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Full text of "Parameswara-jnyána-goshthi. A dialogue of the knowledge of the Supreme Lord, in which are compared the claims of Christianity and Hinduism, and various questions of Indian religion and literature fairly discussed"

Parameswara-jnydna-goshth t. 




A DIALOGUE 

OF THE 

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUPEEME LOED, 

IN WHICH ABE* COMPARED THE CLAIMS OF 

CHRISTIANITY AND HINDUISM, 

AND VARIOUS QUESTIONS OF 

INDIAN KELIGION AND LITEEATUEE 

FAIELY DISCUSSED. 



li seeviant in vos, qui nesciant, quanto labore Veritas acquiritur. St Augusthie. 

Cum homines DEUM quserunt facillime debent ignoscere errantibus in tanti investigation*. 

Secreti.-M 



CAMBEIDGE : 

DEIGHTON, BELL AND Co. 
LONDON: BELL AND DALDY. 

1856. 



CAMBRIDGE : 

PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 



/" V 



NOV2S1966 
1143706" 



TO 

JOHN MUIR, ESQUIRE, 

LATE OF THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE, 

THIS BOOK, PROMPTED BY HIS MUNIFICENCE, 
AND AIDED BY HIS SUGGESTIONS, 

IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR, 

IN TOKEN OF HIGH REGARD AND ESTEEM, 

AND IN HUMBLE HOPE OF ITS PROMOTING 

FAITH IN GOD, AND GOODWILL AMONGST MEN. 



CAMBRIDGE, A.D. 1847- 
LAMPETER, A.D. 1856. 



%* The word Muni should have been printed throughout unaccented, or with 
a short vowel. Words fully naturalised, such as Vedic and Brahman, are printed 
according to English custom. In other cases the speakers of the dialogue use 
generally Sanscrit, with one or two Pali forms. Thus, for the Aryan race, they 
say A ryas. It is hoped that any misprints which may have escaped correction are 
hardly important enough to affect the sense. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

WHAT THE SAUGATA MUNI THINKS. 



Characters of Dialogue 
Bauddhas disclaim Materialism 
Existence of Matter . 
Matter Atomic . 
Material World . 
Matter and Mind 
Bauddha Terms explained . 
Terms explained . 

Bauddha Religion 
Theory of the World . 
Causation .... 
Bauddha Affinities. Causation 
Causation .... 
Co-existent Intelligence 
Superintendence of Deity . 
Uses of Prayer . 
Prayer and Aspiration 
Objects of Worship . 



PAGE 

2 

3 
4 
5 
6 
8 

9 
10 
ii 

12 
14 

16 

18 

J 9 
20 

21 

22 
23 



PAGE 

Abstract Idea of Deity . .24 

Adi Buddha and Sakya . .25 

Revelation or Discovery . . 26 

Sakya s Characteristics . .27 

Religious Credentials . . .28 

Miracles not frequent . . 29 

Bauddha Development . . 30 

Tests requisite . . . .31 

Bauddha Scriptures . . .32 

Bauddha Miracles. Inspiration . 33 

Sakya s Career and Doctrine . 34 

Bauddha Scepticism . . .36 

Sacerdotalism. Variations . 37 

Shortcomings . . . . 38 

Common Ground . . -39 

Summary . . . . .40 

Notes. Authorities . . . 41 



CHAPTER II. 

WHAT THE VAISHNAVA SANKHYAST THINKS. 



Sankhya Priority . . .43 

Vishnu 44 

Popular Deities . . . -45 

Knowledge implies Truth . -47 

Hindu Sects . . . .48 

Sankhya Theology . . -49 

Cause or Source . . .50 

" The Subtle Person " . .51 

Primary Matter . . .52 

Intellect as Sensibility . -53 

Dramatic Analogies . . 54 

Personality and Soul . . 55 
M. P. 



Personality and Nature . . 56 
Diversity of Souls . . .57 
Deities . . . . .58 

Evolutions 59 

Sankhya Theism Illusory; or 

Physi-Theistical ... 60 
Nature evolving . . .62 

Tendencies of Doctrine . . 63 
Tendencies of Doctrine whether 

improving . . . .64 
Missionary Challenge . . 66 

Note. Authorities . . .67 

b 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

WHAT THE SAIVA VEDANTIST THINKS. 



FACE 

Vedantine Remarks . . .68 
Heterodoxy of Siinkhya . . 69 
Pracriti Creation Caste . . 7 
Vedic Deities . . . .71 
Siva and the Vedas . . -75 
Multiform Unity ... 76 
Hindu Quietism . . -77 

Theanthropism . . . 7^ 

Beatitude 79 

Caste Accommodation . . 80 
Unity of Soul . . . .81 
Soul and Life . . . .82 
Identity in Change . . .83 
Deity in all . . . . 84 
Though Consciousness repugnant 85 
The Three Qualities . . .86 
Ma>C_ Illusion . . . .87 
Ma"ya" Divine Energy . . 88 



Relations and Impressions . . 89 
Matter Intellect Humanity 

Deity Spirit . .90 

Deity Spirit Liberation . . 91 
Highest Liberation . . 9 2 
Transmigration . . . -93 
, Deity and World . . -94 
Conceptions of Soul . . 95 
Abstract or Personal . . .96 
Subject Object Agent Effect 97 
Comprehension of Opposites . 98 
Phenomenal Nature Divine 

Thinking . . . -99 
Va"ch Logos . . . .100 
Divine Outshadowing . . 101 
Apparent Inconsistencies . .102 
Siva Ee volution . . .103 
Note 104 



CHAPTER IY. 

