives of these remarkable men live not far
from one another, it seems highly probable that the Chinese
immigrants of both stems knew one another, that the then
settlement was in North China, and that it was only af-
terwards they were driven South. By the unequal amount
of affinities and parallelisms which they have in common
with the Chinese, the non-Chinese race of the 'flowery land'
together with their younger relatives of Indo- China show
that, some obtained them by fortuitous proximity, others by
mixture.
Now there are two facts which make it difficult for
us to follow the linguistic history of a country and at the
same time to keep fast hold of the identity of a race
always speaking the same language, namely, racial succession
and linguistic tradition. As regards the problem before us
here, the primary data are ethnological; the linguistic evi-
~x 81 *-
dence does riot go beyond the tracing of the effect of
aboriginal speech upon the idiom of the Chinese immigrants.
The means used for determining the classification of
native dialects are lexical and ideological affinities. Since
it is the very nature of language to be in a state of restless
evolution and change, we ought not to suppose that, in former
times, other forces and influences were at work than those
which we find dominant to-day. If roots are produced by the
unconscious working of the mind in its search after signs
for general ideas, then the radical period is with us still,
and will never cease. The language of Tibet, Burmah,
Pegu, Siam, Annam and China are generally called mono-
syllabic and are still mentioned by some as living examples
of the primaeval speech of monosyllabic roots. But it is
very doubtful whether there ever was such monosyllabism.
According to Prof De Lacouperie there are but three kinds:
one of decay, that of pronunciation, and one of writing.
The languages of South Eastern Asia belong to the second,
whilst that of English, for instance, arises from decay. By
reason of the separation of matter from form in these lan-
guages they are sometimes called juxtapositing; now it is
just the stuff- and form-words which run together and then
gradually decay. The decay is often produced by distinction
of pitch in pronunciation. These tones have been considered
as the residue of the speech of primitive humanity, when
language was pure soul-song, the fact is, however, that they
are merely a common phaenomenon of linguistic equilibrium.
By this process of decay the languages of South Eastern
Asia became in many ways destroyed, but their former and
fuller phoneticism can to a certain extent be restored by
palaeography and dialectic comparison. The same savant
divides them into the following six classes:
1. Incapsulating. 2. Incorporative. 3. Alliterative.
4. Juxtapositing. 5. Annexing. 6. Amalgamating.
But we must remember that they are not stages following
L
-SH 82 *<-
one upon another but states resulting from the two great
forces which produce language, namely, the mental capacity
to conceive and express general ideas and the laziness of
the organs of speech. Sometimes these two forces work
harmoniously together and sometimes against one another.
We have, for instance, the remarkable phaenomena of mixed
and hybrid languages. A language is mixed when only
the lexicon shows foreign elements, hybrid, if the grammar
is cut up. Grammar shows inner and outer development:
inner, if, making use of the possibility of evolution, it yet
remain true to its own nature; outer, if it become mixed
with another grammar. Of this phaenomenon comparative
conceptology gives adequate proof, for, ideology has to do
with the position of words in the sentence and shows how
languages are built up according to different modes of
thought, and that if an idiom with direct (logical) word-order
come into contact with one of indirect or inverting ideology,
the grammar develops, mixes and changes.
Dr. de Lacouperie suggests the following laws of con-
ceptual evolution and mixture:
1. Where an immigrant idiom comes into contact and
mixes with a language of different ideology which is spoken
by the earlier settlers, the power of preserving the order
of the sentence is greater with the less-refined idiom, whether
autochthonic or nomadic.
2. When, in the case of two languages spoken by two
stems of different stages of culture, imposition and not
suspension takes place, the prevailing position of the noun
and adjective of the more refined language holds its own.
3. Other things equal, the dominant position of the
verb with regard to subject and object will be that of the
less developed language, often with the addition of repeating
pronouns.
Where a language of indirect form (V) is modified by
an idiom of direct form (IV, .VI), we find the phaenomena
->* 83 *$~
of incorporating pronouns, which frequently repeat subject
and object.
If, then, we wish to understand the inner speech-sense,
the speech -creating mind or the national consciousness, it
is highly important to know whether the ideology is natural,
direct, indirect or hybrid. Speaking generally one may say
that, the dolichokephalic stems have direct ideology, the
brachykephalic indirect.
Excepting that of the Northern races which had gone
before them into the Middle Kingdom and probably belonged
to the Turko - Tataric stem, the language of the primitive
Chinese or immigrant Bak families was wholly unlike the
idiom of the aborigines. Primitive Chinese was related not
so much to the Altaic as rather to the Western or Ugric
branch of the Turanian family and more particularly to the
Ostiak dialects. The ideological formulae of this idiom
were probably those which are common to all the Ugro-
altaic languages, when not complicated, namely, 1. 3. 5. 8. III.
But there are no texts with this ideology extant. In all
Chinese dialects the formula of to-day is 1. 3. 6. 8. VI; an
earlier formula 1. 3. 5. 8. I is sometimes found in the older
of these dialects, e. g. those of Fukau, Kanton and Tuiikin.
In the writings of the Tau-so we even find traces of the
primitive ideology 1. 3. 5. 8. III. Yet even with these three
formulae the linguistic evolution of China is not complete.
Remarkable instances of a formula 2. 3. 6. 7. are occasionally
found in older texts. The numerals 6. 7., which indicate
the postposition of the subject, and imply a syntax IV or
V, are extant in the earlier texts of the Hia dynasty about
2000 B. C.; in the Calendar, for instance, and in certain
parts of the Ji Kin. The former was instituted at the time
when the founder of the said dynasty made his way down
to the mouth of the Jan-zo-Kjan in a South Easterly direction.
In this way the idiom of the conquerors became mixed
with the speech of the autochthons. And since this calendar
~>: 84 K-
was written and spread for the benefit of the mixed popu-
lation, it follows that, the deviation from the Chinese of that
day corresponded with the linguistic traits of the district.
Indeed, they are just those which are peculiar to the Tagalo-
Malay idioms, the position of the subject after the verb not
being found in the other dialects which have influenced
Chinese. By the position of the object after the verb and
by the synthetic arrangement of the sixth standard as against
the pure numerals of Uralian, which were formerly common
to it, there can be little doubt that Chinese has borrowed
from the indigenous Mon and Tai- c San languages. The
revolutionary stages of Chinese ideology are, therefore, the
following: 1. 3. 5. 8. III., 1. 3. 6. 7. IV., 1. 3. 5. 8. I, 2. 3.
6. 8. YI and 1. 3. 6. 8. VI.
Phonetics, morphology and semasiology all show how
great was the influence of the native idioms. The introduction
and growth of the tones as the result of linguistic equili-
brium by reason of phonetic decay are to be ascribed to
the same influence.
The postposition of particles in Ugro- Altaic to express
relations of space and time has been replaced in Chinese
by the exactly-opposite principle.
On the ancient dialects there are three Chinese dic-
tionaries, namely, the JEr -ja, the Fan Jen and the 'Swo Wan.
The first is a work of the Kau dynasty (1050255 B. C.)
and is divided, according to the subject, into 19 sections.
Small collections of words arranged according to their related
meanings constitute the first section, 'Si Ku, which is ascribed
to the celebrated Duke of Kau. c Sijen, the second section,
consists of a series of words of which the last gives the
meaning of the others: its composition is generally ascribed
to Zo Hia, a disciple of Kun. The next division is arranged
in pairs with explanations. This kind of double words,
which is a characteristic of the Tai- c San languages, is often
found in the popular songs, the e Si Kin, for instance, and
^* 85 K~
must be looked upon as the result of the influence of the
native idioms of this family upon the speech of the Chinese.
The Er'-ja is primarily a guide to the classics, but it con-
tains many words which are found in no Chinese text. To
a great extent they are loan-words which appear in Chinese
only by homonyms as phonetic exponents. In this work we
have a fifth of the whole repertory, i. e. 928 words which
do not occur elsewhere. According to the Wu Kin Wan
the five Kin or canonical books contain only 3335 different
word -forms. If we add the four 'Su the number is only
4754. The great collection of the 'Si San Kin or 13 Kin,
which, besides those mentioned, contains the I-li, Kau-li,
Hjau-Kin, Ko-lian, Kuii Jan and Er'-ja, contais 6544 differ-
ent words.
As regards the Fan Jen it is nothing but a compara-
tive glossary which was made by Jan Hjuii (5 3 B. C.
18 A. D.). Its full title is: Jeo hien 'se Ke zjiie tai jii 'si
pie kwo Fan Jen 'the speech of the past explained by
messengers in light carts together with words from different
parts of the country'. In this work Jan Hjuii has collected
over 12,000 words from more than 44 districts.
Hii 'Sen, the author of the f Swo Wan, lived in the first
century of our era. The 'Swo Wan, which consists of 9353
words , is still the chief work with Chinese lexicographers.
In this great work Hii 'Sen has collected all the characters
of the so-called Sjau Kwan, which he considered the best,
and has given 441 of the Ku Wan.
If, therefore, we would critically arrange the data which
are to be obtained from the Er'-ja, the Fan Jen and the
e Swo Wan, together with the commentaries of Kwo P6,
much of the linguistic history of China between 500 B. C.
and 250 A. D. would be elucidated and explained.
Let us now sum up the results of the Indo - Chinese
philology, for they are of far reaching importance. In the
first place they reveal the remarkable fact that China's
-=M 86 HS~
interesting culture is derived from Babylonia and Syria,
that the so-called Chinese list of kings is "based upon the
early Babylonian canon and restores the first dynasty of the
86 kings mentioned by Berosus. The duration of the Chinese
canon, without any astronomical reference, has been calcu-
lated at 44 centuries B. C. On the other hand, the earlier
dynasty (13, 11, 9 kings) at 600 years, which would give
us about 3800 B. C. for 'Sen-Nun = Sargon. Then, besides
the similarity in names and facts between Chinese tradition
and Babylonian history, we get two great synchronisms:
Ku Nak K'un-te = Kudur Nak-Kunte about 2300 B. C. and
c Sen Nun = Sargon about 3800 B. C.
Still more important are, perhaps, the linguistic facts
which have been ^brought to light by scientific research.
Especially remarkable are the ideological changes which
are manifest in the two types of speech known as Turano-
Scythian and Indo- Pacific. The original ideology of the
Kwanlunic family was 1. '6. 5. 8. Ill, but that of the Chinese
of to-day is 1. 3. 6. 8. VI, whilst that of Karengian is 1.4.
6. 8. YI. and that of Tibeto-Burmese 1. 4. 5. 8. III.
Speaking generally, one may say that the great differ-
ence between inflecting languages and those of the agglu-
tinative type is this, that whilst in the former the single
parts of the perception are presented to the hearer according
to their importance, the sketch thus developing into the
perfect picture, in the latter the conceptual framework is
put together like a mosaic, and only at the end of the sen-
tence or conversation is it possible to have a review of the
whole. Again, what a contrast between the vocalisation of
the Aryan idioms, with the Umlaut of Ancient Baktrian,
Old Irish and German, and the vou'el-lmrmony as we have
it in the Uralic and Altaic tongues!
As a type of the Sarnoyede forms of speech we may
take Jurak. The language has a richly-developed inflexion,
the noun possessing the usual case-forms to express space.
~3* 87 K~
On the other hand, the verb is tolerably poor in expressions
for inner modifications. Every noun can be used as a neuter
verb and every transitive verb can assume the form of a
noun with possessive suffixes. The object is expressed phoneti-
cally, but the subject is not. The attribute precedes the
noun, but the predicate taking the form of the verb, follows.
The subject stands at the head of the sentence, the verb
at the end, the object, as the verb's complement, going before.
From a phonetical point of view there is no distinction
between noun and verb. E. g. nano-u my boat; madawae-u
my section i. e. 'I have cut.' There is no expression of
grammatical gender, but we have the three numbers, namely,
singular, dual and plural, and 8 cases, namely, subjective,
objective, genitive, dative, locative, ablative, prosecutive and
instrumental.
The language of the Samoyedes possesses two phoneti-
cally different series of suffixes, namely, predicative and
possessive, applying alike to noun and verb. Tense is only
imperfectly expressed in Samoyede. As a rule there are
but two forms : a fundamental form which may be designated
an Aorist expressing present and future durative, in fact,
and a preterite derived from it by means of a sign pointing
to the past. There are two moods, the conjunctive and im-
perative, the optative being found in the Jurak dialect only.
Samoyede numeration is based upon the decimal system,
but it is very doubtful whether originally, the Samoyedes
could count beyond six.
1 Nopoi nob (Jurak); oker (Ostjak)
5 Samljan ; somblan
10 ju', lutsa-ju' ; ko't
Jurak ideology is indirect, as will be seen from the
following examples (1. 3. 5. 8. Ill):
Sawa njenetje tubka-si har-si nji jili-nu'.
brave man club-without knife-without not live will.
H3H 88 f<r-
Man jili-no-ma-u ja-u
I dwell-shall-of-my place-mine = A place where I will
dwell.
Ostjali- Samoyede.
Asa-m taksemel-kum-en njala-md mi-nge-d, wuenel
Father-my rich-man-to daughter-his give will, another
kum-en asa mi-nge-d.
man-to not give will.
The Jurak and Ostjak thoughts of the Supreme are
common to all the Uralic tribes, namely:
JSTum Thunder; Torim Earth.
Nor must we forget that 'the Tatar tribes with much
unanimity recognize as a great god the Sun, whose figure
may be seen beside the Moon's on their magic drums, from
Siberia to Lapland. Castren, the ethnologist, speaking of
the Samoyed expression for heaven or deity in general (jili-
beambaertje) tells an anecdote from his travels, which gives
a lively idea of the thorough simple nature -religion still
possible to the wanderers of the steppes. "A Samoyed woman,"
he says, "told me it was her habit every morning and eve-
ning to step out of her tent and bow down before the sun;
in the morning saying, 'When thou Jilibeambaertje risest, I
too rise from my bed!' in the evening, "When thou Jilibeam-
baertje sinkest down, I too get me to rest!' The woman
brought this as a proof of her assertion that even among
the Samoyeds they said their morning and evening prayers,
but she added with pity that there are also among them
wild people who never sent up a prayer to God'" *
The chief characteristic of the idioms of the Uralic
tribes is the truly astounding development of flexion. The
noun, for instance, for the living expression of various spatial
relations shows an unrivalled richness of forms. There are
i Tylor; Primitive Culture, 291.
89
no less than 1 7 cases or modifications of the stem, namely,
subjective, objective, indefinite, essive, inessive, relative, illa-
tive, adessive, ablative, allative, abessive, translative, prose-
cutive, comitative and instructive, genitive and instrumental.
The two important categories Noun and Verb are generally
distinguished, as are also the attribute and the predicate,
the former going before, the latter coming after, the subject.
As regards the subject, its position is not always the same.
Whilst in Magyar the object precedes the verb, in Finnish,
as a rule, it follows. The genitive comes before the word
it defines.
The decimal system underlies Uralic numeration. For
the sake of comparison I give the figures in the words of
8 languages:
Syrianian Mordwinian Keremissian
Suomi
1 yksy
2 kaksi
3 kolme
4 nelja
5 viisi
10 kymmenen
Lapp
akte
kuekte
kolma
nelje
vita
lokke
otik ifka ikta
kik kafta kok
kuim kolma kum
njol' nila nil
vit veta viz
das kemen lu
Ostjak Wogul Magyar
1 it akva egy
2 kat kit ket
3 laid em korom harom
4 njel njile negy
5 vet at 6t
10 joh lau tiz
As a specimen of Finnish we may take a Rune from
the great epic Kalevala (III, v. 91):
Tuli nuori Joukaliainen, Ajoi tie-lla vastatusten
Came young Joukaliainen, Hurried way-up towards;
Tarttu-i aisa aisa-n paa-han;
smashed-itself pole pole-the head-against;
M
~H 90 Ki~
B,ahe rahke-lien takist-i,
Pole-ring pole-ring-against was knocked,
Lange-t puultu-i lanki-loi-hin,
Harness entangled-itself harness-with,
Yemmel vempele-n nena-han.
Horse-collar horse-collar-of top-against.
And the following prayer addressed to Ukko:
Oi Ukko ylijumala, Ukko, thou, o God above,
Tahi taatto taivahinen, Thou, o Father in the heavens,
Vallan pilvissa pitaja, Who reignest in the clouds
Hattarojen hallitsia! And leadest cloudlings all!
K. II, V. 317.
In Finnish the Pater Noster is as follows:
Isa meidan, joka olet taiwaissa: Pyhitetty olkoon sinun
nimes. Lahestykoon sinun waltakuntas. Olkoon sinun tahtos
niin maassa, kuin taiwaassa. Anna meille tanapaiwana
meidan jokapaiwainen leipamme. Ja anna meille meidan
welkamme anteeksi, miinkuin mekin anteelsi annamine meidan
welwollistemme. Ja ala johdata meita kiusaukseen. Mutta
paasta meita pahasta. Silla sinun on waltakunta, ja woima,
ja kunnia, ijankaikkisesti; Amen!
Mordwinian may be represented by part of a fable
entitled 'Fox and Wolf:
Kelas as"di kapa prea-sa, mez-divik
Fox sits hay-rick head-upon, something (abl.)
jarhtsai mol'-s malaz-inza virgas kizift-iza:
he eats. Came neighborhood-his wolf asked -him:
'mezda jarhta-t kelas jalgai?' 'Da vaga! Kal-nat
'What eatest-thou fox friend?' And there! fishes-which
kunda-ri.' 'Ko-sta kunda-t'?' 'Af aza-n.'
I have caught.' 'Whence has thou caught?' 'not I say.'
Of Magyar we may take an example from Kisfaludy:
Bus orje a sir-nak, magas Cyprus! te a
Sad guardian the grave-to, high Cypress! thou the
91
halal-nak nema biztos-a; mino titko-t feclez nemes
death-to dumb confidant-his ; what secret conceals sublime
peldazat-od? felho-t oszlat-va tor-sz fel a
image-thine? clouds dividing strugglest-thou upwards the
magas-ra 's az eg csillagos ter-e-i-n orok
height-up and of-the heaven starry spaces
feny-ben mereng-ve hezte-id tiszta-bb
splendor-into fixing gaze-thine purer
sziv-od arja-i-t 's komor-dan
thou drinkest-it-in floods its and earnestly
bii zke let-ed-et keskeny hant-ok
proud being-thy narrow sod
szentel-ed!
thou consecratest it!
Ideologically the Uralic tongues are either indirect
(I. 3. 5. 8. I) or hybrid (I. 3. 6. 8. HI).
With the Magyar Concept of Deity, namely, Isten, we
have already dealt. The remaining Concepts are:
his-eternal
levego-nek
air-to-the
meg is
yet also
disz-e-re
adornment-his-to
Finnish:
Itse ilmoinen Jumala
Valjastele varsojasi,
Eakentele ratsujasi
Aja kirja-korjinesi:
3umafa Thunder-place
Thou, o God among the breezes,
Catch the colth and have them ready;
Harness, thou, the lively steeds,
Hither drive in sledges gay!
Kiill jumal teeb, kui anname teha.
God indeed will do (it) if only we will let Him!
Esfhonian: 3ummal Thunder-place
jfceremissian:
Lapp:
Wogul:
Kuvas:
Mordwinian:
IOMa
Mok'sa:
Thunder
Thunder-place
Earth
Earth
The Hidden One.
Pas povni God-fearing.
Skai The Holy One.
TopHM
Topa
Ilasi,
H3* 92 H$~
In the Mok'sa form of Mordwinian we find the word
'Skai for Deity:
Oh! otsu skai kormelets! vara Skai kormelets! Mu^
anatama, makst: varda pisem, alda lihtima, paksas sora,
kuts sembendi sumbrasi, kaldasis sivatat; vanimast vorda,
tolda, kaldun lomarida!
great God, Guardian! God above, Defender! What
we long for, that give: rain from above, springs from below;
corn in the field, health for all at home, cattle in the pens.
Protect us from thieves, fire, and sorcerers!
There are many forms of the Tatar word, namely,
Jum, Juma, Jub; Num, Nom, Nome, Nup, Nop, Som, but
the Idea is always the same: primarily Sky, then Thunder.
As Prof. Tylor well observes:
'Over the vast range of the Tatar races, it is the type
of the supreme Heaven that comes prominently into view.
Nature-worshippers in the extreme sense, these rude tribes
conceived their ghosts and elves and demons and great
powers of the earth and air to be, like men themselves,
within the domain of the divine Heaven almighty and all-
encornpassing. To trace the Samoyed's thought of Num
the personal Sky passing into vague conceptions of per-
vading deity; to see with the Tunguz how Boa the Heaven-
god, unseen but allknowing, kindly but indifferent, has
divided the business of his world among such lesser powers
as sun and moon, earth and fire; to discern the meaning
of the Mongol Tengri, shading from Heaven into Heaven-
god, and thence into god or spirit in general; to follow
the records of Heaven-worship among the ancient Turks
and Hiong-nu; to compare the supremacy among the Lapps
of Tiermes, the Thunderer, with the supremacy among the
Finns of Jumala and Ukko, the Heaven-god and heavenly
Grandfather such evidence seems good ground for Castren's
argument, that the doctrine of the divine Sky underlay the
first Turanian conceptions, not merely of a Heaven-god,
H>- 93 H$~
but of a highest deity who in after ages of Christian con-
version blended into the Christian God'. Nor must we fail
to mention a beautiful expression for the deity found amongst
the Samoyeds, namely, Jilibeambaertje Protector of the
Living!
CHAPTER V,
THE THEOLOGY OF THE NUBA RACE, FROM THE STAND-
POINT OF PHILOLOGY.
Passing on to the Nuba race we may well begin with
the language of the Fiil-be known as Ful-de or Fulful-de.
Speaking generally the language has a harmoniously-evolved
phonetic system. It is fond of polysyllabic forms. The two
categories Noun and Verb are distinguished from each
other, the latter being built up upon the relation of predi-
cate. Subject and object are only distinguished by position
in the sentence, and attribute and predicate are not quite
adequately distinguished. Definition follows the thing to
be defined, consequently the genitive comes after the noun,
the attributive adjective after the substantive, the object
after its verb. The idiom possesses alike relative particles
and relative pronouns. With the pronoun of the first person
there is a double form in the plural, namely, inclusive and
exclusive.
Very interesting is the phonetic denotation of the cor-
relation of unity and plurality. In certain cases both with
the noun and the verb it is effected by a regular change
of initial consonants, which, as Prof. F. Miiller well observes,
occurs again in no idiom and implies an uncommonly cute
linguistic consciousness. Thus, M-do slave, ha-be slaves;
gor-ho man, tvor-le men; pul-o a fulah, ful-le fulahs. Nay,
more, we find two forms of the substantive, the indefinite
and the definite.
~3H 94 H-
Indefinite form Definite form
singular plural singular plural
Sagata sagata-be youth, youths; Sagata-on sagata-be-be
Ko-do ho-be stranger, strangers ; Ko-do-on ho-be-be.
But although as regards number and individuality the
language shows a rich and original evolution, in respect of
Case it is very poor. The two most important cases, the
subjective and objective can only be recognised by position
in the sentence. As already stated, the genitive follows
the substantive to which it belongs and the other case-
relations are expressed by prepositions preceding the nouns.
The adjective in the sense of the attribute follows the
substantive to which it belongs, agrees with it in number
and, instead of the noun, takes the articular ending. For
instance, baba moto a good father, baba moto-oii the good
father; baba-rabe moto-be good fathers, baba-rabe moto-
bebe the good fathers.
One may do well to compare the nominal expression
with possessive suffixes, with the verbal expression with
predicate suffixes:
Sing. 1. Pers. gelo-ba-am my camel fudor-mi I begin
2. Pers. gelo-ba-ma fudor-da
Plur. 1. Pers. gelo-ba-ammin fudor-men
As in Arabic, the distinction between transitive and
intransitive is made by difference of vowel, a in the one
case, i or u in the other. The verbal stems are six in
number, namely, the simple, the definite, the causative, the
reflexive, the reciprocal, and the limitative stem-form. Every
verb has a passive and every expression can appear either
in the positive or negative form.
The quinar-decimal system underlies Fulde and the
ideology is hybrid, namely, 2. 4. 6. 8. VI, as may be seen
from the following examples:
Timba wi-i jo be-deff-ana-mo maro jo onjam
Timba said that they boiled-him rice that he might eat.
~s* 95 HS-
Sapal-be nat-i e Gagaga, be-kel-i
Moors-the pressed into Gagaga, they destroyed
tata Makana be-mbar-i im-be fop.
the wall (of) Male ana they killed people all.
The thought of Deity is that of divine sovereignty:
Gomam Lord.
Gomirado.
If we take the language of the Nuba we find that it
has a harmoniously- developed phonetic system, excluding
too great an accumulation of either vowels or consonants.
As a rule forms are produced by means of suffixes. It is,
in fact, the process of the simplest agglutination.
Noun and verb are distinguished from each other but
the nominal expression predominates. Subject, predicate,
and object and attribute are denoted partly by position
and partly by the speech-form. The thing to be defined
comes after the defining element. The language possesses
no relative pronoun.
In Nubian a great part is played by compounds whereby
both substantives and adjectives are formed. They consist
of two expressions with definite denotation of the reciprocal
grammatical relationship. The latter is either one of the ob-
ject or of dependence. Thus, kare-kal 'fishes eating' = pelican;
nune-g-att-i 'thoughts bringing' = wise; id-en 'of the man
woman 7 = wife; mari-isse 'eyes water' = tear. Nubian not
knowing the categories of grammatical gender one has only
to consider those of number and case. Alike in the singular
and plural an i is added to the stem, in the former short,
in the latter long. E. g. sogort-i, murt-i (sing.); spirit,
horse; fab-i fathers, gid-i grasses.
As regards case, the nominative as subject has no sign;
as predicate it is denoted by a suffixed -a, the expression
of the copula. E. g. buru mas 'the beautiful maiden', on
the other hand mas-a 'it is good', mas-a immun 'it is not
~3* 96 K~
good'. The genitive is expressed by putting the denning
element before the thing to be denned: buru-n ukld 'the
maiden's ear'; fab-in ur 'the father's head'. The object-case
corresponds with our accusative and dative and is formed
by the suffix -ga in Mahas, and -gi in Kenus and Dongola.
In the sentence the expression of the direct object
(Accus.) as a rule goes before the finite verb. If a direct
(accus.) and an indirect (dat.) object occur in the sentence,
the direct takes the first place, the indirect the second.
Both as attribute and predicate the adjective follows
the substantive to which it belongs. In the former case
it takes the suffixes of the substantive, in the latter it
remains unchanged and must be joined to the copula.
There is no relative pronoun in Nubian, so the relative
sentence has to be treated as a noun, and construed as
such in relation to the principal sentence. E. g. 'the moun-
tain upon which Moses spake with Glod they call Sinai'
is expressed thus: Moses with God spake-of which mountain
Sinai they call.
The Nubian verb is characterized by peculiar suffixes,
and in speech by the preceding forms of the personal pro-
noun. The former are divided into those of the durative
and those of the aorist. There are six tenses: durative,
aorist, perfect, pluperfect, two forms of the future, the exact
future.
With regard to modality Nubian distinguishes between
positive and negative expression.
The decadic system underlies Nubian numeration, and
here it may be well to compare five dialects:
1
Malms
wer
Kenus
wera
Dongola
weri
Kulfan
her
Koldagi
her a
3
5
10
tusko
diga
diiner
tosku
digu
dimenu
toski
digi
dimini
toju
tisu
bure
todje
tessu
bure
20
aro
ari
ari
H3* 97 K~
THE PATER NOSTER.
Cf-fab semfi-lti taiis inni gudsi-kir-takk-eia,
Our Father heaven-in name tliine holy-be-made-indeed,
mulk inni kir-eia it-logo, irada inn aw-takk-eia
kingdom thy come-indeed us-to, will thine made-be-indeed
sema-gon ardi-gon-la, kabire kafi-g' u-ga
heaven-and earth-and-upon, food enough-which us-to
den-g-e eli, gafra-den-g-e sembi uni-gu-ga
(accus.)
give-us-indeed to-day, forgive-us-indeed sins our-they
sikkir u-gon gafra-tigg-uru ter-i-n u-log us-k
as we-and forgive them whom-of us-to bad-of
aw-innan-ga ii-g uda-gga-tam-e gerrib-id-la lakin
making (Ace.) us lead-us-not-indeed temptation-in but
negi-g-e sarri-ltoni, il-lo dar-in-nogo
deliver-us-indeed evil-out, thee-with is-because
mulki-gon gudra-gon gurandi-gon abad-la. Amin.
kingdom-and power-and glory-and unity-to. Amen.
Nubian ideology is natural, the formula being 1.4.5.8.1.
Of the supreme concept we have the following forms:
Nubian: Nor Lord
Mahas: Nor Lord
Dongolaivi: Arti Knower
Barea: Rebbi Master.
In Barea the Pater Noster is as follows:
He-aben nere-ge ut-ko, eiig-ade kuddusnej-am
Our-Father heaven-in is who, thy name hallowed be
eiiga simet wo-n-em, enga solinga ej-am nere-gi
thy kingdom come, thy will done be heaven-in
lug-go, he-koberi wal-n-i-gin-der-ko enton
earth-upon, our bread day-spend-make-to-which to-day
da, he-wangel fine ha, heige le he-negus-guna-go
give, our debt forgive us, as also our debtors
N
~$* 98 f<~
firi-in-dere-k, fitnet-gi ma nanegine lakin kosei
we forgive, temptation-in not lead into but evil
mesa-ko-gi diliin-ni-gin-ha. Amen,
great-out save us. Amen.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DRAVIPA RACE.
Like those of the Nuba race, the languages of the
Kolh or Vind'ja stems possess a richly-developed phonetic
system. The principle underlying their structure is suffix-
agglutination. By the side of this is the formation by infix.
The verb rests upon a predicative basis, which formally cannot
adequately be distinguished from the possessive relationship;
but its structure is quite formless, since the personal pro-
noun is only loosely connected with the verbal stem. A
verbal expression can be derived from any part of speech
by the addition of the verbal suffixes. In number there
are singular, dual and plural with the noun and pronoun,
and by the pronoun this distinction is transferred to the
verb. And, as regards the first person dual and plural of
pronoun and verb, we even find the distinction between
exclusive and inclusive. By the infix-formation, the struc-
ture of the verb, the dual, the two forms of the first person
dual and plural, as well as by the vigesimal system, the
Kolh idioms are essentially distinguished from the Dravi-
dian. Subject, object, and predicate and attribute are kept
apart alike by formal and syntactical means.
The vigesimal system is at the basis of the Vind'ja
numeration. The numbers one to five are as follows:
Sanfal Mundari Kolh Gwan Kurku
1 mi(t) Diija(t) mid mi rnia
2 barea baria barea ambar baria
->t 99 KT-
3 pea a[)i;i apia sgota hapia
4 ponea upunea upunja gudami upunia
5 more inonea morea monoja
Here are a few sentences in Mandari:
Ora'-ete daru salani mena. Sane-te diri hambala-
House-of tree high is. "Wood-of stone heavy
tan-a. He gomke aliii higu-tan-a-lin. Ini
being-is. O Sir we two (excl.) coming-are-we. He
apia merom-ko kirin-ked-ko-a. Aiii horo kagi
four goats bought them has. I man speech (lan-
ka-in bu gaw-a.
guage of the Mundas) not-I understand.
Vind'ja ideology is that of primitive mankind, 1. 4. 5. 8. 1,
being absolutely natural.
So far we have been considering the Vind'ja idioms
of the Dravida race, we have now to deal with the languages
more specifically known as Dravidian, namely, Tamil, Cana-
rese, Malayalam, Telugu, Tulu and Oraon.
By their phonetic system these tongues are sharply
distinguished from their neighbours, the Aryan. They all
possess five, some even six, classes of explosives, viz. guttu-
rals, palatals, cacuminal or cerebral and dental Dentals
and labials. In Tamil and Malayalam the cacuminal den-
tals are palatalised, whereby a new class of explosives arises.
The cacuminal dentals are in these idioms not only trans-
formations of ordinary dentals into suffix-syllables, as, for
instance, in Sanskrit and the allied dialects, but integral
parts of the roots.
Words are formed from roots by means of the process
of suffixing. The noun is rich in case-endings of a spatial
nature, but the denotation of grammatical cases is some-
what meagre. The verb rests on the predicative relationship
and is formed by suffixes, which represent contracted pro-
nouns. By position in the sentence subject and object,
~2* 100 *-
predicate and attribute are distinguished. The denning
element goes before the thing defined, the object before the
verb, which regularly closes the sentence. The subordinate
sentence also precedes the principal sentence, which it more
nearly defines. Possessing no relative pronoun the Dravida
languages have recourse to participial constructions, whereby
their structure becomes in many respects like that of the
Altaic tongues.
In these Dravidian tongues we have the phaenomenon
so common with the Uralian, Altaic and Samoyedic idioms,
namely, the so-called vowel-harmony, whereby one vowel
determines the nature of a neighbouring vowel. But whilst
in the Uralian and Altaic family of speech the vowel of a
suffix is assimilated to the vowel of the preceding stem,
i. e. retrograde assimilation, in the Dravidian languages the
last vowel of the stem is assimilated to the vowel of the
following suffix.
Originally the roots of these tongues were undoubtedly
monosyllabic, though now it is not always possible to find
them so. Attaching to the added elements is a definite
meaning, as in all word-forming elements of agglutinative
tongues.
As regards the noun there is, with the exception of
the pronoun of the third person, no adequate appreciation
of grammatical gender. But we find a distinction similar
to that which prevails in several American idioms, namely,
that between things rational and those irrational. The two
classes are called by native grammarians 'forms of the
higher cast' and 'forms of the lower cast'. To the former
belong designations for men, gods, demi-gods, spirits, etc.,
to the latter those for animals, lifeless things and abstract
ideas.
The Dravida verb rests upon the union of a predica-
tive nominal stem and a personal pronoun standing as subject.
Dravidian numeration is based upon the decadic system.
~>4 101 HS~
Tamil Malayalmn Telugu Canarese Tulu Kudagu
1 Onclru onna Okati Vondu vongi ondu
5 eindti anka ajidu eidu einu ani
10 pattu patta padi hattu paltii pattu
Podci Oraon Braliui
I Yodd Onta asit
5 iik panke pang
10 paltu dase dah
The Dravidians do not seem to have counted beyond
100, at all events, in the first instance.
The following may serve as instances of Dravidian con-
struction and ideology:
Tamil.
Parabaran imd-endr-um avar enn-ei ppadei-tt-ar
God is-said-having-and he me created has
endr-um viguvagi-kkidr-en.
said-having-and believe-I.
; I believe that God exists and that He has created me.'
A-ppadi an-al avan en i-ppadi kkollu-gidr-an?
That way being-through he as this way speaks?
'If that is the case, how can he speak thus?'
Malayalam.
Masi kon-tu var-enam-enna avan-ota padra-ka.
Ink taken-having come-beg-said having him-with speak.
'Tell him to bring ink.'
Tamil: uril evvalavu viduga] irukkidradu?
Telugu: pallelo enni indlu unnavi?
Kanari: uralli estu manegalave?
Town-in how many houses are?
Oraon.
Pater noster.
He embai ge merka-nu rak-adaj, ninahi name
O Father who heaven-in art, Thy name
~s* 102 K~
pavitr mano, ninahi ragi barko, ninahi suuwak ekane
holy be, Thy kingdom come, Thy will as
merka-nu aneho k'ekal-nu ho-mano, emahi ulla-ulla-nta
heaven-in even so earth-upon be-done, our daily
asma ina emage kia, antle emahi dosan muaf
bread to-day us give, and our debt forgiveness
nana, ekane em-ho emahi dosnanur-in muaf
make, as we-also our debtors forgiveness
nandam, antle eman pariksa-nu amba kaka, pahe
make, and us temptation-into not lead, but
burai-nti Kar-a-bak-a; ragi, sawan antle mahatm sadau
evil-from deliver; kingdom, power and glory ever
sadau ninahi rai. Amen.
ever Thine is. Amen.
Tamil Pater Noster.
UULD<5$)Tl<oV
Q<su.
(j) II 1~ <F & ILJ Lb
JJLL<smL- 6
Q<FlLJlLJUU(Sl!fD ^[iQLJfrSVjL-^uSllfilQsVlLJLD (o&'lLHUU
LD/r/E/c35sr
LLIT
6T
LbSST.
Para-mandalan-gal-il iru-kkidr-a en-gal Bida-v-e!
Highest circles-in being our Father-o
~&* 103 K~
umm-ucleija namam bari-gutta ppadu-vad-aga. Unim-udeija
Thy name holy be made be. Thy
irakkijam varu-vad-aga. Umm-udeija gittam bara-mandal-
kingdom come may. Thy will highest-circles-
att- il-e gejja-ppadu-gidra-du bola ppumi-j-il-e-j-
in- in truth done be as earth-upon-forsooth-
mi gejja-ppadu-vad-aga. Andr-andr-ulla en-gal app-att-ei
also done is. Day-day-being our bread
eii-gal-u-kku indru dar-um. En-gal-u-kku virodam-aj
us-to to-day give. Us-to inimically
kkutrtraii gej-gidra-var-gal-u-kku nan-gal manni-kkidr-adu
guilt making we forgiving
bola en-gal gutrtran-gal-ei en-gal-u-kku manni-j-um.
as our debts us-to forgive.
En-gal-ei kkodanei-kku ut piravegi-kka . . ppann-amal
Us ternptation-to into to enter not making
dimei-j-inindru en-gal-ei iratki-ttu . . . kkollum!
evil-from us saved having take!
Irakkijam-um vallamei-j-um magimei-j-um endr-endrei-kk-um
Kingdom-and power-and majesty-and eternity to
mum-udeija-vei-gal-e! Amen.
Thy property forsooth! Amen.
Thus, speaking generally, the ideology of the Dravidian
idioms proper is indirect, i. e. 1. 3. 5. 8. III.
The Dravidian forms of the theisticldea are the following:
Tamil: <Fp(fJj(S<oU<9i- J<5$r. Kadruvegurau Omnipotent.
Ragmahali: Tfarfara Grosanjit' Leader of the Flock
Urija: Q \ff$flfl Bura-Pennu Light-God
<2*~ d~
Gond: rrftihr Tari-Pennu Earth-Goddess
o
Munda: Oraon: Sant'al: ftrf^tf Sih-Boha Sun-God
A very usual name for God in Tamil is uunruJJfEa
Parabaran, but this is only another form of mmirw, the
-3* 104 K-
Supreme. Nay, the one given above, namely,
is really UcfaeR The Omnipotent.
"Booted as they are" says Dr. Tylor, "in the depths
of nature-worship, the doctrines of the supreme Sun and
Heaven both come to the surface again in the native reli-
gions of Asia. The divine Sun holds his primacy distinctly
enough among the rude indigenous tribes of India. Al-
though one sect of the Khonds of Orissa especially direct
their worship to Tari Pennu the Earth-goddess, yet even
they agree theoretically with the sect who worship Bura
Pennu or Bella Pennu, Light-god or Sun-god, in giving to
him supremacy above the manes-gods and naturegods, and all
spiritual powers. .. . . In tracing its old "World development
(i. e. Sun-worship), we begin among the ruder Allophylian
tribes of Asia, and end among the great polytheistic nations.
The north-east quarter of India shows the doctrine well
defined among the indigenous stocks. The Bodo and Dhimal
place the Sun in the pantheon as an elemental god, though
in practical rank below the sacred rivers. The Kol tribes
of Bengal, Mundas, Oraons, Santals, know and worship as
supreme, Sing-bonga, the Sun -god; to him some tribes
offer white animals in token of his purity, and while not
regarding him as author of sickness or calamity, they will
resort to him when other divine aid breaks down in
sorest need."
CHAPTER VII.
THE BASQUES AND THE CAUCASIANS.
The organism of the Basque language principally rests
upon that polysynthetic suffixing structure which characterizes
most of the North American idioms. The verb forms the
-&* 105 ><~
centre of the sentence, taking up into itself the pronominal
subject and object, both the nearer (accusative) and the
further object (dative) as necessary complement.
Phonetically noun and verb are sharply distinguished from
each other, but an essentially-nominal conception underlies
the verb. Speaking generally one may say that, there is no
absolute demarcation of the subject from the object. There
is a separation of the predicate and attribute, but the various
attributive expressions are not all treated alike. The lan-
guage possesses both a relative pronoun and a relative particle.
The numerical system rests upon a vigesimal basis, but
from a hundred onwards we find the decimal system, which
was introduced later.
1. Bat 10. hamar, amar 20. hogei, ogei.
The three dialects are well shown in the
PATER NOSTER.
a) Guipuzcoan.
Aita gure-a ceru-et-an za-ude-n-a
Father our the heavens-in Thou-dwelling-who-the
santificatu-a izan bedi zure icen-a, b-etor
hallowed-the become he-be Thine name-the, it-come
gu-gana zure reinu-a eguin b-edi zure vorondate-a
us-to Thy Kingdom- the made be Thy will-the
nola ceru-a-n ala lurre-a-n. Egun igu-zu gure
as heaven-the-in so earth-the-in. Day give our
egun-oro-z-ko ogui-a eta barca di-zqui-gu-tsu gure
daily bread-the and forgive them-us-Thou our
zorr-ac gu-c gure zordun-a-i barca-tcen die-gu-n becela.
debts we our debtors-to forgiving them-we as.
Eta ez g-ai-tza-tsu-la utci tentacio-a-n eror-ten,
And not us-thou-indeed let temptation-the-in fall,
baicic-an libra g-ai-tza-zu gaitc-etic. Amen,
but free us-Thou evil-from. Amen.
~$H 106 H-
(3) Biscayan.
Aita guri-a cerub-it-an z-agoz-an-a santificadu
Father our-the heaven-s-in Thou-be-ing-the hallowed
bedi zure icen-a, b-etor gu-gana zure erreinub-a,
be Thy name-the, it-come us-to Thy kingdom-the,
eguin bedi zure borondati-a nolan cerub-a-n ala
made he be Thy will-the as heaven- the-in evenso
lurri-a-n. Egun-ian-egun-ian-go gueure oguij-a
earth-the-upon. Day-in-day-in-for our bread-the
egun igu-zu eta parcatu ei-gu-zuz gueure zorr-ac gu-c
to-day give and forgive us-Thou our debts we
gueure zordun-a-i parque-tan deutse-gu-zan legue-a-z
our debtors-to forgive we them way-the-in (as)
eta ichi ez ei-gu-zu tentacioni-a-n jans-ten bana
and let not us-Thou temptation-the-in fall but
libradu g-aizuz gache-tie. Amen,
free us-Thou evil-from. Amen.
f) Labour dan.
Gure Aita ceruetu-an aic-en-a sanctifica bedi
Our Father heavens-in being-the hallowed he-be
hire icen-a ethor bedi hire resum-a, eguin
thy name-the coming he-be thy kingdom-the, made
bedi hire vorondate-a ceru-a-n begala lurre-a-n-
he-be thy will-the heaven-the-in as earth-the-upon-
ere. Gure egun-eco ogui-a igu-c egun eta quitta
also. Our daily bread-the give to-day and forgive
ietza-gu-c gure gorr-ak nola gu-c-ere gure gordun-e-y
them-us our debts as we-also our debtors
quitta-tzen baitraue-gu eta ez-g-ai-tza-la sar
forgiving them-they-we-are and not-us-thou-indeed enter
eraci tentation-et-an baina deliura g-ai-tza-c gaichto-tic.
make temptations-in but deliver us-thou evil-from.
~SH 107 HS~
Ecan hire-a du-c resum-a eta puissanc.-a eta
For thine is kingdom-the and power-the and
gloria secul-ac-otz. Amen,
glory-the eternities-for. Amen.
Basque ideology varies with the dialect, but, speaking
generally one may say that it is hybrid, 2. 4. 6. 8. VI.
The theistic thought is one of great significance, namely,
Jainkoa = Jaun-goi-ko Master above,
e. g. Jainkoa-gan-a bihots goititsea 'to lift the heart to God'.
The Caucasian languages consist of at least two families,
which differ alike from those of the Ural-Altaic tribes on
the one hand, and of the Aryan on the other. With a
great poverty of vowels we find a marked abundance of
consonants. The principle of agglutination, which governs
these idioms, in certain cases almost amounts to inflexion.
Formation is both by prefix and suffix.
In the North Caucasian idioms we have the interesting
appreciation of gender which rests upon the antithesis of
animate and inanimate, rational and irrational, as well as
of male and female. The object is taken up into the verb,
as in Basque. As regards numeration, with a few exceptions
the vigesimal method obtains.
Unlike the South Caucasians those of the North are
so loosely connected that, at first sight, one would be inclined
to consider each language a distinct individual. Neverthe-
less, on closer inspection, we can discover certain likenesses
which we should do well to remember, namely, a) the deno-
tation of gender; p) the same syntactical treatment of the
verb, in so far as it denotes a state or an act, i. e. appears
transitively or intransitively. In all the idioms the transitive
verb is connected with the instrumental of the agent,
(genitive in Kasikumikian) , excepting only Abkasian; f)
denotation of the plural; b) appreciation and phonetic deno-
tation of case.
In numeration, with the aforesaid exception, all the
108
Caucasian idioms agree about the numbers 10 and 20 and,
as regards the rest, there are many striking resemblances.
According to Prof. F. Miiller these languages may be
classified as follows:
A. North Caucasian tongues:
1. Abkasian and Kerkessian
2. Avaric, Kasikumildan, Arln, Hirkanian,
Kiirinic, Udic, Kefonzic.
B. South Caucasian Stem:
Georgian, Mingrelian, Lazian and Suanian.
Owing to its peculiar prefixing verbal flexion combined
with the infixing of the pronominal object Abkasian is
unlike all the other North Caucasian idioms, and this applies
to its expressions for number.
As regards the question of linguistic affinities between
North and South, the present state of science will hardly
admit a definite answer.
As an instance of nominal richness in the South Cau-
casian languages let us take Suanian, where the declension
is as follows:
Sing. Plur.
Mare 'man' mare-1
mare-s marel-s
rnare-s marel-s
mare-sa marel-sa
mare-su rnarel-su
mare-ken marel-ken
mare-t'e marel-t'e
mare-si marel-is
inare-kuk'an marel-kuk'an
mare-ul marel-ul.
The reflexive pronoun in Georgian is interesting. The
word taivi 'head' is used in the sense of our 'self (Ar.
nafs-u). From tawi we may probably derive the reflexive
Vunsi, which in use corresponds with the Sanskrit sva. In
Subj. Objective
Genitive
Dative
Locative
Instrumental
Ablative
Approximative
Superessive
Subessive
Caritive
-3* 109 K-
Basque the word buru 'head' is used in a precisely similar
sense; e. g. beren buru-ak bil' os-ak ikusi siran 'they saw
themselves naked' (their heads naked they saw).
The most striking feature of the South Caucasian Verb
is the distinction made between the direct and the indirect
conjugation. In the former the psychological subject is
conceived in the nominative, in the latter it occurs in the
sense of the dative.
To show the degree of phonetic affinity between two
of the South Caucasian languages we may take the verbum
substantivum in Georgian and Lazian. This verb is the
more important as it is used in the formation of periphrastic
phrases.
Present
Georgian Lazian
Sing. W-ar I am W-ora
K-ar thou art ore
ar-s he is onu
Plur. w-ar-t' we are w-ore-t
k-ar-t f ye are ore-t
ar-i-an they are ore-r-an
The Perfect-Aorist is in Georgian derived from kaiv
corresponding with the Lazian infinitive konu, but in the
latter case the root used for the preterite is ar. Thus:
Georgian Lazian
Sing, w-i-kaw I was w-or-ti
i-kaw thou wast or-ti
i-ko he was or-tu
Plur. w-i-kue-ni-t e we were w-or-ti-t
i-kue-ni-t c ye were or-ti-t
i-ku-n-en they were or-te-s
The Lazian verb 'to be' is the only verb which possesses
a future; it is as follows:
110
Singular
Plural
1. Pers.
w-i-a-re
w-i-a-t-e-re
2. Pers.
i-a-re
i-a-t-e-re
3. Pers.
i-a-s-e-re
i-a-n-e-ne
Underlying numerical expressions of the South Cau-
casian family of speech is the vigesimal system. Numbers
1, 10 and 20 are as follows:
Georgian Mingrelian
Lazian
Suanian
1
ert c i
art c i
ar
esku
10
at'i
wit'i
wit
iesf-esku
20
otsi
etsi
6ts
ieru-iest c
Abekas.
Avar.
Kasikum.
ArKi
1
aki
tso
za-va
OS
10
sp'a-ba
ank-go
ak-va
uiz
20
gh'o-sp'a
ko-go
ku-va
ka-it c u
Hurhan.
Kurin.
Udic.
KelL
1
za
sad
sa
ka
10
vik-al
zud
vik
iV
As a specimen of Georgian we may take a Portion of
a Letter from Prince Sulk'an to M. le Comte Pont char train,
dated 23. March 1714, which appeared in the 9th Volume
of the 'Journal Asiatique' for 1832:
cnurfnn
u
-*f 111 ft*.
Me Sulk' an Saba Orbeliani am zigns gzer da amas
waznobeb rom t'kwenis maglis mepis brdsanebita zkalobita
da uilfit'a ak dids kalaks Pariss mowedit'.
I, Sulk' an Saba Orbeliani, write you this letter and
make known to you that, by the commands, favors and gifts
of your exalted Sovereign, I have arrived at this great city
of Paris.
PATER NOSTER.