HOW CHARVACAS MAY BE REFUTED. 



Approximation of Systems . 105 
Objections of Materialist . .106 

Cavils 107 

Difficulties 108 

Obscurity alleged . . .no 
Physical Influences . . .in 
Body Spirit Synthesis Na 
turalism . . . .112 
Christian Premises . . .113 
Sensation and Judgment . .114 
Laws of Thought . . .115 
Truth of Numbers . . .116 
Mathematics . . . .117 
Truth procreative . . .118 
Forethought in Creation . .119 
Atomical Combination . .120 
Natural Laws Divine Thoughts 121 



Mind of Man . . . .122 

Distinctness of Mind . .123 

Desire and Volition . . .124 

Strife of the Inner Man . .125 

Affections or Passions . .126 

Better Affections . . .127 

Religious Instincts . . .128 

Conscience . . . .129 

Presentiment of Futurity . .132 

Devout Experience . . .134 

Requirements of Humanity . 136 

Inference of Divine Object . .138 

Necessity of Positive Object . 139 

Whether Analogue to Mind or 

Body 140 

Possibly Transcendent . .141 
Yet Mental, rather than Material 142 



CONTENTS. 



Vll 



PAGE 

Moral Witness from Habit . 143 

Moral Government clear if 

Metaphysics doubtful . 144 

Metaphysical Hypothesis Reli 
gious Need . . . .145 
Inference of Ultimate Being . 146 
Attributes of Highest Being . 147 



The Positive and the Mystical 
Mysticism and Scepticism . 
Creation and Emanation 
Presentiment with Piety 
Religion exalting Instinct . 
Illustrations 



PAGE 

148 
149 
150 

151 
152 

153 



CHAPTER V. 

CRITICISM OF HINDU SYSTEMS, PARTICULARLY THE BAUDDHA AND THE 

SANKHYA. 



Siinkhyast Indifference . 

Vedantist s Apathy . 

Arguments for Inquiry 

Truth and Sentiment . 

Unity of Truth Hindu Pre 
diction .... 

Worth of Probabilities 

Aspects of Buddhism 

Difficulties of Buddhism . 

Unsatisfactory Miracles 

Tradition and Inspiration . 

The Odyssey in Ceylon 

Sa"kya Bauddha Scriptures 

Buddhism hardly Original . 

Sankhya Psychology . 

Resurrection and Immortality 

Responsibility Seat of Agency . 

Soul and Deity partly Correla 
tives ..... 

Motives of Creator . 

Law, Thought, Chance, Idea, 
Mind Moral Fitness . 

Moral Governor Causes of In 
consistency 

Refining Subtlety Vastness of 
Scale 

More Worlds, more Signs of God 

Infinity, Infinite Mind 



154 


Divine Attributes . . .178 


J 55 


Transcendency . . . .1/9 


156 


Hindu Passiveness . . .180 


*57 


Why not Activity? . . .181 




Activity of Intelligence . .182 


158 


Divine Retribution . . . 183 


i59 


What is Creation by "Igno 


160 


rance"? .... 186 


161 


ScCnkhya Defect of Science . 187 


162 


Soul and World not accounted 


163 


for ... . 188 


164 


Theory of Causation imperfect . 189 


165 


The Causer of Causes . .190 


166 


Cause and Causer. Making and 


167 


Maker . . . .191 


168 


Divine Design, and Difficulty of 


169 


Evil 192 




Extenuations of Evil . . . 193 


170 


Variety of Relation, Shortcoming, 


171 


Perversion . . . -194 




Evil of Things Negative Good 


172 


Positive . . . 195 




Carnivorous Creation . . . 196 


i74 


Conjectures . . . 197 




Moral Evil Positive . . .198 


i75 


Evil in Free Agents . . -199 


176 


Evil remedial .... 200 


177 





Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FURTHER CRITICISMS OF HINDU SYSTEMS, PARTICULARLY OF THE VE- 
DANTINE DESIGN MORAL GOVERNMENT NEED OF HOPEFUL 
NESS PANTHEISM AND IDOLATRY TWO ASPECTS OF ONE EVIL. 



PAGE 

Argument from Design . .202 

Final Causes . . . .203 
General Types .... 204 

Special and General . . . 205 

Special, relative to Man . . 206 
General, modified providentially . 208 

Analogy of Potter . . . 209 

Typical Ideas Unity of Life . 210 

Sphere of Final Causes . .211 

Exceptions . . . .212 

General Providence . . .213 

Joint Working of Man . -215 

Divine Will self-conscious . .216 

VedfCntine Spirit and Letter . 217 

Whether Material or Spiritual . 218 



Weakening of Individuality 
Veda ntine Correspondencies 
A Geological Probability . 
Clearer Traces of Design . 
Shadowiness of Pantheism 
Temptations of Pantheism 
Moral Weakness of Hinduism 
Doctrinal Wants 
Inconsistencies 
Social Shortcomings 
Sins of India 

Need of a truer Religion . 
Whether truer to Intuition, 
by Proof . 



PAGE 
219 
221 
222 
223 
224 
225 
226 
227 
228 
229 
230 
231 

2 3 2 



CHAPTER VII. 

OUTLINES OF INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 



Obstacles to the Discussion 
Moral Preliminaries . 
Use of external History 
National Accuracy 
Wonders, and Goodness 
Early Hindu Chronology extra 
vagant .... 
Period of ancient Dynasties . 
Ancient Dynasties 
Chandragupta .... 
Asoca Vicrama ditya 
Vicrama ditya s Era . 

Nandas 

Andhras 

Bauddha Chronology 

Dynasties before Chandragupta . 

Magadha Princes 



233 
234 

235 
237 
238 

239 
240 
242 
244 

245 
246 
247 
248 
249 
250 
251 



Sahadeva to Ripungaya . .252 
Date of Maha bha rata . .253 
Traditional Dawn of Hindu His 
tory 254 

Age of obscure Empires . . 255 
Families of Nations . . . 256 
Comparative Chronology . .257 
Greek Analogies . . .259 
Historical Scepticism . .260 

Foreign Influences . . . 262 
Brahmanism whether Ancient . 263 
Reply to Extreme Scepticism . 264 
Signs of Indian Antiquity . 266 

Notwithstanding Obscurities . 267 
Leading Dates .... 268 
Dates B. c. of early Indian and 

other History, Literature, &c. 269 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HINDU LITERATURE CLASSIFIED AND FOUND WANTING. 



Hindu Literature 
Lateness of the Pura nas 
Gradual Growth of Vedas . 
Atharva-Veda . 
Epic Poems 
Code of Manu . 
Sa"nkhya Speculation 
Earlier and later Veda"nta . 
Age of the Vedas 
Changes of Indian Society 
Developments of Speculation 
Brahman ism 

Priesthood Caste Manu 
Steps of Development 



PAGJE 

273 

274 

275 
276 
277 
278 
279 
280 
281 
282 
283 
284 
285 
286 



The Two Epics (ItihsCsas), Drama 287 

Knowledge and Worship Ethics 288 

Purifying of Worship 

Vedanta and Vedas . 

Buddha and Brahmanism . 

Course of Buddhism 

Three Stages of Hinduism 

Literal Immutability fails . 

Theory of Divine Development 

Present Inconsistencies 

Inherent Persuasiveness 

Internal Failure of Hinduism 

Shortcomings 

Critical Authorities . 



289 

2QO 

291 
292 

293 
297 
298 
299 
300 
30i 
302 
303 



CHAPTER IX. 

HEBREW HISTORY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



Nature of Persuasives 

Supposed Analogy 

Nature of Prophecy essential 

and accidental 
Parsis. Gipsies. Hebrews 
Abraham. Israel 
Mosaic Law .... 
Spirit, Letter, Priesthood . 
Hebrew Prophecy 
Predication and Prediction 
Anticipation of better Kingdom . 
The King to come 
Jewish Nationality . 
Jewish Literalism 
Christian Spiritualism 
Body and Soul 
Historical Tendency, Divine De- 



304 

305 

306 

3<>7 
308 

309 
310 

3H 
312 

313 
3H 
315 
3i6 

317 
318 

319 



King, Prophet, Priest, in Letter 

and Spirit . . . 320 



Sacrifice in Letter and Spirit . 321 
Christian Prayer. Hebrew Law. 322 
Christian Prayer to One God . 325 
God s Holiness . . . 326 

Faith in God s Kingdom and Will 327 



Indian Analogies 

Faith. Revelation . 

Needs of Body and Soul . 

Forgiveness of Sins 

Forgiveness and Penance . 

Justification by Faith 

Justification. Sanctificatioii 

Sanctification Grace 

Grace .... 

Salvation 

Evil .... 

The Enemy 

The Kingdom Eternal 

The Kingdom Spiritual 



329 
330 
33i 
S3 2 
334 
335 
336 
337 
338 
339 
340 
342 
344 
346 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER X. 

CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES, AND THEIR DOCTRINE. 