Mama-o lhven-o romeli k-ar za-t c a sina, kmida
Father-o our-o who who-art heavens in, holy
i-kawn sak'eli seni, mo-wedin sup'ewa seni i-kawn
it-be name Thy, hither-come Kingdom Thy, it-become
neba seni wit'ar-za za-t'a sina egre-za k'uekana-sa seda,
will Thy like-as heavens in even-so earth upon,
puri kweni arsobi-sa mo-mez k'wen dge-s, da
bread our existence-of hither-give us day-to, and
mo-mitew-en kwen t'ana-nadeb-ni kwen-ni wit'ar-za kwen
here-forgive us debt-s our like-as we
mi-u-teweb-t c t'ana-mdeb-t'a mat' kwen-t'a, da nu
them-forgive the debtors those ours, and not
se-mi-kwaneb kwen gansazdel-sa aramed mi-ksnen kwen
lead us temptation-to but deliver us
boroti-sa-gan, romet'u seni ar-s sup'ewa da gali da
evil-from, for Thine is kingdom and power and
dideba sankune-t'a mimart\ Amin.
greatness eternitie-s unto. Amen.
As we have seen, the ideology of these South Cau-
casian tongues is indirect, namely, 1. 3. 5. 8. III.
Alike in Georgian, Mingrelian and Suanian or Swa-
netian we have the same thought of God:
Georgian: ^^ (\cn O? ~ Q A fa Gmert'- (man), stem:
Gmert'i. J/^ = \^-
G'mert c -oba divinity, deity. G'rnert'i-s sitkwa God's Word.
^* 112 HSr-
Mingrelian; JJIfltfljfltn Goront-i
Swanetian ft**{t}l S^lh G'ermet.
Here we have perhaps the answer to Prof, de Harlez's
question (see p. 23). K'uda came to the dwellers in the Cau-
casus as G e ti whence it may well have passed over to the
Goths as Guth. Afterwards it was expanded to G'mert'i or
G c ermet in the sense of 'The Self-Existent above'.
In T'us and KeKenzis we have a common concept
namely, Dal, Dele, ft % % $ t{ ^ g Giver.
Dal-go-ih 'up to God 7 (conversive) ; Dal-go-re 'down from
God 7 . NaKkwo or E elf enzis : si huma d-u kigamat-an din-ah.
Two things are resurrection-of the day-on
Dele ses-k'e hos-u-r w-6zu-s.
God himself see-will not.
Then we have
Avaric: ^S^SSS. Betsed Eiches, Wealth; the exact
equivalent of *m. Bits-ase hu'-el hetso; adam-asul
God-to dying not is; men-of
/
hulare-u wak'inaro. Gungutal-dasa tsai k'ak
not-dying-one not is. Gungutal-of men very
betsed-a-1 r-ugu.
rich they-are.
Lastly, we have the Abkasian
5 1 L Anka, Mother.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE HOTTENTOTS.
Let us now turn to the theologic speech and thought
of savagery. Beginning with that yellow race of woolly-
haired men, the Hottentots, or more correctly K c oikoi and
San : by what name did they try to express the Inexpressible,
~3* 113 Mg-
to utter the Unutterable? What was their predicate of
God?
Before finding an answer to this supreme question
it may be well to get a glimpse at the prehistoric ethnical
condition of this interesting people. In ancient times this
race, which consisted of two branches, inhabited the great-
er part of South Africa, at least the territory South of
the rivers Kunene and Zambesi. As Dr. F. Hahn points
out: 'We should apply the term Hottentot to the whole
race, and call the two families each by the native name,
that is the one, the Khoikhoi, the so-called Hottentot proper ;
the other the San (Sa) or Bushmen.' The meaning of the
former term is 'men of men', i. e. men par excellence, but
the derivation of San is not quite certain: most probably
the root is Sa to inhabit, to be settled, so that San would
mean Aborigines or Settlers. In the Colonial Annals they
are styled Bosjesman or Bosmanneken to indicate their
abode and mode of living, whilst in the Cape Records they
are called Sa-gu-a, Sonqua or Sounqua.
'While the Bushmen are hunters, the Khoikhoi are
nomads, cattle and sheep farmers; and while the Bushman
family has with the Khoikhoi, linguistically speaking, only
the clicks and some harsh sounding faucals and a few
roots of words in common, the various Bushman languages
hitherto recorded differ among themselves as much as they
differ from the Khoikhoi idioms. This difference and variety
in speech is mainly due to their wandering habits and unsett-
led life. The wild inaccessible mountain strongholds and the
arid deserts of South Africa, where nobody can follow them,
are their abode; constantly on the alert, constantly on the
move, constantly on the path of war either with other tribes or
with the wild animals, no inducement is given to them for
a settled life, the necessary condition of the development of
a more articulate speech and a higher intellectual culture.
The Khoikhoi or Nomadic Hottentots have all the
P
H3* 114 H5~
same language which branches off in as many idioms and
dialects as there are tribes. The idiomatic peculiarities,
however, are not very prominent, indeed not so striking
as to hinder a Gei || khan or Auni or || Habobe of Great
Namaqualand and the J Nube of Ovamboland, or the Gei
^ nam of the North Western Kalihari conversing easily
with the inhabitants of the Khamies Bergen (North Western
Colony) and with the | Koras and Griquas of Griqualand
West and the Orange Free State.'
Considered formally the K'oilcoi language is amalga-
mating, formless and suffixing throughout. Its ideology is
hybrid, the formula being II. 8. 1. 4. That is to say, the
order of the K'oiUoi sentence is: Object + verb + subject;
subject -{- verb; genitive + noun ; noun + adjective. Noun and
verb, originally identical, can only be determined in the
sentence by affixed pronominal elements. From a psycho-
logico - grammatical standpoint the language distinguishes
the subject from the predicate principally by the different
position within the sentence, as is also the case with the
attribute and predicate, the subject and the object. As
there is no relative pronoun in K'oikoi, such a sentence as
'the ox which they had seen in Hoalanas, preceded them'
can only be expressed thus: see-ox the-Hoaltan-as in-they
seen him went before them, mii-fe goma-bjhoa-Ka-inas
jna-gu gje mu-b gje ei-ei-ba-gu.
But there is one fact about the K'oiKoi distinguishing
them from all the Bushmen tribes which shows how high
must have been their intellectual evolution even before
migrating from their primaeval home. I mean their power
of forming concepts or abstract words. For instance: -
^ Ei to think, from J ani to cut to pieces; ^ ei (= ^ anis)
thought; ei :f eT-sen to consider, think over again; ei ^ ei-
sen-s the result of one's own consideration, idea, perception.
A yes; ama. true; amab truth; amasib truthfulness.
| Amo endless, eternal; | amosib infinity. This word
- 115 r^
is derived from | a to be sharp, pointed; hence | am the
end, the point; o is privative and corresponds to the a
privativum of the Greeks, so that | amo is that which is
without end the Infinite.
| nam | nam to love; | nams love: nam | nain-sa fond.
| K'om to have mercy; | koms mercy.
| u to forget; [ u to forgive.
$ Ma to refuse; ^ Itaba stubborn, wicked; ^ kaba sib
wickedness.
3a to feel; $ab feeling, taste, sentiment; $a | ka to con-
dole; }a- | kasib condolence.
I Ann neat, clean; ami and Anuka sacred, pure, refined;
anusib holiness, sacredness, purity.
Nor is this all. The abstract power of the K'oikoi
idiom is perhaps nowhere so fully shown as in the great
number of its names for the various divisions and sub-
divisions of color, j uri white, ^ nii black, | am green, | ava
red, ^ hoa blue, | hai fawn-colored, i huni yellow, J gama
brown, j kau grey, j nai ^ u garu dotted. Then there
are the subdivisions: uri- j huni whitish- yellow, j urisi
whitish, ^ nu ho black- patched, ^ mi | garu black-dotted,
j(. nu | ura black-shining, | ava ^ ura red -shining, | ava
^ gani with white and red patches, | ava | ho or | gi
| ho chestnut-color, | avara or avaka reddish, j am J ura
green-shining, ^ gama | ho brown-dotted, ^ gama | garu same;
^ gama J hoa brownish- blue (the color of Bucephalus
capensis), ^ gama ^ ura brown-shining, like the Vipera
Cornuta.
Prof. F. Mliller would therefore seem to be going too
far when he says:
,,Da die Sprache nicht im Stande ist ein Nomen un-
bestimmt zu fassen (wie unsere ,,Pferd, Kind"), sondern
jedes Nomen, falls es nicht als Pradicat in der dritten
Person (gleich einem pradicativ gebrauchten Adjectivum)
zu fassen ist, mit dem Zeichen der Person, des Geschlechtes
~t 116 :<~
und der Zahl ausstatten niuss, so ersieht man wie bei dieser
streng individualisirenden Auffassung der Sprache jeg-
licher Weg zur Bildung der Begriffe von voruherein ab-
geschnitten 1st."
Now, it is a remarkable fact that in all the K'oikoi
idioms we have various forms of the same word for God,
namely, ^imi* |io$oam.
K'oiHoi: &uni* II $oam: 3111 || Kwap
Nama: sui || Goab
j Kara: 5u || Goam: K'u || koap
Cape Koilloi: Tan-kwoa: Ti || kwoa
| Q-onakwa: T c ui-kwe
5ui || Goab K c oi-b-a kai-b-a ra ma 'God gives bless-
ing to mankind/ and 3i-b ge 3ui- || Goab | na-b-a ge mu |
gai-b-a j kaie 'And God saw the Light, that it was good.'
This K c oiloi word has long been a riddle to etymo-
logists. Most missionaries have translated it "wounded knee",
from zu wounded, and || goab knee. And even Dr. Halm
himself in his paper 'Der Hottentotische Tsuni |j Goam
und der griechische Zeus 7 , which was written in 1870,
adopted this view. In a more recent work, however, he
has given us a different interpretation. In 5uni || Goam
we have two independent roots, j/zu to wound and || goa to
approach, go on. And it is the same whether we say in
K'oikoi || Goab, || Goam coming-he i. e. he comes or the
coming one, namely, Day, or whether we say: || Goab ||
Goam the walking one, i. e. Knee. 3uni || Goam is, there-
fore, the wound of Day, the Red Morning, the Dawn. What
a lovely glimpse into the primaeval picture-gallery of
human thought and faith: the lisas and J Hiu of the K. c oiloi!
The j Koras believe 5ui || Goam to live in the red
Sky, and when day dawns the K'oikoi go and pray with
the face turned toward the East: '0 3u || Goa, All-Father!'
The following simple and beautiful Hymn which is at the
same time a Prayer is still sung when the Pleiades first
117
appear above the eastern horizon, when the j Garni ^ nus
in the || K c oras mountains the || Habobes or so-called
Veltschoendragers (Sandal -wearers) in the North East ||
JECaras, and the Gei || K'ous, || O-geis and the ^ Aunis of
the K c omab Mountains East of Sandwich Harbour come
together for a | gei i. e. a religious dance.
5ui || Goaze!
Abo ize!
Sida ize!
Nanuba | avire!
En kuna uire!
Eda sida uire!
$ K'abuta gum goroo!
ii Gas kao!
! As kao!
Eta kurina amre!
Sazgum kave sida izao?
Abo izao?
3ui || Goaze!
Eda sida ganganzire!
Eda sida II kava I Kaizire!
Thou, o 5ui || Goa!
Father of fathers!
Thou, our Father!
Let rain the thunder-cloud!
Please let (our) flocks live!
Let us live, please!
I am so very weak indeed!
From thirst!
From hunger!
That I may eat field fruits!
Art thou then not our Father?
The Father of the fathers!
3ui || Goa!
That we may praise Thee!
That we may give thee in re-
turn (i. e. may bless Thee!)
Father of fathers!
Thou our Lord!
O 3ui || Goa!
Abo ize!
Sida j K'uze!
3ui || Goaze.
It is, however, highly probable that the term || B'lifi
Ruler, Lord (Y\ lu to be laden, rich, powerful) was used
even before 3uni || Goam as a predicate of the Godhead.
'This name was formed long before the tribes separated
to migrate to the right and left, and we are correct in
presuming that at that time their religious ideas were
much purer than we find them now, when various circum-
stances have worked to accelerate their annihilation' (loc.
cit. p. 149),
H3H 118 H$~
CHAPTER IX.
THE PAPUANS.
In passing on to the Papuan race we are now able
to analyse the New Guinea dialects known as the Motu of
Port Moresby and the Map or of Dore Bay.
Judging from Mapor the Papuan languages are totally
different from the Melanesian and Malayo-Polynesian. They
lack, for instance, the literal agreement of the possessive pro-
nouns suffixed, and though the dictionary of Motu is Eastern
Polynesian, the grammar is Papuan throughout. Motu is spo-
ken not only at Port Moresby, but also at Pari, Borebada,
Lealea, and Manumanu, as well as by the natives of Belena,
Boera, Tatane, Yabukori, Tupuselei, Kaile and Kapakapa. *
As regards the noun and the verb the former, if not
primitive as du a tree, nadi a stone, is formed from the
latter by prefixing i, as ilapa a sword, from lapaia to smite;
ikoko a nail, from kokoa to nail. The plural is made in
many ways; sometimes by reduplicating a syllable, sometimes
by adding dia, the pronominal suffix of the third person
plural, or, again, by dropping one or even two syllables, as
Tauhau a young man, Uhau young men; Haniulato maiden,
Ulato maidens. Prepositions and suffixes na singular and dia
plural are used for family relations and parts of the body,
and to express the genitive.
Mero Sinana boy mother his; the boy's mother.
Lohiabada aena chief leg his; the chief's leg.
In other cases ena is placed after the principal noun.
Plural nouns take dia and edia instead of na and ena:
Hanua taudia edia rumadia village men their houses =
the houses of the villagers.
Motu is an indirect language, the ideological formula
being III. 1. 3. 5. 8. Owing to the dearth of particles
1 See Chalmer's Motu Grammar.
~3* 119 H$~
the sense is sometimes obscure. For instance, 'He Jerusalem
journey made; he towns and villages passed through; he
them taught went' is a literal translation of Luke 13. 22
Very remarkable is the use of Reduplication. Instead
of increasing it diminishes: e. g. keheni girl, hekenikeheni
little girl. Adjectives expressing colors are all reduplica-
ted, as Jiurokuro white; horemakorema black. There are
two forms of the plural, the inclusive and the exclusive:
thus ita is f we' when the person addressed is included, ai
when excluded.
The verb is, for the most part, a primitive or underi-
ved word, as gini to stand, noho to sit or dwell. Person
is expressed not by change in the verb itself but by the
pronoun and a vowel or particle placed between it and the
verb. Similarly tense itself is shown by particles put im-
mediately before the verb. To express reciprocity he is
prefixed and heheni suffixed to the verb which is generally
reduplicated, as :
Hebadubaduheheni To be angry one with another.
There being no verb to be in Motu, it is expressed by
the pronoun and noun or adjective with a verbal particle
as copula.
Lau vata dika I (am) bad.
Lau baina gorere I (shall be) sick
'With active verbs the agent comes first, the subject
acted upon next and the verb last. Lau ia dadabaia I he
beat him la natuna lau hadikagu he his child I abused me.
A noun-suffix requires its corresponding pronoun to pre-
cede it. Lau imagu I hand my, my hand. Idia matadia
vata Jiapapadia their eyes them were opened them. Hanua
taudia idia edia rumadia village men their houses them.
Mero idia tohu baine henidia boy they sugarcane will
give them.
Causation is expressed in the following remarkable
way. 'He bananas anger angry' (la bigu baduna badu), he
-** 120 HS~
is angry on account of the bananas. Idia boroma garidia
gadi 'they pigs their fear afraid', they are afraid because
of the pigs. Oi lau garigu gari 'thou I fear my afraid',
you are afraid of me. Mero Mtolo taina tdi 'boy hunger
crying his cries', the boy cries from hunger.
The negative is put between the two nouns, as Umui
idia gaudia basi o gari 'You they fear-their do not fear 7 ,
do not be afraid of them.
Many of the customs of the tribe may be learnt from a
study of its semasiology. When the men are away on a voyage
a sacred woman performs certain rites to ensure the safe re-
turn of the voyagers. If the misfortune or death of a foe
be desired, incantations are used, whilst the spirits of those
killed are believed to appear to survivors in some dreadful
form. The function of the sorcerer is to bring back the
soul when, during sickness, it leaves the body. This he
does by making passes over the body of the sick man, for
which the former receives payment.
"When grieving for the dead", says Mr, Chalmers,
"they scratch their faces so as to draw blood, or else they
cut themselves with a flint or shell. A coarse cloth is worn
as a mourning garment, or a cane is plaited round the body.
On the death of a husband an enclosure of mats is made
round the grave; inside of this the widow sits and mourns.
They bury their dead. To feel pity is to have the stomach-
ache, for the stomach is said to be the seat of the affec-
tions. To an enemy treachery is practised, but hospitality
is shown to strangers. The man who stores up for future
use is praised, whilst the lazy man and the thief are
abused."
What, then, is the Motu concept of Deity? If we look
for a Papuan theosophic Archetype we are not likely to
find it, for nowhere is the principle of evolution more fully
to be recognised than in the history of the spiritual life of
man. And yet the Motuans have no mean idea of God.
~3* 121 f<~
Indeed, in extension they have the concept which Christ
Himself has given us: they call Him Dirava 'Spirit', Dirava
~kara religion, Dirava urana lira ham Godliness. It is
Spirit mi' eHoxnv. For ghost there is the word Lauma,
for the unknown spirit of evil Vatavata, but God, the Lord
of all is Dirava. So that we can translate
|||. la Dirava hekisehekise kara nahuana, ia laueku
varavara, mai laueku taihuna, mai laueku sinana *|||.
'Whosoever doth the "Will of God, the same is my
brother, my sister and mother.'
Map'or or, as the Dutch write it, Noefoor (Nupor) is
spoken by about 2000 people, not only at Dore Bay but
also on the islands of Manaswari and B-'un. But there is
no native name for the Supreme in Map or. The word used
is Hari, a cognomen of Vinu, borrowed from India, from
the Aryan root yar to be light, to burn.
Mark xi is translated thus:
|||. Maka manseren Jesus p'iaper be Jerusalem
And Lord Jesus came to Jerusalem
ma ro rum Hari ma i-mam kojar
and into house of-God and he observed everything
orija ma mandira rape i-be-sasiar i-mbran
there and evening when he-withdrew he-went
be Bethanie ro murid-si samp'ur sisser suru.
to Bethany with disciples ten and two .|||.
CHAPTER X.
THE AFRICAN NEGRO RACE.
Next in order comes the African Negro race. Here
our material is singularly rich and varied. We have inde-
pendent predicates of Deity in no less than 23 languages.
Beginning with the speech of the Dinkas (Gjen-ke)
on the White Nile we find that most of the forms are mono-
Q
^* 122 f<~
syllabic and end with a consonant. It is a formless lan-
guage. Noun and verb are identical; subject and object,
predicate and attribute can only be distinguished by ex-
ternal means. And this is true of the dative and accusa-
tive, the former being found regularly behind the verbal
expression, whilst the latter invariably stands between the
elements a-bi (future), a-Td (perfect and negation) and the
following verbal expression.
E. g. Dative: An a-M kan jelt ran
I have this given man (to the).
Accusative: Jen a-bi piu lei
He will water bring.
The category of grammatical gender is unknown to
Dinka per se, and can only be represented by such ex-
pressions as 'man, woman'. Thus mare is expressed by
'little-woman-this-horse' (tirie gorikor).
Alike in an attributive and in a predicative sense the
adjective comes after the substantive to which it belongs;
e. g. ran did great man, ror did great men; ran a-did the
man is great, ror a-did the men are great. The ideology
is hybrid, the formula being 2. 4. G. 8. VI.
Now the Dinka name for the Supreme is Dendid 'that
Great One', from den that and did great.
Luke vi is translated as follows:
Kedi jen a-ki lo gun-e Dendid ko
As he went into house of this God and
a-ki-nai mono ki tau ko a-ki-kam ko
took-away bread set being and ate and
a-ki-jek koik-ke ke jen mono a-kie jik
gave people with him bread not allowed,
hi tok k'am e tit e Dendid
that one eat but priests these of God
ke-pek
they-themselves ?
~>* 1 23 <-
In a Dinka poem we road of Dendid:
'On the day when Dendid made all things,
He made the Sun;
And the Sun comes forth, goes down, and comes
again:
He made the moon;
And the moon comes forth, goes down, and comes
again:
He made the stars;
And the stars come forth, go down, and come again:
He made man;
And man comes forth, goes down into the ground,
and comes no more'.
The Bari, who are neighbors of the Dinka, have a
great deal in common with them, though their word for
il Sommo Bene is very different.
Though here and there showing a tendency to agglu-
tination and even to inflexion, Bari must be described as
a formless language. Subject and predicate, subject and
object can only be distinguished by syntactical means. As
in Hottentot, the dative must always precede the accusative.
Noun and verb are identical, the latter being distinguished
by the attachment of the personal pronoun. Bari is re-
markable for its regularity of accentuation. Whenever the
object follows the verb, the latter is accentuated: Nan
njanjdr bun I love God. The formative elements lo this,
na this, ' ti these; i on, in; ~ko with etc. also receive the tone.
Thus, 16-but a good one, na but good (fern.), i Jcadi na
Nun in the house this God (of), i kak on earth, ko do
with thee.
The nominative precedes the verb, the dative and accu-
sative follow it, and the former is always placed before the
latter, as nan a-tin lu muntje I have given him bread, ti
nan piom, nan momoje do give me water, I beg thee.
The interrogative njo what, why? and ko-njo whereby,
~3H 124 HSr-
wherewith? appear at the end of the sentence; as do dek
njo? wilt thou what? Nun a-gwega nutu njo? God cre-
ated men why? jipopo lei ko-njo? we enter heaven whereby?
The Bari verb does not express modality, time, person
or number. All these must be distinguished by external
means alone. The feeling of the language for grammatical
gender is mostly manifest in the case of the genitive, which is
expressed in the following noteworthy way. First comes the
thing possessed, then a demonstrative pronoun and lastly the
possessor. In gender and number the demonstrative must
agree with the word to which it refers ; masc. lo, fern, na, plur. it.
For instance, gur lo Bari the land of the Bari, nutu lo Sari
the Bari-Negro, kadi na Nun the House of God (lit. house-this-
God), nutu na Sari man this (fern.) Bari = the Bari negress,
kulja ti Sari voice these Bari = the language of the Bari.
As in Dinka so here the ideology is hybrid, namely,
2. 4. 6. 8. VI. Though such near neighbors there are con-
siderable differences in speech between the Dinka and the
Bari, as may be seen from a comparison of the Pater noster
in the two languages.
Pater noster.
DINKA.
jin a- to
thou art
Ua-da ke
Father-our this
rin-ku a-bi lek,
name-thine praised become,
puon-du a-bi loi
will-thine (will) made be
Jeke kog mivd-kua
Give us meat-our
kog karak-kua akit
us sins-our as
wnjal kog a-wtjok
(in) heaven we beg
pan-du a-bi ben
land-thine will come
piii-ik akit wnjal-ik
earth-in as heaven-in
akol-e a-vton pal
day-this sufficient forgive
kog ja a-pal koik
we also forgive people
~* 125 *s~
ki kerak loi eton kug ko dune
having sin done to us and not
pal bi kog kuat temak-ik lone koin
give to so us lead temptation-into but deliver
Kog eton Kerak. Amen,
us from Sin. Amen.
Pater nosier.
BAKE
Baba likan do lo gwo-gwon ki. Ti
Father our thou this art (in) heaven. Give
aiijan karin kunok kwa-kwaka. Arijan tumatjan
that name thine honored-be. That lordship
inot po-po ka-jan ni. Arijan deket inot gwegwe
thine come to us here. That will thine become
gwoko i ki kona luna i - kak ni.
so in heaven even-as also on earth here.
I 16-lor ti ji muntje nikan na
On this day give us bread our that (of the)
loron lin. Koloki ji toronjeki kan gwoko ji
days all. forgive us sins our as we
kokolokin katoronjak kan. Ko pik ji
forgive sinners our. Not lead us (to)
du-diimagi, ama luoki-luok ji i narok lin.
temptation-bring, but deliver us from evils all.
Amen.
Amen.
We have already seen that, the Bari name for God
is Jvun. A Bari Ave Maria runs:
Do ro-romue Maria, do na-budja, Nun ko
Thou greeted Mary, thou blessed, God with
do, do ra-rata i wate lin, luna ra-rata
thee, thou anointed amongst: women: all also praised
-SW 126 HSr-
tore 16 mogun inot Jesu Kristi. Maria a-na-ke
son ttis body of-thy Jesus Christ. Mary pure,
note na I^un mol-e-mo ko ji katoronjak
mother which God beg for us sinners
kunana hma i dinit na tuan nikari. Amen,
now also in time which dying (of) our. Amen.
Now, this Bari word Nun is neither more nor less
than the Egyptian OOO ^^ of which we read in the Turin
A/WW\
papyrus of AupanK and the Hieratic papyrus of Taho.
|| Enok nuter aa koper kesep mu
I-am God great existing of self water
pu Nun pu tep nuter-u ||
namely Nun namely Father of the gods.
Again :
|| Iri pe-t Kem un-t-u lai
Who-made Heaven Creator of things ruling
em Nun
as Nun ||
Nun, then, is the chaos of Heaven and Sea, das Ur-
gewasser, the fllDhfl or apucrcro^ of Genesis; and there is
perhaps no other instance of a change so remarkable as
that from the vague Chaos of the Egyptians to the sublimest
Kosmos of the Bari!
In the Wolop language we find no native name for
Deity, the word used being the Arabic ^JJ\ in the form
Jalla, as we have it in the fable of The Grub and the
Butterfly, (gasak ak laplap).
|| Walaj! Jalla bole-wu-nu ket!
Truly God has-not-us-together given origin!
man de ma-nav t'je asaman, jov sup reka
I hover about heaven, thou earth only
na-kam.
thou knowest. ||
~X 127 Xr-
The languages of the Bullom and Temne are closely
related, but, as in the case of the Dinka and Bari, the names
for the Highest differ.
As regards external organisation they remind us of
the Bantu family. Noun and verb are distinguished from
one another phonetically, but subject and object and sub-
ject and predicate are shown by purely syntactical means.
Between attribute and predicate there is a complete phonetic
distinction. Originally the root seems to have been
mono -syllabic and to have had both nominal and verbal
meaning; e. g. Son 'dream' and 'to dream', ~ket 'to cut off'
and 'slice.'
The adjective follows the noun, when used attributively,
and is distinguished by the copula (often only a pronoun)
when used predicatively. Pokan kelen man-good 'a good
man', Ml bomuu house-high 'a high house', on the other
hand pokan woa kelen 'the man is good', a-pokan ria kelen
'the men are good'. The attributive adjective agrees with
the substantive in number. Thus a-pokan a-kelen 'the good
men', kil ti-bomun 'the high houses'.
The nominative or subject-case and the accusative or
object-case have no phonetic expression and can only be
distinguished by position in the sentence. Ja-no kumdi
tamu mother -your -born -son 'your mother has borne a
son'. The genitive is expressed by placing the thing
possessed before the possessor, worn bai tre 'the canoe of
the king', Ml bai Ire 'the house of the king.' The genitive
can also be expressed by putting the particle ha or hoa
between. Thus bai lia a-gju tre King of the Jews.
Now the Bullom word predicative of Deity is P'oi from
the root fioe to go out, beyond. Malaka ha P'oi Angel of
God. To the Bullom, therefore, God is 'the Beyond'.
As in Dinka and Bari so here the ideology is hybrid,
namely, 2. 4. 6. 8. VI.
The Tenme word for God is Kuru meaning Old-One,
-* 128 h*.
the 'Ancient of Days'. Pa lone-ko traka an-ton na Kuru
He delights in the Law of God.
For completeness' sake, that we may see how savage
idioms lend themselves to religious expression, I add, where
possible, the Pater Noster.
TEMNE.
Pa-ka-su, owo ji ro-Rianna, tra an' es-'a-mu na ji a-sam ;
Tra 'ra-hai-ra-mu ra bek; tra 'ma-selo-ma-mu ma jone so
ka an-top, ma ma jone ro ka Bianna; Jer-su tenon ar'
a-ra-su ra-di ara beki; De zera-su tra-bei-tra-su, ma sjaii
so sa zera ana ba tra-bei-tra-su; De ze su wona ka tr'ei
tra-gbosa; kere wurasu ka tr'-ei tra-las; za mimo ba 'ra-
bai de an'-pqsa, de an'-jiki, tankan 6 tankan. Amina.
As in other idioms of the Negro race we find a re-
gular phonetic evolution in Ibo. Consonantal groups are
avoided: vowel and consonant stand harmoniously together.
A peculiarity of the languages of West Africa is the ten-
dency to nasalise the initial consonant. The distinction
between verb and noun which did not originally exist, is
made in the case of the noun by an increase at the be-
ginning of the word, and in that of the verb by the position
of the pronominal element denoting person. Similarly sub-
ject, predicate, and object are only distinguished by their
position as regards the verb. The attributive and possessive
relationship is often expressed by the relative pronoun. In-
deed this not infrequently serves to co-ordinate the sen-
tences, which shows that the idiom has a certain striving
after logical combination of thoughts.
The accusative or object case is made known by its
position to the verb, which it regularly follows. Ja-suk-
wa ubi na he bought this country-house; ja-sa akwa-ja he
washes his garment. The genitive is expressed in two ways,
either by putting the thing possessed immediately before
the possessor or by connecting the two expressions by the
^ 129 ir-
relative pronoun fJce (as in Bari, Wolop etc.). For in-
stance, opara woke son-man = the son of the man; opara
nhe Kiiku son -who -God =r son of God; ma eze nice odibo
na ebere me-ja and Lord who servant this had pity on him
= And this servant's Lord had pity on him.
Whether as attribute or predicate the adjective follows
the subtantive to which it belongs. The predicate is known
by the preceding copula, the attribute by the relative
pronoun joined to the substantive. Thus, Osisi nice oyo ogagi
mea nikporo omma tree which bad can not bring fruits good
= a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit.
As verb a substantiva the stems wu (wo), H (to exist,
dwell) and do (de, di) are used. But the pronominal mean-
ing predominates, as the sign for the third person is
lacking. Hence such expressions as una-gi wo ese father
thine is king? = Is thy father a king? On the other
hand a-wum existence-mine = I am. In cases where the
copula is not needed to distinguish the predicate from the
attribute it may be omitted. Thus die oha-ni? what thy
people? = of what people art thou? Ole una-ni ubua?
Father thine now? = where is now thy father?
Time is expressed by the addition of certain elements
to the verbal stem. Thus na denotes the present and per-
fect, whilst past generally is expressed by the elements
hwa and ra (re, ri, ro, m) which can be combined with
each other and with na. The future is expressed by the
stem ga which precedes the verb. For instance,
Mbe-m liu-kwa ese a-ga-m Jcara-hi ihie
When-I seen-have the-king shall-I tell-thee what
ja-lmru-m
he-commanded-me.
Ibo ideology is hybrid, the formula being 2. 4. 6. 8. VI.
The Ibo idea of Deity is very remarkable. The word
is Kuku the Seeker, from ytio to seek. Ed, Kuku njerem
ahka dgamd Mja Yes, God helping me, I shall see him again.
R
-&4 130 K-
Closely connected with Ibo is the language known as
Nupe and the expression for God is another form of the
same word, namely, Seiko the Seeker (ko = tso, and Kuku
= Tsuku).
The languages Ewe, Ga or Akra, Ok'i and Joruba are
so intimately related that we may take the first as typical
of all. Considered grammatically these tongues are form-
less with more or less richly evolved propensities to agglu-
tination, in some cases almost amounting to inflexion. Pho-
netically noun and verb are identical, whilst expressing for
subject and object, attribute and predicate can only be
distinguished by their position in the sentence. Everything
else must be indicated by particles, originally nominal or
verbal roots. Of course there is no relative pronoun known
to these tongues.
The root is originally monosyllabic, beginning with a
consonant and ending with a vowel. Thus ku 'to die' and
'death'; (Oki wit,]) do 'to sew' and 'seam'. Reduplication
applies alike to verb and noun. For instance, bobo to
humble oneself, from bo to bend oneself, dada to creep,
from da to lie ; popo resurrection, from po to stand up ; gbo-
gbo breath, spirit, from gbo to breathe; kuku dead, from
ku to die.
In Ewe the noun is formless, showing phonetically
neither number nor case, to say nothing of gender. To
'ear', to eve 'two ears'; ante 'man', am_>blave 'twenty men'.
The cases are expressed partly by position within the sen-
tence and partly by auxiliary particles. The subject-case
precedes, the object-case follows the verb. E. g. Ati e-mu
the tree is green, e-wu ame he kills a man. To express
the genitive the possessor is put, as in English, before the
thing possessed: popo ap_ < father's foot; ngoi-nje avg my
brother's clothes. Sometimes the relationship is expressed
by the word we 'property', with the word for the thing
possessed in apposition. For instance, Mawu we mo God-
~3H 131 H$~
property-face; eda we ta Snake-property -head. In Joruba
the position is reversed: He bciba house father = father's
house, sometimes also by means of the relative particle ti:
He ti bdba house-which-father. The Ewe dative is shown
by the verbal root na 'to give' which is used as a prepo-
sition. Thus, Mupiala na mo na srolao teacher gives way
gives (= to) pupils = the teacher dismisses the pupils.
The preceding languages of West Africa have been
classified by both Bleek and F. Miiller. The former classi-
fies as follows:
I. The Niger branch: Efik, Bonny, Yoruba.
II. Gold Coast Branch: Fanti, Aschanti, Akwapim.
III. Sierra Leone branch : Fullom, Sherbro, Timneh.
On the other hand the Gor family consists of:
I. Southern branch: Ga (Akra).
II. Middle African branch: Wolof, Fulah.
III. Nilotic branch: Tumale.
F. Miiller's classification is the following:
I Wolof (isolated)
II. Bullorn and Temne.
III. Ibo and Nupe (uncertain whether isolated,
possibly related to the following).
IV. Languages of the Guinea Coast:
a. Ewe, Ga, Odschi, Yoruba.
p. Efik.
We have now to find out in what way these West
African idioms have named the ineffable Name, have con-
ceived the concept supreme. In the first place we must
remember that though their resemblance is so great, they
differ in ideology, which would lead one to expect an in-
dividuality in theology. Ewe ideology is a hybrid natural
one, namely, 1. 4. 6. 8. VI; the Yoruba formula, on the
other hand, is indirect and hybrid. 2. 4. 6. 8. VI; whilst
that of Epik is another form of the indirectly hybrid, namely,
2. 3. 6. 8. VI.
-$H 132 K~
To trace the Ewe theological idea to its root is not
now easy, but so far as the data permit the induction, it
seems probable that Mawu is to be derived from ]/wo to
strike, which gives us e-wu drum and awunu shore. In
many respects Mawu reminds us of his Polynesian counter-
part Maul who is first Man, lord of Heaven or Hades, the
lord of Day, and South Sea Island hero; and perhaps
above all he is the Storm-God who holds the winds inpri-
soned in his cave, and we may seek sublimity in
. . . the hall where Ewe Mawu
Howls his war-song to the gale'.
Besides Onjankopoii we find in Kwi the following forms
for the Highest:
Odomankama All- giver, fr. domaiikama, manifold;
plentiful.
Borebore Potter, fr. yHbore, to stir, mix.
Onjankopon onje Ondomaiikoma Sunsum God is an
Eternal Spirit.
By-names :
Arna-ome
Arnosu
Amowia
Totoro-bo-nsu Rain giver
Tweadu-ampon Almighty
Otumfoo Almighty
Of the shorter form Onjame we have many instances:
Onjame-je Godhead
Onjame-nipa God-Man
Njame-njansa divine wisdom.
Njame-su divinity
Onjame unjae ade bo da God never ceases to cre-
ate things.
Osorosoro Njame the Most High God!
Anjame-Sem Word of God. Bible.
H3* 133 K~
The Akra or Ha predicate of deity is Njoinno, wliich
in all probability is another form of the Olu Njankopoii
and the Akwapim Jankupon. It is Heaven itself, worship-
ped as Supreme Deity. 'The idea of him', says Riis, 'as
a supreme spirit is obscure and uncertain, and often con-
founded with the visible heavens or sky, the upper world
(sorro) wliich lies beyond human reach; and hence the same
word is used also for heavens, sky, and even for rain and
thunder'. And this applies to Joruba Olorun, though here
we have the more interesting form Olodumare He-who-has-
a-Name; i. e. The Named par excellence.
OKI PATER NOSTER.
Jen agja a wowo soro, wo din ho ntew; | wo ahenni
mmra; nea wope nje wo asase so nso se nea eje wo soro;
I ma jen jen da aduan ne; I na p'a jen akaw p'iri jen se nea
jen nso de piri won a wode jen akaw; I na mp'a jen nko
sopje mu, na ji jen pi bone mu; na wo na ahenni ne
alioeden ne annonjam je wodea da. Amen.
JORUBA.
Baba wa ti mbe li orun, Owo li oruko re Ijqba re
de; Ip'e ti re ni ki ase, bi ti orun, 4) e ni li aije. P'un wa
li onge ogo wa li oni. Dari gbese wa gi wa, bi awa ti
ndarigi awon onigbese wa, Ki o ma si p'a wa sino idewo,
sugbon gba wa nino tulasin.
Nitor i ig'oba ni ti re, ati agbara, ati ogo, lailai. Amin.
'In "West Africa', says Dr. Tylor, 'let us take an
example from the theology of the Slave Coast, a systematic
scheme of all nature as moved and quickened by spirits,
kindly or hostile to mankind. These spirits dwell in field
and wood, mountain and valley; they live in air and water;
multitudes of them have been human souls, such ghosts
~^* 134 ;<~
hover about the graves and near the living, and have influ-
ence with the under-gods whom they worship; among these
'edro' are the patron-deities of men and families and tribes;
through these subordinate beings works the highest god,
Mawu.'
Next come the Mande languages upon which Prof.
Steinthal has bestowed such excellent labor. His book
"Die Mande-Neger Sprachen" is an epoch-making work in
West African philology, a lasting monument to the genius
of the Berlin linguistic philosopher.
As regards the general character of Vai, Mandingo,
Susu and Bambara, they are distinguished by a high degree
of euphony. All combinations which tend to make a lan-
guage either too hard or too soft are strictly shunned.
They are althogether formless, the sentence forming the
true unity, in some cases more nearly defined by auxiliary
particles. Noun and verb are morphologically identical;
the latter being a nominal expression determined by pos-
sessive prefixes. Subject and object are defined by their
position to the verb. The copula serves to distinguish be-
tween attribute and predicate. The substantive precedes,
the adjective (attribute) follows.
The root, which is monosyllabic, is used both verbally
and nominally, as in Chinese, though there is occasionally
an attempt at phonetic distinction. The formative elements
in Vai and Mandingo and Susu are specially interesting.
Nomina agentis and Nomina instrument are made as
follows :
Susu: se thing, gahu se fear -thing (a thing causing
fear); bi se key (opening -thing); putun se thrashing-thing
(whip).
Yai; pen thing. Suma pen measure -thing (measure).
Mandingo: miselme p'en sacrament (holiness-thing).
Susu : pe thing. Tton pe play-thing (pleasure) ; dotio pe
settlement (dwelling-thing).
135
Vai and Mandingo: Mo ^ ,, -^
a ir 7> Man ' Person,
busu: Jlfttfce j E. G. Susu:
'e mulle bravery-person (hero); Yai: wuru mo procreation-
thing (father); kom-mo (= kon-mo) hatred-person (hater).
The noun denotes neither number nor case: the latter
is known not only by its position to the verb but also by
particular particles, as in K'oikoi. Thus in the Vai the
demonstrative subject-particle ra, a serves to distinguish
the genitive, and la in Mandingo. In Susu ra acts em-
phatically, as an intensive of the subject.
E. g. Vai: wu-pa ra pa were your father has died to-
day; kaie ra baivara pa the man a sheep killed. Mandingo:
ate le si altolu baptisa Alia nio-la nin dimba-la he will you
baptize God spirit-with and fire-with. Susu: najele natia
mini light has arisen; Abraham nan Isaak soto Abraham
the Isaac begat.
In the Mande languages the same elements often serve
to bring into prominence alike the emphatic subject-case
(Nominative) and the object-case (Accusative). The object
may then follow the verb, which, as a rule it precedes, or
the object-particle may attach itself to the verb, whereby
the latter becomes trasformed into an expression which needs
an object as complement which, again, necessarily governs
the preceding nominal expression (in Mandingo). Thus
Vai: m-ma Buraim-a pa I not have Abraham killed; ta
bira du-je-ra fire seized the house; Mandingo: ieAllaJcanu
le ba? thou God lovest, yes?
The genitive is as a rule expressed by the application
of the demonstrative relative particles, the possessor pre-
ceding the thing possessed. Occasionally, however, the de-
monstrative-relative is lacking, and then the sense must be
ascertained from the position of the two members. E. g.
pari a kira alligator-of the same-way (way of the Alligator) ;
kai koro a den man old of the same child (the child
-> 136 H$~
of the old man). In Bambara the order is reversed: bun
a pali head this pig (this is the head of the pig).
Although in the Mande idioms the genitive of definition
comes before the thing defined, yet the adjective follows
the substantive to which it belongs, whether used pre-
dicatively or attributively. Thus Yai: Manga la na me
prince great came hither; de mese-nu gH luri children small
all. ran away. If a substantive connected with an attri-
butive adjective is to be made plural, the suffix, instead of
being attached to the noun, is added to the adjective. Thus,
"Vai: Afanga Id-nn great chiefs (ba great)
hai Idrare-nu poorly men (Idrare ill)
Mandingo: Ice lette-o lu good men (bette good)
pane Jmoirit't-o-lu white clothes (kuoiriii white)
In expressing the relation of predicate the pronoun mu
(Vai, Mandingo), na (Susu) is added, whilst the adjective
remains unchanged. 1 glorod-re mu thou demented this =
thou art mad; Mandingo: nte le mu I who there = it is
I; Mansa le mu nun king who this once = a king was
once.
Of these languages the verbal expression is nothing
but a noun furnished with possessive prefixes. Compare
for instance,
Vai: m-pa my father n-do I say
i-pa thy father i-ro thou sayest
a-pa his father a-ro he says
mu-pa our father mu-ro we say
wu-pa your father tvu-ro ye say
an-pa their father an-do they say
By combining the verb substantive be with the post-
positions - - Mandingo: la, Vai: na, ro, into, with, a dur-
ative expression is formed. Thus, Ni i-le salle-la when
thou art prayer in = when thou prayest; Vai: m-le pen
don na I-am-thing-eating-in, i. e. I eat; mbe taje-ro I-am-
~3w 137 -
going-in = I go. To express the habitual form in Han-
dingo tlii'. word kare to do is used. 'Bachel wept for her
children* is therefore expressed as follows : Bachel-did-eyes-
water-pour-her-children-over: Rahel kare nja-gi-bo a dino-
lu-je.
As regards ideology Vai, Mandingo and Susu are
natural, the formula being 1. 4. 5. 8. Ill and VI, whilst
Bambara is hybrid, namely, 2. 4. 5. 8.
SUSU PAtER NOSTER.
Wun- Pap'e nakan- na arrijana, Ikili k'a senijen-.
Ika jamine ka pa. Isague ka naninama dunia ma,
erne aninaki arrijanama kinake. Muku ki to muku
ka loke loke buita sera. Anun- ika muku donii lu,
erne mukutan pan- nei doni lu nak'ai muku doni nun-.
Amur inama muku raso maninai, kono ika muku ra-
kissi p'ekobi ma: ^enakaara Itanan gbe nan- jammera,
anun- sembe, anun- daraga, abada, Amina.
As theosophic Archetypes in Mande we have:
Maude: Ngewo = Nga-wo That (art) Thou!
Vai: Kaniba, = Kanu-ba, Love-great!
I bira Kaniba-ma Trust thou in God!
Bambara: Ngiiala, a form of the Arabic IM Allah.
Ngnalasira religion.
St. John iii. 16. has been translated into Mande as
follows :
|| Gbamaile Ngewo ije Iqi lo ni a ndoloi, ta loingi loi
jakpe'i veni, ije joni; ta lo ntimui gbi lo ngi houa lo a tonja,
6 lohu, ke kunap'o levu lo a jp. ||
The language known as Sonrai is essentially Negro
in its formation. The root was originally monosyllabic and
was used both as verb and substantive. Thus ba means
alike 'to will', 'to love', and 'good 7 ; ma 'to understand' and
'name'. There is moreover no phonetic distinction between
the subjective and objective case. In the genitive relation-
s
-3H 138 K~
ship the possessor precedes the thing possessed. Koru
dene fire's tongue (flame); tuguri idge tree's child (fruit);
hio koi ship's lord (captain); beri koi horse's lord (rider).
An article or rather a demonstrative adjective is not
altogether unknown to Sonrai. For things animate it is
di, for the inanimate ni. For instance, ni-jo-di thy-camel-
it, woki jiri-wo-ni this our-this it. The verb is nothing but
a noun with the possessive prefix. 'I go', to take a simple
example, is expressed by 'my-being-going' a-go-koi. Ideolo-
gically Sonfai is an indirect hybrid, the formula being 1.
3. 6. 8. VI.
The theology of the Sonfai conceives the Highest as
the celestial Ruler Jer-koi our Lord.
Whether the root-words of the Logone language were
originally mono- or dissyllabic or possibly a reduplicated
syllable it is now difficult, if not impossible, to determine.
One thing, however, is quite certain, namely, that noun and
verb can both be expressed by the same word. Sd, for
instance, means both 'to drink' and 'beverage'.
The noun is absolutely formless. As regards Case the
genitive is expressed by placing the thing possessed before
the possessor; sometimes, however, the position is reversed,
showing how weak is the feeling generally for the adequate
expression of case-relations. Thus, skool eman pot of honey ;
benne ro wall of the town; and vgola bunhe of corn bundle;
kusku-n-tdbu of the hen young (chick) ; etc. The attributive
adjective is often expressed both by a substantive in the
relationship of the genitive and by juxtaposition of both
expressions in phonetic identity. For instance, lebu-n-tu
shirt-this-blackness ; lebu-m-pau shirt-this-whiteness.
Between noun and verb there is complete distinction
by reason of the law of prefixing personal elements. By
prefixing the particle dl to the verbal stem a durative form
is produced. Thus, inddl-u-gur 'now-I-going', I go; n-dl-
a-kula-halge 'now-he-making-song', he sings. The ideology
is indirectly hybrid, viz. 2. 4. 6. 8. VI.
~3* 139 HS~
In Logone the theistic idea is thus embodied in speech:
Mal-ua Our Master, corresponding with the terms in Ka-
nuri and Sonrai.J
We now come to the Wandala or Mandara language.
The root is for the most part monosyllabic and serves both
as noun and verb. Thus, ga is both 'rest' and 'to rest';
maga 'to work' and 'work'.
There are two points of interest about the noun. The
first is with regard to the expression of the possessive, which
is as follows: camel-possession-mine = my camel (luguma-
rua), the second has to do with the genitive case which is
represented either by placing the thing possessed simply
before the possessor, ha gaje house (of the) bird (nest);
Melissa ungule horse (of the) journey, or by putting the de-
monstrative-relative particle na (n) between the two ex-
pressions: thus, edsa-n-belissa child (of the) horse, edsa-n-
apd child (of the) tree (fruit), ubbene-n-apd flower (of the)
tree (bloom).
As regards the adjective, when used attributively it
follows the substantive, when predicatively it precedes it.
For instance, golondo gagi finger small, but kottiia ura-tere
ml-tere? numerous totality of them what of them? =
which is the more numerous of them?
The expression of the verb in Mandara is almost
identical with that in English except as regards the posi-
tion of the pronoun: thus, ta-ye-me they beat us, ku-ge-nga
ye beat us, je-mala-ku I help thee. When the verbal stem
is combined with wa, we 'to do' the object-element is put
between the two expressions, the verb itself remaining form-
less. Thus :
We-n-we baja do-him-love-I = I love him.
We-nkore-gur betere do-you-love-they = they love you.
We-ngare-gur wokore do-us-love-ye = ye love us.
Wandala ideology is, therefore, the same as Logone,
namely, 2. 4. 6. 8. VI, or indirectly hybrid.
-*4 140 K-
Very beautiful is the Mandara view of God: they call
Him Dada-mia our Father!
About the Maba or Mobba language there are several
points of interest. Consonantal combinations are for the
most part avoided. The possessive pronoun, which follows
the noun to which it belongs, is derived from the substan-
tive form by affixing to it the demonstrative particle ne. As
regards the Cases the subject-case or nominative is not distin-
guished phonetically. The object-case or accusative precedes
the verb and is often known by the suffixes -en, -go. Thus,
berek-en atani horse I mount, dreke-n ukd shirt wash == wash
the shirt. In expressing the genitive the possessor is put before
the thing possessed. For instance, beri melek of horses lord
(rider), tang melek house lord; sometimes the suf&K-ang (with,
of) serves to express the possessor; thus ganga-ng melek of
the drum lord (drummer), linga-ng melek of the way lord
(Street robber), and when this is the case the position of the
members may be reversed, as tang kebel-ang dwelling of the
bird (nest). The suffixes -nak, -via and -in are also used
in the same sense: for instance, berik suk-nak place of the
market, gorik ml-nak urn of Indigo.
Now. it is quite possible that -nak, -aiig, -na, -in are
only different forms of one and the same suffix consisting
of the relative particle na and a demonstrative element ka,
so that berik suk-nak would be 'place-market-which-this.'