Scriptures . -347 

Pregnancy of Judaism . . 348 

Christian Fulfilment . . 349 

Jesus Christ . -35 

Place and Time of Incarnation . 351 

Characteristics of the Age . 352 

Law and Gospel . . -353 

The Words of Christ . . 354 

The Works of Christ . . 35 6 

Incarnation . . . -359 

Rejection of Christ . . . 360 

Crucifixion . . . .361 

Sacrifice 362 

Suffering of Christ . . .363 

Fulfilment through Suffering . 365 

Spiritual Sacrifices . . . 366 

Love Seeking not its own . . 367 



Eesurrection spiritual and bodily 369 
Jesus the Christ. Christ s Coming 371 
The Apostles. St Peter . . 37 2 
St Peter. Promises to him . 373 
St James. Jewish Christianity . 374 
St Paul s Conversion . -375 

The Law. Freedom. Sacrifice. 376 
Justification. Gentile Christianity 377 
The Gospel predestinated . . 378 
St Paul s Christianity spiritual 

and historical . . -379 
Hinduism in the light of St Paul 380 
St Paul s Counsels . . .381 
St John. The Apocalypse . 382 

St John s Gospel . . . 383 
Recapitulation . . -385 

Search with Prayer . . .386 



CHAPTER XL 



SCRIPTURE CRITICISM, MIRACLES, CHURCH HISTORY. 



Harmony in Diversity . -387 
Scinkhya Shortcoming . .388 
Christianity and Biblical Criticism 389 
Christianity accepts critical Re 
sults .... 390 
Estimate of Jewish Judgments . 391 
Growth of Levitical System . 392 
Growth of the Bible by Steps . 393 
The Psalms. Daniel. Zechariah. 394 

Isaiah 395 

How Criticism affects Prophecy . 396 
Scriptural Knowledge and Sphere 

of Scribe coincide 
External Mention of the Law 
Pentateuch 

Compilation of Documents 
Spirit of Hebrew History 
Pentateuch. Joshua 



397 
398 
399 
400 
401 
402 



Book of Psalms . . . 403 
Daniel. Zechariah. Deutero 
nomy .... 404 
Nature of Prophecy. Isaiah . 405 
Revelation is an Unveiling . 406 
Providences of the Church. In 
carnation . . -407 
Incarnation historically attested 408 
New Testament Scriptures . 409 
Positive Authority of Christianity 410 
Old Testament Types . .411 
Types prophetical. (The Gospel) 412 
Inspiration foretold. Harmony 

of Evidences . . 414 
Church History . . .416 

Primitive Revival -419 
Power of Christianity, and its 

Instruments . . .420 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



CHAPTER XII. 

DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES AND EXPLANATIONS. 



Difficulty of Original Sin . .421 
Difficulty of the Atonement . 423 
Difficulty of Election . . 424 
Predestination. The Trinity . 425 
Questions as to Faith . .426 

Charge of Exclusiveness . 427 
Objection of Materialism and 

Localisation . . .428 
Hindu Spiritualism. Christian 

Eeply . . . .429 

Falling of Man a Reality, but 

not to be exaggerated . 430 

Relation, Aspect, Feeling, Sacra 
ment .... 432 
Doctrine of the Atonement . 433 
Doctrine of Election . . . 436 
Natural Difficulties of Freewill . 437 



438 

439 
440 
441 

443 



Predestination .... 

Divinity of Christ 

The Trinity . . . 

Christian Faith 

Highest Goodness exclusive of 

Lower .... 
Mosaic Ideas pregnant Brah- 

manism barren . . 444 

Historical Witness to Christ. 

Defence of Imagery . -445 
Imagery a Safeguard against 

Errors .... 446 
Resurrection Immortality 

Transmigration "Ages" . 447 
Day of Judgment. Retribution 448 
S^kya s Shortcoming. Sufficiency 

of Christ .... 449 



CHAPTER XIII. PART I. 

ON GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, AND ON VARIOUS ASPECTS OF 

REVELATION IN HISTORY LETTER AND SPIRIT INSPIRATION 

BIBLE CHURCH TRUTH FAITH SACRAMENTS SEEN AND 

UNSEEN. 



Hindu Concessions . . -450 
Difficulty as to the Jews . -454 
Christian Injustice to Jews . 455 
Faith s Foundation in God . 456 

General or special Providence . 458 
Analogy of Revelation . . 462 
General Law and Special Regard 463 
The Hearing of Prayer . . 464 
Suggestiveness of Prayer . 465 

Larger View of the Old Testa 
ment .... 466 
Hebrew Sacerdotalism . -467 
Judaic Sins of the Letter . 468 
Jewish Destiny . . . 470 
Inspiration Hebrew . . 471 
Inspiration within Providence . 472 
Providence within Nature . 473 



Secular Knowledge never un 
naturally communicated . 474 
Inspiration in general . 475 
Inspiration Gentile . -476 

Inspiration of Hebrew Prophets . 477 
Inspiration, Generic, and Chris 
tian . . . -479 
Province of the Holy Spirit . 480 
Inspiration Christian . .481 
Diverse Gifts of the Spirit . 483 
The Letter an Instrument of the 

Spirit .... 484 

Unity of Spirit. Scripture. Com 
munion of Saints . . 485 
Gospel of Christ, Freedom . 486 
Essence. Accident. Applicability 487 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. PART II. 



PAGE 

The First Psalm . -. .488 
Second and Eighth Psalms . 489 

Eighteenth Psalm . . . 490 
The Psalms how far Messianic . 491 
Analogy of Prophecy . . 492 
Parallel of Human Life. Other 

Psalms . . . -493 
Other Psalms. Typical History . 494 
Hermeneutics. Christian Freedom 495 
The Church an inspired Body . 496 
The Bible the Voice of the Church 497 
Humanity in Church and Bible . 498 
The Promise to the End of the 

World .... 499 
Inspiration and Experience. Re 
ligious Truth . . .500 
The Truth. Incarnation. Faith 501 
Permanent Use of Scriptures and 

Sacraments . . -502 

Relation of Nature to Baptism . 503 



Baptism and Justification rightly 

coextensive . . . 504 

Sacraments are Symbols . -505 
Sacraments require Faith. Our 

Worship mental . . 506 

Water, or Bread, and the Word . 507 
Wisdom s Children diverse . 508 

Evangelical Freedom of Primitive 

Church . . . .510 
Grace not alien to Providence . 511 
Persuasives to Christianity . 512 

Relation of Christ to future Pu 
nishments . . .513 
Heaven, conceived after Sense . 514 
Heaven, conceived spiritually . 515 
Life to come, conceived ideally . 516 
Life to come, in God . .518 
God All in All .... 519 
Note ..... 520 



CONCLUSION. 



Sceptical Approximation . .522 
Sceptical Rationalism inconsistent 524 
True Rationalism devout . . 525 
Buddhist Objection, and Answer 526 
Buddhist Weakness . .527 

" Total Perishableness." Unsub 
stantial Flux . . .528 
Buddhism not a Divine Revelation 529 
Practical Evidences of Christianity 5 30 
Final Appeal to Buddhist Speaker 531 
S&akhya Conception of Progress 532 
Progress secular and spiritual . 533 
Final Answer to Sa nkhyast 

Speaker . . . .534 
Scepticism has no Progress . -535 
Vedantine Criticism of Christianity 5 36 
Veddntine Claim to Revelation . 537 
The Achaiya s Repugnance to 

Change . . . . 538 
Yet Failure of Hindu Literature . 539 
Greater Unity of Christianity . 540 
The Gospel a Fulfilment to He 
brews and to Gentiles . -541 



Christian Phraseology justified . 542 
Three Standing-points of Chris 
tianity . . . . 543 
Christ s Faith, Man s Highest 

Conscience . . . .544 
Argument from Experience . .545 
Law of moral Causation. Fruit 

and Tree .... 547 
Faith spiritual, Belief historical . 548 
Direct Signs of supernatural Origin 549 
Predication or Prediction. Won 
ders or Signs . . . .550 
Gospel most attractive as a Whole 551 
Practical Invitation . . .552 
Superiority of Gospel to Hinduism 553 
General Superiority. Partial Com 
patibility . . . .554 
Final Appeal to Vedantist . . 555 
Vedantist s Hesitation, and Final 

Issue 556 

Final Issue . . . -557 
End of the Dialogue . . . 558 
APPENDIX 561 



PARAMESWARA-JNYANA-GOSHTHI, 



What the Saugata Muni thinks. 

" Cependant, toute cette antique sagesse des Indiens est comme ensevelie 
dans une idolatrie." A. HEMUSAT. 



CHAPTER I. 

You have often asked me to give you a fuller account of the 
conversation which I once heard at Conjeveram between two 
Englishmen and some learned Hindus, who disputed about the 
true knowledge of the Supreme Being. I am better prepared to 
do so now, from having written down, as far as my memory 
enabled me, the longer among the speeches, with the names of 
the speakers opposite them ; some parts, however, I have only 
filled up roughly ; nor can I tell you precisely how the dialogue 
arose, since it appeared to have gone some way when I first 
ventured to become a silent listener. Some extraordinary cir- 
eumstance must have brought together so many men remarkable, 
each in his particular kind. There were two natives of Great 
Britain, both of whom I imagine must have been priests ; but 
one was much the more venerable of the two, and when he 
spoke, his language had a tone of calm authority. His name 
was said to be Mountain. His companion, who was called Blan- 
combe, treated him with great deference, and seemed glad to 
learn from him ; but he himself, the younger I mean, was more 
skilful in arguing, and undertook the greater part of the dialogue, 
He seemed to agree, as far as possible, with his opponents, as 
if he were in search of some common ground upon which they 