The adjective follows the substantive to which it be-
longs whether as attribute or as predicate. Thus, sungo
papada trees sparse, kedade sasala land waste; deeke-tu
kumdak shirts (are) torn. The structure of the verb rests
upon the connexion of the verbal stem with the pro-
nominal prefixes.
Maba ideology is the most interesting with which we
have yet had to deal. It is altogether natural, the formula
being 1. 4. 5. 8. I.
~$* 141 K~
The Supreme in Mtiba is expressed by Kalak the Great
One = Fur Kalge.
Teda, the language of the Tihbu is peculiarly interest-
ing to the philologist, as it presents alike the nominal and
the purely verbal form of verb-construction.
It is still an open question whether the Tibbu are
to be considered as relatives of the Berber, i. e. Hamites,
or a mixed tribe of negroes and Hamites. Prof. F. Miiller
considers the Tibbu, as well as the Kanwis and Hausas as
ethnologically belonging to the Negro tribes.
In Teda the noun is absolutely formless, indicating
neither number nor case. Nominative and accusative or
the subject- and object -case can only be determined by
their position to the verb, that is to say, to the centre of
the sentence. The object regularly precedes the verb,
sometimes with the particle -he. Thus, ashi-he tu-muni?
horse hast thou bound? Sirdi ai aski-he ke-babi saddle this
horse hurts = this saddle hurts the horse. The genitive
can be expressed in three ways. In the first the thing
possessed precedes the owner, in the second it follows, and
in the third by the addition of the possessive pronoun.
For instance, a) tugui derdai house (of the) chief; f$) horn-
molo soro (of the) illness remedy; and f) derdaje de henua
prince-mother-his, agre bm lientu slaves-great-one-your =
your Overseer, etc.
Whether as attribute or predicate the adjective follows
the substantive to which it belongs. Thus: nemai toro-lno
buerik town-one-I destroy (eat); tirm buja-he beterri street
great we go.
Verbal construction in Teda rests upon two principles:
the one being the prefixing to the verbal stem of the stems
of the personal pronoun, in the relation of subject and
predicate, and the other the annexing to the nominally-con-
ceived verbal stem of the possessive pronouns.
As in Maba so in Tedfi the ideology is natural, giving
^H 142 H^
us the formula 1. 4. 5. 8. I, i. e. genitive -f- nominative,
noun -f- adjective, object -f- verb, subject -\- verb, and ob-
ject -|- subject -f- verb.
Now, the conception of God in Teda is this: K'en-uo
our Master?
Coming to the Kanuri language we find it is one of
a suffixing and agglutinative order, with a harmonious
phonetic evolution. The Kanuri noun is formless but the
verb is wonderfully rich in forms, reminding us of the same
part of speech in Finnish and Turkish (Osmanli).
Subject and object are determined partly by their
position in the sentence and partly by definite particles.
As the dative is distinguished phonetically, the ideology
may be varied to a great extent. Thus: 'I brought a
horse to the king' may be expressed by wu per mei-ro
~kusko I horse king-to brought; wu mei-ro per kusko I king-
to horse brought; mei-ro wu per kuskd king -to I horse
brought; per wu mei-ro kusko horse I king-to brought; wu
per ~kuskd mei-ro I horse brought king-to; per mei-rd wu
Imsko horse king-to I brought.
Attribute and predicate, which always follow, are dis-
tinguished by the fact that the former constitutes a unity
with the substantive to which it belongs and to which the
case-particles are added. The language possesses no re-
lative pronoun.
As regards the root, it is sometimes mono- and some-
times polysyllabic. By means of reduplication intensive,
iterative and durative stems are formed. Thus: her-hgin
I bind, kerher-ngin I bind together; tern-gin I build, tem-
tem-gin I build much and continuously.
As already stated the noun is formless, defining neither
number, sex, nor case. The same form may be both sin-
gular and plural, both subject and object. When an ad-
jective follows a substantive attributively the case -expo-
nents (suffixes) are annexed to the former and not to the
~3H 143 NS-
latter. Thus, per karite horse fine = beautiful horse is
declined as follows:
1ST. per ka'riti-je horse fine
G. per ka'riti-be horse fine-of
D. per ka'ritu-ro horse fine-to
A. per ka'rite-ga horse fine
L. per ka'rite-n horse fine-in.
Now the construction of the verb in Kanuri does not
rest, as in most other languages, on the union of a nominal
verbal stem used predicatively with a subjective pronominal
element, but the relationship of the two elements consti-
tuting the verbal expression is that of dependence, identical
with that of the possessive between noun and pronoun.
The Kanuri concept of God is that of a Lord, a
divine Ruler Koma'-nde' Lord our. Thus the sentence
'If thou dost try to get by force what God has not given
thee, thou dost not obtain it', is expressed as follows:
ago koma'-nde' n-ki-ni-te duno-n
What Lord-our thee-he-not-given force-with
ina'-nem panel-em ba'go.
seekest-thou obtainest-thou not.
As already stated Kanuri ideology is somewhat un-
certain, being sometimes 2. 4. 5. 8. I and sometimes 2. 4.
5. 8. III.
And here we may notice that the Kanuri theosophic
idea coincides with that of the Sonrai: Jer-koi: Koma'-
nde' our Lord.
For symmetry of tone and euphony of form there are
few languages, if any, which can surpass Hausa.
Considered morphologically the language shows formation
both by suffix and prefix, the verb being the centre of
attraction and constituting a veritable masterpiece of lin-
guistic architectonics! Subject and object, attribute and
predicate are distinguished by their position to the verb.
-*- 144 HE~
The verb substantive is derived from the pronoun. The
genitive is expressed by means of the demonstrative-relative.
Hausa knows a relative pronoun, but makes little use
of it, the connexion of sentences being of the simplest kind.
A point of unusual interest about the language is the
phonetic expression of grammatical gender, not only with
the pronoun and the verb but with the substantive and
partially with the adjective. This is the more astonishing
as there is no phonetic expression either of the subject -or
object -case.
According to Prof. F. Miiller the root was originally
monosyllabic, as Jti to eat, sa to drink, si to hear, but as
there are many of the dissyllabic order, it is quite open
to question whether in the first instance the root was not
the repetition of a syllable. Stems of more than one syllable
may be used both as nouns and verbs: thus, mdgana 'lan-
guage', 'word', and 'to speak', taja 'aid' and 'to help'.
The verbal formative elements in Hausa are peculiarly
interesting and instructive. The vowels u and o form stems
with intransitive or medio-passive meaning. For instance,
gamma is 'to connect', gammu 'to meet'; koja is 'to teach',
Jcojo 'to learn'. 'It is difficult to teach Kanuri' is expressed
in Hausa by Koja-n~magana Kanuri da wuja teaching-
language Kanuri is hard. 'It is hard to learn English' by
Kojo-n- mdgana Erilis da tvuja learning -language English
is difficult. Da forms transitives and reflexives, as Ui to
eat, fti-da to feed oneself; sai to buy, sai-da to sell; Jcawo
to bring, Jcau-da to take away. Sie forms causatives: zai
to stand eai-sie to place. Jes and as form stems of dis-
tinctly transitive meaning as sai to buy, sa-yes to sell to
somebody. Jes-da and as-da form strengthened transitive
stems expressing an exhaustion of the action, as ba-jes-dq
to give away altogether, fitt-as-da to draw out wholly.
The demonstrative stem wonne or wonda (masc.) wodda
(fern.) serves as the relative pronoun. For instance,
~s* 145 K~
Ba si-sanni ba wonda ja-danki
Not he knew not (him) who taken had
Jcurdi-nsa
money-his
is the Hausa for 'he did not know who had taken his
money!'
As regards the noun we have to consider three points,
namely, grammatical gender, number and case. Gender
from a grammatical point of view is conceived as twofold,
the spontaneous (masc.) and the receptive (fern.), as in the
hamito-semitic languages, but it is not always phonetically
manifest. Number is expressed in many ways. First of
all there are collective names denoting natural products
and single psychical qualities in one single form, as mu-
gunta badness, murna joy, tamaJia hope. The plural is
formed in various ways; usually by suffixes of which the
following are the chief: -una, -ami, -ane, -u, -je, -i, -se and
-ki. It is also formed by the simple means of Redu-
plication.
Amongst relationships of case it is only the genitive
which is manifest phonetically; the nominative, both as
subject and predicate, and the object-case are distinguished
by their position to the verb whilst the others are indi-
cated by particles (Dat. ga, da. Ablat. daga, gare). Thus:
ja-paddi ga^mutane maganganu-n-Obangisi duka He pro-
claimed to [men the words of God; Na-pitto daga Bornu
I come from Bornu. Jdro ja-kuka the boy cries ; Timbuktu
gari Jcarami tie Timbuktu is a small town.
To express the genitive the thing possessed is put be-
fore the possessor, and both are united by means of the
demonstrative-relative pronoun na (masc.), ta (fern.). That
is to say, 'the boy's 'name' is equivalent to 'name-this-boy'.
For instance: kwara-na-sinkappa corn of the journey.
magana-ta-bakinsa speech of his mouth.
-$H 146 f<-~
The a of demonstrative-relative is generally elided, as
Oba-n-gisi Father of the house
dd-n-uwa-na child -this -mother -mine = my mother's child
(brother).
suna-n-jaro name of the boy.
As a rule the adjective remains unchanged and only
follows the analogy of the noun when it is used substan-
tively, and in rare instances denotes grammatical gender.
E. g. jdro Jcarami a small boy; jdrmia karamia a small
girl. Used as an attribute the adjective may either pre-
cede or follow, but as predicate it must always follow.
Thus, baba sarki a great king, but sarki baba the king is
great. Mutun ndgari ba si-sin-goro mutua a good man does
not feel terror at death.
The Hausa verb is a pure verb, having nothing no-
minal about it. Its construction rests on the connexion of
the verbal stem with the affixed personal pronominal ele-
ment. Thus we are reminded of the prefix form which
characterizes alike the Semitic and Hamitic languages.
The scheme of the verb is as follows:
Singular Plural
1. P. na-ba I give mu-ba
^ fmasc. ka-ba
2. P. ., ku-ba
[ tern, ki-ba
_ fmasc. ja-ba
3. P. { . su-ba
[ fern, ta-ba
This simple form, as in Hebrew, expresses momentary
action in the past and corresponds to the Greek aorist.
By prefixing to the verbal stem the elements na and ha
we get forms with the function of the present and the
pure perfect. The negative form is expressed by prefixing
and suffixing the element la: e. g. na-sanni I know; ba
na-sanni ba I know not.
-SH 147 K~
Generally speaking the infinitive is without any definite
sign and is represented by the naked verbal stem. Thus,
na-tappi kwana I go to sleep; su-n-tappi Hi tuo-nsu they
went to eat their bread. The infinitive can also be used
as a pure substantive and then sometimes in the sense of
a genitive or dative-objective with regard to the verb.
For instance, i-na-so en-kawa mallami, don i-na-so en-koja
ga mutane-n-kassa-mu I wish to become a priest, as I wish
to teach the people of our land; mu-tappi ga sa-n-hiska
we go to the drinking of the wind, i. e. we are going for
a walk. The Malay says: Oran putih mdkan ariin 'the
white man eats wind' i. e. goes for a walk.
In many African languages we find no elaboration of
the passive form of the verb, its place being supplied by
the corresponding active construction and this is the case
with Hausa. Instead of 'I am caught' we have 'they catch
me' (su-n-kama-ni). But though it is not a verbal con-
struction, the passive can be expressed in a very real sense
by a perfect passive participle with a possessive genitive
suffix indicative of the person to whom the action relates.
E. g. a-n-kama-ni my caught being = I am caught; a-na-
ba-ni my given being = I am given; a-ka-ba-ni my given
having been = I have been given.
What the copula is to Aryan languages the verbum
substantivum is to Hausa. As in Egyptian so here it is
of pronominal origin. The stems used for the substantive
verb are ne, ke, Tie. Originally they were doubtless used
to distinguish the three persons, but now there is no dis-
tinction. Thus, ni talaka ne I am poor; kura Ue it is a
hyaena; jdro nan la si-ke karami la this boy is not small;
jdrima mugunia lie the girl is bad; make ba ta-ke mugunia
ba the woman is not bad.
From the point of view of accidence Hausa is pecu-
liarly interesting to the comparative philologist. Prepo-
sitions, for instance, are evidently of nominal origin, as in
~3* 148 K~
the Semitic languages. With the exception of da, get, ma
(to, at) the noun to which they belong appears in the ge-
nitive case and with the possessive suffixes.
The most important of the purely nominal prepositions
are:
baja (hinderpart) behind gare (place, side) with, by
bissa (height, upper part) upon p'uska (face) before,
dsakka (middle) in kiki (abdomen) in
gaba (bosom) before
Daga Uiki-n-gidda-mu in our house; baja-m-birni behind
the town; dag a Mja-nsa behind him.
With regard to the striking similarities between Hausa
and the languages of the Hamito-Semites Prof. F. Mtiller
well observes:
4 Diese tiefgreifenden Uebereinstimmungen des Hausa
und anderer afrikanischer Idiome mit den hamito-semi-
tischen Sprachen konnen nach unserer Ueberzeugung ohne
die Annahme eines tiefgreifenden vor-historischen Einflusses
der Hamito-Semiten auf die Neger nicht erklart werden.
Wie bekannt lagen die Sitze des Hausa -Volkes ehe-
mals weiter in Nord-Osten und Heinrich Earth bringt die
Hausa's mit den Ataranten Herodots (IV 184) in Ver-
bindung, welchen Ausdruck er als die ,,Versammelten"
(a-tara) erklart. 1st diese Annahme richtig - - und wir
haben keinen Grund sie in Zweifel zu ziehen - - dann
sassen nach jener Stelle Herodot's die Hausa's zu jener
Zeit (2300 Jahre vor dem heutigen Tage) um Bilma im
heutigen Gebiete der Teda (Tebu), also in einer Gegend,
die den Hamiten naher lag als jene Sitze, welche sie heut
zu Tage einnehmen.
Wir haben schon zu wiederholten Malen die Ansicht
ausgesprochen, dass die Schichtungs-Verhaltnisse der Volker
Afrikas von dem Einrucken der Hamiten in den Norden
und Nord-Osten dieses Continents und dem dadurch er-
zeugten Yorwartsdrangen einzelner Stamme bedingt sind.
HX 149 HS~
Wir haben namentlich die Fulah's, die vom Osten nach
Westen, und die Kafir-Volker, die vom Norden nach Siiden
gedrangt wurden, im Auge. Es scheint uns, der Sprache
nach zu urtheilen, dass die Hausa's durch langere Zeit den
Hamiten benachbart wohnten, bis sie von den nach dem
Westen riickenden Fulah's von ihren Heimathssitzen ab-
gedrangt wurden. Und zwar muss dieser Zeitraum des
Nebeneinanderwohnens ziemlich lang gewesen sein, da sich
nur daraus der tiefe Einfluss hamitischer Sprachbildung
auf das Hausa-Idiom, der beinahe einem Aufpfropfen
hamitischen Geistes auf ein Negervolk 'gleich sieht, er-
klaren lasst.
Ohne diese, wie wir glauben, nicht unbegriindete An-
nahme bleiben das Hausa-Volk und die Hausa-Sprache fur
den Ethnologen und Sprachforscher ein Kathsel, namlich
einerseits der achteste Negertypus, andererseits eine Sprache,
die von den eigentlichen Negersprachen bedeutend abweicht
und offenbar vieles Fremde in sich enthalt, so dass sie
einzelne Sprachforscher (Lepsius) den hamitischen Sprachen
xuzuzahlen keinen Anstand nehmen'.
It will be seen that Hausa ideology is indirectly hybrid,
the formula being 2. 3. 6. 8. VI.
The Hausa theological concept is indeed most remark-
able. It is perhaps the only language in which God is
called 'the Father of the House 7 , Obangisi.
In his Grammar of the Hausa language Scho'n gives
us the Magana-n-mallami da kurege or Story of the Priest
and the Fox, of which the following forms part:
Mallami si-na-da dukia dajawa da sanie da
Priest had things many and cows and
awaki da tumaki. Kurege ja-sakka gare-sa ja-ke:
goats and sheep Fox came to him said:
mallami ina-so en-ji ma-ka bara-nta-ka. ja-ke:
priest I wish to make to thee service thine, he said:
~>i 150 K~
da keao, ja-k'e: mi .a-ka-ji ma-ni? ja-ke:
is good, he said: what wilt thou do to me? he said:
ina-ji ma-ka sira garike tumaki-nka da
I make for thee clean place sheep thine and
awaki-nka. Ja-ke: da keao. su-nka-samna.
goats thine. He said: is good. they-themselves-seated.
Kowoke sapia kurege si-na-dauka kasi-n-tumaki.
Every morning fox he took dung of sheep
si-na-gerta turike-n-tumaki da na-awaki. Samma
he made clean stall of sheep and of goats. Being
samma su-na-nan.
being were they there.
HAUSA PATER NOSTER
Obamu, da ke zikin alizana, sunanka si samma
keaokeawa. Sarautanka, tana sakkua, ahin da ka
ke so anajinsa kamma zikin alizana hakkana zikin
dunia. Ka bamu jao abinzimu dakulum. Ka
jap'e mamu sunubaimu, kammada mu muna jape masu,
woddanda suna ji mamu sunup'i. Kada ka kaimu zikin
rudi, amma ka zieziemu daga mugu. Don sarauta taka
ze, da alhorma, da haske, hal abbadu abbada. Amin.
Of the remaining African Negro concepts of Deity we
have :
Sarar: Rog and G-bate
Basa: Grepo or Gelipo
Grebo : Njesoa
Musuk: Alaii
Bisari : Ankwane
Fernando Po: Rupi.
~^4 151 ~<~
CHAPTER XI.
THE KAFIRS.
Our attention must now be directed to the languages
of Kafir race, which form what is known as the Bantu
linguistic stem.
In spite of the great diffusion of this branch of speech,
namely from the seat of the Hottentots and Bushmen in
the South as far as and even beyond the equator in the
north, all the dialects and languages belonging to it ex-
hibit such striking signs of relationship alike in vocabulary
and in the phonetic evolution of forms, that we may well
accept for them all a common grammatical system. Hence
these languages, as in the case of the Aryan, Hamito-Se-
niitic, and Dravidian idioms, have been regarded as off-
shoots of a common primitive form of speech which no longer
exists and the characteristics of which can only be inferred
from finding out what is common to them all.
Now, what Sanskrit is to the Aryan languages and
Arabic to the Semitic, Kafir is to the Bantu group, pre-
serving most faithfully the features of the mother-speech.
It will therefore be best to begin with this language.
From a phonetic point of view these languages are
distinguished by a regular evolution of sounds. Combi-
nations alike of vowels and consonants are for the most
part avoided. Speaking generally, articulation in the south,
in the neighborhood of the Hottentots, is strong and manly,
whereas in the north, that is to say, in the neighborhood
of the negroes, the vocal element predominates, rendering
the language weak and effeminate.
As regards grammatical structure these idioms hold
the mean between the form and the formless languages.
-$* 152 -
They belong to the so-called agglutinative or amlagamating
type, i. e. they have an inkling of form, but the feeling for
form is not strong enough to create means adequate to its
expression. Hence they fall into the opposite extreme of
absolute formlessness. 'Wir wiissten, says Prof. F. Muller,
keine Sprachclasse, welche ausser den sogenannten ural-
altaischen Sprachen --so geeignet ware, den wesentlichen
Unterschied zwischen formlosen, fornabildenden (flectieren-
den) und agglutinirenden Sprachen ad oculos besser zu de-
monstriren als die Bantu-Familie'.
In these tongues grammatical definition is effected for
the most part by prefix-formation; indeed we may regard
it as the express character of these idioms just as the
opposite formation, namely, that by suffixes, is the promi-
nent characteristic of the Ural-Altaic family.
Originally verb and noun were not to be distinguished;
the former is nothing more than a nominal expression with
dependent pronominal elements. Hence a purely predicative
relationship is impossible. Subject and object are distin-
guished by their position to the verb, a failing which led
to the incorporation of the expression for the object into
the verbal form, as in Mexican and many languages of the
new world.
We meet with three inspirates or clicks in Kapir which
have been borrowed from K'oilsoi, namely, the palatal i,
the dental I , and the lateral ||. As a rule the accent rests
on the penultimate syllable, rarely at the end. There is
however a subsidiary accent which, as far as possible, is
placed at the beginning of words.
In Bantu forms of speech the root is of two kinds:
nominal and pronominal. Speaking generally, the nominal
roots are polysyllabic and from these, by combination with
the pronominal roots, words are formed. The common dis-
tinction between word and stem is here unknown. In the
^* 153 MS-
process of word-formation the pronominal roots regularly
precede the nominal.
As regards the inner form of the nominal root, it un-
ites both the nominal and verbal meaning, i. e. one and the
same complexus of sound can act as noun and verb accord-
ing to the pronominal stems with which it is combined.
Thus tja is 'to eat', uku-tja fodder; so, 'to dawn', uku-sa
'morning'.
Nevertheless, in most cases the language endeavors to
keep the two forms distinct by means of elements attached
to the root. The following are the principal formative
elements.
1. To form nominal stems.
The suffix -i, -e, Kafir: tenga to buy, um-teng-i mer-
chant; sindisa to save, um-sindis-i Savior; lingana to be
equal, um-lingan-i friend. The suffix -o. Alata to point
out, show, im-alat-o first finger; pilisa to keep alive, im-
pilis-o life, health; hala to call, isi-kal-o cry, call.
The suffixes -ana and -jana form nomina diminutiva,
and -anjana (= ana + jana) diminutivissima. E. G-. Isi-lo
animal, isi-lw-ana small animal, isi-lw-anjana animalcule.
2. Formation of verbal stems,
a. Suffixes.
-La or -ila (Herero: ra, na. Kiswahili: a) forms verba
relativa. Before -la the a which regularly ends the verbal
stem is turned into e (Kiswahili: i). Thus Kafir: hamba
to go, haml-e-la to rush at something; Sekvana: lona to
see, to look after somebody (bon-e-la)\ Herero: sepa to kill,
sep-e-ra to kill for somebody. Kiswahili: pata to reach,
pat-i-a to reach something for somebody; Mponwe: kamba
to speak, kamb-i-na to speak for somebody.
The suffix -isa before which the closing a of the stem
disappears, forms Yerba causativa. Kafir: tanda to love,
u
~$* 154 H$~
tand-isa to induce to love; Sek'wana: bona to see, ~bon-isa to
cause to see; Herero: rara to sleep, rar-isa to send to sleep;
Kiswahili: penda to love, pend-esa to cause to love; Mpoii-
we: Jcamba to speak, kamb-isa to induce to speak.
-Ika, -eka forms the reflexive-causative. Kafir: liamba
to go, hamb-eka to prepare oneself to go; Herero: Imika to
clothe, Jiuik-ika to dress oneself.
-J.wft forms Yerba reciproca. Kafir: tanda to love,
tand-ana to mutually love one another. Selswana: sebeletsa
to work, sebelets-ana to work for one another. Herero:
sepa to kill, sep-ana to mutually kill one another. Kis-
wahili: penda to love, pend-ana to mutually love one another.
The suffix -u, which has here become formally an infix,
coming immediately before the final a, forms the passive.
Kafir: tanda to love, tand-w-a to be loved; tand-isa to
cause to love; tandis-w-a to be induced to love. Sekwana:
rata to love, rat-o-a to be loved. Herero : Jiungira to speak,
~hungir-u-a to be spoken; sepa to kill, sep-o-a to be killed.
Kiswahili: penda to love, pend-o-a to be loved. Mpoiiwe:
tonda to love, tond-o to be loved.
p. Prefixes.
Si- (kiswahili: gi-, Herero: n-, Sekwana: i-) forms
verba reflexiva. Kafir: tanda to love, si-tanda to love one-
self. Kiswahili: penda to love, gi-penda to love oneself.
Herero: sepa to kill, ri-sepa to kill oneself. Sekwana: &owa
to see, i-pona to see-oneself.
f. Reduplication.
This forms Verba frequentativa and intensiva. For in-
stance, Kafir: hamba to go, hamlahamba to make a circuit;
teta to speak, tetateta to chatter. Herero: handa to move
oneself, kandoikanda to tremble.
All these elements admit of combinations amongst
themselves, whereby the following forms, which may be
illustrated by the Kafir word teta to speak, arise:
t 155
c3
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c8
2
i
c^
c3
i
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CO
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i
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?
g
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03
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c8
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1
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Relative
tet-el-ela
1
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CD
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to
4?
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Causati
Causati
'S
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PQ
156
Another instance of the extraordinary complexity of
savage modes of speech is the elaboration of the personal
pronoun in the Bantu idioms. For the first and the second
person singular and plural there are four forms, whilst for
the third person there are no less than seven pronominal
stems, whereof some are expressions of unity, some of plu-
rality and others of both. By means of this distinction the
language has been able to build up nominal forms express-
ing number and a kind of gender, being furnished with
pronominal elements in the sense of our Article or demon-
strative adjective.
From the seven Bantu character-sounds of the third
person arise the following stems in Kafir and Sekwana:
a. Primitive Form
uMu
iLi
iMi
iSi
uLu
uMu
a. Primitive Form
aBa
aMa
iSi
iMi
I. Singular Forms.
b. Kafir Form
um, u
ili, i
im, in,
isi
ulu, u
um
c. SeUwana Form
mo
le
me, in
se,
lo
mo
c. SeHwana Form
ba
ma
lin, rin
me
III. Collective Forms.
a. Primitive Form b. Kafir Form c. SeUwana Form
uBu ubu bo
uKu uku ko, ho.
~3* 157 x~
The possessive pronoun is represented by the genitive
of the personal pronoun. It either precedes or follows the
substantive to which it belongs. In the latter case the de-
monstrative element which refers to the preceding noun is
prefixed in the shortest form to the possessive pronoun,
whilst in the former the demonstrative, coming before the
nominal form, must be prefixed to the possessive pronoun
in its full form, united with the preceding demonstrative-
relative particle a.
Examples :
a. Postposition of the possessive pronoun:
umpas^ wake his wife = um-p'asi w-ake; the prefix
w- points back to urn- and ake is genitive of je-na, the pro-
noun of e. g. um-tu man.
iha3e lajo his horse = i-hase 1-ajo; the prefix 1- points
back to i (for ili) and ajo is the genitive of jo-na, the pro-
noun for e. g. in-kosi chief.
ukutja kwawo their fodder = uku-tja ku-awo; the pre-
fix ku points back to uku and awo is the genitive of wo-
na, the pronoun for e. g. ama-hase the horses.
b. Preposition of the possessive pronoun:
omake ump'asi his wife = a-umu-ake um-p'asi
elajo ihase his horse = a-ili-ajo i-has"e
okwawo ukutja their fodder = a-uku-awo uku-tja
obam ubuso my countenance = a-ubu-ami ubu-so
abam abantu my men = a-aba-ami aba-ntu
elako ihas"e thy horse = a-ili-ako i-hase.
The personal pronominal stems of the third person in
their full form with the prefixed relative particle a act as
demonstrative pronouns. Stems with initial m, being weak,
take the stem li also, which is prefixed.
We' have to distinguish three forms of the demonstra-
tive pronoun, one simple and two compound, whereof the
~3* 158 M&-
one is compounded with wa (and au = o), the other with
wa-ja (o-ja, ja).
The demonstrative pronouns are so intimately connect-
ed with the following nouns, that in most cases the initial
vowel of the latter falls away. For instance:
lo-mtu, lowa-rntu, lowaja-mtu this man
lo-mp'asi, lowa-mp'asi, lowaja-mpasi this woman
eli-hase, elo-hase, elija-hase this horse
le-nkosi, lejo inkosi, lejaja inkosi this chief.
There is no relative pronoun in Bantu but only the
relative particle a. This is invariable, so that, where in a
relative sentence, a case-relationship has to be expressed,
a demonstrative pronoun must be joined to it, as in the Se-
mitic languages. Thus, ihase elinjau sinkulu = i-hase a-
ili-njau sin-kulu the-horse-which = that-his-feet-great. in-
klu e|ango lukulu = in-klu a-i-[ango lu-kulu the-house-which
= that gate-is-great.
As regards the noun, it is unable to express phoneti-
cally either gender or number. And indeed we may say
the same of case, and more especially of the subject- and
object-case. All these categories are indicated either by
connecting the noun with the pronominal stems of the third
person or by position in the sentence. For a few examples
we may take:
Singular Plural
um-ntu the man aba-ntu
u-dade the sister o-dade
(for umu-dade) (for aba-dade)
ili-swi the word ama-swi
i-hase the horse ama-hase
(for ili-hase)
u-bambo the rib isim-bambo
(for ulu-bambo)
um-ti the tree imi-ti
~>* 159 H$~
ubu-lumko wisdom and uku-tja fodder are collectives
and have no plural.
These pronominal elements which precede the nominal
stems occur in all the Bantu languages with the phonetic
modifications peculiar to each idiom.
In Bantu the adjective is generally expressed as
follows :
Kafir: um-tu a-u-na-uhu-lumko (umtu onobulumko)
the man who with wisdom = the wise man.
um-lambo a-u-na-in-hlabati (umlambo onenhlabati) the
river which with sand = the sandy river.
Herero: omu-ndu u-n-osondunge the man who with
understanding = the intelligent man.
When the adjective is expressed in the usual way it
follows the substantive to which it belongs, whether as attri-
bute or predicate; for instance, umhlaba ubansi wona earth
extended it = the earth is wide; ump'asi omkulu (um-p'asi
a-um-kulu) the woman who great = the great woman.
As regards the verb it depends, as in every case, upon
the connexion of the stem with the personal pronominal
elements. The latter appear as prefixes, and in cases
where the object is taken up into the body of the verb, it
immediately follows the subject, so that the structure of the
sentence is: 'I-thee-love'. But the subject -denoting pre-
fixes are rather of an objective than subjective nature, 'I
love' being not so much 'I loving' as 'to me is love' or 'me
catches love'. Thus:
u-Satani wa-m-kohl-isa u-Ewa.
The Satan he-her-deceived the-Eve.
u-ja-basi aba-ntu b-onke.
Thou-them-knowest the-men all.
U-ja-wad-ela ama-swi ami.
He-them-despises the-words my.
For the sake of comparison I here give the Pater
Noster in three languages.
160
I. Kafir (language of the Ama-|losa).
Bawo w-etu os-esulw-ini ma-li-patwe
Father who-our who-heaven the in may-he-borne-be
ngo-bu-iig | wele i-gama 1-ako Ubu-kumkani
with-holiness the name the thine. The-kingdom
b-ako ma-bu-p'ike. In-tando j-ako
the thine may-it-come. The -will the-thine
ma-j-ensiwe emhlab-eni ngeiigokuba i-s-ensiwa
may-he- done- be earth upon as he done being
esulw-ini Ma-u-si-pe uku-tja kw-etu
heaven-in Mayest-thou-us-give the-food the-our
kw-emi-hla nge-mi-hla. U-si-||olele
the-of the-days with-the-days. Thou-us-forgive
i-sono s-etu ngengokuba nati si-||olela abo
the debts the-our as also we-forgive these
ba-sonajo tina. U-nga-si-ngenisi ekuhendweni
the-debtors we. Thou-not-us-lead into-temptation
s-u-si-sindise enkohlakalweni. Amene.
but-thou-us-deliver evil-from. Amen.
II. Sulu (language of Ama-sulu).
Baba w-etu os-esulw-ini, ma-li-dunjiswe
Father the-our which-heaven-in may-he-hallowed
i-gama 1-ako. U-mbuso w-ako ma-wu-se
the-name the-thine. The-kingdom the-thine may-it-come
In-tando j-ako ma-j-ensiwe emhlabeni apa
The-will the-thine may-it-done-be. earth-upon so
ng'engasesulwini. Si-pe namhla isin-kwa
as-heaven-in. Us-give this-day need-ful
s-emi-hla s-etu. Si-jekele i-sono s-etu
the-of the-days the-our Us-forgive the-debts the-our
^t 161 K~
ngengokuba tina si-ba-jekela bona abo-najo
as we we-them-forgive these the-debtors
ku-ti. Unga-si-sisi ekulingweni kodwa si-kulule
also. Thou-not-us-lead temptation-in but us-deliver
ekwoneni. Amene.
evil-from.
III. Se-suto (language of the Ba-suto).
Ntate o-a-rona o-kua ma-gorimo-n, le-bitso
Father the-our the-who the-heavens-in the-become
la-gao le-galalele. Bo-pitle bo-gosi joa-gao.
the-thine the-name-holy. The-kingdom the-thine may-it-come.
Go-ratsan ki-uena go-etsoe mo-le-p'atsi-n jualeka
The-will the-thine the-done-be as-the-earth-in so
be-gorimo-n. U-re-p'e kajenu b-ogobe ba-rona
the-heavens-in. Thou-us-give the-which the-food the-our
ba-metle e-otle. U-re-ilavarele libe jeika
the-days with-days. Thou-us-forgive also as
rea-lebala melatu ea bamelatu mo-go-rona.
we-too sins which the-debtors the-our.
TJ-si-ke-ua-re-isa li-ben, u-re-tlose bo-ben.
And-not-us-lead into-evil but-us-free from-evil!
Bantu ideology, as will have been observed, is almost
invariably indirectly hybrid, the formula being 2. 4. 6. 8.
Ill, or nominative + genitive, noun + adjective, verb + object,
subject + verb, subject -f- object + verb.
The theology of the Kafir race is in many ways most
instructive. In Kafir itself we have another form of the
Koikoi Zuni || Goam, namely, uTi||o the Dawn, other forms
being Tekesa and Tillo; e. g.
Ili-swi li-ka-Ti\\o The word of God
Ubu-lumbo lu-ha-Ti\\o The wisdom of God
x
->? 162 K~
But the thought which most frequently occurs and
seems to have sunk most deeply into the Kafir religious
consciousness is that of
Munkulunkulu
the reduplicated form of kulu old, so that the root-idea is-
The-Old-Old-One.
Sulu: (M) Unkulunkulu
Inhambane: Muluiigulu
Kinika: Mulungu
Ki-hjau: Mulungu
Ki-kamha: Mulungu
ki-Swahili: Mliingu
Makua: Muhigo
Otji-Herero: oMukuru
Swahili: Muungu
Sopala; Murungu
Tette: Morungo
Ki-pokomo: Mungo
Such a concept would lead one to anticipate ancestor-
worship amongst these tribes, nay, the very word for Grod
in Sekwana and Se Suto means Ancestral Spirit-Morimo,
Molimo. On the other hand, the Girjama word is Mwenje,
Master.
The Kafir Pater Noster is:
Bawo wetu osesulwini! Malipatwe ngobungcwele-
igama lako. Ubukumkani bako mabufike. Intando
jako majensiwe emhlabeni, ng'engokuba isensiwa esulwini.
Sipe namhla rige ukutja kwetu kwemihla ngemihla. Usi-
xolele isono setu, ngengokuba nati sixolela abo basonajo
tina. Ungasingenisi ekulingweni, susisindise enkohlakalweni.
Ngokuba bubobako ubukumkani, namandhla, nobung-
cwalisa, kude kube ngunapakade. Amene.
We are on more delicate ground when we come to
deal with the other words for Spirit, namely:
-X 163 <-
Maravi: Nsimmo
Sena: Musimo
Kwellimane: Musimo
Benga: Anjambi
Mponwe: Anjambia
Kongo: Nsambi-a-npungu Spirit on High
Angola: oNsambi
Kiteke: Nsaiho-rupuo Spirit above.
Bogignigi: Puluga Good Spirit
Now, the worship of ancestral spirits may not unjustly
be described as a service of fear: the dead are propitiat-
ed because it is in their power to injure the living. The
ghost of the dead man lurks near the dwelling of the living
relative, often assuming the form of a snake or a reed, so
that of the Kongo, the Kiteke and the Bogignigi at least
we may predicate that the theological concept does not
arise from ancestor-worship.
Isubu stands by itself as a monument of the spiritual
genius of that tribe: the thought of God is
Obasi the Father,
reminding us of the Hausa Obangisi, of the Negro race.
CHAPTER XII.
THE AUSTRALIAN RACE.
In dealing with the languages of the Australian Race
we have to remember first of all that, morphologically they
fall into several categories. Those of the west, for instance,
stand no higher than the formless idioms of Further India,
others show an agglutinative structure, whilst others, again,
show a tendency to raise themselves to a higher level by
amalgamating the formative elements with the stem.
Most interesting is the evolution of case-forms in these
tongues, and yet, strangely enough, there is no specialisation
-* 164 MS-
of case either for subject or object, the nominative and
accusative being expressed by the naked stem. In con-
tradistinction to the Papuan idioms and those of Melanesia
and Polynesia the morphological process of the Australian
languages is that of attaching suffixes to what are considered
radical forms.
Our knowledge of these tongues is for the most part
confined to the eastern and south eastern part of the con-
tinent, where they are more highly evolved. We propose
to examine the languages known as Turrubul and Kamilaroi
or Gumilroi. In Wiraturai or Wiradurei and the idiom
spoken in the vicinity of Hunter's River and Lake Mac-
quarie there seems to be no native thought of GTod, the
word used being the Hebrew Jehovah, so we must be con-
tent with the Pater Noster.
Wiraturai: Jehova-gu guobini malnidjali-gun
Jehovah ceased work-from-his
biambul.
all.
MACQUARIE: PATER NOSTER.
Pejuii-pai nearum-pa wokka-ka-pa moroko-ka-pa
Father our above-in heaven-in
ka-tan kumunpilla jitura niroumpa jirijiri kakilliko.
being be make name thine holy to be.
Paipipunpilla piriwul-kopa niroumpa; nururpunpilla
Appear make kingdom thine; heard be make
wijellikane niroumpa janti purai-ta-pa janti ta
word thine even as earth-in as is
moroko-kapa nuwa nearun pureun ka janti ka-tai
heaven-in give us day is as always
takilliko. Natun warikulla iiearumpa jarakai umatoara,
to eat. And throw away our evil done,
-SH 165 H-
janti ta neen warika, janti ta wijapajeen
as since we throw away, as is spoken
nearumpa. Katun jutiji-kora nearun jarakai umilli-kan
our. And lead not us Evil doing
kolan. Miromulla nearun jarakai-ta-pirun, kulla
toward. Deliver make us Evil-from, for
ta iiiroumpa ta piriwul-ko-pa natun killipinpin janti
as thine is kingdom and Glory as
ka-tai.
Amen,
ever.
According to Ridley Kamilaroi or Gummilroi is the
language of the Aborigines of the Namoi, Barwan, Bundarra
and Balonue Rivers and of Liverpool plains and the Upper
Hunter.
As regards the noun, case-relations are expressed by
suffixes, whilst number is designated either by the pre-
position or postposition of the words buldr two and burula
manifold, much. Thus:
Subjective and objective: mulioii the eagle.
Nom.: mulion-du (as agent)
Gen.: mulion-nu of the eagle
Dat. : mulion-go
Abl.: mulion-di
Loc. : mulion-da
Soc. (rest): mulion-kunda
(motion) : mulion-kale
In an attributive sense the adjective occurs both be-
hind and before the substantive to which it belongs: e. g.
bular giwir muga 'two man blind', bain dina tungor 'sick
foot lame'. In a predicative sense the adjective must fol-
low the substantive: Lajaru wibil ginji 'Lazarus ill be-
came', neane guije duri 'we happy become'.
The verb has had a manifold evolution: it has both
a causative and a permissive form. Thus, from numi 'to
iiinda
iiuna
numi
thou
me
hast-seen?
naia
ninuna
iiumi
I
thee
have-seen.
naia
ninuna
numi
I
thee
have-seen.
-> 166 <-
see' we have numil-mule 'to cause to see', 'to teach'; from
buma 'to strike' buma-nabile 'to allow somebody to be
struck', The tenses and moods of the verb are expressed
by definite suffixes which are attached to the verbal stem.
Person and number are designated by placing the forms
of the personal pronoun before the verbal stem. For
instance,
Jama
"Well
Gir
Truly
Kamil
Not
As a specimen of Kamilroi structure let me quote part
of a translation of the Acts of the Apostles:
"Baiame bular jarine jealokwai giwir."
"Gods two have-come-down like men."
Paul Barnaba nelibu bunanune, kaktildone:
Paul Barnabas also ran, called:
"kuria! kamil neane baiame, neane giwir jealokwai
"away! not we gods, we men even-as
nindai. neane guije duri, neane bud a
ye. we happy have-become, we sad
ginji, neane jili ginji, jealo neane
have-become, we angry have-become, again we
muru nurinilone. Neane muru goalda burulabu,
good have-become. We good announce to all
kuria nindai jealo kagil gigile berudi waraia,
away ye again bad that-become; back go,
numila Baiame moron. Baiame gir gunagula,
look (up to) God living. God really heaven,
~5n 167 HS-
taon, burul kole, kanuno mina-mina-bul
earth, great water, everything manifold
gimobi. Baiame jahvuna Baiame"!
has-created. God ever God!"
It will be seen that Kamilroi ideology is hybrid, though
it very nearly approaches the natural order, the formula
being 2. 4. 5. 8. III.
As we have already seen, the word for the Supreme
in Kamilaroi is
Baiame Creator, from y^baia to form, fashion, so that
the idea of God is that of the potter moulding the clay.
By this tribe of the North Western district of New South
Wales Baiame is regarded as the maker of all things and
according to their conduct, as the rewarder and punisher
of men. He sees all and knows all, if not directly, through
the subordinate deity Turramulan, who presides at the
Bora. It is a very noteworthy fact that Baiame is said
to have been once on the earth and that, in all his deal-
ings with man and man's transactions with him, Turra-
malan is declared to be Mediator. The meaning of Turra-
mulan is 'leg on one side only', 'one-legged'.
Turrubul is the language of the Aborigines on the Bris-
bane River, and may fairly be described as a sonorous idiom.
Its principle of formation is that of postposition. Suf-
fixes serve to denote cases and to express number when a
distinction is made phonetically. The verb is either primary
or derived, and the tense- and mood-forms are expressed
by means of suffixes. To define more particularly person
and number in the verb, the substantival and pronominal
forms precede; thus, 'What hast thou done?' is: inta minja
jugari thou-what-done ? In certain cases the pronoun fol-
lows the verb, as: daie-duna lay he.
Alike in Kamilaroi and in Turrubul arithmetic does
not go beyond the number three:
~5H 168 Hr-
Kainilaroi 1 mal Turrubul 1 kunar
2 bular 2 budela
3 guliba 3 mudan
Any higher number is formed by combining two of these.
Turrubul ideology, which is indirect, namely, 1. 3. 5.
8. Ill, may be well seen from the following translation of
Genesis:
Mumbal nambilebu nunankin juga-ri, Kaloma
God all things made has, Once
bigi jugar, na kilen jugar, na miregin, na
sun not, and moon not and stars, and
daoun jugar milbulpu, iki tar, nul-pa iiine-du,
creature not living also earth, we-there sitting,
tar jugar. Kurumba mumbal nambilebu juga-ri.
earth not. Great God everything made has.
Tar beren kurun, jugar nor nine-du kurun-kurun
Earth there dark, not form sitting darkness
wungun-ti tabil nine. Bagul jugar diirutunga
above-upon water sat. Tree not growing
tar-ti, kudal jugar, duga-tin jugar, jaraman
earth-upon, bush not, men not, horse
jugar, na muri jugar, nurun jugar. Mumbal
not, and cangaroo not, Emu not. God
nambilebu juga-ri mudan na mudan bigi.
everything made has six days (in).
What, then, is Mumbal, the Turrubul thought and pre-
dicate of God? It is the rolling Thunder, the colossal
manifestation in Nature, the Australian Thor!
~* 169 r<~
CHAPTER XIII.
THE HYPERBOREAN RACE.
Next in order come the idioms of the Hyperborean
Race. Let us begin with the language of the Jukagirs
known as Odul or Ododomni.
The noun is peculiarly rich in cases, which are ex-
pressed by suffixes, namely, the objective, locative, ablative,
allative, sociative and prosecutive. The relation of genitive
is expressed by placing the denning expression before the
thing defined, the letter n being put between the two. For
instance, 'the Russian's faith' is lutii-n-mudol "(of the)
Russian-faith."
As regards the adjective, when used attributively it
precedes the noun, when predicatively it follows. Thus,
omok'a toivoka 'good dog', amun-gi adi 'the bones (are)
sound'.
When appearing as the stem-form the possessive pro-
noun precedes the noun to which it belongs, as mit numa
our house', but when the suffix Id is added, it follows, as
eke mitlti 'Father our', k'ak'a tatla 'brother thine'.
In the case of the verb the suffixes vary according as it
is transitive or intransitive. E. g. le-i 'he is', jeginu-m 'he
her kisses'. Let us look at a few sentences:
Anure-mik tat puguv-danleg'e Anure.
Lovest thou Sun-lord (Emperor)? I love.
Age-tei-il, Koinin (for Koil-nin)
Raise-we-ourselves (Let us rise) God-before
naka-tei-li. Motin omolt age-tei, kknin mot
bow-we-ourselves. Me-to good begins, if I
leit-am-ik luki-n-mudol.
know-should Russian-faith.
Y
->* 170 K~
Ideologically Odul is 1. 3. 6. 8. VI, that is to say,
hybrid.
"What, then, is the meaning of T^T^^rf) Kil?
The language of the Ainu is one of particles, expressing
grammatical relationships by external means. Its type re-
minds us of the undeveloped idioms of the Mongol-Tun-
gusic stem.
In the case of the noun, the category of number is
only occasionally denoted, the singular and plural not as a
rule being phonetically distinguished. Case, too, is only
partially represented; the genitive by position and the rest
by suffixed particles. For the subjective and objective there
is no phonetic distinction.
When used attributively the adjective precedes the sub-
stantive, when as predicate it follows, receiving at the same
time a particle representing the Copula. E. g. before kuroro
glittering cloud, sirun guru poor man, tambaku eramus
utara a man accustomed to tobacco.
The personal pronoun comes before the expression to
which it belongs, as anokai Use our house, k'okai po my child.
As regards the verb, it seems to be absolutely form-
less, time, mood, person and number being expressed by
elements which are attached to what serves as the verbal
expression. Thus, jaikota-no-ja I am afraid, ohono xiomo
u-nukara, we have not seen each other for a long time,
S'nenin ainu taban nobori kasketa rikin an Ainu has gone
up this mountain. In form the active and the passive are
identical. Intransitive verbs are turned into transitive and
transitive into causal verbs by means of the suffix -te, -ti
(-de -di). For instance, nukura to see, nukan-te to cause
to see, to show; oman to go out, oman-de to send.
To express number Ainu seems to have adopted the
vigesimal system. The ideology is indirect, the formula
being 1. 3. 5. 8. III.
~$H 171 H5
And the thought of the Supreme? It is Kamui Spirit!
Judged by its richness in word-forms the speech of
the Aleuts would seem to belong to the Turko-tataric idioms
and the languages of the Uralian Branch, but the charac-
teristic of these tongues, vowel-harmony, is unknown.
The ruling principle is agglutination or amalgamation
and the process of word-formation that of suffixing. There
is no definite case for subject or object, but attribute and
predicate are distinguished phonetically. Most remarkable
is the evolution of the verb, which can only be compared
with that of the speech of Turkey.
Singular, dual and plural are all denoted in the noun:
e. g. agituda-k brother, dual: agituda-kifa plural: agituda-n.
The paradigm of the substantive is as follows: (ada-k
father).
Singular Dual Plural
Nom. Ace. Ada-k Ada-kik Ada-n
Gen. ada-m as Nom. same
Dat. ada-man ada-kin ada-nin
Abl. ada-gan same as Nom. as Norn.
The defining cases come before the defined: thus, 'the
word of the Kingdom of God' is Ago'gu-m ahali-gan tunu:
God-of Kingdom- by word.
When used attributively the adjective agrees with the
substantive to which it belongs, whilst as predicate it be-
comes a verbal expression. For instance, igamana-k good
(Sing.), igamana-Jdk (dual), igamana-n (plural), but ada-n
igamana-kuk my father is good; agitasa-n-tii mattk'isalakan
your companions are not brave.
Wonderfully rich in forms is the Aleutic verb. The
sum of all the forms derivable from one root is about 40
and if the persons and numbers of every form are added,
it is said to be over 300. The verb would seem to rest
on two formations whereof the one is a nomen agentis or
its equivalent and the other a nomen actionis. To the
~& 172 :<~
former are added the personal pronominal forms, to the
latter the possessive suffixes. There are 5 moods and 5
tenses, namely, Indicative, Conjunctive, Potential, Imperative
and Infinitive; Present, Aorist, Perfect, indefinite Future,
lasting Future and Futurum exactum.
At the basis of the numerical expressions is the qui-
nary system, and Aleutic ideology is hybrid, the formula
apparently being 1. 4. 6. 8. VI.
The Aleuts have conceived God as Agogu-k Creator.
Of the Innuit or Eskimo language Prof. F. Miiller ob-
serves that it is of great importance for the history of
Language because it gives us a certain chronological crite-
rion for estimating phonetic changes in nature-languages.
We are told, for instance, that 'though the Eskimos in La-
brador have been separated from the Greenlanders for at
least 1000 years, the languages of both differ less than
Danish and Swedish or Dutch and Hamburg Plattdeutsch.
The dwellers in Boothia Felix, with whom Captain John
Ross on his second polar expedition spent three years,
understood much of what he read to them from a Green-
land book and would certainly have understood more if
they had heard it from a Greenlander, nay, perhaps
everything if a Greenlander had spoken on matters of
common life.'