M. P. 1 



2 CHARACTERS OF DIALOGUE. 

might meet. It happened luckily, or as I now think, by some 
divine ordinance, that among those who took part in the dis 
cussion were two of the wisest men who could easily be found in 
India. One was a Dandi of the Brahmanical caste, and of the 
greatest reputation for sanctity and learning, called Yidyacha- 
rya. He had never in all his life done injury to anything that 
breathed, though some Englishman once tried to persuade him 
that in the water which he drank were swarms of animate 
beings; this however Yidyacharya denied to be true, and said 
the appearance was an illusion. He had been married, and had 
educated his children at Benares, but was then a Vairdgi, or 
rather, as I think, a Sanydsi, having entered upon that advanced 
stage when he practised little besides religious contemplation. 
In other respects he embodied more diligently in his life the 
observances of the religious books, with which he was well 
acquainted, than is now usual even among the Brahmans ; and 
no one could either better explain the nature of his religion, or 
shew a brighter example of its practice. What circumstance 
had now brought him so far south as Conjeveram, I do not 
know; but possibly it may have been some mission, either of 
friendship or controversy, regarding the second Hindu present 
on this occasion. This other was a Guru, or teacher of great 
dignity, who presided over a Matha y or a kind of College, some 
where in the neighbourhood, containing a vast number of dis 
ciples. His name was Sadananda, and he also enjoyed a high 
reputation, though rather for learning than for the devotion 
which was ascribed to Yidyacharya. But you will be able to 
judge him by his speeches. Together with these, although I 
somewhat wondered to find him in their company, was a con 
ductor of the worship of Buddha, who had come all the way 
from Nepaul, partly, as he said, to confer with his brethren in 
Ceylon about the differences in their sacred books ; but partly, 
as I suspect, to mediate, or re-arrange, matters in some religious 
uneasiness of a half political kind, with a dispute about the 
genuineness of certain relics, which had sprung up in the island. 



BAUDDHAS DISCLAIM MATERIALISM. 3 

At any rate he had now returned to the continent, having trans 
acted whatever may have been his business, and he was the 
speaker who happened first to attract my attention. He seemed 
to be called, if I understood aright, Saugata Muni. But I have 
forgotten to mention one other person, who occasionally took part 
in the dialogue. This was an European, named Wolff, but not an 
Englishman, though he had been employed by your Government 
to make some inquiry into the causes of the cholera. He was 
therefore, I suppose, a physician, and was certainly a very inge 
nious and observant person; but withal somewhat conceited, as I 
fancied, and with traces of an irritable restlessness in his manner. 
But the speaker, as I said, upon my first listening, was Sau 
gata Mum . It would seem that some one had charged him and 
other Bauddhas with being Sarva-vaindsicas, or holding the doc 
trine of " total perishableness ; " as if he thought that all bodies 
perished as soon as they were decomposed, and all life or soul, 
being merely a product of their organisation, flitted away. But 
such a doctrine he utterly disclaimed; saying, " We do indeed 
believe that all bodies which are objects of sensuous perception 
are themselves merely aggregates of atoms; and the atoms of 
which they are formed are constantly changing their places, some 
falling away and others being joined on ; the bodies therefore 
consisting of such changeable materials, are themselves changed; 
and whatever is changed, we can never know to exist, except so 
long as it falls under our perception ; so that the existence of all 
material objects is not unreasonably said by one of our sects (the 
Vaibhashicas) to depend only on perception." "Is that then 
your own opinion?" asked Blancombe. "Not exactly," replied 
the Saugata; "for I myself, being a Sautr^ntica, should rather 
say that objects themselves are not so much seen as their exist 
ence is inferred from the outward manifestations which strike our 
senses. As from seeing a tree grow we may infer a root, so from 
seeing a certain outside show I infer a particular arrangement of 
atoms to be for the time lying underneath ; but when the show 
vanishes, I have no longer reason to believe in anything under- 

12 



4 EXISTENCE OF MATTER. 

lying : existence therefore changes, and objects no longer per 
ceived ought not to be said to exist." " It is evident, then," 
here said Vidyacharya, interposing, "that the result of the 
doctrine which has been explained is total perishableness, and 
Sancara had reason on his side, when, on this as on other points, 
he refuted the whole system of the Bauddhas. For that which 
is apprehended, he said, such as a wall, a jar, or a cloth, can 
not be unexistent ; nor does the existence of objects cease when 
the apprehension does so. Nor is it like a dream, for the con 
dition of dreaming and waking is quite different. According 
to what the Saugata has told us, an object, such as a table, 
would exist while a person was in the room observing it ; but on 
his going out it would cease to exist, and again on his return 
recover existence. Moreover, since the Saugata believes not 
only all perceptible objects but our own organs of perception 
to consist entirely of these fluctuating atoms, it is evident that 
his doctrine would never allow us to be certain whether anything 
existed or did not exist. The whole doctrine, when tried and 
sifted, crumbles like a well sunk in loose sand." 

"You think, then, my venerable friend," said Blancombe, 
" that objects around us have a real existence, independently of 
their being perceived?" 

" We are taught," replied Vidyacharya, " in our sacred 
books, as interpreted by Sancara, that at least the existence of 
objects is not uncertain, or brought to an entire end, because 
they are composed of atoms. Sancara also remarks, that the 
doctrine of atoms is to be utterly rejected, never having been 
received by any venerable person, as the Sanchya doctrine of 
a plastic matter has been in part by Menu and other sages." 

"I should be glad," returned Blancombe, "to learn from 
you hereafter the mode in which Sancara refuted other Bauddha 
doctrines; but at present I agree with you, that we need not 
doubt of the external world having some kind of existence. 
Only it is not clear to me whether the Saugata will assent to 
all that you have said." 