The centre of gravity of the linguistic organism is to
be found in the demonstrative roots or pronouns, as in
K'oik'oi, and the principle of formation is that of suffixing.
Noteworthy, too, is the fact that, as the Hottentots, the
Eskimos of Labrador call themselves men Kai'eHoxriv, for
Inuit=K'oilcoi.
Singular, dual and plural are all expressed by the
noun, whilst the denotation of the cases is singulary rich.
Not only have we the purely grammatical cases, subjective,
objective and genitive, but those which express spatial re-
lations, namely, the locative, ablative, vialis, terminalis,
-;>* 173 Kr-
modalis and comparative. The object-case is represented
by the naked stem; the genitive or rather possessive case
is phonetically expressed by adding the pronominal suffixes
to the expression which is to be defined, the defining ex-
pression preceding. If, for instance, we want to render the
sentence "the tail of the whale touched the bows of the boat"
we must say: ak'fek'u-p sak'piata umia-p suju-a aktok'-p-a,
1. e., whale (subject) tail-his (subject of the sentence) boat
(subject) bows-its (object of sentence) touched-he-it.
As attribute the adjective follows the substantive and
agrees with it in number and ending. Thus, ujak'k-at
akitsu-t stones weak; ikdlu-t ku-p sina-ne-itu-t = houses
brook edge-its being, i. e., the houses which are at the edge
of the brook. The predicative relationship is expressed by
a form which also serves as a verbal expression. 'Our
house is good' is ikdlok'put aj umiak = house-our good-is;
'our house begins to get bad' ikdlok'put ojulekpok = house-
our bad-to be-to get-begins.
The pronouns are derived from the demonstrative roots
uw 'here' and ik 'there', so that T is equivalent to 'my
here-hood', 'thou' to 'thy there-hood'. The forms of the pro-
noun are wonderfully rich; we find, namely, subjective, ob-
jective, locative, ablative, vial, terminal, modal and com-
parative. And, as regards the nominal stems with pro-
nominal suffixes, they fall into two series: 1. subjective,
2. objective; whilst of the pronoun of the third person there
are two subdivisions, viz. demonstrative and reflexive suffixes.
The quinar-vigesimal system of numeration underlies
all the Inuit dialects: 5 = one hand, 10= two hands; 11 to
15= first foot, 10 to 20 the other foot.
Now in the Eskimo idioms of Labrador we find no
native word for God, the words used being Gudib and
Gude, which are easily recognisable as forms of our own
word. In Greenlandish , on the other hand, we have the
remarkable and deeply-significant word Torngarsuk, which
-> 174 *-
is an augmentative of Torngak Spirit, so that the thought
is: Great Spirit.
For the sake of comparison we may take a verse from
the Gospel of St. John, which has been translated alike
into Inuit and G-reenlandish
Inuit.
Taimak Gudib sillaksoarmiut naegligiveit , Ernetuane
tunnilugo, illunatik okpertut tapsomunga, assiokonnagit nun-
gusuitomigle innogutekarkovlugit.
Greenlandisli.
Sillarsub innue Torngarsuk taima assakigei, Ernetue
untniullugo taukkonunga, tamarmik taursomunga opertut
tammarkonnagit, naksaungit somigle innursutekarkollugit.
St. John. iii. 16.
Eskimo ideology is hybrid, the formula being 2. 4. G.
8. VI; i. e. indirect.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RACES OF AMERICA.
Few languages are more interesting to the student of
speech than the American. In the first place it is almost
impossible to apply our familiar grammatical terminology,
such categories as noun, verb, adjective, existing only in a
very modified sense, if at all. Not only do we find a ming-
ling of noun and verb but also the complete identity of
the subjective and possessive pronouns. Sometimes singular
and plural are not distinguished, nay, even the first and
second person plural are not always phonetically separated.
A peculiarity of most of these tongues is the so-called
incorporation, i. e. the taking up an object into the verbal
body. The verb, in fact, represents a whole sentence, the
remaining parts of which serve merely as elucidation. In
-> 175 H$-
many respects we are reminded of the idioms of Dardistan.
Only the intransitive or neutral verb can appear without
reference to an object, whilst every transitive verb must
in itself contain the expression of the object. To the Indian
"love" in the abstract is unthinkable. His language has
not emerged from the state in which it is impossible to have
such a word as 'heart' as distinguished from 'my heart',
'thy heart' or 'his heart'. So it is to this day in Hunsa.
Ak, for instance, is 'my name', ik 'his name'. Take away
the pronominal sign, and the remaining k means nothing.
Aus is 'my wife' and gus 'thy wife'. The s alone has no
meaning.
Speaking morphologically the American idioms do not
all stand upon the same footing, or rather, have not all
arrived at the same stage of evolution. "Whilst some have
hardly got beyond Isolation, others approach the agglutina-
ting , conibinatory or amalgamating stage, others, again,
form a new linguistic type, that, namely, of incorporation.
To the Americans belongs that tribe which has abso-
lutely no sense of number, and in this respect at all events,
stands below the aborigines of Australia and the bushmen
of South Africa, I refer to the Kikitos.
Beginning with the tongues of the Tinne and Kinnai
Stems we find in K'ippewe a very instructive syntax.
Amongst the cases those which denote purely grammatical
relations are the most important. The nominative stands
either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence but
never immediately before the verb. It is the complement
of the verb, the accusative or objective which precedes the
verb. To express the genitive the defining element is put
before the thing defined. Thus, the sentence: 'the house
of the sister of the father of my friend' is:
se 1'a be tka be dese je kue.
my friend his father his sister her house.
-S* 176 ^
The adjective follows, as attribute, the substantive to
which it belongs, without any change whatever: dene nesu
man good, dene-like nesu men good.
Possessive pronouns of the noun, which also serve as
objective pronouns of the verb, are put before the forms
in question. By combination of the pronoun and verbal
stem arises the verb.
As regards numeration, the decimal system, or rather
the decadic method of calculation seems to underlie these
At'apaskic tongues.
The following is the Lord's Prayer in Kippewe:
, )'i> CTV
(TU'
-II ST> PPCT
u' crv -)\j
3, 03(7" r" ZV<=V Lr' URL/
Amen.
The ideology of these sidioms is quite natural, 1. 4. 5. 8.
I being the formula.
"With the Algonkin idioms the stem is derived from
the root by means of suffixes, whilst the transformation of
the stem into the word is effected by prefixes.
Nouns fall into two classes, that, namely, of the higher
or things animate, and that of the lower or things inani-
mate. As animate are treated not only the expressions for
men and the larger animals, but also those for certain
bodies and objects, such as sun, moon, stars, bow, arrow,
kettle, wagon, tobacco-pipe, corn, silver and tobacco. Every-
thing else is inanimate.
This distinction becomes apparent in the formation of
number and in the connexion of the noun with the verb.
-* 177 HS~
With things animate the plural is formed by adding k to
the singular, with those inanimate -n. Thus, Algonkin:
anisindbe man, anisinabe-k men; Mikmak: lenu, lenu-k;
Senni-Lennape : leni, lenow-a-k. Ogibwe: moskesin shoe,
moakesin-o-n shoes; Lenni-Lennape: wikwahem house, wik-
wahem-a-l houses, where we have I for n.
As regards the cases, the nominative or subjective
stands at the head of the sentence; the objective or accu-
sative both precedes and follows the verb; e. g. Kri: ki-
waskahigan nawak miwasin ispiki ni-waskahigan 'thy house
is better than my house'; Sakihew kigemamtow-a 'he loves
God'; Ogibwe: nin sagia n-6s 'I love my father.' But in
Algonkin we can say either: osawakik sakiha otema, or,
otema sakiha osawakik Osawakik loves his horse, or, his
horse loves Osawakik. In the genitive case the thing de-
fined follows that which defines and is furnished with the
possessive pronoun. E. g. Lenni-Lennape: Ketanitowit
o-|-ahoaltoagan God His-love = the love of God. The other
case-relations are expressed by suffixes.
The adjective may either precede or follow the noun,
in the latter case it must agree with the noun in number
and gender. When used predicatively the adjective must
be turned into a verbal expression.
These languages possessing no relative pronoun this
relation has to be expressed by a participial construction.
There is, in fact, no essential difference between a
nominal, adjectival and verbal stem. Noun, verb and ad-
jective are all treated in the same way. A peculiarity of
the Algonkin tongues is the mood known as dubitative. If
the Indian wishes to speak of things which he has not him-
self experienced or the existence of which is not directly
demanded by the mind, he makes use of this mood. It
arises partly out of scrupulosity towards himself and partly
out of politeness toward others. The sign of the dubitative
is iolij tuke, cloy. Algonkin: ni-sakilia-tok I love him per-
z
H3* 178 H5~
haps; nid-awema-tok he is perhaps my brother; Ogibwe:
md-ikit-om-i-dog perhaps I say; Kri: ni-pimi-patan-a-tuke
I run perhaps.
As regards numeration, the decadic system seems to
underlie these idioms. The degree of connexion between
these tongues is also well shown by number. Thus:
Kri Ogibwe Algonkin Mikmak Lenni Lennape
1 pejak beg'ig pegik, ningot neukt neguti
5 nijanan nanan nanan nean palrnas
10 mitatat midaswi midaswi metelen telen
The following is the Kri Pater Noster:
PC
"~ i>M\ r'O Mi" iASrc**. To.
\ b <
'A' J , To. PP'tr^A-A'', To, P
Now the thought of the Eternal in these American
languages is very remarkable:
Kri: /_T"~ M an rt Spirit
Tinne: <?V'jL- ^-^ ^ Kesamanedu
Great Spirit i. e. kesa great, and Manedu Spirit
Og'ibwa: pL l^(J~~~3 Yisemanito
Great Spirit (vise = kesa)
Lenni-Lennape: P U ' CT~^ ' A *^ Kittanitowit
Great Living Spirit, from
Kitta great, Manito Spirit, wit termination implying life.
~3H 179 H^
This is a concept with which, beautiful as it is, it is
always difficult to deal, especially when it is a question of
uncivilised races. One thing, however, seems to be certain:
a word such as Kittanitowit could never apply to ancestor-
worship. What we really want to know is its intension.
Of its extension we have already had proof (pp. 79. 80).
'The Algonquin's belief, says Dr. Tylor, 'recognizes the
antagonistic Kitchi Manitu and Matchi Manitu, the Great
Spirit and Evil Spirit, who preside over the spiritual con-
tending hosts which fill the world and struggle for the
mastery over it. They are especially associated, the one
with light and warmth, the other with damp and darkness,
while some tribes identify them with Sun and Moon. Here
the nature-religion of the savage may have been developed,
but was not set on foot, by the foreigner':
Amongst the Algonkins we find three words for the
Supreme, namely :
Atahokan Creator
Kuduagni Framer
Oki One-Above.
From an ideological standpoint these tongues are naturally
hybrid; viz. 1. 4. 6. 8. II.
In passing on to the speech of the Irokois, we find
the curious fact that, nouns are divided into higher and
lower. To the former belong the expressions for God, the
higher beings and the male members of the human race,
to the latter those for all animals, whether masculine or
feminine, and for every thing else. There are three numbers;
singular, dual and plural. The three grammatical cases
are mostly known by their position in the sentence. The
genitive is expressed by putting the defining expression
either after or before the thing defined, in the latter case
with the possessive element. Thus ne hoauak ne Dauit
'the son David's', Nioo ro-ieha God his Son, rakw, otat-
H3* 180 H$~
enisteha of-the-queen her mother. The remaining cases, ex-
pressing spatial relations, are denoted by suffixes.
When used as an attribute the adjective is placed after
the noun to which it belongs: kaniatare kouct, sea great;
kahonueia koua ship great. As predicate the adjective
must be turned into a verb. Thus, ra-koua-ne he is great.
The Irokese verb is very rich in tenses and moods:
it has even what we may call the conjunctive pluperfect: e. g.
ao-k-a-tkah-t-v-hake if I had seen. The incorporation of the
object into the verbal expression in the compound objective
conjugation generally takes place by precedence of the sub-
jective and sequence of the objective, that is to say, the
pronominal prefixes which precede the verb are composed
of subjective and objective elements.
Ideologically Irokese is therefore indirectly hybrid:
2. 4. 6. 8. VI.
Unlike the thought of the preceding tribes, that of the
Irokese is
C7~"A ^ Nioo Creator
Hawaniu pre-existent Creator
There is another thought, namely:
Taronhiawagon Sky-Holder
In Slave the theologic Idea is identical with that of
Irokese:
Q [>
Niotsi Creator
Very interesting is the speech of the Dakota. The
root is transformed into the stem and the stem into the
word by means of prefixes, more seldom by suffixes. Thus,
ksa to break to pieces; ba-ksa to cut to pieces with a knife;
ka-ksa to split with a hatchet.
~X 181 K~
As regards the noun, inasmuch as there are no ex-
pressions for higher and lower, animate and inanimate
beings, we have only to do with the two categories of number
and case.
In Hidatsa the plural is not phonetically distinguished
from the singular, and it is almost the same in Dakota.
The grammatical cases : nominative, accusative and genitive
are indicated by the position in the sentence. As a rule
the objective or accusative precedes the verb: thus, Wit-
sasta wa tvotvapi tva Jcaga man book made, 'a man has made
a book.' If, however, there be no ambiguity about the
matter, the object is put at the head of the sentence and
the subject immediately before the verb, as in German.
For instance, ivitsasta Wakataka haga den Menschen hat
Gott gemacht, 'Man God made'.
To express the genitive the defining element is put
before the thing defined; i. e. Dakota tipi tijopa house
gate; ista midi eye water (tear). Spatial relations are ex-
pressed by postpositions.
When used attributively the adjective follows the noun
to which it belongs, when predicatively it must be turned
into a verbal expression. Thus, Witsasta sitse Ksi man
bad; ni-waste thou art good; iva-ma-jas&ka I am ill.
The pronouns are divided into inclusive and exclusive,
and are put as a rule before the verb. By combining the
subjective and objective pronouns we get the emphatic
reflexive form, namely, mis mije I me = I myself; nis nije
thou thee = thou thyself. The possessive pronoun is of a
twofold nature, either dependent or independent. In the for-
mer case it appears as prefix to the noun, in the latter it
is equivalent to an adjective. The demonstrative pronoun,
which is put after the noun, corresponds to what used to
be known as the definite or indefinite article. Thus, witsas-
ta Id the man; wiUa^ta sitse M the bad man.
The Dakota verb rests on the union of a stem con-
->* 182 K-
ceived as predicate with the prefixed subjective pronominal
elements. But the interesting verb eki 'to think', with its
synonyms, is conjugated not by means of prefixes but by
means of suffixes.
E. g. Sing. 1. Eka-mi Plu. 1. incl. u-keki
excl. u-keln-pi
2. eka-ni eka-ni-pi
3. eki eki-pi.
The decadic system of numeration seems to underlie
both Dakota and Hidatsa.
Dakota Hidatsa
1. Waka dueza
2. nopa dopa
3. jamni dami
As we saw just now, the form for the Supreme in
Dakota is:
"Wakataka Great Spirit,
"Wakari spirit tanka great.
Dakota ideology is natural, the formula being 1. 4. 5. 8. 1.
Passing on to the speech of the Kolos known as
Tklinkit, we find that the verb departs from the type of
American tongues. Prof. F. Miiller tells us that it most
nearly resembles the same part of speech in the languages
belonging to the Hyperborean race. It is formed by means
of suffixes which are connected with the stems of the per-
sonal pronoun. In transitive verbs the accompanying pro-
noun generally appears with the suffix -#, which would
point to an original instrumental form, te-K, for instance,
being 'with the stone', tek-U 'with the stones'. A peculiarity
of this idiom is the fact that, in transitive verbs, the agent
stands in the instrumental.
The possessive pronoun has two forms, whereof the one
occurs as a prefix, the other as an adjective, and both
are often combined. Thus, for the first person there are
~* 183 *~
the forms ok'-, ak'-agi (sing.), -, a-agi (plu.): afiagi all-is
'mine my father', aagi a-is 'ours our father.'
To the Kolos the Eternal is known as Asakun
For instance, Abakwn-k' Ik'atakat agatin God knows all.
As we have seen, the ideology of Tltlinkit is indirect,
namely, 1.3.5. 8. III.
As typical of Mexican forms of speech we may take
Nahuatl or Kawatl.
In this language it is not always easy to abstract the
root from the words used singly. The derivation of stems
takes place by means of suffixes. From tetl stone, for in-
stance, we get tetla stony place, tetejo stony, tetik hard, te-
tilitstli hardness, ni-tla-tetilja I make it hard.
The most frequently-occurring process is that of Com-
bination, wherein the defining element precedes the thing
defined. Thus, totoltetl 'egg of the hen', consists of totolin
'hen', and tetl 'stone'. Sok'ikali 'fruit' means properly 'flower-
food' from sok'itl 'flower' and kal'i 'what is edible' from
yka 'to eat'.
In dealing with the noun and verb we must remember
the well-developed antithesis between animate and inani-
mate, rational and irrational beings. With inanimate things
number is, as a rule, not denoted phonetically. On the
other hand, the expressions for animate and more especially
for rational beings have a manifold plural. Words ex-
pressing a business or nationality drop the individualising
suffix -tl and lengthen the final vowel. Thus, siwatl woman,
siwa women; mesikatl Mexican, mesikd Mexicans. Occa-
sionally reduplication takes place. E. g. koatl snake, pi.
kokoa', Teotl God, pi. teteo. Expressions for animate ir-
rational beings and for inanimate things conceived as
animate, add to the form deprived of the individualising
suffix, the suffix -me. E. g. ik'katl sheep, pi. ik r ka-me. Te-
petl mountain, tepe-me mountains.
Nor must we omit to mention certain suffixes which
-& 184 HS~
are added to express respect, tenderness or contempt.
Petlo-zin means 'the highly-honored Peter'; Ta-zin 'the
much-honored father' but wewe-ton 'a despised old man';
pil-tontli denotes 'a childish boy', pil-zin, on the other hand,
'son in the best sense'. Okik'-pil is a small, ridiculous little
man. -pul implies blame or enlargement in a bad sense:
e. g. siwa-pul is 'a bad woman', no-siwa-pul 'my bad
woman'.
As regards the cases, the subjective and the objective
become manifest only by position, the former preceding,
the latter following, the verb. Like the dative, the objec-
tive is also indicated by the pronominal element which is
incorporated with the verb. Thus:
Ni-k-kiwi-lia in no-pil-zin se kail
I-it-make-for the-my-son a house.
Here kal'i is shown at once to be conceived objectively
by the k which is incorporated with the verb, and the verb
k'iivi-lia indicates that in no-pit-zin is the dative.
The genitive is expressed by putting the thing to be
defined before the defining expression, and by adding to
the former the possessive pronoun applying to the latter.
Thus, i-tlaskal okik'li his-bread Man = the bread of Man.
As attribute the adjective precedes the substantive.
E. g. K'ipawak atl pure water. As predicate the adjective
must be turned into a verbal expression.
When combined with the possessive pronoun most
nouns discard the individualising singular suffix. Thus,
Teo-tl G-od becomes Ten: no-Teu my God; kal'i house, be-
comes kal: no-kal my house, mo-kal thy house. The re-
flexive pronoun in a possessive relation is expressed by the
stems ne, mo. E. g. Ne-tlasotla-listli Love to oneself; mo-
tlasotla-ni one who loves himself; ne-mak'ti-lo-jan place
where one instructs oneself, study.
In Nawatl almost every independent word can be used,
when combined with the subject-prefixes of the personal
~3H 185 f<~
pronoun, as predicate, so as to make a whole sentence of
a verbal expression. For instance, ni-no-ma-popowa It
my + hands + wash = I wash my hands. Nisok'itekwi I + flow-
ers + pluck = I am picking flowers.
There is no verbum substantivum in the sense of our
Copula. As a rule this is rendered by the personal or de-
monstrative pronoun. Thus, Newatl ni-wei ni-tlatlakoani I
I-great I-sinner = I am a great sinner.
Interesting is the position of the object. Sometimes
it is found between the subject-pronoun and the verb: ni-
naka-ka I flesh eat; more often, however, the noun is re-
presented by the pronoun of the third person and it is then
put after the verb.
Respecting numeration, the quinar-vigesimal system in
its purest form underlies Nawatl:
1 se
2 orne 10 matlaktli
3 jei 15 kagtol'i
4 naui 20 Sem-pual'i
5 makwil'i
Ideologically this interesting language is indirectly hy-
brid, the formula being 1. 3. G. 8. V. Now, what is the Na-
watl thought of God? It is
^jj*& Teotl. The Adored.
Teotlatolli verbum Dei. ^2 Teo-kualo God-eating.
Dropping the individualising suffix we have the root
Teo, reminding us, curiously enough, of the Gothic Tin
which is still with us in our own Tuesday.
As typical of the so-called Sonoric forms of speech we
may take that of the Otomi or Kia-K'iu. According to
Prof. F. Miiller the relation of the highly-evolved Astek to
the simple idioms of the North is very much that of the
Tagala tongues on the Philippines to the dialects which
are spoken by the Polynesians and the Melanesians.
AA
~3w 186 H$~
By combination of the pronoun with the verbal par-
ticle the root can become a verb, and when combined with
the demonstrative article or adjective, a substantive or ad-
jective. But the Otomi language possesses a series of
phonetic means by which, and especially in the case of the
noun, it is able to express the various modifications of
concrete action. Thus, in roots beginning with a vowel
the prefix t denotes the result of the action, the prefix y-
the agent. For instance, opko to write; t-opko manuscript;
na y-optto writer. Where the root begins with in or n
the prefix is k 3 : e. g. madi to love, na k f -madi love; nee to
wish, na k'-nee wish, will.
The most important of the Cases are recognised by their
position in the sentence: the subjective precedes, the objective
follows the verb. E. g. Na bednu i-ma okk'a Peter loves God.
The genitive is expressed by putting the thing defined before
the defining element. Thus, Na ma Okk'a the mother of God.
When used as an attribute the adjective comes before
the noun to which it belongs: e. g. Ka je a pious man.
As a predicate the adjective is treated as a verb.
The verb is conjugated by certain pronominal elements
prefixed to the stem. Speaking generally, these elements
amalgamate with adverbs which are put either before or
after them, in order to more nearly define the temporal or
modal quality of the state or action. For instance, d-na-
nk'o I am good; di-nu I see. In the compound or objec-
tive conjugation the expressions for the object are suffixed
to the verbal expression: e. g. di-nu-i I see thee, gi-nu-gi
thou seest me, gi-nu-gtfe thou seest us.
Underlying both Otomi and Masahua is the quinary-
vigesimal system:
Otomi Masahua
1 Na-ra daka
5 Kuto sika
6 Ra-to (1 + 5) nan to
-* 187 H$~
7 Jo-to (2 + 5) jen-ko
8 kia-to (3 + 5) riin-ko
9 gu-to (4 + 5) sin-ko
10 Reta deka
From an ideological standpoint Otomi or K'ia-K'iu is
hybrid, the order being 2. 3. 6. 8. VIII, i. e. noun + genitive,
adj ective + noun, verb + obj ect, subj ect + verb.
As we have seen, the theologic thought of the Otomi
centres round
Okka
probably another form of Oki, the Power that rules the
seasons and controls the winds and waves.
Most interesting are the forms of speech familiar to
the Caribees. The so-called language of the Caribees real-
ly embraces two wholly-different idioms, namely: a) the
speech of the Caribees of the mainland, called by the
French Missionaries 'la langue des Galibis'; and p) the
language of the Caribees of the islands, 'la langue Caraibe'.
The former has cognates in several idioms of the mainland,
i. e. in K'aima, Kumana-goto, Tamanak etc., whilst the
latter shows quite another type, which is grammatically more
akin to Arowak. Now, this type is connected with a very
peculiar circumstance.
The language of the Islanders embraces two different
forms of speech, whereof one is used by the men, the other
by the women. In vocabulary the speech of the men is
most akin to Galibi, that of the women to Arowak.
The curious fact, that one the and same people ac-
cording to the sex of its individuals speaks two lexically
different languages is to be accounted for by the habits of
this tribe. The Caribee warriors, when they had landed
on the neighboring islands, slew the men Arowaks (Lukunu)
who had settled there and captured their women. Inasmuch,
therefore, as it became the duty of the women to educate
the children from the 10th to the 12th year, not only was
-* 188 *s~
their language communicated to them but a knowledge
thereof was for ever assured to the growing lads. Thus
whilst the women learnt Galibi from the men, the latter
had already from early youth been taught Arowak by the
former. And so we have both sexes learning two lexically
wholly-differing modes of speech, yet in intercourse with the
same sex using but one; for, when talking to his fellows
the Caribee (Kalipi) uses Karina or Galibi, his wife in
intercourse with women using Lukunu or Goakira.
As regards the noun, there is the somewhat rare phae-
nomenon of the denotation of sex alike in nouns and ad-
jectives by means of the final vowel: e. g. basabanti boy, ba-
sabantu girl; Go: antfsi good, fern, anase. In Goakira the
form for the singular can be used without any addition for
the plural, the distinction being generally made by gesture.
Of the cases the three grammatical, the subjective, ob-
jective and genitive are only known by their position in the
sentence. In Arowak the subjective precedes the verb, the
objective follows: damalitdn bahu 'I make a house', and the
relation of genitive is expressed by simply putting the de-
fining element before the thing defined. Thus, da-ti nlm-
Ititi 'of my father younger brother'. The remaining spatial
cases are denoted by postpositions.
In Goakira the subjective comes before, the objective
after, the verb. The relation of genitive is expressed by
putting the defining element after the thing defined and by
combining the former with the possessive pronoun referring
to the latter, thus : No-i ni-kon Mareiwa 'the mother of the
Son of God' = his mother his Son God.
The adjective follows the noun to which it belongs and
agrees with it in number and sex.
In Goakira we find the decadic system of numeration,
in Arowak the quinar-vigesimal.
The ideology is in both cases hybrid, being respectively
2. 4. 6. 8. and 1. 4. 6. 8. HI. and the Thought of God
~>; 189 H$~
Mareiwa.
In dealing with Guarani-Tupi we find, first of all, that
it is very rich in formative elements and is therefore able
to express the chief distinctions within the perception.
As regards the noun the plural is either left undeno-
ted or is expressed by suffixing the word seta 'many' in
the shorter form eta. Thus, aba 'man', aba-eta 'men'. Of
the cases the most important, namely, the subjective, ob-
jective and genitive are known only by their position in the
sentence. Indeed it is only the genitive whose position is
assured, the nominative and accusative both in relation to
the verb and indeed to one another being uncertain of any
definite position. For instance, one may say: Pedro ou miape
'Peter eats bread'; Pedro miape ou 'Peter bread eats';
miape Petro ou 'bread Peter eats' or ou Pedro miape 'eats
Peter bread'.
In the relation of genitive the expression which defines
comes before the word defined; thus Tupan roka 'God's
house'. The remaining case -relations are expressed by
postpositions of a purely material kind.
The adjective as attribute comes after the substantive
to which it belongs, becoming, indeed, one with it, so that
the case-signs are attached to the former. Thus, mlae-'katu
'good thing', nii-gatu 'good field', iribae-aiba 'bad thing', nu-
aiba 'bad field'. As predicate the adjective is treated as
a verb: e. g. i-katu 'he is good', i-hatu-pe? 'is he good?'
se-katu-ramo 'as I am good'.
According as the verb is transitive or neutral it is
really double. The transitive verbs have prefixes which
stand in a predicative relation to the following verbal stem
whilst the neutral verbs take the same possessive prefixes
as the noun. With the exception of the future there is no
exact definition of time in the Tupi-Guarani verb; a-juM,
for instance, means both 'I kill' and 'I killed', 'I have killed',
'I had killed'. The future is really the only tense which
~>i 190 H$-
is adequately defined. The compound conjugation (objective)
of Tupi, unlike what is usual in American languages, shows
agglutination and not incorporation.
As regards numeration, the quinary-vigesimal system
seems to underlie G-uarani, Tupi and Omagua. 5 is ex-
pressed by one hand; 10 by two liands; 20 by hands and
feet (ase-po-petei; ase-po-mokoi; mbe mbi abe, ase-po ase-
pi abe).
Ideologically Guarani is most irregular. Sometimes it
is natural, viz. 1. 4. 5. 8. I, but we have also the final
formulae H. III. IV. In Tupi the Supreme is conceived as
Tupan Thunderer.
In Guarani, on the other hand, as
Tamoi Lord of Paradise, Ancient of Heaven.
In Kiriri and Kikito also we have the same thought,
though the form of the word is, in the one case, Tupan,
and in the other, Tupas. The ideology of these idioms
differs from that of Tupi. Thus in Kiri we say : era Tupan
House-God; Kaiigi Tupan good God, for 'the house of God';
'God is good'. And in K'ikito : I-poo-stii Tupas his house
God or poos i-tsa-stii Tupas house his God = God's house.
The Molu-ke of Chili have likewise considered Thunder
to be the surest manifestation of the Supreme.
Pillan = Thunderer.
Pillan is also the highest deity of the Araucanians,
known sometimes as Huenu-Pillan Heaven -Thunder, and
Yuta-gen Great Being. 'The universal government of Pil-
lan 7 , says Molina, 'is a prototype of the Araucanian polity.
He is the great Toqui (Governor) of the invisible world,
and as such has his Apo-Ulmenes, to whom he entrusts the
administration of affairs of less importance. These ideas
are certainly very rude, but it must be acknowledged that
the Araucanians are not the only people who have regula-
ted the things of heaven by those of the earth'.
Their language, which is known as K'ili-denu, is in-
~3* 191 f<~
direct in ideology, the formula being 1. 3. 5. 8. Ill, and their
system of numeration decadic. Kim 1, kek'u 5, mari 10.
Other American forms of the theistic Idea are:
TuktuV : Vittukuk ankj o
Astek: Huizilo-PoMi = Ancient of Heaven
K'apaneki: Nomboui
Koggaba: Kalguasisa
Kvikuan: Pakakamakka World-Creator
Inka: Pakakamak World-Creator.
As an instance of theological deterioration none is per-
haps so striking as the Astek Huizilopoktli. Originally
representing the great thought of Heaven supreme he may
now be found 'figuring as the demon Vizlipuzli in the po-
pular drama of Doctor Faustus'.
"The very name of Mexico", says Prof. Tylor, "seems
derived from Mexitli, the national War-god, identical or
identified with the hideous gory Huizilopochtli. Not to
attempt a general solution of the enigmatic nature of this
inextricable compound parthenogenetic deity, we may notice
the association of his principal festival with the winter-
solstice, when his paste idol was shot through with an ar-
row, and being thus killed, was divided into morsels and
eaten, wherefore the ceremony was called the teoqualo or
"god-eating". This and other details tend to show Huitzi-
lopochtli as originally a nature-deity, whose life and death
were connected with the year's, while his functions of War-
god may be of later addition".
Pakakamak, from kamani I create, kamak Creator
Kama Soul, is really a title of Uirakoka, the supreme Deity
in the religion of the Inkas. His other title is Pakajakakik
World-Teacher. 'The three great deities', says Prof. Tylor,
'were the Creator, Sun, and Thunder; their images were
brought out together at great festivals into the square of
Cuzco, llamas were sacrificed to all three, and they could
be addressed in prayer together: "0 Creator, and Sun,
~3* 192 H~
and Thunder, be for ever young, multiply the people, and
let them always be at peace". Yet the Thunder and Light-
ning was held to come by the command of the Creator,
and the following prayer shows clearly that even "our father
the Sun" was but this creature':
"Uiracocha! Thou who gavest being to the Sun, and
afterwards said let there be day and night. Raise it and
cause it to shine, and preserve that which thou hast created,
that it may give light to men. Grant this, Uiracocha!
Sun! Thou who art in peace and safety, shine upon us,
keep us from sickness, and keep us in health and safety".
Very remarkable both in thought and form is the
expression for the Deity in the language of the Mikmak
Indians, namely
A Nikskam
Malisit ^ Nukskam
The following is a translation into Malisit, the idiom
of the Indians in New Brunswick, of St. John iii. 16:
Ibukul Nukskam eduki-musagitpun uskitkumikw weg'e-
meluetpun wihwebu Ukwusul, welaman 'niseu wen tan
welamsutuk uhukek, skatup uksekahawe, kanukulu uteiiip
askumowsuagun.
Does it not seem a spiritual instinct to conceive of
supreme Being in a threefold aspect? Here, at all events,
we have the triangle, not less than three lines enclosing a
space. Unlike as they are in forms of thought and modes
of speech, the Brahman and the Mikmak Indian show a
psychical likeness which is most significant.
/\ =
Past, Present, Future; Being, Thought, Joy.
The following is the Mikmak Pater Noster:
Nusinen wajok ebin kiptuk clelwigin
Our Father in heaven sitting it may Thy name
193
megwidedemek wajok n'telidanen kiptuk ignemwiek
be esteemed in heaven us may granted be
V f& g3> 3i
ula nemulek uledekinen. Natel wajok deli
Thee to see unceasingly. There in heaven as
skedulk kiptuk deli skedulek makimigwek
Thou art may so to-Thee-obede- upon earth
obeyed nience-be-given
JJ A
eimek Delamukubenigwal esemigwel aps
where we are. As Thou us hast given in this way so also
negwes kiskuk delamuktes penegwunenwin
now to-day give us our food
nilunen. Deljabiksiktakasik wegaiwinametnik
to us. We forgiving those who have insulted us.
< 3 A BczZ
elp Pel Nikskam abiksiktwin
so Thou o God forgive
elweultik Melkeninres winnsudil mu
our faults Hold us fast ' by the hand not
BB
194
H-/k:
k'tigalina keginukamke winnsigwel
to fall hold far from us affliction
_
twaktwin N'deliek
Evil Amen.
CHAPTER XV.
THE MALAY RACE: ITS PHILOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
From Madagascar in the West to Easter Island in the
East, from the peninsula of Malacca, Formosa and the
Hawaiian group in the North to New Zealand in the South,
excepting only those of the Australian continent and those
of the Papuas, the languages of these islanders form a
Unity which, from the ultimate geographical points, has
been subsumed under the title of the Malayo-Polynesian
branch. In fact, Malays, Polynesians and Melanesians are
really members of one family and once had a common
mother-tongue.
We have here a graduated series of linguistic evolution,
whereof the Polynesian particle-languages represent the
lowest stage, the Melanesian the intermediate, and the
Malay idioms with their extensive formation by means of
suffix and prefix the highest development.
Morphologically these languages are interesting from
the fact that, the element which corresponds to what in
other tongues is known as the root, is here dissyllabic, re-
presenting a complete word, and may appear as noun, verb,
adverb, preposition; in fact almost any part of speech.
The external means by which this type of speech is
~S* 195 H$~
made up, are repetition, reduplication, suffix, prefix and
infix. Those parts of speech which belong almost wholly to
the nominal sphere are made manifest by position.
Although these languages cannot be said to possess
any very clear apprehension of number as a grammatical
category, since one and the same word may be either sin-
gular or plural, it is nevertheless true that those belonging
to the Melanesian branch possess not only a singular, a
dual and a plural, but even a trial. Nay more, as regards
the pronoun of the first person there is the distinction
made by the speaker as to whether he includes or excludes
the person addressed, giving us the possibility of seven differ-
ent expressions, namely, one singular, two duals, trials and
plurals (inclusive and exclusive).
As a rule the predicate precedes the subject, the
attribute follows.
There are nine cases, namely, subjective, objective, ge-
nitive, dative, instrumental, local, social, abessive and ablative,
and they are denoted by particles prefixed to the words.
Originally the genitive seems to have been expressed by
position only, the thing to be defined being put before the
defining element. Thus, Maori: tuke mata 'bow of the
eye' = eyebrow; Samoan: lau ulu = Tonga: lou ulu = Ta-
hitian: rouru 'leaf of the head' = hair. The objective or
accusative follows the verbal expression and the ablative
can only be used in connection with a passive verbal form:
e. g. Hawaiian: E malamaia kakou e ke Akua 'we are
protected by God'.
In the Polynesian languages Reduplication plays a
very important part. As already stated, the root is dissylla-
bic and serves either as noun or verb : e. g. Maori : korero
=Tahit. orero =Haw.: olelo 'to speak' and 'speech'. In the
verbal stem it forms a frequentatives ; thus, Samoan: tufa 'to
part', tufa-tufa 'to distribute'; Maori: haere 'to walk', haere
haere 'to go to and fro'; p intensives; e. g. Samoan: tala 'to
~s* 196 *-
speak' talatala 'to chatter', 'cry'; Maori: kai 'to eat', kakai
'to devour'; y simultanea; that is to say, words in which
the suggestion is that the action is done in concert with
another. For instance, Samoan: moe 'to sleep', momoe
'to sleep with someone'; Tongan; nofo 'to dwell', nonofo 'to
live with someone'.
In the case of adjectives it makes superlative expres-
sions: Maori-Haw.-Rarot. : nui 'great', nunui 'very great'.
With the substantive this process forms nomina collectiva
and out of stems which are only used verbally forms those
which are used nominally.
The adjective remains unchanged. As attribute it
comes after the substantive to which it belongs, as predi-
cate it precedes it. Comparison takes place either by re-
duplication or by certain periphrastic modes of speech.
Thus, Sam.: E tele lenei i lela 'this is great to that'=
greater than that. Maori: he tanata rahi ake ia Hoani
'a man great above John'.
The most essential points of the Polynesian verb are :
a) Stem-formation of the verbal expression, namely,
active, passive, causative, desiderative, and reciprocal;
P) particles, which more nearly define the verbal ex-
pression with regard to place, direction of the action
and quality;
T) particles, indicative of time and kind; and
6) personal elements.
The decimal system of numeration underlies these
idioms; numbers 1. 5 and 10 are, in eight dialects, as
follows :
Fakaafo Samoa Tonga Maori Rarotonga
1 tasi tasi tahu tahi tai
5 lima lima nima rima rima
10 fulu sefulu honofulu nahuru nauru
Tahiti Haw. Marq.
I tahi kahi tahi
~& 197 *s~
5 rima lima ima
10 ahum 'umi onohuu
As examples of these tongues we may take the following :
Tongan.
Koe Hotua ko Tanaloa mo ene foha
The God of the Tongaloa with his sons
toka-ua na nan nofo gi Bolotu.
persons-two (pret.) they dwelt in Bolotu.
Pater noster.
Ko e mau Tamai oku i he lagi, Ke tabuha ho huafa.
Ke hoko mai hoo bule. Ke fai ho finagalo i mama ni, o
hage i he lagi. Ke foaki mai he aho ni haa mau mea
kai. Bea fakamolelmole e mau agahala, o hage ko e mau
fakamolemolea akinautolu kuo fai agahala kiate kimautolu.
Bea oua naa tuku akimautolu Id he ahiahi, kae fakamoui
aldmautolu meihe kovi: He oku oou ae bule, moe malohi,
moe naunau, o taegata. Emeni.
Tdhitian.
Ua hoe e too-piti tau taata i tai
Were gone persons-two (pi. sign) men to sea
e hi i te ia; o Roo te ioa o te tahi,
to catch the fish ; the Eoo the name of the one,
Teahoroa te ioa o te hoe.
the Teahoroa the name of the other.
Pater noster.
E to matou Metua i te ao ra, ia raa to oe ioa. la
tae to oe ra hau. la haapao hia to oe hinaaro i te fenua
nei, mai tei te ao atoa na. Homai i te maa e au ia matou
1 teie nei mahana. E faa ore mai i ta matou hara, mai
ia matou atoa e faa ore i tei hara ia matou nei. E eiaha
e faarue ia matou ia roohia noa hia e te ati, e faa ora ra
ia matou i te ino. No oe hoi te hau, e te mana, e te hana-
hana, e a muri noa 7 tu. Amene.
198
koe, tena koe, Paraniti
(art) Thou, that (art) Thou Francis
3 Atiria
Maori.
Tena
That
Johepa, te ranatira nui rawa
Joseph, the king great very of Austria
katoa. Ka nui to maua hiahia kia
entire. (part.) great the of is two wish that
kite maua ia koe ; tenei te . take o to
to see we two Thee; this the reason of the
maua haerena mai ki tenei wenua.
our both coming hither to this land.
Marquesan.
E to matou Motua i te ao, ia
o the our Father in the heaven that
tapu to oe inoa, ia koaa ia oe
holy (be) the Thy name, that come to Thee
te fenua ei hakaiki, ia tupu to oe
the earth to rule, that may-thrive the Thy
hinenao i te fenua nei mai to te
will upon the earth here hither upon the
ao atoa, a tu'u na matou i teie
heaven also, lay down
nei a o te a
for us on this
o te kai o te
day of the eating of the
e haakoe i ta matou pio
day of the eating, forgive Thou our debts
haakoe i ta te tahi pio e
forgive the of the other debts and
titii atu ia matou ia koohia
that tempt ed-be
here day of the
a o te kai,
ma te matou
as we
moi
la
not indeed that lettest to us
-^ 199 x~
matou i te pio e haapohoe ia matou
we into the wrong but make-safe us
i te mate.
Amene.
from death.
Passing on to the Melanesian languages we find that
Viti is the most complete, showing us the highest develop-
ment of this class of speech and standing midway between
the Polynesian and the Malay idioms.
The Melanesian languages do not form that unity
amongst themselves which is characteristic of the Polynesian
and Malay. Whilst we can derive both Polynesian and
Malay idioms from a single primitive speech-form, out of
which, by purely phonetic processes, the single languages
have for the most part issued, in the case of the Melanesian
torms there seems to have been an early decay of the
primitive idiom, and a predominance of foreign and more
especially of Papuan influence.
According to Grundemann and F. Miiller these tongues
may be grouped as follows:
A. The languages of the New Hebrides.
1. The speech of the island of Annatom (Aneiteum,
Aneituum), the most Southern of the New Hebrides, 20 lat.
170 long, from Greenwich.
2. The language of the island of Tanna. On this
island no less than three different languages are said to
be spoken, namely, a native and two imported idioms
whereof the one comes from Erronan (Fotuna), the other
from Eromanga.
3. That of Eromanga.
4. That of Vate or Efat (Sandwich Island).
5. That of Api or Tasiko (Sesake-language).
G. That of Paama,
7. That of Ambrym.
-3M 200 K-
8. That of Ara^ or Whitsuntide (Pentecost-Island).
9. That of Mallikolo.
10. The speech of Eotuma.
B. The languages of the Solomon islands.
1. The idiom of Bauro or San Cristoval.
2. That of Ulaua (Contrariety-island).
3. That of Guadalcanar or Gera.
4. The language of Mara or Malanta.
5. That of Anuda (Florida).
6. That of Ysabel (Mahaga-language).
C. The languages of the Carolines.
D. Those of the Marshall Islands.
E. Those of the Kingsmill islands (1'Archipel Gilbert).
The three last groups belong to the so-called Mikro-
nesians aad their inhabitants more closely resemble the Poly-
nesians from a developmental standpoint.
The principal point about which all the Melanesian
languages are in perfect accord is the pronoun, not only
as regards the phonetic elements but also with respect to
the development of this part of speech. Besides the singular
and the dual we find two forms of the plural, namely, the
inclusive and the exclusive.
In most of these idioms there are possessive pronouns
which are attached to the noun as suffixes. In doubtful
cases these possessive suffixes may be looked upon as an
essential criterion in the examination and appreciation of
a language and in the ascertainment of its position.
In estimating the connexion of these idioms the nume-
rals are of special importance. They entirely agree with
the numeral system of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, in
some respects showing a closer relationship with the Malay
tongues than with the Polynesian. Numbers 1, 5 and 10
are as follow:
201
Viti
Erromango Marshall-Isl
Isabel
1
Ndua
Sai
t c uon
keha
5
lima
stiku-rim
lalim
lima
10
tini
nduru-lim
t'ong-ul
salage
Vate
Api
1 sikei
sikai
5 lim
lima
10 ra-lim
lua-lima
Pama
Ambrym Araga
Tarawa Bauro
Ulaua
1
tai
hu
tuwa
te eta
eta
5
e-lime
lim
lima
nima rima
lima
10
ha-lua-lim
san-ula han-wul
tenaun tanhuru
tahahulu
Mara
Anuda
MalliMo Tana
Annatom
1
Eta
keda
si-kai
li-ti
e-t'i
5
nuria
lima
e-rima
ka-rirum
ikman
10
awara
dariavulu
singeap
Melanesian ideology is hybrid, the formula being 2.
4. 6. 8. VI.
As a specimen of these tongues we may take the Ma-
haga language on the island Ysabel:
Na vua ke varia na tinoni, garni
The crocodile it devours the men, we
boi regi-a, mar a ke hutu ke na regi-a
not see-it men they great they have seen-it
ihauna. Ki-ti regi-a na vana-nia
long ago. We see-it the devouring-of the same
na bodo, na iu. Na vua
the pig, the dog. The crocodile
sede na kindoru-nia, ki-ki-mua
much the eggs-his, gradually
dade-nia na vua ke au
young-its of the crocodile they come
CO
ke
it
ke
they
ikosi.
forth.
vahuhu
lays
poha,
break,
~* 202 M5~
St. John III. 16 has been translated into Mare or
Nengonese as follows:
Wen' o re naeni Makase hna raton' o re ten' o re
aw, ca ile nubonengo me nunuone te o re Tei nubonengo
sa so, fu deko di ma tango ko re ngome me sa ci une clu
nubon, roi di nubone co numu o re waruma t a t'u ase ko,
As a specimen of Eromangan we may take the trans-
lation of the Christian's 'marching orders':
Muve kimi, mo muinpi ovun nurie enyx, ovun numpim
16 su, wumbaptiso iranda ra nin eni Itemen, im ra nin eni
Netni, im ra nin eni Naviat Tump or a.
(Matt, xxviii. 19.)
The following is the Pater Noster in
Aneityum.
Ak Etmama an nohatag, Etmu itaup niclam. Etmu
jetpam nelkau unjum. Uhmu imjiaigi intas unjum an no-
bohtan, et idivaig an nohatag. Alaama aiek nitai caig ni-
kama an nadiat ineig. Um gim aru tah nedo has unjima
aiek, et idivaig ekra eti aru tah nedo has o atimi vai kama
aigama. Um g'im atau irama an nedo up aiek, gam imjiatamaig
kama va nigi itai has. Et idim unjum aiek nelkau, im
nemda, im nimjiahpas, irai igi mesese.
Emen.
"We now come to the Malay languages, and here we
must notice more particularly the substantive. In the Poly-
nesian and for the most part in the Melanesian languages
also there is no phonetic distinction between noun and verb;
in the Malay, on the other hand, even before they enter
into a syntactical relationship, both verb and substantive
are distinguished phonetically. More especially is this the
case with the categories of the concrete and abstract, agent
and action, substance and accident. But, as regards a
clear apprehension of the constituents of the sentence, the
Malay idioms are singularly poor, their whole power being
~$H 203 K~
concentrated on the distinction and exact appreciation of
inner modifications, which are brought about by means of
prefixes, infixes and suffixes.
The Malay adjective is well worthy of note. In form
it remains unchanged. When used as a predicate, or rather,
when, speaking generally, the adjective would be used as a
predicate, it often assumes the form of a verbal constructino
or of a nomen loci. Instead of saying 'that is bad' the
Malay says: 'that makes bad' or 'that is a badness-place'
(badness personified).
"With the exception of the Tagala languages, whenever
the adjective is used attributively it follows the substantive
to which it belongs, in the relationship of predicate it
comes before the noun.
As regards the verb we know that, in the Polynesian
languages it is wholly formless. By putting nominal particles
before and verbal particles either before or after, the same
complexus of sound one can cause to become either noun or
verb. With the Malay, however, it is different. Here, as
in the case of the noun, there is an attempt to more nearly
define the verb by means of prefixes, infixes and suffixes.
Yet, despite the interesting structure of many forms, there
cannot be said to be a radical distinction between noun
and verb in the Malay tongues.
The Malay numerals are the following:
Tagala Bisaya Hoc. Pamp. llanag. Formosan
1 i-sa u-sa meisa isa itte na-ta
Batta. Malag.
sada isa
Dayak Mauk. Bugis Alfur. Jav. Mai.
1 idja si si, sedi esa sa sa.
In all these tongues, with the exception of Formosan
the word for 'five' is lima (Malag. dimi), which is a Malay
word meaning 'hand', thus giving us proof, as in the case
of the Innuit tongues, of the digital origin of Arithmetic.
~!H 204 HS~
It may now be interesting to see how eight of these
languages express the Pater Noster:
1. Tagalic.
Ama namin
Father our
sambah-in an
holy-be the
aii nalan-mo ,
the name - Thine ,
ka-hari-an-mo,
kingdom-Thine,
lupa para
earth just
kamin riai on
to-us now
sa lariit
ka,
in heaven
Thou,
mupa sa
amin
come to
us
sa amin
an
to us
the
loob-mo dito
sa
will-Thine here
upon
at patauad-in-mo
and forgiven-be-by-Thee
otan para nan
sins just as
sunma
being
nalan-mo,
name-thine,
mupa
come
sund-in an
done-be the
sa lanit, bigi-an-mo
in heaven, given-be-from-Thee
amin kanin sa arao-arao,
our food
kamin nan
us the
pagpa-sawat
pardoned-are
na
as
nan
the
in day-day,
amin
our
namin
by us
mana
many
sa
the
nanagkakaotari sa amin, at hunag-mo
sinners against us, and hindering-Thine (that)
sa tokso, at
into temptation, and
dilan masama.
kamin ipahintolot
we thrown be
jadia-mo kami
freed be through Thee we
sa
from
all
evil.
2. Visayic.
Amahan namu
Father our
lanit, i-papag-dajet
heaven, praised be
na itotat ka sa
who art Thou in
an imori rialan, moanhi
the Thy name, come
~3* 205 HS~
ka-namun an imoii pagka-hadi, tuman-un
to us the Thy kingdom, followed be
an imoh buot dinhi si jata maiiiuii
the Thy will here over earth as
sa lanit, ihatag-mo damun an kanun
in heaven, given be by Thee us the food
namun sa matagarlao, ug pauad-in-mo
our in every day, and forgiven be by Thee
kami san na-sala namu mainum g-in-uara
us the sins our as pardoned
namun san rianaka-sala damun, nan
our (are) the sinning-ones against us, indeed-not
diri-imo tugot-an kami maholog sa
by-Thee allowed-be (that) we fall into
mariapanulaj sa amun mana-kaauaj, apan
temptation by our many enemies, but
barit-un-mo kami sa maiia-maraut
freed be- through Thee we from many evils
natanan.
all.
3. Pampangan.
Ippa-mi ati-ka banua, pa-samba-mo
Father-our art Thou heaven, hallowed be through Thee
in lagjo-mo detail ke kami in kerian-mo,
the name-Thine come to us the kingdom-Thy,
papaminto-mo in loob-mo keti sulip
made be through-Thee the will-Thine evenso (on) earth
anti banua, in kakanan-mi ken aldao aldao
as (in) heaven, the food-our to day day
ibe-mo ken aldao neni, ampoii
be given through-Thee to day this, and
206
ipatavad-mo
forgiven be through Thee
heka
evenso
ke
anti
as
kami,
against us,
kin tooso,
to temptation, but
kami kin sablan
we from all
ke kami in otan-mi
to us the debt-our
pavatamad-mi kariii-mi ka-otaii
forgiven are by us opponents-our sinning
ini-mo ke pasaol
hindered be through Thee to fall
amp on jadja-mo ke riii
led be through Thee back
maravag.
evil.
Amen.
4. Formosan.
ta-mau, ta
the Father, the
i-pa-dasa joa
hallowed be Thy
o ai, i-pa-ijoro
this, made be
ma-sini de
masea
art
evenso
Namo a
Our
busum,
heaven
kalumit
kingdom
de busum
in heaven
namo-no piada i toro
us to-day our
soo abo-e namo ta
and forgive us the
namoa ma-ibas kanuma namo
our as here (earth) we
ta masea pa-rapies i
who are evil doing against
pa-sabas i namo, soo baras
make tempt us,
paija
above
de
in
naan, i-pa-sarja joa
name, brought be Thy
joa airab ma-ibas
Thy will as
ta kanuma, epe-e
upon the earth, give
upo maatsikap
rice-dumplings to eat
taap o kakosi
deed of disobedience
m-abo
forgive (those)
namo, hai
us, not
i namo inai
and deliver us from
207
rapies ai, inau joa miko kakimit o ai
evil this, for Thine property dominion this
soo bar o ai soo adas ai ta-ulaulan.
and power this and glory this ever.
Amen.
Ni raj-naj,
The Father,
ni anara-nao,
the name-Thine,
Atavi ni
Come-to-pass the
tahaki ni
isaj
who
am
art
as
the being
5. Malagasi.
an-danitra , hasino
in-heaven, hallowed
ampandrosoj ni fandsaka-nao.
come the kingdom-Thine.
fankasitraha-nao eti an-tani
will-Thine evenso upon-earth
ani an-danitra. Omeo anaj
in-heaven Give us
anio
that
isaj nnma-naj isa-nandro, an m-amela
which food-our this-day, and forgive
ni
the
trosa-naj tahaki
sins-our as
ni-amela-naj
are forgiven by us
ni
the
mi-trosa
sinners
ami-naj, ari
with-us, and
asa mi-tarikia
not lead
anaj
us
ami
into
ni fakampanahi,
the temptation,
fa manafaha
but deliver
anaj
us
ami
ni ratsi.
frow
the evil.
6. Dajak
Apaii
Father
ikaj
our (excl.)
iga huan
who in
sorga,
heaven,
ara-m
name-Thine
im-prasi.
hallowed be.
Ka-raga-an-m
Kingdom-Thy
duma;
come;
ka-hendak-m
Will-Thine
gddi
come-to-pass
kilan huan
as in
sorga,
heaven,
208
kakaj kea hung'un petak. Peiia talo kinan
evenso also upon earth. Give the eating
akan ikaj andau to, dan ampun kara
to us (excl.) day this, and forgive all
ka-salah-n ikaj kilau ikaj
sins us (excl.) as we
kea m-ampun
also forgive
olo, iga aton
men, which are
salah denan ikaj, dan
sinful with us (excl.). and
ala menamaan
not lead
ikaj huan
us (eycl.) into
tinkese, baja
temptation, but
lapas ikaj
deliver us (excl.)
bara talo
from the
papa , krana
evil, for
aju-m aton
property- Thine is
ka-raga-an
kingdom
tuntan kwasa
and strength
tuntan ka-haie
ka-tahi-tahi.
and glory
for ever ever.
Amen.
7. Javanese.
Rama kawula hinkan
Father (of thine) servants who
swarga wast a sampejan
heaven name (of thy) feet
karaton sampejan handatenana ;
kingdom (of thine) feet come then;
sampejan dadossa hin bumi
feet come-to-pass upon earth
swarga; reg'ekki kawula kan
heaven bread (of thine) servants which
sukanni dinten punniki marm
give day this to (thy)
puntan marm kawula dosa
forgive
wonten hin
art in
dadossa sutgi
be holy;
karsa
will (of thy)
kados hin
as in
sa-dinten-dinten
a day-day
kawula, hambi
servants, and
kawula,
to (thy) servants guilt (of the) servants,
209
kados kawula
as (tliy) servants
titijaii kan salah
enemy who sins
sampun bekta
indeed not lead
tapi k'uk'ullaken
but free make
iiawon, sabab
evil, cause
marrii
to
(thy)
(thy)
(for)
puntan
forgive
marin
to (thy)
kawula
servants
kawula
servants
karaton
kingdom
sa-tuiigil-tiuigil
one-each-each
kawula, hambi
servants, and
hin perk'oban,
into temptation,
bari pada sari
from what
hambi kowasa
and
sarta kamukten gusti
with glory
hin nawet.
into eternity.
kagunnan-nipun
Lord (=Thou) property his
Amin.
power
dumugi
until
jan
who
8. Malay.
Bap a kami
Father our (excl.)
di-per-suki-lah kira-nga!
be-hallowed-then please!
ka-hendak-mu g'adi-lah
will-thine
nama-mu
name-thine
datan-lah,
come-then,
di-dtilain
in-the-interior
bumi ; roti
earth ; bread
ada di-sorga,
is in heaven,
ka-raga-an-mu
kingdom-thin e
seperti
come-then-to-pass similarly
demikian-lah di-atas
evenso-then upon-above
kami sa-hari sa-hari beri-la
our (excl.) of-day of-day give-then
sorga
of heaven
akan kami
to us (excl)
ampon-i-lah pada
forgive-then to
kami seperti lagi
our (excl.) even as again
pon-i pada oran
to men
DD
pada hari ini, dan
to day this, and
kami segala salah
us (excl.) allhood (of) sins
kami ini men-am-
we (excl.) there forgive
jan ber-salah
who have-commited-sin
~3* 210 K~
ka-pada kami, dan ganan-lah mem-bawti
against us (excl.), and indeed-not-then lead
kami ka-pada per-koba-an, hanga lepas-
us (excl.) into temptation, but loose-
kan-lah kami deri-pada jan gahat,
make-then us (excl.) from-to anything evil,
karena ankau punga ka-rag'a-an dan kwasa
cause (for) Thou owning kingdom and power
dan ka-mulija-an sampej sa-lama-lama-nga. .
and glory unto length-length-his.
To sum up. The Malay race may be shortly classified
as follows:
I. Australian negroes and Tasmanians.
II. Papuas, including the inhabitants of New Guinea,
of the Luisiad Archipelago, New Caledonia and
the Loyalty Islands. Here also belong the Negri-
tos, the inhabitants of the Andaman (Mincopies)
and of the Nicobar islands.
III. Malayo-Polynesians, namely, 1. Polynesians, 2. Me-
lanesians and 3. Malays.
Ideology in these tongues varies. Whilst in the Me-
lanesian and Malay it is hybrid, in the Polynesian it is
direct, the respective formulae being 2. 4. 6. 8. VI and 2.
4. 6. 7. VII.
Now, as regards the Malay Eace, the human mind has
evolved a very noble thought of G-od. In nearly all these
idioms it is a form of Atua, 'the very Core of Humanity',
atu being a kernel or core, and a an intensive. 'Eternity'
is expressed by e rimua ua atu 'until covered with the
moss of ages'.
Samoan : Atua
Aneityum : Atua
Maori: Atua
Tahitian: Atua
211
Rarotongan : Atua
Marquesan : Atua
Nju:
Hawaii :
Tongan:
Lifu:
Rotuman :
Fata:
Atua
Akua
Otua
Okotdsi and Hase. 1
Oiitu
Leatu.
The word Jo 'pith' or 'core' is also used for God: Jo
ora living God.
Those that differ from this form are:
Malagasi : Sanahari Creator; and
Andria Manitra Noble-Sweet.
The former is the older form, used by the ruder tribes,
the latter has become polarized in Malagasi religious thought
since the introduction of Christianity.
Balinese: "Widi
Makase
Mare:
Dajak : Tapa
Jaian: Kon
Figi: Kalu
Viti: Kalou
Ngunese: Supe
Father
Greatness
Greatness
Saibai: Augadan.
1 Trenehase God-knower=Priest.
Hnei angeike hna loda kowe la uma i Hase.
By him was gone into the House of God.
212
CHAPTEB, XVI.
THE IDEA OF GOD: ITS GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT.
We are now in a position to discuss the question which
modern Science and Positivism have combined to raise:
how did the idea of God arise? What was its earliest
form ? What the law or what the process of its evolution ?
Already at the outset of our enquiry we had occasion
to notice some of the natural histories of religion, and here,
without attempting an analytic and categorical criticism,
we may do well to point out that, they all assume the
truth of an empirical philosophy. Religious concepts are
resolved into sense-impressions, it being taken for granted
that man started with 'an original atheism of consciousness'.
But, how, upon this hypothesis, are we to account for man's
faculty of faith, his tendency to believe in beings invisible,
his conception of the Infinite? Can we accept an hypo-
thesis which would derive the sublime predicate 'God' from
dreams, delusions, fears? Surely ex nihilo nihil fit. Gran-
ted that savage and monkey, infant and dog, alike think
natural objects alive, the one does, the other does not, for-
mulate his thoughts into a religion. Nor must we forget
that the evidence of religion is never entirely furnished by
sensuous perception. 'In worshipping his fetish, the savage
does not worship a common stone, but a stone which, be-
sides, being a stone that can be touched and handled, is
supposed to be something else, this something else being
beyond the reach of our hands, our ears, or our eyes'. 1
If, with M. Comte, we argue that man can get out of I 1 Mat
tlieologique ou fictif, we must also be prepared to admit that
he can get into it. Is it not more true that mind makes
nature than that nature makes mind? In the formation
' Max Miiller: Hibbert Lectures for 1878. p. 168.
UNIVERSITY
OF
~>; 213 HS~
of beliefs the constitutive element is what mind brings to
nature, not what nature brings to mind.
"It is not without significance", says Principal Fair-
bairn, "that, while M. Comte was introducing his law of
evolution to the world, finding the roots of religion in Fe-
tichism and the final and perfect system in a Positivism
without God, the two profoundest thinkers then living were
formulating very different doctrines the one the doctrine
that a nation and its religion rose together, that, apart from
religion, a nation, with its institutions and laws, was im-
possible; the other, that 'the religion and foundation of a
State are one and the same, in and for themselves identi-
cal', .and that, 'the people who has a bad conception of
God has also a bad government, and bad laws'."
Going back from these 'incomplete' Kantians to Kant
himself, though it is doubtless true that he found a three-
fold impossiblity of proving the existence of the Ideal of
Reason, yet, what is important for us is the fact so strongly
held by him that, though experience may give the first im-
pulse to faith, it is the transcendental concept which acts
as Reason's guide and points the goal to all her aspirati-
ons. According to the Konigsberg philosopher, theology
is either transcendental or natural. In the former case
there is the attempt to derive the existence of the First
Cause either from experience generally, which is known as
cosmotheology, or from mere concepts, without the aid of
the least experience ontothelogy. Natural theology, on the
other hand, induces the attributes and the existence of a
World-Framer from the nature, order and unity met with in
the world around us, wherein we must admit a twofold causa-
lity, namely, nature and freedom. It thus rises from this
world to the highest Intelligence, either as to the Principle
of all natural or of all moral Order and Perfection. That
is to say, it is either physico-theology or moral theology.
Examining the subject from the standpoint of the archi-
-S* 214 K~
tectonics of pure reason Kant could not but come to the
conclusion that, from purely speculative reason, no satis-
factory proof of the existence of a Being is possible, which
would correspond to our transcendental idea of the Ens
originarium, realissimum, Ens entium.
We know that the Cartesian school laid stress upon
the ontological proof. Descartes held that there must be at
least as much reality in the Cause as in the Consequence.
Finite man could never arrive at the concept infinite sub-
stance unless it came to him from an infinite Being. In his
third Meditation Cartesius says:
Ideoque ex antedictis Deum necessario existere est
concludendum: nam quamvis substantiae quidem idea in
me sit ex hoc ipso quod sim substantia, non tamen id-
circo esset idea substantiae infinitae, cum sim finitus, nisi
ab aliqua substantia, quae revera esset infinita, procederet.
Again, in the fifth meditation we find the noble thought
which had already been expressed by Anselm:
Est aliquid quo majus nihil cogitari potest et in in-
tellectu et in re.
Malebranche went even further and asserted that, in
order to have ideas we must be in God. 'Dieu est tres
etroitement uni a nos ames par sa presence, de sorte qu'on
peut dire, qu'il est le lieu des esprits, de meme que les es-
paces sont en un sens le lieu des corps. Dieu est le monde
intelligible ou le lieu des esprits, de meme que le monde
materiel est le lieu des corps'. Again, 'Dieu renferme dans
lui-meme les perfections de la matiere, sans etre materiel;
il comprend aussi les perfections des esprits crees, sans
etre esprit, de la maniere, que nous concevons les esprits.
Son nom veritable est Celui qui est, c'est a dire 1'etre
restriction, tout etre, 1'etre infini et universe!'.
Passing on to Spinoza we find him to be so full of
the idea of Deity that he has been aptly described as the
God-intoxicated man. He says:
~>i 215 5<~
Quicquid est in Deo est, ct nihil sine Deo esse nequr
concipi potest.
God is the absolute, infinite substance, and without
Him there is no substance.
Per Deum intelligo Ens absolute, infinitum, hoc est,
substantiain constantein infinitis attributes, quorum unum-
quodque aeternam et infinitam essentiam exprimit.
Praeter Deum nulla dari neque concipi potest sub-
stantia.
Thought and extension are the attributes of Deity.
'Deus est res cogitans' and 'Deus est res extensa'. What-
ever is founded in something else is a mode of that other
thing. Thus, a triangle is a modus of the substantia ex-
tensa, a definite thought is a modus of the substantia co-
gitans. The sum of these modi is the 'Natura naturata'.
God, considered as Free Cause, in whom the modes have
their basis, is the 'Natura naturans'. He is the causa efficiens
not only of the existentia but also of the essentia of things.
According to Spinoza the highest joy and the noblest
virtue is knowledge of God. And if to joy is added the
thought of its cause, we have love. Joy sprung from know-
ledge of God leads to love of God. 'Amor est laetitia con-
comitante idea causae externae'. Our happiness consists 'in
sola Dei cognitone, ex qua ad ea tantum agenda induci-
mur, quae amor et pietas suadent'.
Leibniz, too, is full of the thought of God. He is
'centre par-tout et sur-tout'; the highest Monad; the final
Reason. 'La derniere raison des choses doit etre dans une
Substance necessaire, dans laquelle le detail des change-
ments ne suit qu'eniinemment, comme dans la source: et
c'est ce que nous appelons Dieu\ In his Monadology he
argues that God exists necessarily if it is possible:
Ainsi Dieu seul (ou 1'Etre necessaire) a ce privilege
qu'il faut qu'il existe s'il est possible. Et comme rien ne
peut empecher la possibilite de ce qui n'enferme aucunes
-^ 216 H~
bornes, aucune egation, et par consequence aucune contra-
diction; cela seul suffit pour connaitre 1'existence de Dieu
a priori.
Again, in the Essais de Theodicee:
'Dieu est la premiere Raison des choses: car celles
qui sont bornees, comme tout ce que nous voyons et ex-
perimentons, sont contingentes et n'ont rien en elles qui
rende leur existence necessaire ; etant nianifeste que le terns,
1'espace et la matiere, unies et uniformes en elles-inemes,
et indifferentes a tout, pouvoient recevoir de tout autres
mouvemens et figures et dans un autre ordre. II faut done
chercher la raison de 1'existence du Monde, qui est 1'assem-
blage entier des choses contingentes : et il faut la chercher
dans la substance qui porte la raison de son existence avec
elle, et laquelle par consequent est necessaire et eternelle,
II faut aussi que cette cause soit intelligente : car ce Monde
qui existe etant contingent, et une infinite d'autres Mondes
etant egalement possibles et egalement pretendans a 1'exis-
tence, pour ainsi dire, aussi-bien que lui, il faut que la
cause du monde ait eu egard ou relation a tous ces Mondes
possibles, pour en determiner un. Et cet egard ou rapport
d'une substance existante a de simples possibilites, ne pent
etre autre chose que I'entendement qui en a les idees; et
en determiner une, ne peut etre autre chose que 1'acte de
la volonte qui choisit. Et c'est la puissance de cette sub-
stance, qui en rend la volonte efficace. La puissance va a
1'etre, la sagesse ou I'entendement au vrai, et la volonte
au bien. Et cette cause intelligente doit etre infinie de
toutes les manieres, et absolument parfaite en puissance
en sagesse et en bonte, puisqu'elle va a tout ce qui est
possible. Et comme tout est lie, il n'y a pas lieu d'en
adrnettre plus d'une. Son entendernent est la source des
essences, et sa volonte est 1'origine des existences. Yoila
en peu de mots la preuve d'un Dieu unique avec ses per-
fections et par lui 1'origine des choses.'
~5* 217 K~
Modern philosophy, in so far as it deals with the ques-
tion before us, may be fitly represented on the one hand
by Mr. H. Spencer and on the other by the late Prof. Green.
In his First Principles Mr. Spencer says:
'Our examination of Ultimate Religious Ideas has been
carried on with the view of making manifest some funda-
mental verity contained in them. Thus far however we
have arrived at negative conclusions only. Criticising the
essential conceptions involved in the different orders of be-
liefs, we find no one of them to be logically defensible.
Passing over the consideration of credibility, and confining
ourselves to that of conceivability, we see that Atheism,
Pantheism, and Theism, when rigorously analysed, severally
prove to be absolutely unthinkable. Instead of disclosing
a fundamental verity existing in each, our investigation
seems rather to have shown that there is no fundamental
verity contained in any. To carry away this conclusion,
however, would be a fatal error; as we shall shortly see.
Leaving out the accompanying moral code, which is
in all cases a supplementary growth, a religious creed is
definable as an a priori theory of the Universe. The sur-
rounding facts being given, some form of agency is alleged
which, in the opinion of those alleging it, accounts for these
facts. Be it in the rudest Fetishism, which assumes a se-
parate personality behind every phenomenon; be it in Poly-
theism, in which these personalities are partially generalized ;
be it in Monotheism, in which they are wholly generalized;
or be it in Pantheism, in which the generalized personality
becomes one with the phenomena; we equally find an hypo-
thesis which is supposed to render the Universe compre-
hensible. Nay, even that which is commonly regarded as
the negation of all Religion even positive Atheism, comes
within the definition; for it, too, in asserting the self-exis-
tence of Space, Matter, and Motion, which it regards as
adequate causes of every appearance, propounds an a priori
EE
~$* 218 H$~
theory from which it holds the facts to be deducihle. Now
every theory tacitly asserts two things: firstly, that there
is something to be explained; secondly, that such and such
is the explanation. Hence, however widely different spe-
culators may disagree in the solutions they give of the same
problem; yet by implication they agree that there is a
problem to be solved. Here then is an element which all
creeds have in common. Religions diametrically opposed
in their overt dogmas, are yet perfectly at one in the tacit
conviction that the existence of the world with all it con-
tains and all which surrounds it, is a mystery ever pressing
for interpretation. On this point, if on no other, there is
entire unanimity . . .
Nor does the evidence end here. Not only is the om-
nipresence of something which passes comprehension, that
most abstract belief which is common to all religions, which
becomes the more distinct, in proportion as they develop e,
and which remains after their discordant elements have
been mutually cancelled; but it is that belief which the most
unsparing criticism of each leaves unquestionable or rather
makes ever clearer. It has nothing to fear from the most
inexorable logic; but on the contrary is a belief which the
most inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true
than any religion supposes. For every religion, setting out
though it does with the tacit assertion of a mystery, forth-
with precedes to give some solution of this mystery ; and so
asserts that it is not a mystery passing human comprehen-
sion. But an examination of the solutions they severally pro-
pound, shows them to be uniformly invalid. The analysis
of every possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no hypo-
thesis is sufficient, but that no hypothesis is even thinkable.
And thus the mystery which all religions recognize, turns
out to be a far more transcendent mystery than any of
them suspect not a relative, but an absolute mystery.
Here, then, is an ultimate religious truth of the highest
-X 219 K*~
possible certainty a truth in which religions in general are
at one with each other, and with a philosophy antagonistic
to their special dogmas. And this truth, respecting which
there is a latent agreement among all mankind from the
fetish-worshipper to the most stoical critic of human creeds,
must be the one we seek. If Religion and Science are to
be reconciled, the basis of reconciliation must be the deepest,
widest, and most certain of all facts that the Power which
the Universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable.'
We now come to the greatest of the Neo-Kantians
the late Prof. Green. Speaking generally, the whole fabric
of his philosophy may be said to rest on his theory of re-
lations, which mainly consists of two propositions, namely,
that objects are constituted by relations, and that relations
are the work of the mind. According to him relations
exist only for a self-conscious intelligence and are due to
the activity of a self-conscious intelligence; in other words
'nature results from the activity of the spiritual principle'.
The relations constituting nature form a 'single unalterable
all-inclusive system' implying as such the existence of a
'principle of unity in relation' which cannot be other than
Universal Spirit.
Mr. Balfour has done well to point out the singular
resemblance which Green's system bears to that of Berkeley.
'Berkeley by an examination of the nature of perception,
Green by a criticism of the conditions of experience, alike
reach the conviction that the world of objects exists only
for mind; both deduce from this the reality of freedom;
both assume the existence of a universal spirit in order
that their idealised universe may be something more than
the phantasm of the individual consciousness; with both
this assumption develops into something which resembles,
though it never actually becomes, a species of Pantheism.'
It will, then, surely be admitted that the best philo-
sophy and the purest science do not pronounce against the
~X 220 f~
truth of theology nor do they accept the law ol historical
progression enunciated by Positivism.
But if we cannot admit any hypothesis whereby the
idea of God is evolved from the lower faculties and passions
of men or from generatio aequivoca, shall we trace it to a
primitive revelation? Let us consider for a moment what
this implies. In the first place it means that, far from
being rooted in the nature of man, religion must be im-
planted from without. If there be no religious capacity or
instinct man can never 'seek the Lord, if haply he might
feel after and find Him'. The implication really is that,
the human race was originally atheistic. Moreover, if there
were a primitive revelation, it must have been either written
or oral. And this involves us in hopeless difficulty. On this
point none has spoken with greater clearness than Princi-
pal Fairbairn: 'If written, it could hardly be primitive,
for writing is an art, a not very early acquired art, and
one which does not allow documents of exceptional value
to be easily lost. If it was oral, then either the language
for it was created or it was no more primitive than the
written. Then an oral revelation becomes a tradition, and
a tradition requires either a special caste for its transmis-
sion, becomes therefore its property, or must be subjected
to multitudinous changes and additions from the popular
imagination becomes, therefore, a wild commingling of
broken and bewildering lights. But neither as documentary
nor traditional can any traces of a primitive revelation be
discovered, and to assume it is only to burden the question
with a thesis which renders a critical and philosophic dis-
cussion alike impossible'.
There remains, then, the historical method by which
to approach this interesting and important question. It is
the method which, so far as it has been possible, has been
applied throughout the whole of this work. But mental
life goes back further than historical, although to have
~3* 221 K~
historical evolution is an essential characteristic of the
mental. There are tribes and times and relations which
remain outside of the historical movement. Philology only
embraces historical life: what lies beyond is the province
of the science of Language. Where language oversteps the
bounds of philology, it enters the province of psychological
ethnology. There is undoubtedly a mental life which is
not historical. Tribes without culture and history have
language and religion, and the life they lead is one ordered
by mental considerations such as marriage, work, law,
authority. And here we must remember that, the mental
or spiritual life of a nation is a connected whole, that a
people is not a heap of individuals but an entire Being,
and as such creates and thinks, frames notions and words,
that in its life ideas are the leading and ruling forces, not
blind chance or the vagaries of a single ruler. Moreover,
our investigation has shown us that, religion is really co-
extensive with man; that, tribes the most distant and the
most unlike in genius, culture, and position on the earth's
surface, having laws and tongues wholly different, yet have
as their common characteristic the thought of God.
From the point of view of evolution our inquiry should
doubtless have begun with the Hottentots and ended with
the most cultured and refined Europeans of to-day. Never-
theless, by beginning with the Aryan family we have had
the twofold advantage of at once connecting the discussion
with ourselves and of proceeding from the more known to
the less known.
Now, the primitive form of the theistic Idea amongst
the Aryan peoples that in which there is both radical
and general agreement we have found to be Djdus (pp.
29, 30), the bright and beautiful Heaven. Tin's is the
specific term. Then, from the same root, we have the ge-
neral term deva, the Brilliant. This is especially note-
worthy because it is the very concept which is supreme
~3* 222 K~
with the Mongols T'jan, Jum, Num. (pp. 49, 50, 51). We
cannot call this nature-worship in the strict sense of the
term, the nature is so limited, excluding even Earth. The
form Djaus Prt'ivi, T'jan Ti, Num Torim is a dis-
tinctly later phase of religious thought. Perhaps the best
expression is individualistic Theism, for Djaus, T'jan, Num
is conscious, creative, moral.
To the early Aryan, as to the Tatar of to-day, the
most natural thought was that Nature acts by virtue of an
immanent life. The seat of this life both Aryan and Mongol
placed in Heaven.
'The glory of the blue and brooding heaven was the
glory of the immanent God'. To them Heaven was a Being
capable alike of feeling and willing, to whom they prayed,
to whom they offered sacrifice. There was no localisation
of the deity upon earth, and hence no temple, hence no
priest. 'The home, or the meadow, or the shadow of a giant
oak, like that which stood in old Dodona, or those under
whose spreading branches the Germans of Tacitus gathe-
red to worship the invisible Presence, was the temple, and
the patriarch of the family was the priest.
That worship may be termed a Nature-worship, because
the one word was the name of Heaven and of God, but
Nature is here only a synonym for God. The Nature was
living, and the life in it was to our primitive man divine 7 .
Of Aryan and Mongol it may indeed be said:
'They stood in the primeval home in the highlands of
North-Western Asia, looked, as Abraham once did, at the
resplendent sun flooding the world with life and light, at
the deep, broad, blue heaven, a bosom that enfolded earth,
bringing the rain that fertilized their fields and fed their
rivers, and the heat that ripened their corn, at the glory
its sunlight threw upon the waking, its moonlight upon the
sleeping, earth, and at the stars that "globed themselves"
in the same boundless Heaven, and went and came and
-** 223 *~
shone so sweetly on man and beast and they called that far
yet near, changing but unchangeable, still but evermoving,
bright yet unconsumed and unconsuming Heaven, deva (Num)
God. To Aryan man Heaven and God were one, not a
thing but a person, whose Thou stood over against his /.
His life was one, the life above him was one too. Then,
that life was generative, productive, the source of every other
life, and so to express his full conception, he called the
living Heaven, Diespiter, Djauspitar Heaven-Father'.
Now, this element of paternity, so characteristic of
the Aryan conception of God Djauspitar, Zeu$ Trairjp,
Jupiter, Alfadir is precisely that which most distinguishes
it from the Semitic thought of deity. The fundamental
unlikenesses in feeling, thought, and worship can all be
traced to this primary difference in the thought of God.
Whether as monotheisms or as polytheisms we nowhere
find in the Semitic religions the attribution to their God
or gods of a fatherly or humane character. It is true that
the Hebrew as a people may realise an abstract ideal
fatherhood of which we find traces in the Old Testament,
but as an individual the Jew never does. The concept
which is common to all the Semitic tribes is that of the
Great Ruler sitting in judgment El, Allah (pp. 41, 42).
To the Semitic mind the Supreme is an awful, invisible
Presence, dwelling in inaccessible light, before whom, un-
covered, man stand eth trembling! In an exalted mono-
theism like this, the majesty of God is so conceived as
well-nigh to annihilate the freewill and even the personal
being of man. And here perhaps, as Dr. Fairbairn has
suggested, we may find the explanation of the Hebrew
horror at death, 'almost hopeless "going down to the grave,"
the often-asserted and often-denied silence of the Old Tes-
tament as to the immortality of man. So much is certain,
whether the Warburtonian or the more orthodox theory be
held, the doctrine of a future state occupies a less promi-
~3* 224 HS~
nent and less essential place in the religion of the Old
Testament than in the Aryan religions in general. The
belief in immortality was before Christ more explicit and
more general among the Greeks than among the Jews'.
Here, again, we have no trace of the dead ancestor,
the idol or the fetish. It is a concept of intense subjec-
tivity. The Semitic finds his God in himself, and offers a
worship such as would have been pleasing to him had he
himself been Divine. Hence the designation of Deity in
the Kabbala \JN 'I'. There is certainly one very striking
passage in the New Testament where Oupavog is used as
a synonym of Oeog:
fjjuotpTov ei$ TOV oupctvov. Luke xv. 21.
but we must not forget that the story of the Prodigal Son
was told to 'publicans and sinners' amongst whom the ma-
jority were probably Greeks and Romans. It is also true
that, amongst the Bogos, a Hamitic tribe, the supreme
thought is fO5 Heaven (p. 48), but nowhere do we find
D^ used as the equivalent of DNlfeg. Thus, while the
Semitic religions developed themselves subjectively from
the idea of Divine Sovereignty, whereby the thought of
God almost shut out the concept of man, the Aryan
religions were evolved objectively from the idea of Divine
Fatherhood, whereby the two conceptions were mutually
complementary, the one being incomplete without the other.
The Semite delights in the frequent and prolonged fast,
but the Aryan loves the gay religious festival. 'While the
father in the Aryan religions soften the god, and gives, on
the whole, a sunny and cheerful and sometimes festive
character to the worship, the god in the Semitic annihilates
the father, and gives to its worship a gloomy, severe, and
cruel character, which does not indeed belong to the reveal-
ed religion of the Old Testament, but often belongs to the
actual religion of the Jews'.
"What, then, shall we say of the theology of so-called
~& 225 *~
savagery? Surely here we shall find not only traces, but
the prevalence of, ancestor-worship. And indeed, were we
guided solely by the evidence of the Kafir race, there can
be little doubt that we should come to that conclusion.
Munkuluukulu 'Old-Old-One', Nsambi-a-npungu 'Old-Spirit'
may well represent the 'wandering double' of the departed
forefather (pp. 162, 163). But this is not all. We have to
deal with such concepts as Hausa Obangisi 'High Father'
(p. 149.), Oki Onjan-kopon 'Heaven' (p. 133), Joruba Olodu-
mare 'One-who-has-a-name' (p. 133.), Kanuri Kema-nde
'Lord-of-us' (p. 143.), Kamilaroi Baiame 'Creator' (p. 167.)
and Malay Atua 'Core of Humanity' (p. 210.).
In seeking the genesis of the idea we cannot but see
what light the form throws upon the question. Now, in this
respect, we have seen that, with perhaps two exceptions,
the already-considered Positivist theories are historically
untenable. We have watched the theogonic process in its
multiform manifestation, but have not found that it has
been induced by fear, horrid dreams or the longing to pro-
pitiate the angry ghosts of the dead.
As regards the Aryan concept Prof. Fairbairn truly
says: 'There were two real or objective, and two ideal or
subjective, factors in the genesis of the idea. The two
real were the bright, brooding Heaven and its action in
relation to Earth. The two ideal were the conscience and
the imagination. The real factors stimulated the action
of the ideal. The ideal borrowed the form in which to ex-
press themselves from the real. Conscience knew of rela-
tion, dependent and obligatory, to Some One. Imagination
discovered the Some One on whom the individual and the
whole alike depended in the Heaven. Neither faculty could
be satisfied with the subjective, each was driven by the
law of its own constitution to seek an objective reality.
Conscience, so far as it revealed obligation, revealed relation
to a being higher than self. Imagination, when it turned
FF
-^ 226 H$~
its eye to Heaven, belield there the higher Being, the great
soul which directed the varied celestial movements, and
created the multitudinous terrestrial lives. "Without the
conscience, the life the imagination saw would have heen
simply physical; without the imagination, the relation the
conscience revealed would have been purely ideal the re-
lation of a thinker to his thought, not of one personal being
to another. But the being given by the one faculty and
the relation given by the other coalesced so as to form that
worship of the bright Dyaus, which was our primitive Aryan
religion'.
Psychologists may differ as to the intensity of the
action of these two powers, but that they were the faculties
generative of the idea there can be no question. And this
is true throughout the whole realm of comparative theology:
the real or objective factors differ, the ideal or subjective
remain the same. Nor is it only from the concept of Deity
that we infer this. The existence amongst the primitive
Aryans of such rudimentary ideas as faith, worship, holi-
ness, sacrifice, prayer, imply no less a creative faculty than
Conscience. In the case of our Aryan forefathers, then,
we can be quite sure that the oldest is the highest. Far
from rising by almost imperceptible gradations from the
physical, the moral is really eclipsed by the physical.
Some of the oldest hymns of the Rg-Veda are addressed
to Varuna who, as Dr. Muir has well observed, 'has a
moral elevation and sanctity of character far surpassing
that attributed to any other Vedic deity'. Take, for in-
stance, hymus Rgv. 2. 28; 5. 85; 7. 86. 7. 8. 9. Nay more,
there is one hymn which is wholly ethical, that, namely,
by B'iksu, the beggar, on the duty of beneficence (10. 117).
Speaking generally one may say that, more ethical ele-
ments are found in the earlier than in the later forms of
our Aryan faith. It is the moral sense which alone can
account for these primary religious acts and ideas. 'Mind
H3* 227 MS-
conscious of self was also mind conscious of obligation.
The "I am" and the "I ought" were twins, born at the same
moment. But to be conscious of obligation was to be cons-
cious of relation, and so in one and the same act mind was
conscious of a self who owed obedience, and a Not-Self to
whom the obedience was due'. In other words, 'conscious
ness and conscience rose together 7 .
In the very same act as the idea of self was given
the concept of God; there was no question of precedence.
Without the consciousness of God mind could as little be
mind as without that of self. 'Certain philosophies may
have dissolved the first idea as certain others may have
dissolved the second, but each idea is alike instinctive, rises
by nature, can be suppressed only by art 7 .
From a consideration of the genesis of this irptuTri
OeoO evvoia, which has been variously styled relativer Mono-
theismus, henotJieism and individual theism, we pass on to
its evolution. The aboriginal concept was essentially ger-
minal, its developmental possibilities were great; though it
did well as a starting-point it could never be the goal of
the human mind. Now, if primitive man, whether Aryan,
Semitic, Hamitic or Turanian had been possessed of a
cultured reason, or, as in the case of the Semite, had a
strong instinct anticipated its action there would in all
likelihood have been a development to a complete Mono-
theism. But this was not the case. The two faculties which
we have been considering acted in opposite directions; the
moral sense, which was unifying, required an individual deity,
but the imagination was multiplicative, demanded many.
To again quote the admirable words of Principal Fair-
bairn:
'The very conception of a life immanent in the lumi-
nous and impregnating Heaven strengthened the multiplying
as opposed to the unifying tendency. The variety and
contrasts of Nature helped the imagination to individualize
H3* 228 KS~
the parts. A different spirit seems to animate the calm,
smiling Heaven from what animates a heaven tempestuous
and thundering. Night seems distinct from day the brilli-
ant, beneficent spirit of the one from the revealing yet en-
folding, distant yet near, spirit of the other. So the imag-
ination, which had discerned and localized the God con-
science demanded, pursued its creative career, not now
in obedience to the moral faculty, but only to its own im-
pulses. And so its creations graduated to Naturalism, be-
came more physical, less moral simple transcripts of the
phenomena and aspects of Nature'.
Perhaps the first step to Physicalism was marked by
srenr in India, Oupavog in Greece from ]/var to cover.
Here we have the representation of the all-enfolding Night-
Sky as opposed to the bright and beautiful affe. That
is to say, the two aspects of the same object were appre-
hended as two beings. The deification, though compara-
tively recent, probably took place before the Aryan sepa-
ration. But deified Night is incomplete without deified
Day, hence, by the side of crenr we find the god of Light,
fr^r. This is the graduation to naturalism, though the
influence of the moral sense is not wholly lost. It is only
when we come to ^j, who superseded ciw, to that splen-
did physical figure 'borne on a shining golden car with a
thousand supports, drawn by tawny steeds with flowing golden
manes, hurling his thunderbolts, drinking the soma-juice,
slayer of Vrtra', that the transition is complete. And here
we trace alike the decay of the old Yedic religion and the
beginnings of philosophy. Hymn 10, 151 expresses doubt
and uncertainty as to the value of belief, and in 9, 112 we
find Indra represented as an Egoist, in 10, 119 as drunken.
Then there is the longing for unity, as we have it in the
song of Dirgatamas (1, 164) and in the Creation-Hymn
(10, 129). This unity is more nearly defined in hymns 10,
121; 10, 81; 10, 72 and 10, 90.
~3* 229 MS-
In the primitive Aryan religion we find the two ele-
ments as spirit and letter, matter and form in a realised
unity, but, in the course of evolution, mind became conscious
of a dualism in its faith and, by exclusion of the ethical
element, the physicalism of the Vedas was developed, by
exclusion of the natural, the spiritualism of the Avesta.
Nor was this all. There was an indirect action of the
conscience on the theogonic process. It not only prompt-
ed to worship but furnished objects which could be per-
sonalised, the tendency being to increase rites and acts
and ceremonies. At the beginning the process seems
to operate in two distinct spheres the natural and the
sacerdotal. In the former we have already seen how geo-
graphical conditions have influenced its action, in the latter
we shall find how marked is the influence of social and
political. Our study of the religious consciousness of man-
kind has abundantly shown that, the physical phases and
forces deified have throughout been borrowed from the Na-
ture presented to the imagination. Under the rough and
boisterous skies of the North the Scandinavians and Ger-
mans forgot the bright vision of Tius and worshipped, for
the most part, the stormful Odhin and the thundering Thor.
Unlike these, our Teutonic forefathers, the dwellers under
the sunny sky of Hellas, that land of many mountains,
rivers and islands, surrounded by the shining sea, were
ever mindful of Zeus, and summoned round him the fairy-
forms and many-colored spirits of forest, hill, and stream.
Similarly in India, among the mountainous regions of Kas-
mir, we meet with the furious and tempestuous Hudra, ^
whilst the Hindus who came down into the hot plains and
lived under a burning sky, sighed and prayed for the cool-
ing Rain, and created the grand and glowing Indra.
In India, too, political and social conditions were such
as to lead to the evolution of sacerdotalism. The fathers
of the family were undoubtedly the first priests, but as life
-X 230 HS~
became more complex the head of the household would
gladly hand over his priestly office to another. And the
sense of guilt would be likely to affect the worshipper to
the extent of inducing him to distinguish between what he
would consider sacred and that which would be called se-
cular, until, at last, he would come to believe that, the man
well-pleasing unto God must be one wholly devoted to things
divine. 'Hence, a professional priesthood was formed, and,
as a matter of course, forms of worship increased. Each
reacted on the other. The worship became more elaborate
as the priesthood became more professional, and the ritual
the priest developed the imagination idealized the form
became to it the matter of religion. What could reveal
deity was deified. What made the worshipper accepted,
forgiven, was idealized into the accepter, the forgiver; and
hence, sacerdotal deities were evolved alongside the natural.
The same period that witnessed the creation of Varuna-
Mitra witnessed also the creation of Soma. The juice of
the plant used in sacrifice to God became itself a god, just
as to a certain section of Christians the symbol of Christ's
sacrifice has become the sacrifice itself.'
At the time of the Indian and Iranian unity many
forces were operative in the realm of religious conviction,
and, at the separation, the outer and formal powers and
tendencies seem to have been carried away by the Indians,
whilst the Iranians retained the inner and ethical. Hence
the direction which the genius of each people took was
different, and we have, in the one case, a development of
the spiritual side of religion, and, in the other, an evo-
lution of the external. Nowhere do we find such extreme
sacerdotalism, which changes the form into the matter
of religion, as in India, where even the physical deities
assume a sacerdotal character. It is not only that Indra
delights in the Soma, as a thirsty hart in the waterbrooks,
that 'sjrfrr is a deification of the sacrificial fire and so
->* 231 -
becomes 'the priest of the gods', but we find the creation
of such sacrificial deities as agn^Tci? whom Prof. Roth
well describes as an 'impersonation of the power of devotion 7 ,
a deity in whom 'the action of the worshipper upon the
gods is personified' (cf. Bgv. 10, 72) and u^fufk. the order
of whose development seems to be a) as Creator (10, 121);
p) as Euler and Upholder; y) as Water and Not-Being;
6) as Mind and Speech; and e) as a Cycle or Year and as
Sacrifice. In other Aryan countries there was a tendency
to regard the instruments of worship as sacred, but, the
necessary social conditions being wanting, neither the sacri-
fices themselves nor the oaks and groves where they took
place were considered divine.
In each sphere the early faith-faculty, the organ of the
spirit seems to have followed a different course. Physicism
descends, metaphysicism ascends. The earlier hymns of the
Rgveda show the worship of Heaven under two aspects as
luminous, ajfe ; as boundless, HjfdfH- But it is not long be-
fore Aditi becomes dissolved into the Aditjas, some eight
deities partly physical, partly spiritual. Then we find the
deification of such single objects as TOT the Sun, IHHJJ the
storm-gods, and gisrer the Dawn. Nor is this all. Rivers
such as the s^frt and *rcpr, mountains like the femn are
looked upon as gods. In the sacerdotal sphere, on the
other hand, the process is just the reverse. Starting with
the juice known as ^ffor there is ascension through sjrfrr and
till we come to a culmination in ^B* the highest
deity of speculation.
Nor does the process end here. As the human mind
developes there is an evolution of another double process,
which starts from two opposite sides but springs from allied
causes, namely, anthropomorphism and apotheosis. When
once the worship of a nation has introduced human ele-
ments into the idea of God, the unconscious poetry of early
society begins to import divine elements into the thought of
-s* 232 f<~
man. Hence the constant widening of the polytheistic circle
and the difficulty of ascertaining not so much what was, as
rather what was not, divine. But at last there is a limit to
mythical creations and the period of amalgamation begins.
This is the age of the world's great epics the Maha B'arata,
the Ramajana, the Iliad and Odyssey, the Kalevala, the Edda
and the Song of the Niebelungen. Here we have a more or
less organized polytheism, a 'conscious effort to weave into
historical harmony and form the mythical creations of the
past.' As an instance of Aryan religious combination we
may take Agamemnon's prayer in the third book of the
Iliad :-
Zeu TTorrep, "IbrjGev juebeuuv, Ku&icne,
3 HeXio$ 0', og irdvT 3 eqpopag, KCti Trdvr'
Kai TToTauoi Koti fcua, mi o c i imevepGe K
Tivuo~0ov, OTI K 5 emopKOV ojuocrcrr],
judpTupoi eerie, (puXdacreTe 6'opiaa Tricnd-
II. iii. 276-280.
Thus, when multiplication is no longer possible we
come to this product of the reflective consciousness, which
combines heterogeneous elements, so far as this can be
done, into a homogeneous system. That is to say, the
meditative faculty is brought into play to lead to the evo-
lution of the theogonic idea in another direction, namely,
that of Unity. Assuming the truth of the many mythical
creations of the past, granted that the gods have each
their place and work in the world, it seeks behind and
above them all a subsumptive Principle and ascribes to it,
even over the gods supreme power. Thus in India the
priestly deity a^HHifH developed into -atpr the chief of the
gods, and lastly into sngr^ or ^irHH the Over-Soul or World-
Will. Amongst the Greeks, Romans and Teutons we find
the same unifying tendency; MoTpa, Fatum, Eagnarokr was
the sombre, mystic power that controlled and directed alike
gods and men. The various steps of this meditative con-
~$H 233 KT-
sciousness toward oneness doubtless depend upon the par-
ticular people's culture and power of abstraction, but, sub-
surnption once having begun, poets and philosophers were
eager to strive after theistic unity. What was thus found
by reason was unity of a thought, something abstract, im-
personal, self-centred; not monotheism but Monism.
The thought expressed by the Rs'is in the first Man-
dala of the Bg-veda (i. 164. 46):
^eRJT HH fetTT RpJT ddlfWl
In many ways,
The Sages say,
Doth God himself
To man display!
was developed by the Brahmans in the Brahmanas and
subsumed by the Vedantins in the Upanisads.
Of this SF*T SrT there are in the Brahmanas four
stages: a) as jreu Purus c a Soul, vital Force; p) as tmir Pra-
na Breath; r) as ^fw Skamb'a The Support; 6) as zfsssz
Ukk"ista the Eest supreme.
In the Upanisads we reach the standpoint of the
a^nr - - sffiwr Brahman- Atman doctrine, the science of
Being-in-itself. In tracing the history of Spirit we have
already had occasion to consider the rise and growth of
Atman, the World-Self or Spirit supreme (p. 13). Brah-
man, from the root brh or vrh to grow, expand, corres-
ponds perhaps best to Hegel's das Werden: it is the Re-
conciliation of Contradictions. Thus we read in the B'aga-
vad Gita (xiii, 12):
inl *Jf fTr
^
'I will explain (to thee) what is to be known, what
kind of knowledge it is that leads to immortality. That
which is to be known is Brahma supreme, which is without
beginning, and can neither be described as Being nor Not-
Being.'
GG
^H 234
Again (ix, 19):
'I am death and immortality, Being and Not-Being, o
Arg'una! 7
According to the Vedanta a^H is
'not split by Time and Space' and
'free from all chane'.
The great commentator Sankara in discussing the
theology of the Vedanta distinguishes between the saguna
vidjd or exoteric doctrine of the Atman, and the nirgund
vidjd or esoteric teaching. Of the latter, which alone con-
cerns us here, the fundamental tenet is the utter inad-
equacy of human thought and speech to conceive and ex-
press God.
Hence the well-known formula of the Brhad-aranjaka-
Upanisad: -
1m *TrH I
'It is not so; It is not so! 7 "When we ask: is it this
or is it that? the reply is always: neti, neti! The only
adumbration of a definition is: 'JUirTi jim *HWT Silence is
Atma!
Thus, to the Advaita Vedanta, Brahman, grasped in
ourselves as our own Atman, is the only Reality, the Self
in which all other selves live and move and have their being.
This is the samjagdarsanam, perfect knowledge, but it is
the great Secret revealed not by gnana but by anulfava.
By absorption into his own self the Brahmakarin finds
that he is one with the Over-Self (Brahma- dtma-aikja),
whereby he exclaims: aham Brahma asmi 'I am Brahma',
whilst he says to his Guru: tat tvam asi 'that art thou.'
It is this which constitutes molfsa, as has been well poin-
ted out by Prof. Deussen:
~>i 235 K~
"The knowledge of this Atman, the great intelligence:
n aham bralima asmi, u does not produce moJcsha (deliverance),
but is moJcsJta itself. Then we obtain what the Upanish-
ads say:
xlIW oR 44 1 fill
When seeing Brahma as the highest and the lowest
everywhere, all knots of our heart, all sorrows are split,
all doubts vanish, and our works become nothing."
No student of Greek thought is likely to forget the
noble conception of Deity given by Aristotle in his Meta-
physics (xii. c. 7):
<t>auev be TOY Oeov eivai ujov d'ibiov apiatov, aicrre
uir| mi aiwv auvexn? Kai dtbios uirapxei TLU Geilr TOUTO
Yp 6 6eo<;. "Oaoi 6e uTroXajupdvoucriv, ujcfTrep o! TTuGa-
Kai ZTreuaiTTTro^, TO KaXXicrrov Kai dpicrtov jai 5 ) ev
ri eivai, 6id TO Kai TUJV cpUTUJV Kai TUJV djcuv Ta<; dpxd^
aiTia juev eivai, TO 6e KaXov Kai TeXeiov iv TOI^ ^K TOUTUJV
OUK 6p0iij<; oiovrai. TO ydp crir^pjua eH eTepuuv ecTTi irpOTeptuv
TeXeiuuv, Kai TO irpuuTOv ou cnrepjua eo"Tiv, dXXd TO TeXeiov
olov TrpOTepov d'vGpujTTOV dv cpairj Ti eivai TOU dTrepaaToq,
ou TOV CK TOUTOU yevojuevov, dXX 5 erepov eH ou TO crTiepjua.