MATTER ATOMIC. 5 

" Certainly/ said the Saugata, "I should feel a difficulty in 
doing so. But indeed I fear that I may not have explained 
what I wished to say properly ; otherwise I do not understand 
how the Acharya could assert that no venerable person had ever 
received the doctrine of atoms : for our opinion on this head does 
not differ very essentially from that which Canada has rendered 
famous throughout India; while again his school, the Vaise- 
shica, is confirmed in many points by the Nyaya of Gotama, 
Nor indeed do I see how any one who follows perception, which 
is one of the two great sources of all knowledge, can deny the 
sensible world to be in a state of flux, with life and death 
constantly succeeding each other, as the composition of various 
bodies is altered or modified ; so that growth and decay in the 
world are like the flow and ebb of a tide in the ocean of life. 
Some indeed may dispute how far these things proceed in their 
own natural order, or require an external guidance (though the 
signs of a guide are at least nowhere apparent) ; and Canada, 
either from want of subtilty or from deference to others, conceded 
that some forms and arrangements of atoms were eternal ; we, 
however, find no existing body which is not capable of being 
decomposed, as its parts are capable of being moulded again into 
a fresh form of life ; neither can we trace any discernible limit to 
this process. Nothing therefore prevents us from saying that 
existence changes, and bodies come to an end. But this saying 
does not mean either that the minute particles, or atoms, out 
of which bodies are composed, themselves perish, or again that 
the vast whole in which these things revolve, like bubbles in 
an ocean, is in any danger of being dried up, and becoming 
dead." 

BLAN. "We all, I may probably venture to say, feel much 
obliged to you for thus explaining your doctrine ; but permit me 
to ask, if it does not imply nothing but material nature to be 
eternal. Existence, you appear to say, depends only on an 
aggregation of particles, and each of its forms, when decomposed, 
loses its identity, or ceases to be ; though the atoms themselves 



6 MATERIAL WORLD. 

may be cast into another shape. The followers then of your 
religion would seem to be, as our venerable Hindu friend evi 
dently thinks, NastwaSj or disowners of any spiritual existence 
beyond the present." 

SAUG. " You must pardon me if I disclaim entirely the ac 
count you would give of us. Such a description would belong 
more properly to the Charvacas. They are materialists, and 
some of them believe that the purusha or person of a man is 
merely his body; others say that the soul is only the animal 
life ; or perhaps, with rather more subtlety, that it is the result 
of the bodily organs of sensation ; or again, that it should be 
called the faculty of thought, but considered to have been engen 
dered by the blending of different physical substances, just as 
spirit is produced by the fermenting of simpler liquors. But all 
such statements are merely different expressions of materialism : 
whereas the Upasacas, or worshippers of Buddha, diverge so 
entirely from such a doctrine, that one considerable division of 
us, the Y6ga"cha*ras, look upon all appearances of material things 
as utterly untrustworthy, and maintain that our internal sensa 
tion, or intelligence, is the only real being the eternity of which 
may be affirmed. Instead therefore of being materialists, they 
might rather be called spiritualists, or at least, believers in intelli 
gence alone, and not in matter." " But pray," asked Blancombe, 
"how do they arrive at such a belief?" "Partly/ answered 
the Saugata, "by following out the train of thought already 
explained, about the fluctuation of external life somewhat farther 
than is necessary. They remark that all the signs which we 
observe of external things are not the things themselves, but 
either the composite result of simpler parts, or coverings which 
like garments conceal the real body from us, or else inherent 
characteristics, and as it were belongings, just as it belongs to 
sunshine to be bright, or to water to be cool and soft. But now 
the bark of a tree, or the skin of a man, give but an imperfect 
notion of what the body is beneath ; and when you have penetrated 
to the body, you find it in one case consist of sap and fibre and 



MATERIAL WORLD. 7 

such things, and in the other of bone and flesh ; but all of these 
parts are again made up of simpler elements, and those of sim 
pler still ; and when you have divided down to the smallest 
divisible atoms, you have entirely got rid of the body of the 
man or the tree which you were inquiring about; for only the 
minutest chemical particles remain ; but of these particles again 
you feel only that they are hard, or sharp, or round, or whatever 
they may be in character ; but what they are in essential being, 
or whether they have any being in themselves, is as much a 
secret to you as in the case of the original body, the being of 
which escaped from your feeling for it while it was in your 
hands." "All that," said Blancombe, "cannot be denied; but 
although it turns out that we see things in their properties or 
their inherent characteristics, rather than in themselves, does it 
not still follow that there remains something behind, too subtle, 
perhaps, for us to apprehend, but still which we must infer to 
exist, and therefore know to be real. You remember what you 
said of the root of the tree." "Yes," answered the Saugata, 
" that is the belief as to the reality of matter which I rather 
prefer ; but then the Yogacha ras go on to observe, that this 
reality, so far as it is real, being known only by mental infer 
ence, is only a matter of belief, and therefore a creation of the 
mind. It therefore, after all, depends upon intelligence, which 
is the only thing of the being of which we are well assured. 
Moreover, in another sense, the same persons assert (and here, 
strange as it may sound, I should not wonder if the wise Sada- 
nanda were partly to agree with them,) the cause of the external 
world may be said to be ignorance. So long as we could trace 
the composition of various bodies, either of trees or men, we 
were in no danger of supposing them to have any real existence 
apart from the elements of which they consisted, which were 
very different from the appearance ; but when we had penetrated 
to the least traceable particles, our ignorance of what might or 
might not lie underneath or behind, started up in the form of 
knowledge, and said, Here you have the original forms of matter. 