"OTI |iiev ouv ecTTiv ouo"ia TI<; dtbiog Kai aKivrjTO^ Kai Kexujpia-
|uevr| TUJV aia0r)TUJV , ^avepov CK TUJV eiprjjuevujv. 6e6eiKTai
be Kai OTI |LieTe0o<; ou9ev exew evbexeTai TauTnv Tiqv ouaiav,
dXX' ajuepris Kai abiaipeTog ICTTIV.
'So we say that God is a living, everlasting, best Being;
life and perpetuity become Him, for such is the essence
of Deity. But those are mistaken who, with Speusippos
and the Pythagoreans, hold that the best and the most
beautiful exist not originally, since even with plants and
animals the beginnings are indeed causes, but the noble,
the complete is contained in what results from them. In
~SH 236 K~
error, for the seed comes from something earlier, something
perfect; the seed is not that which is first, but the perfect.
One may indeed say that man is earlier than the seed,
not the man who is born from the seed, but he from whom
the seed comes. From what has been said it is thus clear
that there exists an eternal, immovable Being, removed
from Sense. It has also been shown that this Being can
have no extension, but that it is inseparable and indi-
visible'.
Xenophanes, too, has left us those fine lines:
Ei$ 0e6$ Iv re GeoTcri KCU dvGpumoicn uefio~TO,
ou TI bejuas 9vr|ToTcri 6uoio$ ou&e vor|]ua.
Of gods and men one God alone is lord
Nor unto mortals like in form or word!
Nor must we forget that *X)\ is sometimes referred to
as c^l^A) <^^~~c cause of causes! And we have already had
occasion to notice the speculative tendencies of the Sufis.
The many monistic and subsumptive propensities of
our own century in theology are perhaps nowhere better
expressed than in Goethe's Faust. The man of culture
KdT 5 eHoxnv, he who was at once philosopher and poet, who
had scanned the whole horizon of the world of thought,
could not but leave his Confession of Faith.
Wer darf ihn nennen?
Und wer bekennen:
Ich glaub' ihn.
Wer empfinden
Und sich unterwinden
Zu sagen: ich glaub' ihn nicht?
Der Allumfasser,
Der Allerhalter,
Fasst und erhalt er nicht
Dich, mich, sich selbst?
-X 237 K~
"Wolbt sich der Hirninel nicht da drobeu?
Liegt die Erde nicht hierunten fest?
Und steigen freundlich blickend
Ewige Sterne nicht herauf?
Schau' ich nicht Aug' in Auge dir,
Und drangt nicht alles
Nach Haupt und Herzen dir,
Und webt in ewigem Geheimniss
Unsichtbar sichtbar neben dir?
Erfiill' davon dein Herz, so gross es ist,
Und wenn du ganz in dem Gefiihle selig bist,
Nenn' es dann, wie du willst,
Nenn's Gliick! Herz! Liebe! Gott!
Ich babe keinen Namen
Dafiir! Gefiihl ist alles;
Name ist Schall und Rauch
Umnebelnd Himmelsgluth.
Him who can name,
And who declaim:
I believe?
Who were afraid,
Yet could himself persuade
To say: I believe not?
The All-embracer,
The All-upholder,
Embraces, upholds He not
Thee, me, Himself?
Is not above bright Heaven's eternal dome?
And here on earth is not a steadfast home?
Mount not on high
The eternal stars of night
See I not eye in eye
Thine own most inner light?
-SH 238 K~
And does not all in thee
Press on toward Head and Heart,
And move in eternal secret
Around thee, about thee,
Within thee, without thee?
Thy spirit drink thereof unto her fill,
And in her flight of feeling, striving still,
Name it then as thou wilt:
Joy! Heart! Love! God!
No name have I for it!
Feeling is all:
Name is but echo and vapor
Enveloping heavenly fervor!
The deity thus discovered by Reason is a Principle
of Order, Unity of a Cause, a World- Will. Here we have
the Monon of philosophy, not the God of Religion. How,
asks the philosopher, can we venture to ascribe personality,
with all that it implies, to the Deity? The man of medi-
tation, the Jogi of East and West may perhaps find lonely
solace in an abstract, impersonal Unity, but the common
people, who heard the Master gladly, mankind at large
can worship no other than a personal God, a living Being
who can sustain relations with every human soul, who
possesses qualities which appeal to the noblest and ten-
derest susceptibilities of every human heart. Well does a
Persian poet exclaim:
'How can I know Thee who art beyond the vision of
reason? So concealed, Thou art the more revealed to the
eye of the heart. The world were an empty tablet but
that Thou hast written thereon Thy eternal thought. Of
thy divine poem the first word is Reason, and the last is
Man. And whoso shall trace the words from first to last
shall find them the unbroken series of Thy favors, the varied
names of Thy love.'
-2w 239 K~
Our enquiry has shown us how in all ages and in
many ways man has been stretching out his hands toward
the All-Father palmas ad sidera tendens!
'Es sagen's aller Orten
Alle Herzen unter dem hiinmlischen Tage,
Jecles in seiner Sprache.'
The dei sensus is there, and the individual soul (g'ivat-
rnan) is only man when conscious of the Over-Soul (Para-
matman). The Esis of our race will never find it hard to
believe that God is Spirit (TTveujuct 6 0eo$), but what we
all have to learn sufi and sophist, savant and seer is
the truth brought to light by Him who was hallowed and
sent into the world, that God is Love ('Ayanr! 6 Oeog),
living and undying Love!
'0 Oeos drfonrri ecttr KOU 6 ^leviuv Iv rf) orfotTrr), dv TLU
Oetu juevei, Kai 6 0e6^ Iv CCUTIJJ.
VOLUME II.
ETHICAL CONCEPTS.
CHAPTER I.
RIGHT AND WRONG IN CHINESE.
s representative of the Turanoscythian stock let
us take the Chinese. Now, it would almost seem
as though the Chinese, from time immemorial, had
been conscious of the privative nature of sin. Indeed, the
well-known saying of Augustine: 'Nemo de me quaerat
efficientem causam malae voluntatis; Non enim est efficiens
sed deficiens; quia nee ilia effectio est, sed defectio', might
have been written by Confucius himself. For, to the chinaman
Eight is Jg si Being, TO 6v, whilst Wrong is =J[i pe Not-
Being, TO (Lirj 6v. The established opinion is that, man is
by nature good and that it is only as he falls away from
the Tau Jff; the Path, the Norm, the \OYO?, that he becomes
bad. As Aau-zo in his Tai-M-tu says:
'All men have the rational principle of motion and rest,
but in motion they miss it. For originally men and things
possess altogether the Norm of the First Cause'. This,
too, is doubtless the meaning of Lau-zo in his classic of
Reason and Virtue, when he says (Tau-te-Kin: cap.
11. 9):
'Thus the saintly man does not become entangled in
the meshes of Not-Being'. In the proverb in which, out of
four words, three are radicals we have this truth in its
most terse form:
P & >fr ^ Ko "si, sm pe.
Literally, the mouth (saying) yes, the heart (meaning)
no, or, as we should say, 'in speech true, in thought false'.
We may attempt to realise Being in speech, whilst at the
same time our heart is set on Not-Being.
'To be or not to be, that is the question!'
It is only when, to quote another proverb, >jj p $p
sin tto gu ji 'the heart and the mouth are as one' that we
tread the Path of Being. jj is sometimes used in the
sense of fault, as in the saying: j^ J^ || jg ;Ml Q ^
Jtjan rin ji san wan tii po pe (when you) see a man (per-
form) one good (action), forget his hundred faults. S$ and
Pe in the general meaning of Bight and "Wrong are common
in such a phrase as J^ gij fEf J^ si ze jen si (if) right say
so > rJ H'J ~m $F PC zv J en fa &) wrong say so.
Having conceived wrong as a falling away from Being,
the modes of this declension have seemed to the dwellers
in the Flowery Land well-nigh infinite. No language is so
rich in ethical terminology as the Chinese.
Viewed as a transgression, a going beyond, Traptipacric;,
the expression for evil is in action Jg, pan, from the radical
3 ttjuan (94) 'dog' and in speech jg ~kwo, from the 162nd
radical ^Jc'o 'to go'. Thus we read: g ^ J J Jfil J |f) p
wan zo pan pa ju min Pun zwi when the king's son trans-
gresses the law, the guilt is the same (as it would be)
in the case of the people. And in the Lun-jli (Bk. vii.
Cap. 16.):
? tn Ai m * + JH * * W 1 % * Jft ^
^o ^*w: /c/a tt'o sw n/ew ww ^ i /yo 7? Jt'o i wu ta kwo i.
The Master said: 'If some years were added to my life,
I would give 50 to the study of the Ji, and then I might
come to be without great faults'.
But in order to gauge the concept of Evil in all its
forms we must compare it with the corresponding forms of
Good. For the law of relativity applies here as elsewhere,
giving us sense and countersense, thesis and antithesis,
positive and negative. TUJV evavriuuv, says Aristotle, irjv
aurriv eivat eTricrn'-]|unv. Omnis determinatio, says Spinoza,
est negatio. Or in the words of Hegel: 'Die Grundlage
aller Bestimmtheit ist die Negation. . . . Als seiende Be-
stimmtheit gegeniiber der in ihr enthaltenen, aber von ihr
unterschiedenen Negation ist die Qualitat Realitat'.
Now the opposite of Jg, pan is *, linn loyal, from
radical 61 >jj sin heart, and 41 Huh middle, to hit the
mark; and of $jjh kivo the antithesis is f^ hsin faithfulness,
from ^ rin man, the 9th radical, and fjf jan to speak.
In the 24th Chapter of the Lun-jii we meet with both
these words:
Hr & E9 f i ft & fe Zo i so lijo Wan Hiu Kun
Hsin. The Master taught four things: literature, ethics,
loyalty to truth and faithfulness.
Then sin is conceived as the 'missing of a mark',
djuapiia. Thus in the Sin Jii Kivan Hsun or Amplification
of the Sacred Edict we read (ix. 12):
ft BS $5t f , T& wu tau zuh zo Ui tijen: beware of
the sins of your unbridled instincts! or as M. Piry trans-
lates it 'Gardez-vous des errements de vos instincts de-
regies!' Jg tijen is from radical 61 >g sin heart and fff
jen overflowing, which is composed of the 144th radical
^7 Mn to act and *} swi water, so that the idea is: the
heart acting as water. Opposed to this is $ sit Reci-
procity, the word that was so often on the lips of Con-
fucius, from the same radical >gi sin 'heart' and in gu
'as', the heart being in equilibrium, acting harmoniously,
hitting the mark. Hence it is often used in conjunction
with ,, tiun loyal as *, $ Uun su faithful and benevolent.
When 30 Jmn asked Confucius whether there were one word
which might serve as a rule of practice for all one's life,
he said: g & ^ S J?f ^ft # jfc & A ^ * w lm: U so
pu jil ivu si jil Bin! 'Is not Reciprocity such a word?
What you do not want done to yourself, do not to others!'
Evil is also conceived as 'disobedience to a voice',
Trap(XKOr|. Thus we have the ethical antithesis: |M wu
VIS sin, both from the radical jan to speak, a voice.
Goodness, as obeying the voice, is the theme of Kau Zo's
T'ai Ki tu. 'Sincerity' (f$), we read, 'is the foundation
of the saintly man, the end. and beginning of things and
the norm of fate', which the Manlm translator has rendered
as follows:
|| Unenggi serengge, enduringge nijalmai pulehe, jaka-i
duben deribun, hesebun-i doro kai \\
As in Hebrew so also in Chinese sin is looked upon
as that which is crooked. For gi ngo wickedness, vice, is
composed of Jg ja 'two hunchback men looking at each
other' and radical 61 >jj* sin heart; a froward heart, a
stiif neck. Thus in the Analects we read:
* * . it * * m A
ku Til ju sen i : ivu ngo je.
'If the will be set on Goodness, there will be no practice
of vice!'
Not only is sen straightforwardness, benevolence,
opposed to 3g ngo, but also j| i righteousness, ^| san
virtue and ^ me excellence, which are all connected with
radical 123 ^ jan sheep, the type and trope of simplicity.
In the T'ai-Tti-tu we read of the 5 chief virtues, of
which sen and i are two, in connexion with the Jen and
the Jan:
'The heart of Heaven and Earth, nay, the principle of
humanity. Now, form arises from Jen and mind from Jan;
the nature of the five chief virtues is manifested by con-
tact with things: thus Jan is good and Jen bad'.
The heart of heaven and earth, the principle of
humanity, is the -fa /g tai-ln; the 5 fundamental rules of
conduct are: sen benevolence, j| i sincerity, jjjg li pro-
priety, ^ Hi wisdom, and ^ hsin faithfulness.
According to Kau-zo matter is earthly, spirit heavenly ;
as, therefore, matter belongs .to [^ Jen and spirit to [>J|
Jan, the former is the earthly whilst the latter is the
heavenly principle. Now, the Tai In is the resultant of
these two great forces, Good and Evil, Motion and Rest,
the earthly and the Heavenly, and is free only in so far
as it follows the Tau of Jan, the Path of Right; for, if it
abide in the way of Jen it is bound by the fetters of Sin,
it is caught in the tissues of Falsehood!
Finally, to the sons of Heaven (Tjan z'o) Evil has
seemed a Net which is spread by unseen hands to catch
the will that is weak. Alike in lore and language, in proverb
and in prayer we meet with fp zwi sin, crime, from radical
122 HO wan a net.
There is a celebrated passage in the Lun-ju (xx. 1. 3)
in which this word occurs. It is a prayer addressed to
God by T'an on his undertaking the overthrow of the Hia
dynasty, which he rehearses to his nobles and people, after
the completion of his work.
i A ' ; 'je- .**''"'*
Hivari liwan hau Ti, ju zwi pu kan se.
'0 most great and sovereign God, the sinner I dare not
pardon !'
The opposite of fp zwi is f* te Virtue, from ^ tii
a step, radical 60. The full meaning of the character is:
'the heart stepping out of the net'. With all his love of
virtue Confucius had to admit:
'It is all over! I have not seen one who loves Virtue as
he loves Beauty'.
a ^ s * i, F j *. fc . f ..*'*
Ki i 1m: ivu we kjan hau Te gu hau Se tie je.
CHAPTER II.
THE ETHICS OF EGYPTIANS AND HEBREWS.
As representing the Hamito-Semitic branch of the
Midlanders let us take Egyptian and Hebreiv.
By the Egyptians, as by the Chinese, the subtle enemy
Sin has been looked at from many points of view, to such
an extent, indeed, as well-nigh to hide the angel goodness.
As Trapdpacris, transgressio, a 'going beyond' it is
sen sin, ^ ^^ sen-n-t evil, from the root ** . r\ sen
AAAAAA I 3 - -*
to go beyond. Memphitic CGKI, CGIICCOM. Perhaps the most
AAAAAA ri
usual form is ^ I/ sonen. Thus (D. Temp. 1. 1.) in
^^- AAAAAA O
the temple of Dendera:
TF V ^$ & Sut'a-p Horse er Sonen
~s X- ___ I ,~-, ^-PY K
'TJL S <^_> I ea i-'L- ^^-i=:^-
'He keeps the lake of Horus from defilement'.
A peculiarly interesting view of Good and Evil in
Egyptian is that of an Afflatus, diabolical or divine. It is
a polar expression, both in sound and sense, a synthesis of
K * - n
thesis and antithesis. *~^ v\ ^^, nep-a, Memphitic IJOB-G,
^=s__ _ur^> ~^^
Basmuric IJAB-G sin; Jl ^^ ben Memphitic BCDN bad;
AAAAAA
AAAAAA Q ^^^^
^ $& n *P i m pi us ' enemy. I "~ =0= nep'-r, Sahidic uorq-e
Memphitic Ki-A-uorq good, useful. All these forms come
from the root "~ ZZU n&p, Sahidic and Memphitic ueq,
AAAAAA T
UHiq, Basmuric KIIB-I to blow, in the sense of clouds passing
over the sky, to be under a cloud, to be blown hither and
thither. For instance, (Abyd. Mar.)
Nepau Krotu liemi In tep 'The sins of the children who will
know nothing of their father'. According toBrugsch the funda-
mental meaning of ~T, {*/]_. is 'to arrive at the end';
'to complete' (perficere, perfectum esse). In a Stele at
Leiden we read:
tt A/VWVA r\ A
^^=^ zzzz * A/VAAA ^ Anil-sen em ma nepru-k.
i i i 1
'Their life consists in the contemplation of thy perfections'.
I nefer a) good (5) happy Y) beauteous.
AAA/SAA f\ I
Not infrequently ^ (I I &aw is opposed to T nefer, as
_
5w wo/er Jceper in bu ban "bona fuint mala".
Then wrong has been conceived as a 'sword' piercing
the heart and causing pain. JS 1 ' mak evil;
mah-a-s-u Coptic UAX-I a sword;
mek-s sceptre; C\ Y> ^ mds-u dagger; Sahidic UOK-?
JiP^- 1 v^ i JH I
pain. Hier. mes-h-u S. mek-h M. hem-k-o to afflict.
At the basis of all these words is the root Jw) *^ ^ _ /]
mdt'-d to cut, f and k being interchangeable, metathesized
in Memphitic KIU to strike.
To fall away from righteousness is to fall into sin r
hence a common view of evil is that of a declension, Trapd-
We meet with it in Egyptian.
^"^ Ku ^\^ d - ha fliW^ ^
Memphitic 20, T-?O, ?OOT, toor, Sahidic eo, Basmuric
2 AT; Somali: Jni-ma bad. Sahidic ?B-B-6 worse. ^ r ".
<m> T: ;-*'
her fear, horror; Demotic liair, Sahidic eAip-ei, Memphitic
?ujip-i excrement. 0^\^\O k\iu sin; all from the root
o V T! ^ lnm-a to decline, fall away.
X tl ^ I
1)
~3* 10 H~
Thus in Dihnichen's 'historische Inschriften' (II. 35)
we read:
5 <cz> Hu Umr tiuu 'preserve the Adyton
I I I C3 C-D O A Q
from uncleanness (sin)'.
In this short sentence we have the same root expressing
the opposite ideas of sacredness and defilement. Prof.
Bmgsch suggests that the fundamental meaning of J^ n
is 'to guard', 'to preserve', giving us holiness as that which
'keeps' us from evil, and sin as that from which we have
to be 'preserved'.
And in the Book of the Dead (125, 63):
wa em
kuu-nib. 'Yes, I have been washed clean from all sin'.
As we have seen, this is another instance of counter-
sense, of a polar root expressing both the rise and fall of
the moral consciousness. E. g. k'u is 'excellent',
'sacred'. Sahidic and Basmuric eox-e better. Demotic
holy. Thus:
IP) ! % <a "| Atu (nutr) nib ku em Bek.
ILdiJr I
'All the divine and sacred animals in the land of Bek'.
O2^>-?1l\l(3_3JYy L L i<jJirZ. Na-Jcdu-u daa ent tim
tern. 'The other animals which Egypt considers sacred'.
So strong, indeed, was this feeling of 'falling' with
primitive humanity, that there is perhaps no language which
has not thus conceived wrong.
Akin to this is the idea of 'going astray', of leaving
the straight path for the crooked. Many are the rami-
fications of this thought in Egyptian, to which the root
er crooked has given rise.
1 _ 1 t _ ) ^r-^ ker~ker, c-KOp-nep to roll;
->* 11 f<~
Sahidic KU-O-C ) .
iv r T.-X- circle;
Memphitic KOp-K-c J
Demotic and Sahidic Kcorp a ring <^> 1 1 tier-s to in-
volve, bury. A j?gr8 k l er-t'-a to fold.
(] ^ ^-^ fcer-au crooked ; [1 tter-d-t barrier.
The forms which have an ethical significance mostly come
from the metathesized form of the root.
<cz>-ri n f\ n
K^ I] v^ LA rdt-Qdu to curve, to swerve ; Coptic
A _E^- ] _zl ^
PAK, piK-e, peKpiK-6 a wink, a twinkling.
~v\ /\ re ^'" a ^ * urn awa 7 from; > | |l re ^
to be addicted to; Sahidic pOK-6.
(1 (1 / ^ rete-% bad, an enemy. Memphitic piK-i
transgression; A-piK-i fault.
" 1^> i "^ Jl -^ ^ re k- a( i u -t quarrel.
^^^ ^ er Sahidic O*OA, Basmuric O-AA lie, con-
cealment.
Thus, in an Inscription at Elkab (Gr. Ateflera's) we
read :
M f\ l~\ n AAAAAA ^_^^ /
\\ (j ^? . N. ~ AA^NA j Tot-d enten nen ~ker dm
-^T^> I ^*- ' '<H> AAAAAA I I I C^ii\
'In what I tell you there is no deceit'.
The corresponding virtue is represented by ^ (1 ^*-
1 r\
ma-t, dem. 4/ me-t, whereof the root-idea is 'to be
open, straight forward': it is the parent of such words as
truth, justice, uprightness.
^\ ^ her meter md-t 'having the witness of
H ) 1
truth'.
But sin is not only a going astray or speaking falsely,
it is sometimes doing an injury, and of this also the
12
I^rj n
\b\ \
J^S> -=4
k'ab-t to do an injury, we have:
J" ^^ Veb-n-ti iniquity; * ^ fc'ep-f Memphitic
sinner; jacoq-T sin; ^yojB-q to sin; JCB-A violence;
Sahidic KB-A to avenge; Demotic km-a to avenge. " %
x ^
' He gives life to the
virtuous but death to the corrupt'. (Melanges egyptologiques
III. p. 269.)
Opposed to the vice ttdb-t is the virtue mer g7\
Sahidic ue, Memphitic UAI, uenp-6; Basmuric UHI to love.
." ' ' ' ' '. s-^
~ Ar mer-d n Am on 'I was a friend
of Amon'.
Besides this view of evil as the perpetration of bodily
harm, there is the more subtle sense of sin as 'opposition
to truth', as 'violence to the categorical imperative'. This
is expressed in Egyptian by [1 \ ^^ seteb H 'V^ ! set'eb
evil, damage.
On the other hand, conformity to truth, fixity of ethical
purpose is " (1 (1 *"j tesfc, Bas'muric xici, Sahidic 2^1 ce, o^oc-e.
Memphitic (roc-i better, best. lJ\ I ^2 altitude, sublimitas.
Au pe sop a panp tesi
xai Tfjg aiuujv dperng (uefKJTOv uTrojuvniaa.
Then we meet with a conception of sin which is Egyp-
tian Hat 5 eSoxnv. It is that of the foul, the impure, the
tainted. ^\ ^ TV, K tata Sahidic TOB, TOSTOB; Mem-
Jk ' m. m ^
phitic eoieoi to stain, be stained. o ^= t'at Sahidic
[ _ 1 /\
A I v* 9\
^5^ t'ffttt enemy, impious
Demotic t'eti; Bas c muric 3:62:1; Sahidic XAXG; M.
t'a foul.
~$* 13 *-
The opposite of ta is afc to wash, to shine, to be pure.
X*^ and jj-^ 1 w tib ; M. OTAB B. ores pure,
1 JL III
orderly; S. oron to shine, purity, holiness. Memphitic:
BOTBOT to shine.
f*\
nib nop'ri db. lit. Things all good,
pure. 'Everything good and pure'.
As the Chinese, though not to the same extent, the
Egyptians were conscious of the privative nature of sin.
They saw that, if persisted in, it would lead to the ex-
tinction of all Being. Thus, from the root J -^^ Demotic
^-i-O ~"^" bet not to be, TO jnfj 6v, we get J ^^? bet
bad; Sahidic BUT abominable; B6T to wipe out, destroy;
BOT, qoT to be sick, abominate.
w 75 ^f= bet-n bad, enemy. M. BOT-C, BCOT-C to wage
A JS
war ; and in metathesized reduplication A A \\ tebteb,
Sahidic TGB-C to strike against.
Finally, there is a view of Good and Evil in Egyptian
which is highly remarkable, reminding us of the tree in
the Garden of Eden whereof Adam and Eve were forbidden
to eat. It is that of knowledge.
<2
M -
COJOTII, COT; S. COOT-KI, COOT; to know, to understand,
to enjoy.
IK y J ^ sau b to teach; M. CB-OJ science, S. to
learn.
sa; M. ctoq foul, impure; MM sai o----J-o sa S. CA
M. CAI, jaoT beautiful, worthy.
- 14 4*-
In an Inscription of Paher at El Kab we meet with
these remarkable words:
Rek'-kua Niiter mert Rein sa
i T -
'"*" k ave known God in the midst of men, and
c - tsu have enjoyed Him!'
The dwellers on the Nile also conceived the Bad as a
M 14 in
se /vwwx mm and the
clearness of heart and mind
M 14 in
disease /vwwx mm and the Good as perfect health, or
w^ A:'m aAf-t w? men-t 'He looks upon knowledge
as ignorance and upon the good as the bad' (pap. Prisse
17, 6).
Of all forms of ethical consciousness there is none so
deep, so inward and at the same time so far-reaching as
that of the Hebrews, the people of the G-eist, the people
of the Book. Sin and righteousness, G-ood and Evil apply
to Man only in so far as he is in touch with God. The
leading idea is that of Psalm li. 4:
^^g TJ'B? yi'7! "WaO ' 115V I 1 ?
dsit'i lenek'd vMra k'atdt'i Ibaddk'd Ik'd
'Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done evil
in Thy sight !' and of Psalm xxxi. 1 :
r^D /injrraa ttyyh n^ns-^ ^n^pn nin^i?
Btia Jliovdli k'dsit'i al-ebosali loldm bzidMt'k'd p'alteni.
'In Thee, o God, do I put my trust; let me never be
ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness!'
As Franz Delitzsch well observes : 'all relations in which
man stands to man, and indeed to creation generally, are
only phaenomenal forms of his fundamental relationship to
^M 15 f<~
God, and Sin ... is opposition to the will of God, of Him
who alone is the supreme lawgiver and judge'.
On the one hand we have the more or less passive
sins arising from man's fallen nature, from his weakness as
born of the dust. 'For He knoweth our frame, He re-
membereth that we are dust!' To this order belong fiN&n
Kattdt', rfy\y_ avldh, jn ra, f\% dvon and nj>1fl todli. On the
other there are the various forms of active wickedness ex-
pressed by y#B pesa, yt5h resa and n$N asmdh, 1JK aven,
n"Up mirmdh.
As we have already seen in the Psalm li. 4.:
fiNfcn, Arabic **^*- is 'the missing of a mark', djuapiia,
das Verfehlen des rechten Zieles, the conscious lack of the
divine Presence; from the root Nttf! to wander, to fail of
the end. Opposed to this sin of Godlessness is DPI, iWpfl,
DN3JJ tdm, tmimdh, tummim whole-heartedness, truth, per-
fection, from ]/DfcP\ whole, integer, insons, Arabic ? UJ>. Thus
in Genesis xvii. 1, we read:
D^n rprn ^b ^Vnnn ^ l ?"^
Ani el saddai: hit'halek' Ip'dnai v'ehjeh tdmim. 'I am
God almighty: walk before me and be thou perfect!'
Next to the sin of atheism and agnosticism comes that
of 'falling away' from God, TrapaTrrujua, which is expressed
by rfyy_ or b\% from |/"^5} to fall away. This is particularly
manifest in the 37th Psalm, where we have the striking
contrast between those who trust and delight themselves
in the Lord and such as bring about the forsaking of
Jahveh:
Al-tit'kar bammreim, al-tkanne lose avldh. 'Fret not
thyself because of evil-doers, Neither be thou envious against
such as work unrighteousness (or, effect backsliding)'.
The counterpart of avldh is ^ jasdr straitforwardness,
integrity, from y^t^; to make straight, to be equal. 'Good
~3* 16 HSr-
and upright', says the Psalmist, 'is the Lord : therefore will
he instruct sinners in the way'. Ps. xxv. 8.
sp^a D^tsn ni^ \3~by_ nirr i#;rai&
Tob v'jdsdr Jalweli, al-ken joreh ttattdwn baddrek. In
many respects 1t8h has had a similar development to the
Vedic ^RH.
We then come to the world-old antithesis of Good
and Evil as a state of mind, manifest in y*J Ra and 31tD tob
(Syriac &*% ^ 01 0- The former is from JJJJ1 Rdaa 'to break
in pieces', Arabic ^5^ so that the fundamental meaning
would seem to be 'iconoclasm'. Thus in Genesis iii. 5. we
read :
:jnj mo ^
Ki jode Eloliim hi Ijom aMlkem mimmenu vnip'kku
enekem vihjit'em Jcelolnm jode tob vdrd: 'For God knoweth
that in the day when ye shall eat thereof, your eyes shall
be open and ye shall be as God knowing Good and Evil',
And in that majestic passage in Isajah (xlv. 7) in which
the creation of Evil is ascribed to the Eternal Himself:
Jdzer or ubore koseti, oseli sdlom ubore rd. 'I form
the Light and create Darkness; I make Peace and create
Evil'.
Again in Solomon's beautiful prayer for an 'under-
standing heart':
'Give thy servant therefore an understanding heart
to judge thy people, that I may discern between good
and evil'.
Right and wrong are, moreover, conceived as 'the
crooked' and 'the straight' alike in the outer and the inner
world, in the realm of thought and the sphere of action.
~2* 17 f<~
For these concepts we have the words ]*ijj dvon and p"TO
^edteA; perversity and rectitude. Of the former we have a
notable instance in the opening words of the great prophet
(Isa. i. 4):
: narrate n^a D^ID jnt, flg 155 D^. t?n Ma in
#(n #M fc'6e, am kebed dvon, sera mreim, Mnim maskit'wi.
'Wo! sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, seed of
evildoers^ children that are corrupt!'
Here we have sin in its triple form, as k'et or kdttdif
the being estranged from God, as don or dvon crookedness,
turned from the Path, and rd evil-minded. Isajah speaks
with burning words to the heart of Israel that has become
corrupt. On the other hand, rectitude, straitforwardness,
righteousness is zedek, zddMh, Arabic : &.***> sddilt,
righteous; ^j^> sddek, to believe, as is peculiarly manifest
in the noble words and stirring tones of the Psalmist
(xxxvi. 7):
Zidkat'k'a kharre-el ^fcpYiro ^njn?
'Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God!'
nglfl todli impiety, defection from the Supreme, ( l/HJjri
aberravit) is the passive side of y$B pesa from y#! to
break faith. It is not only the breach of faith between
man and man Treubruch, of which Schiller so forcefully
speaks in his Burgscliaft that: 'Der Freund clem Freunde
gebrochen die Pflicht', as we read of Moab in its action
toward the people of Israel:
Vajipsa Modi bjisrdel: ^felSi n1 Vg^?!l
'And Moab acted faithlessly toward Israel'; but also
the rebelling against God. What saith the prophet Micah?
'Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, earth, and
all that therein is : and let the Lord God be witness against
you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the Lord
cometh forth out of his place, and will come down and
tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mouu-
H>< 18 re-
tains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be
cleft, as wax before the fire, as waters that are poured
down a steep place. For the faithlessness of Jacob is all
this, and for the sins of the House of Israel /'
Bpesa Jaakob Iwl sot' ubttattot' Mt' Jisrael.
Again, in Isajah (xliv. 22):
Mdb psaeka tfkeanau frattdi'efcd.
'I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy breaches of
faith, and, as a cloud, thy want of communion with me!'
Opposed to this Breach of Faith is ng emet' stability,
faith, truth, from |/")&K to be firm, stable, which gives us
also pDN truth, veracity.
Arabic: ^^M*-?. jainm right.
^T dmdn to believe.
^U_>\ emdn faith.
Thus, in the 37th Psalm we read (v. 3):
Btak laJhovah vaaseh tob, shan-erez ureh emundh.
'Trust in the Lord and do good: dwell in the land
and feed on faithfulness!'
Then we have sin in the form of 'taking pride in self-
sufficiency', having no sense of dependence on a Higher
Power, which is expressed by J?Kh resa or HJJBh risdh from
JJKh. Of the man guilty of this sin the psalmist gives us
a most vivid picture (x. 4):
Rasa hgobah apo bal-jidros en Eloh/im kol-msimmot'div.
'The wicked, in the pride of his countenance, (saith):
he will have no need. All his thoughts are: There is no
God!'
On the other hand, the man who is conscious of his
~$H 19 HS~
own weakness, who more than any other feels his need of
God, is "OJJ am the poor; a truth which was afterwards
to come in more simple and beautiful language and with
a far deeper meaning from the lips of the Master himself:
uampiot oi Tmuxor on ujueiepot ecFiiv f] pacriXeia roO 0eoO.
The Psalms speak thus of the am (cxl. 12):
D^b BBEto ^j> )^ nirp v ni^ps njn;
Jddaati ki-jaaseh Jahavah din am mispat ebjonim.
'I know that the Eternal will maintain the cause of
the needy, the right of the poor!'
A form of sin with which the Hebrews were not un-
familiar is that of HDID mirmdh fraud, deceit, from the
root tiff] ar. ^*j to throw; the idea being 'to throw off the
track'. Perhaps the most notable instance of this is the
deception practised upon his father by Jacob, whereby he
obtained Esau's blessing. In Genesis xxvii. 35 we read:
*jrois nj?i nia *pn to io s i
Vqjomer M fttiitid bmirmdh vajika'ti birkdt'etid.
'And he said: thy brother came with fraud and took
away thy blessing'.
Then we come to the sin of Omission, the leaving
undone, expressed by D^ dsdm or niptt^ asmali from
yvtfX asam, which is sometimes described as culpa de-
linquendo contracta. It survives in the Arabic JU'l. We
meet with it in the 69th Psalm (v. 5) and more particularly
in the Proverbs, where we read:
Evilim jaMz dsdm uben jsdrim rdzon.
'Fools make a mockery of guilt, but among the upright
there is goodwill'.
Nor must we overlook an ethical contrast which occurs
in that mine of moral antitheses the Proverbs, namely,
20 HJ~
nn t'ahpukdt' 'perverseness' from ^JSH to overturn,
and IT^n t'usijjdh 'uprightness', 'discretion', from n#J, ar.
,^2 'it was solid', to be real and substantial. Thus, in
the 8th Chapter we read:
jn ntoi? nirr nT
mo \i nj^rn, rreg ^
J^raf Jhovdli snot' Raa, geali tfgaon v'derek rda u-pi
t'ahpuJcot' sdnet'i. Li ezali v't'usijjah, Am vmah, U gvurah.
'The fear of the Eternal is to hate evil; pride, haughtiness
and the evil way, and the mouth of perverseness have I
hated. To me is counsel, is uprightness; I am. Under-
standing; to me is strength'.
Lastly, in the Book of Job we meet with two ex-
pressions in one verse which forcibly remind us of the
Chinese 3j and the Egyptian U : I mean the llth verse
of the llth chapter.
Ki-hu jddaa mt'e sdv vajar dven vlo jit'bdndn.
'For He knoweth men of vanity: he seeth wickedness
also, and shall He not consider?'
These words N]!# sdv and )JK dven show us that the
Semites, as Turanians and Harnites, were conscious that
sin is rather a defect than an effect, for the root of the
one is HN$ (ar. ^lS') defectus realitatis, inane; whilst that
of the other is pN which is a polar root meaning both 'to
be and not to be', its other form being fjtk or ]NK. Perhaps
the best rendering for both expressions is the word 'vanity',
emptiness, as we have it in the 10th Psalm (v. 7):
|| Alahpihu male umirmot' vdt'ok tatiat' I'sono dmdl vddven \\
'His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under
his tongue are mischief and vanity'.
In Arabic there are two forms expressive of good and
evil which . deserve careful consideration, namely, jU and
H3* 21 f~
f~>\. Both these words imply reflexion resulting in choice
on the part of the subject; in the former case it is that
of the right and the good, whilst in the latter there is the
distinct recognition of sin. One of the finest Surats of tlu;
Kurfin tells us how, in paradise, the faithful Moslem 'shall
not hear any vain discourse nor any charge of sin, but only
the salutation Peace! Peace!'
&&> l^\Uo j \j\ [ro] It^tf \f/ lyiJ L^ j^JT ^
s
|| La jisamiaivun p'lha lag wan wa la tat'iman; ilia
Itilun Saldmun Saldmun \\ (Ivi. vv. 24. 25.)
Again, in the Conclavia Medinensis (Surat xlix. 6) we
t)
meet with the expression ,J^jU pasilmn, the man of ^^
(/us 'deceit' and ^j^o mad' 'praise', the Sycophant, from the
root p'ask 'to act dishonorably'.
'Even if a tale-bearer come unto you with a message,
investigate it'.
In ga-am p'asikum bi-naba'in p'a-tabajjanu!
(O qui crediderunt), si venerit ad vos (aliquis) Sycophanta
cum nuntio, recte distinguite.
On the other hand, the man of probity (^sn^o) and
truth (,3ft*) is ^JLo salih. He it is who knows ^oJL^. k'dlisat
purity, and who is <^>x^o muhassab sincere. In him we
know the 'Traveller on the Path'.
Finally, in two very remarkable passages of the Kuran,
in which the 'possessors of a religious book' (Ehl Kitab)
are acknowledged as spiritual brethren, we have the clearest
statement of the ethical contrast:
Surat ii. 61.
->* 22 *-
'llad'ina dmanii va 'llad'ma hddu va 'nnasdrdh va
ssdbama man dmana billahi va Ijom il atiir va 'amila salihan,
pa lahum agirohum inda rdbbehim va Id gdp'um 'ale! dm va
Id hum jaksanun.
'Verily those who have believed (in the prophets) and
those who have become Jews, and the Christians and the
Sabeans, whosoever hath believed in God and the Last
Day, and hath done that ivhich is right, they shall have their
reward with their Lord and no fear upon them, neither
shall they grieve'. Marracci translates: Certe qui cre-
diderunt, et qui Judaei sunt, et Christiani et Sabaitae;
quisquis (ex his) crediderit in Deum et diem novissimum,
et fecerit rectum; erit ipsis merces sua apud Dominum
suum, neque tinior (erit) super eos, neque ipsi contris-
tabuntur.
Surat xxix. 46.
Va Id tugddiiu ahil alkitdb Hid Ulati lie atisanu, ilia
'llad'wa salamu minhum va kulu: Amannd bilad'i unsila
elaend va unsila elaeJmm va Elahond va Eldliolmm v'Ahadun,
va natinu lahu Muslimun!
'Dispute not with the people of the Book (Christians
and Jews) unless in the kindliest manner, except with such
of them as deal evilly, and say ye: "we believe in that which
has been sent down unto us (the Kuran) and in that which
has been sent down unto you (the Old and New Testaments),
and our God and your God is One, and to Him are we
self-surrendered (resigned or Muslims)".'
According to Marracci: Et ne disputetis cum familia
Libri (i. cum Judaeis et Christianis) nisi cum eo, quod est
pulcherriniuin (i. verbis humanis, hortando eos ad religionem
~>r 23 <-
vestram) exceptia illis, qui iniqui fuerint ex eis (contra vos:
cum his enim non verbis sed gladio disputandum est). Et
dicite: Credimus in illud, quod dcinissum fuit ad nos (id est
Alcoranuni) et (in id, quod) demissum fuit ad vos (id est
Pentateuclmm et Evangelium), et Deus noster et Deus vester
unus est et nos sumus ei devoti.
Thus the antithesis is that of ^JLo and ? \Ui or the
Path of Light and the Way of Darkness. ^ jo
Those who deviate from the right path.
CHAPTER III.
ARYAN VIEWS OF VIRTUE AND VICE.
We now come to our own race, the Aryan, and here,
though we take Sanskrit as a basis, we shall feel at liberty
to adduce evidence from nearly all the various members
of the Indo-European family of speech.
In the Bg-Veda we meet with two concepts of Sin
which seem to be peculiar to ourselves, so that he who
would read the riddles of the race must know how to
consult the oracles of the living word: ?m ago, or 3r&3
anhas 'the throttler', 'the garotter'; and ^rer enas 'the eom-
peller', 'the oppressor'. Such a view of evil is highly in-
structive and has taken deep root in the Aryan con-
sciousness, as may be seen from the following list of
cognates:
. n. ANH i/~5jrer, nasalised ^ 'to press close together'.
Sanskrt: aya sin, evil. anJi-as, anli-a-tis sin, anxiety.
anh-u-s oppression, narrow.
Send: ag-a bad, hurtful, ag-ra tormenting, evil; Agro-
Mainjus the Evil-Minded, Ahriman. ds-ag com-
pression, anxiety, sin.
~5* 24 H~
Ecdes. Slavic : as-iJm narrow.
Lithuanian: ank-szta-s narrow.
Russian: us-hii narrow, small, us-a band, chain.
Greek: d'x-o$ anxiety, sorrow, d'x-6-oq burden, d'x-o-ucu
I am worried. (Tfx-w I strangle. dyx-ovr)
hanging, dyx-i near.
Latin : eg-e-o. ind-ig-e-o. eg-enu-s. ang-o. ang-us-tu-s. ang-or.
ang-ma. Ang-itia. anxiu-s.
Gothic: og I am frightened, ag-is fear. . aggv-ja I shut
in. aggv-u-s narrow.
Oldhigh German: Ang-u-st anxiety.
Modern German: Ang-st. Eng. Be-eng-ung.
Norsk: Eng meadow.
In Rgveda viii. 18. 6 7 we read:
TOOT i ^rfefn:
THH g^r: HTf""^rr n c n
Aditih nah diva pasum, Aditih nahtam advajdh:
Aditih patu anhasah sadd-vrd f d.
'May Aditi by day protect our cattle; may she, who
never deceives, protect by night; may she, with steady in-
crease, protect us from evil!'
Here we have Aditi in her moral character. Sin being
once conceived as an ever-tightening collar, a bond or a
chain, we can easily understand the transition from the
purely cosmical conception of A-diti the unbound, or un-
bounded, the Infinite, to the ethical view of a goddess who
unbinds, who is best fitted to remove the fetters of sin
and misery.
Still more definite and pronounced is this sense of sin
in the Avesta. Thus the tenth Ha of the Jasna (xvii. 53)
tells us how the Haomas are held by the 'gorges' and
'bands' ol the evil genii, the Gainis or ganajo, those deadly
woman-heads which were 'born' unto sin.
25
> .
Haoma upa staomi
JadJc'id laresnusva gairindm
Jadfid gdpnusva raondm f
Jaek'id dsahu deretdonho Gainindm upa deresdhu.
Jasna x. 53.
'I praise all the Haomas which are on the tops of the
mountains and in the depths of the valleys and which are
held in the gorges and clutches of the evil ones!'
Prof. Spiegel translates:
'Alle Haomas preise ich, welche auf den Gipfeln der
Berge und in den Schliinden der Thaler sich befinden und
welche gehalten sind in den Engpassen, in den Banden der
Jainis'.
Thus *inN[ and V*JA^ show us Sin as the serpent which
coils itself about us until it has utterly destroyed the divine
image in man, until it has choked the 'stream of tendency
which makes for righteousness'. It is the story of Laokoon
applied to humanity.
There is a striking passage in Rgveda v. 3. 7 where
agas, enas and ago, are all found together.
iff ^T sjrntf wr ^1 wnrn' wte *JTCW ^EHR? OTirr n c u
Jo na ago ab'j end b'ardtj ad'id agam agasanse dad'dta.
'Whoever brings wrong and sin upon us, lays evil upon
him who thinketh evil'.
Speaking generally, agas is used in a more subjective
sense than enas ( jAn), the latter almost always occurring
in conjunction with krtam, as the sin committed. Nor is
this to be wondered at, since the radical idea of the former
is 'to wander from the Path' l/'jnr. In the Avesta we meet
with the form A>A>, the Persian ^bT]
Opposed to these ideas of evil are the forms of good
spdnag, w[ faldra, srfa sila and mjm prasaya.
-*4 26 H~
The first is from the root f*>^ span, to increase, which
is an expansion of the yO su, Skt. H to bring forth, so
that the order of ideas would seem to be: to produce, to
further, to be good and useful, to be holy. In the Avesta
the word ^W>^>^Q)A> spenta is always opposed to A)7y,u agra;
Agro Mainjus the Bad Mind, the Devil,
Aj Spenta Mainju the Good Mind, God.
mdt e ra spenta the sacred Word, Holy
Writ. Spenta sacred, spanjag more sacred, spenista most
holy. Thus, in the ninth book of the Jasna we read in
praise of the genius of the sacred plant (73):
ffaomo taek'id joi katajo Nasko-p'rasaogo aogenti spdnem
masttmk'a batisaiti.
'Haoma gives to those who as householders recite the
Naskas, greatness, holiness and wisdom'.
*T^ is one of the most interesting of all ethical con-
cepts. It comes from the root w^|, which is an extension
of the root wr to shine, to radiate, Sd. -^ , giving us
AJ^AV^ much, the crescive participle, and the superlative
^W)M>j^Au^ mostly, in the best way. For us, however, its
peculiar interest is the fact that, it has become in English
a polar word, expressing both good and evil. Nay, this
has even come to pass in Hindustani, where skt. w?f 'good'
has become ^ jo badi 'evil', and in Persian jo bad wicked ;
fl>\ ^MLorL. jo most vicious of mankind.
In the D'ammapadam we find the contrast papo V
b'adro. Thus (vv. 119, 120. Papavaggo navarno):
Papo pi passati ba c dram, Java papani na pak'k'ati,
Jada k'a pak'k'ati papani, at c a papo papani passati.
B'adro pi passati papam, Java b c adram na pak'k'ati,
Jada k'a pak'k'ati b'adram, at c a b f adro b c adrani passati.
->* 27 *<-
Improbus bonum videt, quaindiu malefactum non matu-
ivscit; ubi vero maturescit malefactum, turn mala videt.
Probus malum videt, quamcliu bonum non maturescit ubi
vero bonum maturescit, turn bona videt.
Gothic: BJ\T-S good, BJVTIZJV better, B^TISTS best.
Ays.: bee good, becepa better, becj-c best.
Ohy.: baz good, beeiro melior, bezisto optimus.
Eng.: bad, malus, better melior, best optimus.
Irish: badb-acli great, good; feodh-as better.
In the Hitopadesa, for instance, we read (Mitr. 4):
i vjjT IT *& T usuifa i
B'adram idam na pasjami.
'I do not see that this is good'.
Dr. Biihler informs us that the ancient royal title
I'adramuk'a 'of pleasing or gracious countenance' is found
in the Western Ksatrapa Svami-Rudrasena, where it is
applied to the three kings Rudradaman, Rudrasimha and
Rudrasena. It is the oldest document in which this rare
word occurs, belonging to the end either of the first or of
the second century A. D.
Thus in Firdusi's Sahnamah we read:
'Manifestum fiat illis arcanum meum; in omni bono et
malo socii mei sunt'.
The root-idea of sfta is exactly that of xapcxKirip, for
the root sjta meaning amongst other things 'to make', 'to
prepare' is an expansion of for to sharpen, 'to make an im-
pression'. XapaKTrjp ev TUTTOI^ TT7T\r)KTCU. (xapacrcriu.) It
may be rendered 'nature', 'habit', 'disposition', but always
in a good sense. With the preposition ^ we may translate
it 'good-tempered'. In combination with cTarma it means
'versed in' or 'addicted to' Law or Religion. Thus in
Mahab'drata 79:
s* 28 HS~
JTJT cfT JT%VlJf cTT II CS II
punard'armastlasja mama vd madvid'asja vd.
'Who, again, is so religiously-disposed as I, or can be
compared to me?'
trenEB and V&RZ prasasja and prakrsta from the roots
sm 'to praise' and sra 'to stand out' in the sense of un-
conscious excellence are more particularly opposed to
We now come to the important antithesis TTTU V
papa V punja Vice and Virtue. These words play a
leading part in the drama of the Aryan ethical con-
sciousness, and are to be met with more especially in the
celebrated Budd'ist work D'ainmapadam. The root of the
former is uncertain, but in all probability it is SFfeF which
has given us the Greek K(XK-6g, xdKK-n, the Latin caco and
the Lithuanian szik-u, the idea being that of 'dirt', 'filth'.
That the labial and guttural tenues interchange is a funda-
mental fact in Aryan phonetics. On the other hand, jnw
is from lAHff which is an expansion of j/g 'to purify', a
root underlying the Greek Tiotvri, of-iroiva, and the Latin
poe-na, pu-n-io, poe-nitet. Let us begin with the Upanis'ads.
At the end of the Talavakara or Kena Upanisad we
read :
t cTT Sf
ufdTrf&dFrf II 3J II
Jo va etam evam veda apaliatja papmdnam anante
svarge lokegjeje pratitistati, pratitistati.
'He who knows what has been set forth above, being
delivered from his sins, obtains an everlasting joy in the
heavenly mansions!'
In the B c agavad-Gita the word punja is used of Krs'na,
who says : 'I am the pure odor in the earth and the splendor
in the flame' (xii. 9):
ircnff TTO: "jFvuctii g H^IVW 'for fswicni i
Punjo gand'ah prt'ivjdm k'a tegask'a 'smi viMvasdu.
H3H 29 f<~
Of the true B'iksu we read in the D'ammapadam that,
it is not 'he who begs* but the religious man who, 'above
and away from the good and the bad, lives considerately
in the world'.
|| Jo d c a pimnan k'a pdpan k'a Mlietvd brahmak'arijavd
Samk'dja lohe Itarati, sa ve B'ikk'u ti vuk'k'ati. \\
D c mm. 19. cclxvii.
Qui hie, bono maloque alienato, religiosus considerate
in mundo vivit, is profecto Ifikttus appellatur.
Again :
|| 17. Id'a tappati, pek'k'a tappati
papakari, ub c ajatt c a tappati;
'Papam me katan' ti tappati,
b'ijjo tappati duggatim gato.
18. Id c a nandati, pek'k'a nandati
katapunno, ub'ajatt'a nandati;
'punnam me katan' ti nandati:
b'ijjo nandati suggatim gato. ||
In hoc aevo cruciatur, morte obita cruciatur malum
patrans, utrobique cruciatur; "malum a me peractum", ita
(cogitans) cruciatur, magis cruciatur tartar um ingressus.
In hoc aevo gaudet, morte obita gaudet qui bonum per-
fecit, utrobique gaudet; "bonum a me peractum", ita
(cogitans) gaudet, magis gaudet coelum ingressus.
Gogerly translates: 'The sinner suffers in this world,
and he will suffer in the next world. In both worlds he
suffers; he suffers, knowing sin has been committed by
me ; and dreadfully will he suffer in the regions of torment'.
'The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he will
be happy in the next world. In both worlds he is happy;
he is happy, knowing I have acted virtuously, and greatly
will he rejoice in heaven'.
A painfully prolific root in Sanskrit is gij 'to corrupt,
vitiate', which gives us gjhr vice, blemish, sin; ^iscreiff?
du'sprdkrti 'of an evil disposition'; S^RH and ^r? duskrta
and durvrtta wicked, criminal.
30
Pandite k'a gunah sarve murk'e dosdsk'a kevalam \
Tasmdnmurk'asahasresu prdgna eko visisjate \\
'And in a learned man are all excellent qualities; but
in a blockhead faults (or blemishes) only. Hence, amongst
thousands of fools, one wise man is distinguished'.
In the Avesta, too, we find the expression dusvarsta
*>feMAud&3 used in the sense of 'wrong-doing', 'sin'. Thus
the Haoma worshipper says (Jasna x. 48):
Hvar stake ahmi dusvarstalw noid ahmi.
'I am of those who do right, and do not belong to
those who do wrong'.
As a prefix dus is opposed to su (Sd.: dus V Jiu) and
appears in Persian as dus, GT.: 6ucr-, Gothic: tus-, Old
High German: zur- and Modern High German: zer-, Skt.
Dur-manas = Sd.: dus-manag = Gk.: 6u^-juevr|<;. With gtf
is connected Yfyx to hate, so that we have afa sin, gu
hatred. In Greek we have 3 06ucr-eu-?; ajbucrin; obucrcrd-
juevog hating.
Of the Brahmak'arin to whom one may impart the
secret of Vedanta it is said:
fyasdntak'ittdja gitendrijdja k'a praliinadosdja jat'okta-
kdrine.
'Whose mind is at rest, who has his organs under
control, whose sin has disappeared, and who acts according
to command'.
Opposed to this root is I^TVJ to cleanse, to purify. The
derivatives are particularly interesting and worthy of study.
Skt.: *ra sud c , sud'-ja-mi lustror, sudd'i puritas.
-* 31 HS-
Gh.: Ka0-ccp6-q pure, Ka9-apo~i purification, expiation,
KacrraXia.
Lat.: cas-tu-s for cad-tu-s pure.
JRuss.: qiicToia cleanliness, HHC-THH pure.
Kro. : cis-toca
cleanliness. Eels.: cis-tu pure.
Pol. : czys-tosc
Boll. : cis-tota
Olig.: lieit-ar innocent, happy.
Ir.: cuidli clean, pure.
Litli.: czys~ta-s pure.
N. 8. 18.
Na hi me sud'jate b'dvdh.
'Verily, my disposition is not purified'.
MctKdpioi oi KaOapoi rrj KapMa, on auioi TOV 0eov
6'lpOVTCU.
BjiaHiemiBi HIICTHG cepAUGMt; n6o OHH Bora yapnTx.
Blalioslaveni cistelio srdce; nebo oni Boha videti budou.
Btogoslawieni czystego serca; albowiem oni Boga
ogladaj%.
Blago onim, koji su cistoga srca jer ce Boga vidjeti.
The well-known forms SH and ?n^rT TO 6v and TO |ur|
6v Being and Not-Being, Good and Evil, show us that the
generalisation of the Aryans coincides with that of the
Hamites, Semites and Turanians. In Persian >^ U $ >^>
have also the sense of riches and poverty.
As we saw at the outset of our enquiry, the root *HH
to breathe, to be, from which come HH and sjrerf has been
prolific of ethical terminology. Thus we have ^rfx true;
HH4HI truth; SrcT mind conscious of itself; tJr^K worship.
In Hindustani 1^.1 is still used for 'good'. E. g.: \^J <*o
^yb l4yk.\ ^^i ^\ Jili larM us se atilta liai 'this boy is
better than that'. U^J x^ * ^> Sab larkon se aJcltd-
'best of all the boys'.
~* 32 H~
The concepts Being and Not-Being, Right and Wrong
have long been familiar to the Hindus. There are several
very remarkable passages in the Rgveda and in the
Upanisads in which these words occur. Thus we read
(Rgv. x. 5, 7.):-
^ i Hri ^ i trcir i fe
Asat tta sat Ua parame vi-oman daldasja yanman,
Aditeli upa-st e e.
'Not Being and Being, Right and Wrong are in the
highest heaven, in the birthplace of force, in the lap of
the Infinite!'
s^r^f gfr HOT **WTT: SH ^rarrarT n Rv. x. 72. 3.
Devanam juge prat'ame asatah sat agdjata.
'In the first age of the gods Being (Right) was born
from Not-Being (Wrong)'.
But the most celebrated passage occurs in the Creation-
Hymn ascribed to Pragapati Paramest'in (Rv. 10. 129):
^T SlUfT iniqlri *ft ^fir ^TH 'Hi^rT HTR 1 ^ II
Na asat dsit no iti sat astt tadamm.
'When Time was born, was neither Is nor Is-Not,
Right nor Wrong!'
In the sixth prapat'aka of the Kandogja Upanisad we
find Uddalaka discoursing to his son Svetaketu about the
origin of Sat and Asat:
Sat eva idam agre asit, ekam eva advitijam.
'In the beginning there was that only which Is (Right) :
one only, without a second'.
The father continues: 'Others say, in the beginning
there was that only which is not (wrong) : one only, without
a second, and from that which is not, that which is was
-SH 33 HS~
born. But how could it be thus, my clear? How could
that which is, be born of that which is not? No, my dear,
only that which is, was in the beginning: one only, without
a second'.
Like the Egyptians and Chinese the Aryans are fully
conscious of the crookedness of Evil; that sin is a deviation
from the straight and narrow path. Hence the contrast
^R5T Rgu straight, upright; ^foR vrgina crookedness, sin.
E. g. in Bgveda 4, 1, 17 we read how Surja, the undying,
looks down upon the right and the wrong (straight and
crooked) amongst mortals.
^iT |ro: ^HJ (tuari sjrarR ^RSJ JRHTJ <^HjMi ^F USIR M
A surjah brhatah tisfat agran rgu martesu vrgina Ha
pasjan.
These words and ideas are specially interesting and
important because they are radically and conceptually
connected with our own words right and wrong. In order
to fully gauge the concepts we shall do well to take note
of the cognate words.
YARG. YRAG. to attain.
Skt.: SJRT ^iftr arg-a-mi I acquire; 5K5JS rgus right,
straight, upright; iiHri^ rdgis row, line; 5&5W
Rg-ra-s Leader.
Sd.: >$? eresu straight, right, upright. As subst. 'finger.'
Gh.: 6peT-uj, 6peY-vu-)ui I reach, stretch; 6piY-vd-o-jaai
I stretch myself, attain; 6pef-|ucx, opeHi-? a stretch;
op-find a clasp, a grasp.
Lat.: reg-o } e-rig-o } por-rig-o, rogu-s, recAu-s, rex.
Goth.: J^JVKQJVH rak-jan to stretch, reach; ^jMlrrs raih-t-s
straight, right.
Ags.: paecan to reach; piht right.
~3M 34 H$~
Dan.: Ret law.
Reichen 'to reach' ; Recht 'right'; rich-t-ig 'correct';
Ge-richt 'judgment'; Rich-t-er 'judge'.
Reach; rack; right; right-eousness.
yVARG- to turn away.
Skt.: CRT ^iijf^u vr-n-a-g-mi I keep off, exclude; $RTW
vraga-s cowpen; ^5R vrg-ana crookedness, sin;
3%TO vrg-ina-s evil.
6rfr.: /epY' eipT-vu-jmi, eipT-w I shut in, detain; eipY-Mo-
imprisonment; eipx-iri prison; AUKOOPYO-<;.
Lat. : urg- urg-e-o (= varg-ja-mi); ex-urg-e-o.
Goth.: y^iK- yj<.iR-j\H to follow up, persecute; yj<j\Kj\
vrak-a persecution; yjuirra vrung-o trap, crook-
edness, transgression.
Ags.: pnac- pjiacan wrac-an, pjiaecca wraec-c-a.
Ecds.: OJJJbfflfe' lLDIb(fl%b& vrag-u inimicus.
Lith.: RepsK* Kepmio vers-ju I urge, bind.
Eng.i wrek- wreck; wrong.
Norsk.: vrag' 'vrang wrong'; en vrang Strampe a stocking
turned inside out.
Shakespere in his King Henry VI makes Talbot
exclaim:
'And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave.
Now Salisbury! for thee, and for the right
Of English Henry, shall this night appear
How much in duty I am bound to both'.
In Julius Caesar (Act III, Sc. I) the great Roman
says to Cimber:
'Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied'.
-^ 35 H$~
An allied concept is that of ^RrT rta the right, the
orderly,, the true; from J/SR r to go, to strive, to fix. Thus
we read (Rgv. x, 133, 6):
Rtasja nak pat* a naja ati visvdni duh-itd.
'Lead us (0 Indra) on the right path over all evils'.
Varuna, Mitra and Arjaman are described as rtasprsah
upholding the Right, and the gods generally are said to
delight in Rta and to hate Anrta (Rgv. v. 67. 4; vi. 52. 10;
vii. 66. 13):
H % Hf&Ti WTJWSIi ^RrTJcTRt 5RJ3R I
Te In satjah rta-sprsah rta-vdnah gane-gane.
Visve devah Bta-vrd'ah Rtu-Wi
g TO: ii RO ii
havana-srutah gusamtdm jugjam pajah
Rta-vdnah Rta-ydtdh Rta-vrtfali
gordsah Anrta-dvisali.
In VasisiVs hymn to Yaruna anrta is used in the
sense of 'all evil'.
Svapnah Kana it Anrtasja pra-jotd.
'Even sleep does not remove all evil'. vii. 86. 6.
Herr Geldner translates: 'Sogar der Traum verschliesst
sich nicht dem Unrecht'.
In the Avesta we find A>^A> ? which is the old Bactrian
form of ^RH, used in the sense of Cosmic Order, of KOCTJUO^
as opposed to xS; /^^^^ 'belonging to the holy, well-
ordered Creation' =
-3M 36 HS~
Of the most powerful Drug whom Agra-Mainjus is
said to have created we read that, she destroyed the Right,
the harmony of the world:
Jaw asaogastemam Drugim fratia Kerentad Agro
Mainjus aoi jam astvaitim gaetdm mahrMi asahe gaetanam.
'"Whom Agra Mainjus had created as, in the bodied
world, the most powerful Drug, for the destruction of
Righteousness in the world; i. e. to stamp out the divine
World-Order'. Jasna ix, 27.
And here we are reminded that the Drug of the
Avesta is but the personification of a common Aryan con-
cept of sin. The ancient Rsi Vasist'a in his prayer to
Varuna exclaims:
5T *n ?&cr in
Ava drugd'ani pitrjd srga nah ava jd vajam tiakrma
tanutfih. ?gv. vii, 86, 5.
'Forgive the sins of our fathers and what we have
done with (our own) bodies!'
The evolution of this thought of evil seems to be a) to
hurt p) to be at enmity f) to cheat.
YDEUO.
Skt: tt druh to be harmful; 37\-j drugd'a offence, sin.
VJ V V5
Sd.: ^>*^3 drug to cheat, deceive; name of a class of
female demons, xj/xiy-fj^^ drugim-vana slaying
the Drugas.
Pers.: ^> durtig evil.
-^ 37 f<-
Ohg.: trug' triug-an to deceive; trug-u-mes we cheated.
On.: draugr ghost.
Mlig.: triig-en to cheat; Trug deception.
Welsh: dnvg offence.
Irish: droch evil.
In the oldest of the Gat'as, that known as Ahuna-
vaiti, we read how, at the beginning of the world, there
existed the heavenly twins, the Good and the Bad in
thought, in word and deed; how, when man appeared upon
the scene, some chose the former, others the latter, ranging
themselves respectively on the side of Ahura Masda and
Agra-Mainjus. And there is an interesting passage in this
Gat' a in which the crooked and deceitful Drugas are said
to be given over into the hands of Asa, the upright,
the pure.
AdJcd jadd aesdm Itaena gamaiil aenagdm ad Masdd
taeibjo Ksat'rem Vohu Managd voividdite aeibjo sasffi Ahurd
joi Asdi Kaden sastajo Drugem. Jasna xxx. 8.
'When punishment overtakes those doers of evil, then,
o Masda Ahura, the Kingdom will come, through Vohu
Mano and the Doctrine, to those who decide for thee and
who deliver the Drug'as into Asa's hands'.
But the Avestic ethical contrast KCIT' eSoxnv is ivt^v V
^3-w Vaga-Aka, The noble and the Base. We have here
a conception of Good and Evil thoroughly Aryan though
worked out only by the Parsis. Nowhere in the Veda do
we find such a development of srcr and
38
yVAS to dwell, abide. VAK to writhe.
Skt: cw to dwell; cw vasu VGR tortuose ire;
riches; cn^cf vds-tu ^K ak-a sin, affliction.
o
house ; di^Houu vd-
stavja-s oixeiog.
Sd.: ex^A>o to abide; o$M9 A>JA) a/ca base, bad.
vagu beautiful, good,
noble; AJ
gana goodness, ex-
cellence.
Vahuka.
Pv.: *$- veh good.
Pers.: ao bah good. dJ\ a-/c evil.
Ok.: /a^. d'o"Tu (for /datu) City; dcneio-g civic; d
citizen.
GotJi.: yisj\N vis-an to be (vas, vesum, visans); ga-visan
to abide; vists essence, nature; vis stillness.
Goth 'ist unsis her visan 'it is good for us to
be here.'
Ags.: pej-an wes-an to be.
Id.: ver^. Mhg.: Wesen, war. Eng.i Was.
Skt.: vasu, vasjas, vasista = Sd.: vagu, vagag, vahista.
As an ethical expression vagu is most commonly used
in connexion with the two Ames a spentas Asa the most
noble and Mano the good. .MK>**JVZ\)[? ,A)^A) Asa vahista,
.ex>^A)/Aj? )ox)^9 Vohu Manag. Opposed to the latter is
V/AW .^AJ Akem Mano Bad Mind, the arch-demon;
V/AJ .$toM3jjA> AMstem Mano the Worst Mind, Agra
Mainjus himself.
H>4 39 f<r-
The radical antithesis is thus conceived as Rest V
Motion. Goodness is that which abides, Evil is full of a
tortuous, snake-like activity.
We may take a strophe from the 30th Ha of the Jasna,
which forms part of the Gtit'a Ahunavaiti, as the best
textual illustration :
OJOUJ .AX)vXV> .AWuO .V\JJ) r \)ijA) .>JJJA>e .AX)K> .\>AJ
\ \ e^ojx
. iv J o
^.d ta Mainju paouruje jd jemd kafna asrvdtem ma-
nahitta vatialiiltd sljaot'anoi M vahjo alt emit & ajaoslla,
huddogo eres visjdtd noid du$ddogo.
'These two heavenly beings, the twins, were the first
to be heard, namely, the Noble and the Base in thought,
word and work. Of these rightly chose the wise, not so
the unwise!'
'Violation of the categorical imperative' is perhaps the
truest rendering of the Sanskrit ftm himsd from the root
ftrH hints, primarily to kill, injure; then to violate, offend.
It is action contrary to \nJ, whereby the moral sense is
injured. On the other hand, ?wfiHT ahimsd is the perfection
of \w. As with the metaphysical antithesis between Brah-
man and Samsara, between phaenoniena and the Thing-
in-itself, so here in immediate connexion we have the
ethical contrast between denial and affirmation.
TOT tRfw n
'Harmlessness or the-denial-of-the- Will-to-life is the
highest Duty, the most excellent way, the supreme Joy,
the noblest thought!'
Or as we have it in the beautiful language of the
B'agavad-Gita:
-&4 40
^ .
VTrTg
fff *Tc
f fdUtfUlrHHIr44M rfrft
In all things dwells the Lord supreme,
Undying, when they cease to be.
Whoso can look beyond the dream
And know Him he indeed can see:
The Self within he cannot wrong,
But treads the Path serene and strong!
A characteristic thought of good and evil is that of
the gay and the grave, the bright and the blurred. In
the well-known Indian maxim: sjrasw ^sr wfooir tt ^fw
sprsiWT 'The fruit of every action good or bad is of
necessity to be eaten'; we have the compound sub'asutfct
from YSU!} to shine, be gay, and a privative.
In ^jPHdtU, from ykram to step, and ati beyond, we
have the familiar view expressed in Ttapdpacri? and trans-
gressio, more particularly as the overstepping or going
beyond a law. 'Peccare', says Cicero 'est tanquam tran-
silire lineas', but for the full significance of the conception
we must listen to St. Paul:
CN 0$ ev VOJLIUJ Kccuxacrai, bid rfjq irapapdcreujg ToO vojuou
TOV 0eov cmudEeis;
Qui in lege gloriaris, per legis transgressionem Deum
ignominia afficis ? Rom. ii. 23.
Kai J A6djLi OUK r)mnr|0)r n be T^vrj dTraTnGeTaa , ev
rrapapdcrei TeTOve*
Adam non est seductus; mulier autem seducta, in
transgressione fuit. 1 Tim. ii. 14.
But sin is not only the transgressing of a law or line;
it is sometimes the non-observance of a law dvojuia,
irapavojuia. The Stoics defined sin as VOJLIOU
~J* 41 HS-
and St. Augustine well said that it was 'factum vel dictum
vel concupitum aliquid contra aeternam legem.'
Kai rote dTTOKaXuqpencreTai 6 d'vo|uo<;, 6v 6 Kupio? dva-
Xujcrei TUJ 7rvetj|uaTi TOU (TTojuaioq auiou, Kai KarapYn^ei TT)
emcpaveia ing Trapouaias auroO. 2 Thess. ii. 8.
By 6 dfvojaoq St. Paul here means 6 d'vGpuuTros ifjs
djuapTias, 6 uiog Tfjg dinjuXeiaq.
TTapdTTTiujua sin as 'falling away' is not found in clas-
sical Greek, but is familiar to us in the writings of
St. Paul. Its Sanskrit equivalent urneR ( Ypat TTGT) is used
in the sense of crime both in the B'agavad-Gita and the
Hitopadesa.
Kai ujuaq, oviaq veKpou? TO!$ TrapaTrrujjuacn Kai raT<;
djiiapTiai?- Ephes. ii. 1.
Kai irapaTrecrovTas , -rrdXiv dvaKaivi7eiv eig jaerdvoiav,
dvacrraupouvTa^ eauroig TOV Ytov roO OeoO Kai Trapaberf-
Heb. vi. 6.
TCTrleF II ^ H
B c g. i. 38.
'Should we not resolve to forego so sinful a deed, we,
who hold the murder of relatives to be sin?'
In the New Testament, where ethical terms have the
deepest significance, we find, moreover, the principle of evil
conceived as disobedience to a voice, irapaKon; ignorance
of what one ought to have known, dTVonjua; a diminution
of what should have been rendered in full measure, fJTrniua;
as discord, TrXrijuijueXeia ; and as the missing of a mark or
aim, the failing to attain the true end and scope of our
life, djuapTia.
"Qcrirep ydp 6id Tffc TrapaKofjg roO vo$ dvGpujTTOu djuap-
TiuXoi KarecrTdGncrav oi iroXXoi 1 OUTUU Kai old rfjg imaKofjc;
TOU vo$ biKaioi KaiacrraGriaovTai oi iroXXoi. Rom. v. 19.
f
3* 42 *~
5 rr|V oeuiepctv airaH roO eviaurou jnovo? 6 dp-
ou x^pi? aijaaro?, o rrpoaqpepei imep eauroO xai
TUJV roO Xaou dyvor)|udTU>v u
XlGIJ. IX. /.
Ou&eis KUJV KCCKO? says Plato, and it may well be
asked whether all forms of wrong do not more or less
partake of the nature of an orfvorijua. On the above passage
Trench aptly observes:
"The dYVorunara, or 'errors' of the people, for which
the High Priest offered sacrifice on the great day of
atonement, were not wilful transgressions, 'presumptuous
sins' (Ps. xix. 13), 'peccata proaeretica', committed against
conscience and with a high hand against God; those who
committed such would be cut off from the congregation;
there was no provision made in the Levitical constitution
for the forgiveness of such (Num. xv. 30, 31); but sins
growing out of the weakness of the flesh, out of an im-
perfect insight into God's law, out of heedlessness and
lack of due circumspection (Lev. v. 15 17; Num. xv.
22 29), and afterwards looked back on with shame and
regret."
"Hrrrma is the Latin 'delictum', the German Fehler,
the coming short of Duty, a fault. Thus St. Paul says:
"Horj |uv ouv oXius fJTTnjua ujuiv eanv, on Kpijuata
exere jueG 5 eauiiuv. Atari oi>xi juaXXov dbiKeicrGe; 6iaii ouxi
ludXXov dTroo-Tepi(T0e. l Cor yi ?
TTXnjuueXeux, from irXriv and jueXog, is evil as Discord,
a singing out of Tune, opposed to ejujueXeict, the right
modulation of the voice to the music. It is often found in
the Septuagint.
'Disproportioned sin
Jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord.'
-^ 43 *-
But by far the most significant view of sin to be
found in the New Testament is that expressed in the word
djuapiia, namely, the missing of a mark, the failing to
attain the true scope and goal of our lives. It is the word
of the master and of his beloved disciple.
Ti's d uuujv eXeYX^i MC Trepi djuapiiag;
That is to say: 'Who can show that I have failed of
the Divine, that I have missed the true Mark?'
Ei TCX pYd jar) Troino"a ev auioig, a ou&ei? aXXo?
eiroirjcrev, djuapriav OIIK ei'xocrav
The Jews did wrong (fiNtsn, duapTi'a) because they
failed to see in Christ the Revelation of the Father, the
nVtp and the Aoyo? of God. And we too sin when we are
content with anything less than the secret of Jesus!
Righteousness, on the other hand, is expressed by
ocrtoTns, 6iKaio<JiJvr|, dYioin? and dyveia.
6(TiOTr| corresponds to the Latin sanctitas: it is the
divine constitution of the Kocrjuog, the everlasting ordinance
of right. In classical Greek it is generally applied to
piety toward the gods and dutifulness to parents; in the
Septuagint ocnos is used as the rendering of Tpn the man
who loves God; the saint. Plato says: Kai juiiv irepi TOU?
dv9p(JUTrou id irpoo"r|KOVTa TTpdnruuv, bixai 1 av Trpdrroi, irepi
5e Geous ocria (Gorg. 507 b). Here 6cno is the pious man,
biKCtios is he who is faithful in his obligations to his fel-
lowmen. But in another dialogue Plato regards bixaiocruvr)
or TO &IKCUOV as the sum total of all virtue: TOUTO TOIVIUV
ejuoiTe 6oKei, 01 ZuuKpaie?, TO jnepog TOU bixaiou eivai euaepe?
T xai 6criov, TO Trepi T^V TUJV Getuv GepaTreiav TO be irepi
TIIV TUJV dvOpiwrruuv TO Xomov eivai TOU bixaiou |aepo?
(Euthyphro 12e).
According to its etymology bixn, fcucaiocrOvn is that
which can be pointed at, so, firstly, established practice,
consolidated custom, law.
44
yDIK to point out.
Skt.: 1/fe 7 *' fenfa dis-d-mi I show, direct; fen di-
rection.
Q-k.: ybw beix-vu-jui I point, show; 6eii- notice;
6eiYua something shown; 6iK-r| Right; &iK-aioq,
5iK-aioo~uvr|.
Lat.: ydic. dico; causi-dic-u-s ; in-dico; judex, dicis
causa.
Goth.: ytih. teih-an, taih, taihum, taihans; to show, an-
nounce.
Oer.: l/^zig. zeig-e I point.
orfiOTTK and dYveiot are both from the root diy meaning
primarily to set apart, worship.
YJAG.
Skt.: V^J5j mrrfir ja^-d-mi I sacrifice, worship; irnm
jag-am sacrifice; zracrcr jagjas = ayio^ adorable.
Qk.: yaf a2-o-|uai I stand in awe of; crf-io-c; holy;
dy-vo-g pure; dyi^uj I consecrate; df-o? sacrifice.
Sd.: y^f* to sacrifice, praise; A>K>A>jAy\> jas-ata ador-
able.
AiKOuoduvri yap QeoO ev aiiruj drroKaXuTrTeTai EK TTi
ei$ 7rio"Tiv, xa6uj<; YeTPd7TTar 6 6e biKaioq 6K 7TicrTeiu<s
(Terai. Rom. i. 17.
Kai TUJ aYYeXtu t^c, ev 0i\abe\q)eia 6KK\rio~KxS
idbe XeYei 6 <rfio, 6 dXnGivoq, 6 exuuv rrjv K\eT6a roO
Aaueib, 6 dvoiYwv, xai oubeig xXeiei, xai KXeiei, Kai oubei^
dvoi'Yer Rev. iii. 7.
Mnbeiq (Tou ifi<5 veoinToq KaiacppoveiTtu , dXXd TUTTO?
Yivou TUJV TTICTTUJV ev XoY^J, ev dvatfTpocpri , ev dYdirn, ev
Tricriei, ev dYveia. 1 Tim. iv. 12.
-3N 45 -
Lastly, we have the well-known contrast between the
good of its kind <rfa9o and the bad of its kind KCCKO^.
AYCXOOS is from the root gdd ( meaning to stand, be firm;
the thought of goodness being that of stability, whilst KCIKOS
from yltdk to be unsteady, to vacillate, gives us the idea
of badness as instability. From Ygatf come also the
familiar Teutonic forms god, kuot, good, gut. 1
Amongst the Romans this contrast was expressed by
bonus V malus, the bright and the black, light and
darkness. The earlier form of bonus was duonus from
the root div (dju) which has given us deus, dies, Diana
p. 31). Just as bi-du-u-m stands for bi-div-u-m so du-o-nus
stands for div-o-nus, which at once reminds us of divinus,
and in truth the good is never far from the divine. Malus,
on the other hand, is connected with a mournful group of
words, as may be seen from the following list:
yMAL- to be dirty.
Skt.: srercj mal-a-s dirt, filth; nf?H*H mal-ina-s black;
srfcs^ mal-ista-s very foul, very wicked; *MT*I
mal-aka a lewd woman.
Gk.: |ue\a black; jueXcciv-iu I blacken; uoXOv-u) I pollute.
Lat.: mal-u-s, mal-itia, mali-gnu-s, male-ficu-s.
Goth.: mail.
Olig.: meil a spot, blemish.
Lit.: mol-i-s mud; mel-yna-s blue.
Lett.: niel-s black.
Peculiarly instructive are the words Evil and Sin.
The former is from yvdb\ the latter from yas. Already
we have seen sin as the 'throttler' (uizQ) and the 'writher'
and now we have to know it as 'that which is woven'
See p. 20.
-$M 46 K~
and 'that which is bound 7 ; actively also as 'weaver 7 and
'binder' (evil: peccatum).
yVAB'- to weave.
Skt.: srw 1 in gRcmro urna-vab'-as wool-weaver = spider.
Oh: uqr ucp-diu and uqp-aivuu I weave. Gejuei'Xia OoTpog
uqpaivei Phoebus lays (lit. weaves) the foundation.
uqp-rj woof.
Goth.: IIB-IA malus; muATcqis malefactor; (|)j\i DBIAJ\BJ\
hj\Bj\N&j\NS oi KCCKIUS e'xovreg; RBIAUI^J\H male-
dicere.
Ags. : yjzel malus; etc.
To lang is to recenne, hu ic |?am leod-scea^an
Yfla gehvylces hond-lean forgeald.
Beov. 2094-5.
Mhg.: Ub-el malus; IJbeltater malefactor.
Eng.: Ev-il malus; evildoer malefactor.
Erlose uns von dem libel.
Deliver us from Evil.
As regards peccatum opinions differ as to its derivation.
Pott, for instance, fixed upon the root pik, which has given
us "ftrapw traitor, treacherous; Lithuanian plk-tas bad;
pyk-ti to be angry; peik-ti to despise, scold; Greek rriK-pog,
Treuxebavos, TreuKa\i|uos bitter, sharp; but, inasmuch as
Ypik seems fundamentally to mean 'to sting 7 or 'stab 7 , it
hardly fits peccare. On the whole I am inclined to believe
that pah is the root, giving us 'binding 7 as the primary
view of Sin to the Romance peoples.
YPAK- to bind.
Skt.: irnm pds-as trap, halter; msjmfa pdsa-jd-mi I bind;
trar^ fat, solid; traj^ pas-us cattle.
** 47 K-
Sd.: ^A3<j) pas to bind.
G%.: TTCXY* 7rr|Y-vu-|ui (e-TT<rf-nv) I make fast, confirm;
a pedestal; TTTIY-OS fast, strong; Trcrr-og,
n rime, frost; TTcrr-n trap; Trdacr-aXog
-Xos plug.
Lat.: pac-i-sc-or; pax; pac-i-o; pa-lus; pang-o; pec-c-are;
pec-c-atu-m; pig-nus; pec-u.
Goth.: fah-an to catch; fulla-fah-jan kavov Ttoieiv; fagr-s
euGeros; faih-u property.
Olig.: fuog-a, gafuogi aptus; gafag-jan to satisfy; fah de-
partment; fih-u cattle.
Mlig.: fang-en; Each; fug-en; Fug-e; fug-lich; Vieh.
OPr.: pek-u cattle, property.
Boh.: pas girdle; pas-mo thread, yarn. Eng: fing-er.
/ The order of conceptual evolution seems to be: to
bind fast, to catch, to freeze.
From the Egveda itself we know that both sin and
punishment are spoken of as fetters or cords. Thus we
read:
'O Soma, Eudra, all the medicines that ye have, put
into our bodies. Whatever guilt cleaves to us which we
have brought upon ourselves, take away, and set us free!
Ye bearers of the pointed spear and sharp lance, Soma-
Eudra, show gracious favor; deliver us from the fetters
(pasad) of Varuna and take us into thy friendly protection! 7
Rgv. 6. 74.
This thought of sin is thus thoroughly Aryan, and is
present not only to the linguistic consciousness of the
Eomance nations, but has been handed on to the Welsh
as pechod.
Latin : peccatum.
Welsh: pechod.
French : peche.
-> 48 MS-
Spanish: pecco, peccado.
Portuguese : peca.
Italian : pecca.
Provencal: peca.
Perhaps the most difficult to determine is the word
sin itself. Already we have seen how often evil has been
conceived as Not-Being, but here it seems at first sight
as though sin had been conceived as Being, if we are
right in deriving it from yas, which has given us the
Gothic sun-ja truth, being. The real difficulty is the vowel
in Latin, where, instead of son-s we should have expected
sen-s (pre-sen-s, ab-sen-s).
Ags. : seon-an to bring a sacrifice, purify; syn sin.
To gebetenne ealle mine sinna
To atone for all my sins.
L. Can. Edg. Conf. 9.
ON.: son piaculum, expiation; synd quod expiandurn
est; synia negare.
Danish \
Swedish > synd sin
Icelandic]
Gothic: sann expiation.
Dutch: zonde sin.
Mhg.: Siinde sin; suhn-en to expiate.
Irish: sain to change.
Galic: sain-e discord.
Norse: onde evil.
Latin: son-s guilt; in-son-s guiltless.
If this is a case of polarity we might well be tempted
to compare:
Gk.: o"do-, (Too-g, o~ujo-$, crux; whole; CTUJ-KO-S
powerful; craoiu, o~u)--uj I heal, save; o~uu-Tr)p
saviour; d-duj-TO-c; unsaved.
~X 49 H$~
a. : sa-nu-s whole.
Ohg. : ga-sunt well.
Ags. : sund healthy.
Eng. : sound.
Now it is quite possible that all these words come
from yas, not so much, however, in its secondary sense
of Being as rather in its primary meaning of Breathing
(skt.: as-u-s breath of life; as mouth; lat. os).
YAS to breathe.
Skt.: ym' *Jifw as-mi am; ^jrfer is; HH sat being,
good; ^yfw^r sv-as-ti-s well-being; JR su = eu
well; *&gTO asu-ra-s living; *TOH as-u-s breath
of life.
GL: yic- et-jtii == etfui; 3. S. ecr-ri; eu-ecr-ruj well-
being; ecr-G-X6-<; excellent; e-u-q good.
Sd.: Jcx3A> ah-mi am; JW>ov>A3 ag-ti is.
Lifh.: es-mi am; es-ti is; es-a-la essence; es-ni-s sub-
stantial.
Ecds.: jes-mi am; jes-ti is.
Lat.: (e) s-u-m am; es-t is.
Osc.: es-uf estate.
GotJi.: i-m am; is-t is; suni-s true; sun-ja truth.
Eng.: a-m, is.
On.: sann-r true.
The order of conceptual evolution seems to be: a) breath
p) life y) being 6) reality e) truth I) goodness.
If the word sin really comes from this root there
can, I think, be little doubt that it is the primary sense
of 'breathing', 'mouth', for 'out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh'.
g
50 r
It is, however, possible that 'sin' and its cognates come
directly from oiv-o$ a mischief, a plague; criv-o-juai I plunder,
spoil; CTIV-TTIS ravenous.
There remain a few ethical concepts, mostly savage,
the etymology of which I am unable to give:
Kafir: enkohlakalu evil.
sono trespass.
Sulu : ekwon evil.
sono trespass.
Sesuto: ben evil.
melatu trespass.
Sari: toronjak sin.
narok evils.
Temne: trabeitra sin.
tralas evil.
OUi : akaw sin.
bone evil.
Kamilroi: kagil bad.
mufu good.
Macquarie : jarakai evil.
jifijifi sacred.
Odul: omolt good.
Kuktien: nimelk'in good.
Aleutic: igamanak good.
Encounter Bay: brup bad.
nankur good.
Adelaide: muijo good.
West- Australian: gul bad.
gwab good.
Ostjah: bog at] right
Kottish: pagai j
Musuh: dur bad.
pidem good.
Kamir: gig bad.
bin
kas
debitum.
good.
(= b e agavat, from
Kippewe :
nesu
good.
~X 51 H~
Basque: gaitzetic
evil;
barkha trespass.
Udic: sel
good
p c is
bad
Jurak: sana
??
waewo
Tas; naga
5}
nonfa
Kot: taxse
bila
??
Russian : xopoino
V xy^o
Croatian : dobro
n
V hudo
n
Polish : dobrze
5?
V zle
5?
Bohemian : dobf e
V zle
YGAR to
shine.
Sht: har-ja-mi.
Gk.: \aip-(jj, x^P~ l -?> X (
ap-)aa.
Lat: gra-tu-s, gra-t-ia;
Herentatis (Osk.
Venus).
Got: gair-n-s, gair-uni.
Lit: gor-u-ti, gor;
bcte.:
zel-e-ti.
Russ.: kor-oso.
YD A to divide.
Gk.:
Lat:
Ags.:
dap-s; dap-inare.
tib-er; ON.: taf-n.
Russ.: dob-ro.
Happy indeed is the Tibetan view of Virtue as 'that
which is to be rejoiced at' ^j'^T dge-ba, from ^]$*J'
dgd-ba to rejoice. On the other hand, sin is conceived as
a Scorpion ^|'J' sdig-pa. Sdig-pa-rnams bjas-pa TioXXd
fi)uapTriKiu<;. Dgasdug-drag-san good and bad; las dge-ba,
mi-dge-ba good and bad actions.
Lastly, we have the American Indian Mikmak forms :
Jee^i i c twaktwin evil.
good.
Here we have most likely an onornatopoetikon twist
twist, moral crookedness!
^H 52 H~
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONCEPT OF LOVE.
Having applied the search-light of language to the
grave issues of Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, Sanctity
and Sin, turn we now to the beautiful thought of Love.
Treating the words of each language separately we shall
obtain a picture of the individual nation's thought. A com-
parison of the pictures so won will bring out national
characteristics and reveal the nature of that holy state
which has been truly described as the greatest thing in the
world. Hebrew shall represent the early Semites, Sanskrit
and Persian the Arjas, Greek and Latin cultured European
antiquity, Gothic the Teutonic world, and Russian the
aspirations and inspirations of the Slavs 1 .
I. SEMITIC.
The cultured European of to-day may perhaps find it
hard to realise a naive antiquity, a sceptical present can
only with difficulty enter into the emotional life of a devout
past, to which the Supernatural was a reality more vital
than anything physical. To the Jew of the ancient East
Love was not what it is to the Gentile of the modern
West. The different kinds of love which are possible
between members of the human race the Hebrew dis-
tinguished as concrete and abstract, as active and inactive.
Whilst the former was analysed according to the mood
1 In his Linguistic essays my friend Dr. Abel has on this subject
an excellent chapter, to which as regards the Hebrew conception I
am much indebted.
~SH 53 r<~
and motives from which it springs, the latter was con-
sidered to be the same in all cases. So long as love was
denoted as mere feeling, one word seemed to him enough
for all the various relations between man and man in which
it can manifest itself. But where the benevolent purposes
which accompany love and the delightful results were em-
phasized, he became conscious of the manifold gradations
of the feeling in strength and motive and felt the need of
several words, the synonymity of which was quite peculiar
to him. If, on the one hand, this view represents the
simple relations of early times in which less was thought
of the good intention than of the good deed, yet, on the
other, we must remember that the latter springs from love,
nay, that it is indeed love itself. Hence the application of
the concept in all its various Hebrew colors to Jahveh
himself and the tracing of all earthly love to its divine
Source.
YAEAB- to breathe quickly, to love.
Heir.: 3HN he loved; 2HK loving, a friend, lover; rung love,
delight.
Sam.: !"DN amavit.
Ar.: vJUi concitatus est, anhelavit; <^*~\ amiable, most
lovely; U^.\ friends; L-A^-1 favorites;
Amor patriae.
'For God so loved the world.'
The history of this Hebrew word forms, as Prof. Abel
truly says, a sacred chapter in the history of humanity.
Like drain], its equivalent among the Greeks, Ahav is love
as pure feeling, embracing not only the love between man
and woman but also between parents and children, relations
-^ 54 HS~
and friends, in fact, all men generally. Metaphorically also
love to things, inclination to certain actions, when its idea
dwindles to liking. It expresses an inner attachment
without the cause becoming apparent, and has a tendency,
this point being left undecided, to let one think rather of
the impulse of a warm heart than of a weighed and settled
esteem. Between man and woman it is both passion and
conjugal affection. As passion Ahav is capable of the
highest poetic elaboration, as in the Song of Solomon, where
it is the 'banner held over the beloved' and where all nature
is invoked to adequately express its sweetness. From the
earliest times, too, it has represented that devotion which
gladly serves the beloved object and finds nothing too hard,
no trouble too great for a purpose so dear. "We are told,
for instance, that Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and
that they seemed to him but a few days for the Ahav he
had to her.
nnfc
Nay, it even denotes that glowing passion which is
found only in that ideal sphere where love is lord of all.
6 inn; ?ia rtjnKa inra |trrb-n I^K )J?TD
'If a man would give all the substance of his house
for Love, it would utterly be contemned. 7
Taken broadly it embraces not only the pitiful tender-
ness of God toward man and man's devotion to God, but
also a world-wide charity.
Wnteh ^?-n nirv ron:p
'As God loved the children of Israel. 7
'And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul and with all thy strength. 7
rnns
'Love covers all sins. 7
~^~ 55 H$~
At different periods of Semitic history these three
views of Ahav have underlain Jewish thought, nor do they
shut out the idea of Jahveh as an avenging Judge. It is
just because God loves, that He punishes or purifies His
people. And if the Highest can forgive and even love the
man who has sinned against Him, it behoves all men to
pardon and esteem one another. Hence DHK represents the
bond of universal brotherhood. Thus we read in Leviticus
as a commandment of the Eternal: 'Thou shalt not avenge
nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people,
but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the
Lord.'
nirp ^ TO? sjjn 1 ? 5?5*51 ^ ^?~ n $ *feO"^l Qfcrrfcft
From the conception of charity as applying to the
various members of the Semitic family Ahav rises to the
thought of all mankind.
yian ^rj D^n ^KJ n^n \^ Kin 'bD'rfjg rnrr ^
Din; BSBto nbty nnitf n^. vb] D^D KteT*& ^ Nl^
n^rrs "ijrrnK oronNj *n^^l onb ^ nnb 15 nnfci
.D^D pa DJTVJ
'For the Lord your God, he is God of gods and Lord
of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the terrible, who
regardeth not persons nor taketh reward. He doth execute
the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the
stranger in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore
the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.'
Passing on to the thought of active love we find in
1DH a noble combination of love and grace. It is a grace
arising from goodwill, a disposition which gladly does good
because it looks upon the active love, which underlies bene-
fience, as the beautiful prerogative of the Mighty One. Thus
Isaiah says (liv, 10):
taibn xb
~$* 56 H$~
'For the mountains may depart, and the hills may be
removed; but my kindness (Kesed) shall not depart from
thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,
saith He that hath mercy (Raltam) on thee, the Eternal. 7
The fundamental meaning of the root (ytiasad) seems
to be painful emotion.
Hebr.: Ton Ar.: 5JL*. Syr.: I, 9 a
And this is perhaps why it primarily expresses a
vouchsafing or condescending grace, pity.
non rb w\ *)bimK nirr \TI
'But the Lord was with Joseph and shewed kindness
unto him.'
But it is not solely love of superiors for inferiors; not
infrequently the idea of condescension steps into the back-
ground and we find Uesed expressing brotherly love and
even conjugal affection.
'And David said: I will shew kindness unto Kanun the
son of Nakas, as his father shewed kindness unto me.'
D^rrai norni toftt pnsa
'Yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, in
judgment, in loving-kindness and in mercies.'
In Genesis xxi, 23 we find it used as love of one's
country, patriotism; and in Nehemiah xiii, 14 as piety or
love of God.
From the friendly grace of Kesed we pass to the
loving pity, the mercy of Rattam.
^ orn
'to be soft, tender.'
To the Psalmist Kesed is more than mere grace,
Ral^am more than sympathy. Thus ciii, 8:
57 *<-
DISK spK nj.T parn
'The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and
plenteous in loving kindness.'
In Drn we have an exquisite tenderness, that delicate
solicitude which not only an earthly father feels for his
children but which the All-Father entertains for those who
fear Him.
i^T"^ n !' T , D) 7l ^3?"^ n D CH?
Nay, it expresses that annihilation or abandonment of
self in God which was the burden of Israel's sweetest
songs:
'pm nirr *iorn
Whilst Itesed is kindliness manifested toward rich
and poor, whole and sick, happy and miserable, without
distinction, rakam represents pity for the poor, compassion
with the needy and the suffering. And it is the same in
Arabic where <*JJ\ is described as ^U^.J\ arrakman the
Compassionate, -Jl arrakim the Merciful.
'May he have mercy and pardon and the blessing
of God!'
A modification of Kesed is Ken or Kanan, the primary
meaning of which seems to be 'to utter a gurgling sound,'
'to groan.'
In the Old Testament it is often used in the sense of
that kindly feeling which a master has for his pupil, a
senior for a junior, and which a son may warmly entertain
for his father. Where we should say: 'if it please you,'
the Hebrew used to say: 'if I have found ken in thine eyes.'
Thus Jacob at the end of his days says to his son Joseph:
*If I have found )n in thine eyes, put thy hand under my
thigh, and shew me 1DH and faithfulness!' And indeed,
where the relations between man and his Maker are close,
h
~5H 58 H$~
the same feeling is expressed. In Exodus xxxiii, 17, we
read:
'The Lord spake unto Moses: what thou hast said, I
will do. For thou hast found grace (Hen) in mine eyes,
and I know thee by name!'
But perhaps its best and most sacred meaning is 'a
father's love for his little ones.' (Job xix, 17.)
"jtpn on 1 ? irmn} *t$*b rnt T Tin
'My breath is strange to my wife, and my cherishing
to the children of my body.'
By far the most interesting feature of the Hebrew
question is the bright and beautiful expansion of the Jewish
1HN into the Christian erf dun, the full meaning of which is
given us by St. Paul in the 13th Chapter of his first Letter
to the Corinthians, and by St. John in his epistles.
II. ARYAN.
Of early Aryan ideas of the supreme emotion perhaps
the most striking characteristic is spontaneity. The most
general thought is that of the heart bending toward the
world at large, a kindly, genial benevolence. This, at all
events, seems to be the fundamental meaning of spm, though
in later literature it came to be specialised as the Indian
Cupid.
YKAM to lend.
Skt.: 5RW sums Mmas love, affirmation of the will to Life.
ERtnT Mnta lover; cRrfsrf Mnti beauty; SFTPRW Mmam
freely. Kamopahatakittamga amore affliction
animum et corpus habens.
Irish: caemh love, desire; caom'hach friend; caonihaim I save,
protect. Roumanian: chamor love.
Latin: cd-rus (= cain-rus) dear; ca-ri-tas love.
-^ 59 HS~
And this concept, as the affirmation of the will to Life,
is found in one of the most interesting of the Rg-veda
mantras, which long ago excited the enthusiasm of Prof.
Max Miiller in his History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature.
The Sukta, which is known as the Creation-Hymn, opens
with a lofty description of the primaeval Chaos no light,
no sound; no day, no night; a yawning Abyss of empty,
dark space, without death and without immortality.
'The One alone breathed calmly, self-contained'.
From this serene self-consciousness of the primal Brah-
man in the profound chaotic gloom arose, by reason of the
genial heat evolved, Kamas, the earliest seed of mind,
which poets, pondering in their hearts, have found to be
the source of being from not-being.
sum: i rTH i wx i i
i ?HJ i tnnr i SH i
i fa: i
i iMlm u a u
Expressed in the philosophical phraseology of Schopen-
hauer's school it is: Out of the Will (Tad) arose, through
the turning thereof (Tapas), first Kamas, affirmation, and
this became the first germ of mind, the only principle of
the visibility of affirmation. From this first principle rose
the whole realm of Being, its flames being cast over all
nature.
Then we come to a thought of friendship which, though
always implying a surface-attachment, is by no means to
be considered the ideal of love. Affection as 'oiliness'
seems to be pre-eminently Aryan, ^ sneJia and fafgw
mltratvam coming each from a root meaning 'to be fat',
'oily', namely, fera snih and ftr^ mid. They are found
especially in the Hitopadesas, a book of moral instruction
and popular legend, generally supposed to have been written
by Visnusarman for the benefit of certain Indian princes.
~$H 60 K~
Thus, in the first Book we read how, for a long time, a
Deer and a Crow live in great Sneha in a forest of Bahar.
rreu f^RT^T TFgrTT ?iiN ^i^i^ f^HfTJ
Tasjdm Uiran maliata snehena mrgakakau nivasataJi.
The Deer, frisky and fat, roaming about at his pleasure,
is seen by a certain Jackal. Having eyed him, the Jackal
reflects: 'Ah! how shall I feast on this delicate flesh? 7
In the same way S^t mmiri and fw^TrcRT mitratvam are
used of that lively friendliness amongst animals of the lower
order which may, perhaps, not improperly be described as
brute love. Continuing the above story, for instance, we
find that the jackal seeks to effect his purpose by ad-
dressing the deer as Mitra (ymid) and then by describing
himself as a poor lonely creature without a Mitra (friend)
and without a band'u (relation), K'sudrabudd'i of the forest!
'Here, in the forest, as one dead, I dwell alone, without
kinsman and without a friend!'
The word SFVJ band f u brings us at once to another
view of love, that, namely, of those strong ties of blood
and kinship which unite various members of the same
family, clan, tribe or nation; for, yband f ' means to bind.
A bancfu is one who is bound to another in the first instance
by family-feeling, afterwards, no doubt, by other and purely
ideal considerations. The opening of the B^agavad-OUa
deals largely with the relations of the parties involved, and
from that work we may quote the following:
T; KTrRt ^T^n^R^
t iftTr:
II 3 II
'Teachers, fathers, sons also, and progenitors; Uncles,
sisters, nephews, brothers-in-law and near relatives (sam-
land'iuas 'those-who-are-bound-to-one').
~$* 61 H$~
In ifrfo Priti and UTT^ Pr&man we have love as J!r-
hUaration, a lofty joy which takes possession of the soul
and rushes in tumult to the heloved object.
to he overjoyed at, love.
Skt.: trtorrrfa pri-na-mi I delight in; ftran pri-ja-s dear,
beloved; irtfn pri-ti, 5*FT pre-man love, joy.
Sd.: T>? fri to love, praise; ^-A fri-fa love, bene-
volence.
$&.: 7Tpa-o<;, Trpau-q soft; Trpa-6-Tri<j softness; Trpau-v-uu.
i?wss.: EpiaxeJib pri-ja-tel friend.
Eccs.: pri-ja-ti to provide; pri-ja-telu friend.
Lit! i.: pre-telius friend. Russ.^^mm^pri-ja-sn friendship.
Goth.: fri-j-on to love; frijond-s friend; fri-a-thva love.
Olig.: fra-o gl&d', fri-unt amicus ; fri-da pax.
MJig.: fro-h glad; Freund 91X05; Fri-e-de peace.
Eng.: fri-end amicus. Irish: frith service. Welsh: priawd
spouse.
Prijatva : irpaoiri^ : : friathva : Friede.
Kroat.: pri-jat-nost loveliness. Pol.: przy-jem-nosc loveliness.
Kroat. : pri-ja-telj ] ; pri-atan ]
Pol. : przy-ja-ciel \ friend przy-ja-zny \ friendly.
Boh.: pri-tel pra-tel-sky ]
Boh.: pri'jem-ny amiable
Dan. : fre-nde
Ags. : fre-oud amicus
Flem.: vriend
Goth.: fri-j-ei freedom; frei-s free; fri-thus peace
Eng.: free; freedom; fro-lic.
In the second Fargard of the Vendidad we find the
word frit* a applied to Spefita Armaiti, the genius of the
earth, in the sense of 'beloved'. Jima steps forward toward
the luminous space southwards, to meet the sun, and he
-:>* 62 H$~
pressed the earth with the golden ring, and bored it with
the poniard, speaking thus:
JFHfa Spenta Armaiti, fratia ( sava, vzKa nemaya!
'Beloved Spirit of the Earth, Kindly open up and
stretch thyself afar!'
It is a significant fact that Bishop Ulfilas thought the
word friathva the best Gothic equivalent of the Greek
(rfdTrr|. To the liberty-loving Goths the ideal of life was
more than charity, affection or respect; it was
Friede : Freude : Freundschaft : Freiheit
'peace, joy, friendship, freedom'; for, friathva connotes these
things and ypri underlies them all. Hence its great im-
portance as an Aryan concept.
BI
qjVBju p^ij\^yj\ IIJ\BJ\IA. HU|> izyis HISSQ.
5 Ev TOUTIU YviJucrovTai Travte^, on Ijaoi ua9rjTai eerie,
drditnv exnie 4v dXXnXo,?. gt John lg ^
When we compare the Latin version with the Gothic
we seem to pass from a moon-lit world to one flooded with
sunlight :
In hoc cognoscent omnes quia mei discipuli estis, si
dilectionem habueritis ad invicem.
To change the metaphor: dilectio is to friathva as
water unto wine. The Anglosaxon is little short of the
Gothic, although the connotation is not so great:
Be tham oncnawaS ealle menn that ge synt mine
leorning-cnihtas gyf ge habbaft lufe eow betwynan.
Here we at once become aware that the Anglosaxon
word is an early form of our own love, which, in many
-3M 63 HS~
respects, is the most interesting concept with which wo
have to deal. Already we have seen that true friendship
implies freedom, and now, not only shall we find this, but
also the great truth enunciated by St. Paul and mirrored
in his matchless Spectrum of Love, namely, that love hopetJi
all things, Idieveth all things. The root M) has given
us lib-ertas freedom; lub-o love; lub-ains hope; ya-laub-ains
faith.
to yearn.
Sht.: y*M luV- *fhiF IdV-a-s cupidity, yearning;
luh-tfa greedy; ^wrrftr luV-ja-mi I yearn, desire.
GJc.: yXiqr Xiijj desire; XITT-T-O-UCU I long for.
Lat.: lub-et; lib-et; lib-i-do; lib-er; Libentina; lib-er-tas.
Russ.: Jiro6oBL ljub-ov love; Jno6iiTi> ljub-iti to be fond of.
Kro.: ljub-av amor; ljub-ezan amiable.
Boh.: lib-ez~nost loveliness.
Ecdes.: ljub-i-ti 9i\eTv; liub-y dfaTrn; ljub-imi sponte.
Litli.: liub-y-ti to take pleasure in; liub-jaus rather.
Goth.: liub-an to love; lub-an to hope; laub-janto believe;
liub-s dear; liitba-leiks lovely; hib-o love; lub-ains
hope; ga-laub-eins faith; lib-dins life.
Ohg.: mot-lub-a affectus; lop praise; lop-on to praise;
lep-an l(ur\.
Ags.: luf-e d.fanr\; lif l(jjr\\ Uf-frea Life-Lord, God.
Mhg.: Lieb-en; Lieb-e; lob-en to praise; Leb-en.
Eng.: lov-e; lief; be-lief; lif-e.
In love we have freedom, hope, faith, praise, nay, life
itself. No poet has expressed this exquisite feeling with
greater delicacy .than Tennyson. Maud's lover speaks of
his love to
'Her whose gentle will has changed my fate
And made my life a perfumed altar-flame.'
-^ 64 K-
Peter the Great is described as having worked for
Russia with such Lubov:
BT> 3TOMi> cnjia H 6yyin,HocTfc Pocciii, AJIH. Koiopoii TaKi>
Heyciairao, ci> xaKoio jy6oBH) pa6oia.TL Heip^ BejinKin.
'Herein lie the power and the future of Russia, for
which Peter the Great worked so incessantly, and with
such love 7 .
In no language has this root been so prolific as in
Russian where, besides lubov, we have lub-esni to be loved
on account of really amiable qualities recognised not only
by the feelings but by the judgment; lub-imi to be loved
from choice; lub-oi loved as a matter of taste; lub dear
from natural inclination; lub-im and lub-imez the dear hus-
band; lul)-ovnik the erotic amateur; v-lul)-tiivi one in love;
lub-itel lover of the fine arts.
In Latin we see two streams of thought ; that in which
love turns to lust (libido)', and that whereby a lofty, dis-
ciplined passion leads to freedom (libertas).
A libidinosa sententia certum et definitum jus religio-
num eos deterret
Liber sum, et nullius dominationi parens.
The corresponding word in Persian is <5^, which is
at once lub-o and lib-ains, Liebe and Leben, love and life.
In the sweet song of Umar K'ajjam:
'The heading of the Volume of the Spirit-World is Love!
The first verse of the lyrics of youth is Love!
ye who know not of the realm of Love,
Know this alone, that Life is Love!'
-^ 65 H$~
This is the Persian word par excellence and is a
thoroughly Aryan view of the subject, the root being is
to yearn.
Skt: j/"nr ^isr ^s-to dilectus; ^ftr is-$ desire; ^mq /l-
ma-s Love-god; elw-a-mi = ais-sk-a-mi.
Sd.: > is to wish, earnestly seek; JK>OV>J ^-^ longing.
GJc.: yic to wish; io-Tn- wish, will; i-juepo-q for io~-
uepo-s longing.
Lat: aes-tlmare.
Gotli.: is-an to long for; fra-isan to tempt.
Passing on to the people of Hellas we meet with the
well-known and weighty words (rfcurdv and qnXeiv. Now
these two words stand to each other in much the same
relation as diligere and amare, but the Greek expression
which most nearly corresponds to sffore and in later liter-
ature to 5FTWF and < j r ^.s> is puu, from ]/ap to strive after,
long for. It is not only the passion of the youth for the
maiden, but is used by Plato to express that yearning for
the unseen yet ever-present Beauty which surrounds us all,
and will one day be revealed to every purged soul.
Just as the Indian Rsis found Kamas to be the moving
principle of Creation, so in the theogony of the Greeks
"Epoq holds a foremost place. In the beautiful words of
Hesiod:
r|6 5 "Epos, 0$ KdtXXuTTOS v deavotTOim eeoiffi,
TTCXVTUUV re Geujv, TravTuuv T J avGpumiuv oauvaTCU ev
voov, Kcd erricppova pouXrjv.
Anakreon says:
'0 b^ Kdi Geujv buvdatri?'
'O b^ Kcxi pporoix; baiud^ei.
Most of all in the organ-voice of the Chorus in So-
phokles' Antigone and in the Hippolytos of Euripides:
66
Epujc;
"Epuj?, oc, v KTi'uuaai ithrreu;,
oc, iv juaXaKcus irapeiai?
veavibcx; ^vvux^uei^'
b' UTrepuovTio?, Iv t"
KOU a' otir' dOavaTiuv qpuSi|uo<; oubei<;
oOG' dfnepiuuv dir* dv-
GpuuTriwv 6 b' 2xwv> M^iunvev.
Ant. 777785.
Epuu<; "Epiuc, o xar'
uoGov,
X^piv ou?
jurj |uoi irore auv xaKuj
|ur|b' 6ppu0]uo(; ^XGoiq.
oOre ydp irupo? OIJT*
aarpuuv OTrdp
oTov TO Td<; *AcppobiTa<;
6 Aid? iral<;.
Hipp. 525-534.
Amongst the Romans, too, we find Ovid saying of
Amor: regnat et in dominos jus habet ille Deos, which might
well be paraphrased in the words of the 'Last Minstrel':
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above:
For love is heaven, and heaven is love!
Between the Greek dYctTrav and qpiXeiv and the Latin
diligere and amare the parallelism is so close that it will
be best to consider them together.
Both drfOtTroiv and diligere express an attachment re-
sulting from choice and a deliberate judgment that the
object is really worthy of regard, whilst qpiXeiv and amare,
without necessarily-implying an unreasoning attachment,
give utterance to an instinctive feeling, an impulse of
passion, as is amply manifest not only in the literature of
Greece and Rome but in the New Testament itself. As
regards the Latin words we cannot do better than refer
~H 67 MS-
to Cicero's letters. Writing to one friend concerning
another, the great orator says: 'Ut scires ilium a me non
dili u i solum, vemm etiam amari 1 (Ep. Fam. xiii. 47) ; and
with regard to Clodius' feeling for him: 'L. Clodius valde
me diligit, vel, ut ucpaTiKiuTepov dicam, valde me amat\
(Ad Brut. 1). Dion Cassius tells us that, addressing the
Roman people over the body of Caesar, Antonius said:
eqpiXrjO"aT autov ax; Ttaiepa , xai iifarrria'aTe uj eu-
But it is in reading the New Testament that we most
fully realise the distinction, as was long ago shown by
Dean Trench. Whilst we are often bidden drfaTrav TOV
Oeov (Matt. xxii. 37; Luke x. 27; 1 Cor. viii. 3) and good
men are said to do so (Rom. viii. 28; 1 Pet. i. 8; 1 John
iv. 21), it is nowhere urged that man should cpiXeiv TOV
Oeov. Of the Father we read that He both (rfotTTa (John
iii. 35) and cpiXe! (v. 20) TOV Yiov. And in this connexion
we cannot forget the touching scene, described in the
21 st Chapter of St. John's Gospel. The risen Master thrice
asks the penitent disciple: 'Lovest thou me?' and to each
enquiry Peter answers: qpiXuj ere, expressing a warm, per-
sonal affection, but when the question is put it is only the
third time that our Lord uses this word, dfctTrqts fue, re-
spectful affection giving place to qpiXei$ ue, personal attach-
ment.
The Latin Caritas seems to hold an intermediate
position: a man may have caritas for his fellow-man, he
may also have it for his country and his country's past.
Ex ea caritate quae est inter natos et parentes, quae
dirimi nisi detestabili scelere non potest.
Cic. Am. 8, 27.
Oblitaque ingenitae erga patriam caritatis, dummodo
virum honoratum videret, consilium migrandi ab Tarquiniis
cepit. Liv. 1. 34. 5.
~~ 68 HS~
In the same way Amor, from primarily meaning sexual
passion:
Persuasit nox, amor, vinum, adolescentia
Humanum 'st.
Ter. Ad. 3. 4. 471.
has become transformed by the great Christian poet of the
Middle Age into the supreme cosmic emotion:
L'Amor che muove il Sole e 1'altre stelle.
But of all the words for love in any language there
is none so sacred as the Greek orfa7rr|. No classical writer
goes beyond qpiXict, cpiXabeXqpict or cpiXavOptUTria. It is
Christianity alone which has created this noble con-
ception, this glorious expansion of the Hebrew HHS, this
love which
'delightedly believes
Divinities, being itself divine'.
Of this beautiful Christian thought St. Paul has given
us an exquisite analysis in the 13 th Chapter of his first
Epistle to the Corinthians:
C H d-fairr) (uaKpo0uu.ei, xptltfTCueTar f) (rraTrr) ou nXor
f| orfdTrri ou irepTrepeueTCu, ou qpuaioOiai, OUK do~xriuoveT, ou
r|Tei rd eauTfjg, ou TrapoHuverai, ou XoYiEeTai TO KOCKOV, ou
Xaipei em Tfj dbixia, cruYXaipti ot Tfl dXrjGeia' irdvia
iravra TriaTeuei, iravta eXTTi'Z;ei, Trdvia uTTOjuevei. r\
Nuvi be jiievei TTICTTI?, iXmg, aYdTrn, id rpia TaOia
be TOUTUJV fj
Here we have vastly more than a transition from
Amor, through caritas, to dilectio. "Epuug represents amor
and qpiXi'a fairly corresponds to caritas, but drfdTrri goes
far beyond any dilectio. St. Paul has shown us that it
has at least nine ingredients, namely, patience, kindness,
^H 69 K~
generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper,
guilelessness and sincerity. Nay, though prophecies fail
and tongues cease, though knowledge vanish and the very
world itself pass away Love abides!
'For life, with all it yields of joy and woe
And hope and fear,
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is 1 .
-X 70 Hfr-
CHAPTER Y.
THE MORAL SENSE.
In conclusion let us see how the inductive survey of
human views of good and evil bears upon the great question
of the existence, nature and function of what is known
as conscience, divine reason, moral sense or categorical
imperative.
Assuredly the most important enquiry respecting this
faculty is whether it is really intuitive, that is to say,
an instinct, or nothing but a power of appreciation and
distinction wholly derived from experience. The consensus
of opinion in the past has accepted it as the innate prin-
ciple to which all laws and moral maxims are addressed.
As far back as the 4th century B. C. we find a Chinese
philosopher exclaiming: 'In man there is a sense of right
and wrong 1 ; that he loses it, arises from the fact that it
is daily injured and its beauty destroyed, just as trees are
hewn down by axes. During a period of repose conscience
again comes to the front, but, since it is always hurt, the
human being is not far removed from the lower animals.
At the same time it must not be supposed that man has
never had a moral sense, for that were wholly-contrary to
his nature!' 2 But not only do the ancients, notably the
Roman philosophers who distinguish between the honestum
and the utile, take the transcendental side of the question:
we have the witness of words themselves pointing in the
same direction. For instance, to the linguistic consciousness
1 R ft
2 Maii-zo (373 289 B. C.) In the first instance the expression
JJ >{$ 'innate principle' is used, in the second fjlf Ziu 'conscientious
sensibility.'
HN 71 t*.
of Europe the moral sense is knowledge or consciousness
of the individual soul with the Over-Soul, of man with God
(jAdd- cruv-etbrjOK; coBtcit; svjest; sumnienie; svedomi;
con-scientia; Mith-vissei; Gewissen; in-wyt).
It is quite true that there are words of ethical import
implying a long course of evolution, such as fl0og, Sitte,
Mores, Pflicht, but we have only to look into the history
of these words to see that, as soon as they assume an
ethical meaning they primarily apply not to the individual
but to the nation, if not to the race. They represent, in
fact, the collective, as distinguished from the individual,
conscience.
YD 1 A 'to do'.
Sid.: *CTOT sva-d'd own doing, custom, character. A law
unto oneself or to one's own people.
For, Indra, according to thy wont, thou art
ours! Rgv.i.165.5.
sva-d'ata the Self-Determined (see p. 24).
Gk.: f\Q-o<; (= c/e6o<;) custom; r|0eio-g trusty, dear.
ei'-u)6-ot am wont, 0-i-uj accustom myself.
Goth.: suxns sid-u-s custom; sidon to practise.
Olig.: sit-u fjGoq.
Wig.: Sitte custom, etiquette; Sitt-lich-keit morality.
Latin: Soda-lis a consort.
Mores manners, conduct, morals; from Mos a
custom.
German: Pflicht duty, from pflegen to be accustomed to,
cultivate, practise.
The analysis of such ethical terminology would seem
to support the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer. 'I believe,'
~3* 72 H$~
he says, 'that the experiences of utility organized and con-
solidated through all past generations of the human race,
have been producing corresponding modifications, which,
by continued transmission and accumulation, have become
in us certain faculties of moral intuition certain emotions
responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no
apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility.'
But we cannot go very deeply into the discussion
whether, independently of experience, we have any really
intuitive appreciation or perception of right and wrong
without becoming aware that it is, after all, only a special
case of the general metaphysical question whether we have
any ideas a priori or transcendental, wholly underived from
experience.
Now, the two theories known as idealist and sensuist,
formal and material, are as old as philosophy itself. Alike
in India and Greece we find the sages holding, on the one
hand, that mind is a reflex of matter, thought a secretion
of the brain; and, on the other, that mind makes nature,
that intelligence involves principles which, as the conditions
of its activity, cannot be the result of its operation. In
other words, the a priori theory maintains that, in all
mental phaenomena there is an element given not to but
~by the mind, having, in fact, a previous and necessary
existence, whilst the a posteriori view regards the intellectual
element as explicable on principles within the empirical
range.
According to Aristotle the moral maxims of which
ethical science consists are our 5 d'pa qpucrei, oure rrapd
qpuorv, dXXd Kara cpucriv. Though they are not intuitive
they are in accordance with nature by reason of the
eTTirnbeiOTriq or natural adaptation to them which man
possesses. This comes very near to the recognition of a
moral sense; in fact, Aristotle would probably agree with
Cicero when he says: Natura cledit liomini quosdam igniculos
-3M 73 H$~
e semina virtutum, quae sunt earum quasi prindpia et
fundamenta. And when Seneca observed: sanabilibus aegro-
tamus malis, nosque in rectum genitos natura, si sanari
velimus, adjuvat, there can be no doubt that he was of the
same opinion. And this is true of some who once thought
otherwise. Dr. Cabanis, for instance, who, in the early part
of his career, wrote: ; les sciences morales devaient rentrer
dans le domaine de la physique, pour n'etre plus qu'une
branche de 1'histoire naturelle de 1'homme,' in later life
renounced such materialism and became a fervent idealist.
Even Darwin, who considers the social instincts the prime
principle of man's moral constitution, tells us that, he fully
subscribes 'to the judgment of those writers who maintain
that of all the differences between man and the lower
animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most
important.'
Perhaps the most powerful thinker of modern times
who has written on this subject is Immanuel Kant. The
learned author of the Critique of Pure Reason declares
that the faculty which he characterizes as der kategorische
Imperativ, lies wholly beyond the sphere of ordinary logic;
is, in fact, a transcendental psychological truth admitting
neither proof nor disproof. From the existence of this
absolute tendency which controls the motives of actions
Kant infers the reality of ethical freedom. Freedom is
the ratio essendi of the moral law, but the moral law is
the ratio cognoscendi of freedom. The indeterminateness
of the Will as Noumenon is postulated by the Law which
we find in us dictating unconditionally how we are to act.
And this law must be connected with the idea of the pos-
sibility of its fulfilment. 'Du kannst, denn du sollst,' says
the voice within; not 'du sollst, denn du kannst'; because
the sense of duty is there wholly independently of our
power. It is the law which man as nouinenon gives to
man as phaenomenon. As St Paul puts it: <I delight in
k
~X 74 H~
the law of God according to the inner man'. And of
this truth comparative philology gives startling confirmation.
At the outset of our examination of ethical concepts we
found sin looked upon as 'disobedience to a Voice' (irapa-
Kor|), whilst righteousness was 'hearkening to the inward
monitor' (p. 54). 'If any man will follow me, let him deny
himself expresses the entire content of an Imperative
which is no longer hypothetical hut categorical. Hence
the soul is not so much Imowing as willing. In deter-
mining moral worth it is not intellect, hut deeds, as the
manifestation of the quality of a man's will that we take
into account. Thus the thought of duty must ever form
the basis of all true practical philosophy.
Two further most important inferences Kant draws,
namely: the existence of God, because there can be no law
without a Lawgiver; and the fact of a future life, because,
were there no perpetuation of consciousness beyond the
grave, the tendency would be gratuitous.
But if proof of the existence of a moral sense be
needed, we have the most satisfactory evidence in its
universality and uniformity which have, I think, been fully
shown in the course of our enquiry. It is quite true that,
at various times and in different places, we find different
estimates of right and wrong, but the discrepancies are
accidental and caused by external circumstances. We
have only to look a little below the surface to find certain
leading principles of agreement exerting an influence 'over
every variety and condition of human nature with a power
and uniformity analogous to those of the most obvious of
the physical instincts.'
We have seen, for instance, how not only Hindus
and Hebrews but Chinese and Egyptians, differing as they
do in language, culture and modes of thought, yet wholly
agree in conceiving Eight as Being, Wrong as Not-Being.
This is very significant. Not only does it seem to prove
~*i 75 Kr~
the existence of an ethical intuition as distinguished from
a faculty gradually acquired by experience, but it shows
that Augustine's view of evil is that which mankind in-
stinctively adopts. Essentially sin is privative, is absolute
malitia, which, if unchecked, would go to the extinction of
all being, nay, of God himself. 'There is no doubt', says
the late Dr. Duncan, 'that all sin designs deicide. All sin
is directed against universal being. It is primarily against
God, inferentially against all being. It seeks to slay Being
at the root.'
Again, we have found that the thought of evil as
transgression or trespass is well-nigh universal. The im-
plication is obvious. The various races of mankind have
instinctively felt that in doing wrong they were going beyond
a Law. That law was looked upon as the emanation of
the will of a Superior or Superiors having authority, there
can surely be no doubt. Though we may describe the
reign of physical law as a modern discovery, the great
truth arrived at by Kant on philosophical grounds, namely,
the universality of the moral law and the necessity of a
Lawgiver, our investigation has shown to have been in-
stinctively recognised from the dawn of humanity. Nor is
this result affected by the fact that, amongst various races
we find different estimates of right and wrong, in some
cases even amounting to ethical polarity. In our own
Aryan idioms we have the curious instance of the same
moral term meaning both good and bad, better and worse:
Latin: rnal-us 'bad'; rnel-ior 'better.'
English: bad malus; bet-ter (= bad-ter) melior.
(Sanskrit: b'ad-ra 'good').
Russian: EjiariH 'good and bad.'
,Ho6p6
Xopoiirt 'good' ^
Little Russian: Tiipui 'bad' 1 Ygar to shine.
Polish: gorsze 'worse';
~3* 76 H$~
German: schlicht 'straight, upright'; schlecht 'bad. 7
Chinese: j| 'good'; Jg. 'bad.'
Sanskrit: w^ Kad-ra 'good'; English; bad.
Gothic : vair-s
vara 'good' ver
Danish : vaerre
English: worse.
But no modern student of the phaenomena of con-
sciousness can overlook the fact that, the geological con-
ception of the mental world so strongly advocated by the
evolutionist, by offering a new interpretation of all a priori
forms of thought, greatly affects the question before us.
Before the rise of the new doctrine our ideas of Duty and
of the Deity were either included in the a priori category
or were supposed to have been arrived at in the course
of individual experience. According to the principle of
Evolution, on the other hand, they are the 'accumulated
lesson of actual experience unconsciously whispered on to
each new descendant by its line of progenitors.' The real
difficulty lies in distinguishing the bequeathed part of the
infant's mental furniture from its own subsequent acqui-
sitions. None has stated this more clearly than Prof. Sully.
'According to this hypothesis', he says, 'a man's experiences
and habits, while they distinctly modify his own cerebral
structure and mental capacity, tend also to modify those
of his offspring. Hence it is fairly certain that if these
processes of hereditary transmission have been going on
through countless generations of the human race, every
infant now born into the world receives along with its
primitive nervous organization a very decided and powerful
moral bent, whether it be as a predisposition to certain
modes of conception, or as an instinctive force of emotional
susceptibility in particular directions. Not only so, but if
we suppose man to have been gradually evolved from less
-* 77 HS~
highly organized species, it becomes highly probable that
influences which can be seen to have acted on whole species,
man included, have left behind them a yet deeper impress
in the innate mental structure of a nineteenth century boy
or girl. 7
In his Descent of Man our great biologist Mr. Darwin
has made an elaborate attempt to interpret the brute mind
and to derive man's ethical feelings from the instincts of
lower orders of being. He tells us that, when the degree
of its sociability and of its intelligence qualifies it to ex-
perience the recurrence of images of past actions, and a
feeling of dissatisfaction at the recollection of an unsatis-
fied instinct, an animal suffers remorse. And, indeed, his
view of conscientious sensibility is such that, he does not
hesitate to maintain that, if mankind were brought up under
the same conditions as the hive-bees, sisters would feel it
to be a sacred duty to slay their brothers, and mothers
to make away with their prolific daughters.
Now it must be confessed that, this is a somewhat
strange view of the moral sentiment. In the first place,
we are left in the dark as to how a mere memory of an
ungratified instinct becomes suddenly transformed into the
voice of a Socratic baijuoviov which imperatively points
out 'that it would have been better to have followed one
impulse rather than the other.' In the second, if one is
not disposed to believe that a superior bee would solve the
population problem in a less drastic way, there is certainly
no reason for supposing that human beings in a state of
sanity would not do so. Unless we can find, after a wide
psychological induction, based on the observation of many
races, that men in crowded cities or under specially-
uncomfortable circumstances have resorted to such measures
from a sense of duty, we must decline to entertain any
such opinion of the human conscience. Then, who is to
say that the superior persistence of an instinct gives a
-& 78 f<~
consciousness of obligation? When the swallow abandons
her young in order to migrate, is it at the high call of
duty? The difficulties of trying to enter into the feelings
which a dog, a swallow, or a horse experiences under the
drawings of two opposite impulses are indeed immense.
Of one thing, however, we may be quite sure, namely, that
a sense of wrong in no way accompanies the regret which
we ourselves feel at the omission to seize a passing pleasure
or at the recollection of an unsatisfied longing. Nor is
this all. There are surely few students of anthropology
who would deny that 'the first rudimentary sense of duty
presents itself in that peculiar variety of fear which ac-
companies a recognition of superior will and power in
another.' It is thus more than likely that an intelligent
elephant, horse, or dog, which is capable of apprehending
the manifestations of lofty volition lurking behind its master's
words, feels something akin to man's sentiment of obligation.
But when we are told of a troop of baboons (Cercopithecus
griseo-viridis) that, after passing through a thorny brake
each stretches himself at full length along the branch of
a tree whilst his neighbor 'conscientiously' extracts from
his fur every thorn and burr, we cannot but think it highly
conjectural to suppose that such an impulse of mutual
service really amounts to an act of conscience.
Thus, as regards the lower animals, the truth
would seem to be that, under domestication and in con-
stant contact with man, a moral sentiment may be ac-
quired, but that there is no really-instinctive appreciation
of duty.
As regards man, on the other hand, we have found
that, even in a state of nature, in which condition according
to Hobbes no moral element exists, there is an undoubted
intuition of right and wrong. Darwin himself gives us the
account of three Patagonians who preferred being shot,
one after the other, to betraying their comrades. That
H3H 79 -
tlie distinction between virtue and vice is intrinsic or
essential is further shown by the general use of the word
ouyltt, doit, soil, and of such impersonals as oqpeiXei and
oportet f clearly indicating some universal idea of duty apart
from, though perhaps coinciding with utility. Nor can this
idea of duty be expressed in any language relating to a
consideration of consequences. 'Duty!' exclaims Kant,
'wondrous thought, that workest neither by fond insinuation,
flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by holding up thy
naked law in the soul, and so extorting for thyself always
reverence, if not always obedience; before whom all ap-
petites are dumb, however secretly they rebel whence thy
original?' l
How truly does the poet say:
'He that ever following her commands,
On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Through the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevailed,
Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table-lands
To which our God Himself is moon and sun!'
The fact is, wherever we find man we find him with
face upturned to Heaven, his eyes upon the stars, looking
for the sudden outshining of transcendental idea. As soon
as ever he becomes conscious of self he is aware of Deity.
This is the truth underlying not only the European words
for Conscience already noticed, but such remote expressions
as Malay cA* ^y^, Arabic ^*i, and Hebrew H)DEfa, which,
from primarily-signifying the breath of life breathed into
man whereby he became a living soul (Gen. ii. 7), came to
mean 'a lamp of the Everlasting, searching all the inner
chambers of the body 7 (Prov. xx. 27). Nor should we forget
the Chinese J > and flj, where in each case it is the
heart or will rather than the head that is taken into
i Kritik der^praktischen Vernunft (S. 105).
~3H 80 f<~
account: and the Hyperborean Ndtaiva, from naitea 'that
which is on high'; a conception of the categorical im-
perative whereby das sittliclie Gesetz rises to clem gestirnten
Himmel.
Perhaps no better analogy could be found than that
between the moral sense and an eye for color or an ear
for sound. As certain musically-gifted people come into
the world -enabled to appreciate and delight in the simul-
taneity and succession of certain musical sounds, without
knowledge of the laws of harmony and counterpoint, so,
though altogether ignorant of moral maxims, mankind is
born with an intuitive appreciation of right and wrong in
various degrees of sensitiveness. It is certainly possible
that, this exquisite sense, together with the faculty of speech
has been gradually evolved in countless ages from lower forms
of life. What we hold is that, in man alone it is intuitive.
Plato, Plotinos and Paul express themselves differently,
but, in this matter, the truth to which they give utterance
is the same; a truth made amply apparent by an analysis
of language.
The light of the Logos thrown upon the consciousness
of man makes manifest the two great and abiding facts:
God and Conscience; giving us all the sublime assurance
that, though that image may be blurred and sometimes
altogether lost, the true likeness of the human is that
of the divine! AUTO TO Trveujua aujujaapTupei TUJ Trveuucm
niuujv, OTI etfjuev TEKVCX OeoO. And this is the sacred secret
of Duty,
'Nor know we anything so fail-
As is the smile upon thy face!'
APPENDIX.
IDEOLOGICAL INDICES.
1. Genitive + noun
2. Noun + genitive
3. Adjective -f noun
4. Noun
5. Object
6. Verb
7. Verb
8. Subject
+ adjective
4- verb
+ object
+ subject
+ verb.
I. Natural gen + n,
i
II. Hybrid gen + n,
i
III. Indirect gen + n,
i
IV. Hybrid gen -t- n,
i
V. Hybrid gen + n,
a) Object + subject + verb
p) Object + verb + subject
T) Verb + object + subject
6) Verb + subject + object
e) Subject + object + verb
) Subject + verb + object.
4 58
n + adj, o + v, s + v.
4 68
n + adj, v + o, s + v.
3 58
adj + n, o + v, s + v.
adj + n,
5 7
+ V, V + S.
adj + n, v + o, s + v.
4 68
VI. Hybrid n + gen, n + adj, v + o, s + v.
2 467
VII. Direct n + gen, n + adj, v + o, v -|- s.
In the transmission of Language the old word-order is
often disturbed by later substitution of races, but with a
-3H 84 K~
regularity which enables us to formulate the following
laws of ideological evolution:
1. Wherever a language spoken by immigrant tribes
is brought into contact with an idiom of different ideology
spoken by a settled population, and mingles with it, the
power of preserving its sentence-arrangement is greater
with the less civilised.
2. When, of two languages spoken by two populations
at different stages of civilisation, there is imposition and
not supersession, the position of the genitive and adjective
which usually prevails, is that proper to the more civilised
idiom, often with the addition of an affix.
3. Under the same conditions the position of the verb,
as to its subject and object, which has the greater chance
of prevailing, is that of the less cultured language, pro-
nouns &c., being often added.
4. The phaenomena of incorporative pronouns relating
to subject or object are found wherever a language of an
indirect standard comes under the modifying influence of
another language of a direct standard.
i< C s ir
QK ^
-^-f OO f^~
f-J
^1 1
r.| -1
ijtf
1 ' - 1
ii
^ P-i t> PH
s
^ ^
?' o
g
bo
1
ft ^
isotrichic
[1,
be g
o p^
^
S
-t^ PH
^>
^~\
^
o ^
i-5 w
o
' QQ W
03 C3
hH
g .2 o -g
"
t>
>> n^ <FH rf
d
I' "1 1
^ g , d |
8
S
M t> rv* & c ^
W
& 00
J 1
1
.
J s
11
,_q 1
O
rt
S
pj
o
*""* Q_J
rh
Pi JS
~*^ (V?
O trl
+>
.1
g
.02
H
1
<!
r. P
| 3 B
M
^ "o y^^.
III
1 1 1 g
I
1
*^ Pdi
QD
O
PH
S *
' c8
1
o3 ^^
|.
PH ^
0>
p -fl
S o>
d ej
a; c3
r *
ft OQ
O ^^
^
. "1
H
86
CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGE.
a) GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION.
I. Hottentots.
II. Papuans.
III. African Negroes.
IV. Kafirs.
V. Australians.
VI. Hyperboreans.
VII. Americans.
1. Speech of the Kbik'oi.
2. Languages of the Bushmen.
Idioms of the Papua-stems.
21 different speech-stems.
1. Mande idioms.
2. Wolof language.
3. Felup idioms.
4 11. isolated languages.
12. Bornu idioms
13. Kru
14. Ewe
15. Ibo
16 17. isolated idioms
18. Musgu
1920. isolated
21. Nile
Bantu languages.
Australian and Tasmanian idioms.
1. Jukagir
2. Korjak. Kukkish.
3. Kamkadal. Speech of the Ainu.
4. Jenissei-Ostjak and Kottish.
5. Eskimo languages.
6. Aleutic.
26 Stems.
1. Kenai languages.
2. At'apaska
3. Algonkin
4. Irokese.
5. Dakota.
6. Pani.
87 HE-
Americans,
VIII. Malays.
IX. Mongols.
7. Appalach.
8. Languages of the tribes of the
N.W. Coast.
9. Oregon idioms.
10. Californian
11. Juma
12. Isolated idioms of Sonora and
Texas.
13. Idioms of the aborigines of
Mexico.
14. Astek-Sonoric languages.
15. Maja
16. Isolated idioms of Middle
America and the Antilles.
17. Carabee; Arowak.
18. Tupi-Guarani.
19. Andes-idioms.
20. Araukan.
21. Abiponese.
22. Languages of the Puelche.
23. Tehuelhet.
24. Pesarah.
25. Kibka.
26. Kwikua.
Malayo-Polynesian languages.
1. Ural-Altaic idioms.
2. Sumirian and Akkadian.
3. Japanese.
4. Korean.
5. Monosyllabic languages.
a) Tibetan. Himala tongues,
p) Burmese. Lohita
Y) Siamese.
6) Annamite.
e) Chinese.
Mongols.
X. Dravidas.
XI. Nubas.
XII Midlanders.
88 K-
I) Isolated languages of the
Indo-Chinese Peninsula.
1. Munda languages.
2. Dravida
3. Singhalese.
1. Fulah tongue.
2. Nuba languages.
3. Languages of the "Wa-Kwafi
and Masai stems.
1. Basque.
2. Kaukasian languages.
3. Hamito-Semitic
4. Aryan
A. Inorganic Languages.
B. Organic Languages.
1. Normal
2. Intranormal
3. Transnormal
MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION.
I. Idioms without grammatical
structure (Chinese, for in-
stance).
II. Languages with affixes (all
idioms of polysyllabic build
excepting the Indo-European).
III. Flexion-Languages (theAryan).
a) Synthetic (the ancient),
p) Analytic languages (the
modern Indo - European
tongues).
Flexional languages, or state
tongues.
Isolating and agglutinative, or fa-
mily 'nomad'.
Incorporative tongues.
89
o
o
I I
^ H
<
s g
M
02 -<
O2 S
.63
O QQ |
O *
* !
u i
2
_ :g
1 I
S|
o
H
a
o
M -*
.2 13 IS 13
. 2
S
|>
'
es
>2 .a
||
90
B
. Separating matter A.
and form.
Mixing matter
and form.
a- cr
| | ||
1 1 ^
If
P TO S'
| g " 1
g |
1 1 1
F
O 3
||
CO
SYSTEM OF LA
10 H-
O CH
C
1- &
Oq ^
erf- GO
y" erV
cc? p"
^
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"TO P -^ "OD P TO P
.-?. 3 o.
25
1
1
t
TJO
P
B? *L SL
X v^ 1 ^'
1' ; | (
I! I!! Iff
*! Ill fit
CD s ' 5 P S ^ cro
; - s ^^ &s ^.
| . v, ... |jjH
) Expressing relations of the
matter by word-formatior
Expressing word-relations
fixes
j Expressing form-relations b
ing stuff-words to the ro
SCHEME II.
>UAGES AS THE EVOLU r
-- g" g.
s- g.
Pi C^ <r<- (fo
ro . . CD ** ^
S- ... ^ S ^
3- 3^
Q-
15 - 3"
g JST- a
ra
M
g
1 ; : : : ; . - . 1
g
o'
- 1 - ^ - I '.
!-*.?!? .
*(
O
P p
2. Languages with completer
external form.
1. Languages with
incomplete form.
H3
M M
~K3 <!
i_j HH
i
!I. Semitic.
I. Sanskrit.
a? ...ggSg.'^
^>S & <" *. p' CD" Q
11 1 *l i P 3?
<! p B M
f g I f f g ^
CfQ, PJ OQ H ^ p J5
^ " P p OTQ q
o
3
& I' s-
^ ^ *0
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CTQ Q^
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bd o ^
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00 Q3> OD . &*
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p tf
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91
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e
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92
SCHEME II.
I. Thought-Script:
A) Script-Painting.
B) Picture-Script.
II. Sound-Script:
A) Word-Script.
B) Syllable-Script.
(Thought as a whole). Script-
painting of the North American
Indians.
(Thought in its constituents).
Writing of the Mexicans, and
at the basis of the Chinese
and the Egyptian script.
(Substitution of the picture of
an idea for another, coincid-
ing with the former in sound).
Script of the Chinese and
ancient Egyptians.
Japanese writing and Semitic
Cuneiform.
C) Syllable-letter-Script. (Writing in which a definite
sign can denote neither a
syllable nor a single sound,
but both). Writing of the
Semitic nations.
D) Letter-Script.
(Writing in which a definite
sign denotes a definite sound).
Persian Cuneiform. Egyptian.
Indian, Greece-Roman Script
-sw 93 *-
PHONOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION.
I. VOWELS.
a
a
e o o
i ii u
e 6' 6
i u u
a
e o o
i u u
e 8 6
^ u etc.
94
tr 1 tr
gD JO
a- a"
Dental
Dental
>ri tr 1 H0
EL 5* EL
go OQ p
o g r
u sr
Guttura
Fauc
CD O
g. 3
I -
II
95
GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
OF THE
CONCEPTION OF DEITY.
A. Hottentot Race:
1. K'oilioi 2. San
IK'u'b Zuni-||Goam
Lord Red Morning.
B. Papua Race:
1. Motu 2. Mafor
Dirava Hari
Spirit
Bright C
C. African Negro
Race:
1. Mande
Ngewo
2. Tenne
Kuru
Old-One
4. Kanuri
Kema-nde
Lorcl-of-us
5. Ewe
Mawu
Striker
7. Oki
Onjankopon
Heaven
8. Akra
Njonmo
Heaven
10. Sonfai
Jer-koi
Our Lord
11. Ibo
Ku'ku
Seeker
13. Dinka
Dendid
That-Great
14. Maba
Kaiak
Great One
16. Logone
Mal-ua
Our Master
17. Wandala
Dada-mia
Our Father
3. Hausa
Obaiigisi
House Father
6. Joruba
Olodumare
One-who-has-a-name
9. Teda -
Kenuo
Our Master
12. Bari
Nun
The All-Depth
15. Musuk
Alau
(a fenn of Allah?)
18. Bisari
AiiKwane
$* 96 K~
19. Fernando Po
Rupi
20. Serer
Rog
21. Nupe
Soko
Seeker
22. Basa
Grepp
23. Grebo
Njesoa
24. Bullom
Foi
Beyond.
D. Kafir Race:
I. Kafir 2.
Utikso
Ked Morning
Sulu
Munkulunkulu
Old'-Old-One
3. Swahili
Muungu
Old'-Old-One
4. Sekwana 5.
Morimo
Ancestral Spirit
Sesuto
Molimo
Ancestral Spirit
6. Inhambane
Mulungulu
Old-Old-One
7. Ki-Hjan 8.
Mulungu
Old-Old-One
Ki-Kaniba
Mulungu
Old-Old-One
9. Eanika
Muiuiigu
Old-Old-One
10. Makua 11.
Mulugo
Old-Old-One
Otji-Herero
o Mukuru
Old-Old-One
12. Maravi
Nsimmo
Spirit
13. Sena 14.
Musimo
Spirit
Kwelliniane
Musimo
Spirit
15. Benga
Anjanibi
Spirit
16. Mponwe 17.
Anjambia
Spirit
Ki-Swahili
Mlungu
Old-Old-One
18. Sofala
Murungu
Old-Old-One
19. Tette 20.
Morungo
Old-Old-One
Ki-Pokomo
Mungo
Old-Old-One
21. Isubu
Obasi
The Father
22. Kongo 23.
Nsambianpungu
Old' Spirit
Angola
o Nsambi
Spirit
24. Kiteke
Nsamo-rupuo
Spirit above
97
25. Fulde
Gromain
E. Anstralian Race:
1. Kamilaroi
Baiame
Creator
F. Hyperborean Race:
26. Andaman
, Puluga
Good Spirit.
2. Turrubul
Mumbal
Thunder.
1. Odul
2. Eskimo
3. Greenlandish
Koil
Guclib
Torngarsuk
Great Spirit
4. Aniu
5. Aleutic
6. Labrador
Kamui
Ag'oguk
Gu'de
Spirit
(a form of God).
G. 1. Tinne
2. Kri
3. Lenni-Lennape
Kesamanedu
Manito
Kittanitowit
Great Spirit
Spirit
Great-Living-
Spirit
4. Og'ibwa
5. Mikmak
6. Malisit
Visemanito
NiksKam
Nukskam
Great Spirit
7. Algonkin
8. liokta
9. Irokuois
Kuduagni
Ok'i
Taronhiawagon
Framer
Lofty-One
Sky-bolder
10. Dakota
11. Tklinkit
12. Mexikan
Wakantanka
Asakun
Teotl
Great Spirit
13. Otomi 14. Tukud'
Okia
15. Goalura
Vittukukankjo Mareiwa
98
16. Tupi
Tupan
Thunderer
19. Kili-denu
Pillan
Thunderer
17. Kiriri
Tupan
Thunder
20. Astek
i
18. Kikito
Tupas
Thunderer
21. G-warani
22. Inka
Pakakamak
World Creator
Huizilo Poktli Tamoi
'Humming Bird,
left'.
23. Kvikuan 24. Kapaneki
Pakakamakka Nomboui
World Creator
25. Koggaba
Kalguasisa
H. Malay Race:
1. Lifu
Akotesi and
Hase
2. Aneitjumese
Atua
Core-of-Humanity.
4. Tongan
Otua
5. Maori
Atua
7. Rarotongan
Atua
8. Marquesan
Atua
10. Hawaii
Akua
11. Rotuman
Oiitu
Core-of-Humanity.
13. Malagasi
Andria-Manitra and Sanahari
Noble-Sweet
15. Balinese
Wicli
18. Mare
Makase
Creator
16. Batta
Debata
The Bright One
19. Jaian
K'on
3. Samoan
Atua
6. Tahitian
Atua
Atua
12. Fate
Leatu
14.
17,
20.
Malay
Tuhan
Lord
Djak
Tapa
Figi
Kalu
^ 99 x~
21. Viti
Kalou
22. Ngunese
Sue
23. Saibai
Augadan.
/. Mongol Race:
1. Akkadian
Dingir
Heaven
2. Mongolian
Tengri
Heaven
3. Turkish
Tangri
Heaven
4. Jakut
5. Manku
6. Hun
Tangara
Heaven
Abk'a-i Egen
Heaven's Lord
Tang-li
Heaven
7. Chinese
Tjan
Heaven
8. Korean
Tk'ie'n
Heaven
9. Japanese
Kami
Spirit
10. Tibetan
Lha and Mkog
Lord Best
11. Burmese
B'ura
Lord
12. Siamese
Bra
Lord
13. K'assi
U-ilei
Lord
14. Kams'adal
Billukai
Heaven
15. Finnish
Jumala
Thunder-place
(Heaven)
16. Esthonian
Jummal
Heaven
17. Keremissian
Juma
Thunder
18. Lapp
Jubmel
Heaven
19. Jurak
Num
Thunder
20. Ostjak
Torim
Earth
21. Wogul
Torim
Earth
22. Kuvas
Tora
23. Magyar
Isten
24. Mordvinian
Paz
Earth
Object-of worship Lord
~X 100 <-
25. Kalmuk 26. Lepka 27. Samoyede
Tari Ramu Jilibeambaertje
Earth Protector-of-theLiving
28. Karassin
Ilza
Great Uncle.
K. Drdvida Race:
1. Kol 1
2. Munda > Sin-Zona Sun-God.
3. Oraon J
4. Sant'ali 5. Tamil 6. Tulu
Kando Kadruveguran Kadavular
Moon Omnipotent Omnipotent
7. Gond 6. Urija 9. Eagmahali
Tari-Pennu Bura-Pennu Gosanjit'
Star- Woman Lord and Lady Leader-of-the-Flock
L. Nuba Race:
l.Nubi 2. Fulde 3. Mahas 4. Dongolawi
Nor Gomirado Nor Arti
Lord Folk-Lord Lord Knower.
M. Midlanders:
1. Basque 2. Avaric
Jainkoa Zov and Betsed
Lord celestial Heaven Wealth
3. Georgian 4. Mingrelian 5. Swanetian
Gmerti Goronti Germet
Self-Existent
6. Lesgish 7. Abkasian 8. Udic
Tangri Anka Zu
Heaven Mother Heaven
101
9. T'us
10. Kek'enzis
Dal
Dole
Giver
Giver.
N.
Hamito-Semitic
Race:
1. Bogos
2. Galla
3. Kabyle
Gar
Waka-jo
Eebti
Heaven
Potter
Master
4. Egyptian
5. Koptic
G. Hebrew
Nuter
Nute
iji
Destroyer
Destroyer
Force
7. Aramaean
8. Assyrian
9. Syro-Chaldaic
Alahfi
An and Ilu
I-I
Fear
Force
Self-Existent
10. Phaenician
11. Karsun
12. Arabic
Alilat
Allah
Allah
Fear
Fear
Fear
13. Bilin
14. Kamir
15. Kara
Adara
Adara
Jadara
Lord
Lord
Tjord
16. ^Ethiopia
17. Amharic
18. Tigre
Egsiabeher
Amlak
Egsiabeher
Land-Lord
King
Land-Lord.
0.
Aryan Race:
1. Sainskrt
2. Sand
3. Pali
Deva
Ahura
Jetba
Bright One
Spirit
Bright One
4. Bengtlli
5. Assami
6. Parbuti
I'wor
Manrali
T' '
Jsvara
Ruler
Ruler
102
8. Gurinuki
Paramesura
High Ruler
11. Multani
Isranai
Ruler
14. Sangiri
7. Mondari
Paramesvara
High Ruler
10. Simhali
Devijo
Bright One
13. Kait'i
Isaya Ruata
Ruler
16. Pahlavi
K'utat
Self-Existent
18. Persian 19. Kas c miri 20. Sind c i
K'uda Kudan Kuda
Self-Existent
22. Dalsam 23. Mussulman-Bengali
K'u'da Kolla
Self-Existent
25. Pastu 26. Osseti
Kude
28. Welsh
Duw
Bright One
31. Gaelic
Dia
Bright One
34. Latin
Deus
9. Marat e i
Devane
Bright One
12. Hindi
Isvarane
Ruler
15. Old-Baktrian
Kad c 'ata
17. Parsi-Gugarati
K e odao
Self-Existent
29. Armor ic
Doue
Bright One
32. Manx
Gi
Bright One
35. French 36. Vaudois
Dieu Diou
Bright One
21. Urdu
K'uda
24. Kurdish
K'ocie
27. Armenian
Asdouaz
He-is-here
30. Irish
Dia
Bright One
33. Umbrian
Aesar
i
Ruler
37. Italian
Iddio
~3* 103 Kr-
38. Piedmontese 39. Romanese 40. Roumanian
Iddiou Deus and Deis Dumnedeu
Bright One Ruler anil Brigth One
41. Catalan 42. Spanish 43. Portuguese 44. Provencal
Deu Dios Deus Die'u
Bright One
45. Gypsy 46. Tosk 47. Geg
Dewel Perutia Perendia
Bright One High Bright One
48. Greek
He-to-whom-prayer-is-made.
49. Old Slav 50. Russian 51. Bulgarian
Bog Bog Bog
52. Servian 53. Slovenian
Bogu Bog
Dispenser of Wealth
54. Slovak 55. Polish 56. Wendish
Boh Bog Bohg
57. Kroatian 58. Bohemian
Bogu Biih
Dispenser of Wealth
59. Lettish GO. Lithuanian 61. Samogitian
Deews Diews Diewas
Bright One
62. Icelandic 63. Swedish 64. Norsk 65. Gothic
Gu
Self-Existent
Gud Gud Gu'd
~3* 104 K~
66. Old High German 67. Nether-German 68. Anglosaxon
Kot God God
Self-Existent
69. Frisian 70. Flemish 71. Dutch 72. English
God
God God
Self-Existent
God
Printed by W. Drugulin, Leipzig.
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
194?
JAN 9 1959
0*l>ay'59BB
__
MAY t
JUN
16Mar'61Dn
52
52M
MAR 1 6 1961
m
LD 2HOOm-12, '43 (8796s)
U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES
YC 30182
U
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