8 MATTER AND MIND. 

Ignorance therefore creates matter, at the moment when we 
seemed to have discovered its non-existence." 

" I was not sorry," remarked Buncombe, " to hear you say 
that our knowledge of the material world rests after all upon 
mental belief, or at least you said what amounted to something 
of the kind ; only it is not clear to me how this doctrine of the 
Yogacharas, which you have been now expounding, differs from 
that of the total perishableness, which you did not like to be 
charged with." " Bather," said Vidyacharya, "it is clear that 
there is no great difference ; but the doctrines of Buddha make 
everything uncertain. Moreover, although the Muni here is too 
intelligent to maintain what had been so well refuted by Sancara, 
yet the doctrine of the external world having no reality, or rather 
even of an universal void, so that no reality can be held certain, 
is the original tenet of the Sutras of Buddha." " I am sorry," 
replied the Saugata, " that you approve as little of the doctrines 
of Buddha as he did of books which are by some considered 
venerable ; but perhaps the Yogacharas would not admit that the 
existence of things is rendered any the less certain by being- 
made to depend upon intelligence. Perhaps they might argue 
that as any man observes or infers external objects, using how 
ever mental intelligence, so when he is withdrawn, if the things 
continue to exist, they do so in virtue of being observed by some 
higher intelligence ; and so, upon the man s return, he may find 
them as it were in the same place, so far at least as the absence 
of change in material forms is possible. Again, some of them 
might say that the ultimate reality or latent substance of matter, 
which we trace only by inference, does not consist in the 
mere parts, nor even in their arrangement, but rather in the 
rule which binds them, or in the thought according to which 
they cohere, so as to be one thing rather than another; and 
thus their substance will be that principle which gives form to 
them, and, in fact, a sort of intelligence. Some such answer as 
this therefore might satisfy what you objected a little time back 
about the table s existing after a man left the room. Although, 



BAUDDHA TERMS EXPLAINED. 

indeed, if it were the true doctrine of our perfect teacher Sakya, 
that no certain stability can be traced by reason in the fluctu 
ating forms of life and matter, I am not able to see that it is our 
duty to falsify the facts of the case, in order to make perishable 
forms appear more certain than they really are." " Certainly 
not," here assented Mountain; "and indeed what you say re 
minds me of a Christian doctor, St Augustine, who teaches that 
God does not behold things because they are, but by beholding 
causes them to be ; only I am not sure if I yet understand how 
far this doctrine, for which you now suggest an apology, resem 
bles or differs from the perishableness of which we before spoke." 
"Only so far," replied the Saugata, "that the total perishable- 
ness then spoken of resulted from the decomposition of material 
forms, which we fully maintain, without on that account acknow 
ledging that the intelligence of which we partake perishes. Now 
at least the doctrine which we are at present discussing is the 
very opposite of the materialism of the Charvacas ; nor does it at 
all imply that the holders of it disown a future life, or what you 
call another world. But again, you are perhaps aware that the 
Sutras of Buddha, upon which my own belief is fashioned, do 
not maintain either an universal void, or the unreality of the 
external world, quite so clearly as the venerable Acharya sup 
poses." "Upon that point," remarked Blancombe, "neither 
my friend here nor myself can presume to judge confidently, and 
we shall be glad to learn from you. I had, however, a notion 
that the terms used in the Sutras were such as seemed to point 
in the direction in which you are unwilling to follow them. Do 
they not, for example, call matter ignorance ? and body (or sub 
stance) appearance ? and our senses the five roots ? while again I 
have some impression of having heard that they call spirit the 
void. So that, if they take away matter and body by calling 
them ignorance or appearance, and spirit by calling it void, and 
at the same time make the senses as it were the roots of our 
apprehensions, I scarcely know how they can be said not to 
have taken away the two things most commonly believed to 



10 TERMS EXPLAINED. 

exist, namely, body and spirit, and with these, all other certain 
ties." Here the Saugata fully acknowledged that such terms as 
those mentioned occur in the earliest Sutras, and that those who 
follow them most literally were considered by some the earliest 
Bauddha sect; "But I am not sure," he continued with a gentle 
smile, "that the natives of Europe in general, with the exception 
of a few, such as those happily present, are the fittest interpreters 
of the wise language of our sacred books. We do indeed call 
body appearance,, for which name I have already given some rea 
sons, and we call matter ignorance, which is not an inappropriate 
name for that which is unintelligent, and even comparatively 
passive, as opposed to mind, which is intelligently active ; and 
again, we call spirit void, because the very idea of spirit is to be 
unlike, and negative of, all colours and shapes such as we see or 
handle : by what better name therefore could it be designated 
than simply void? Whatever other name we selected would 
only lead the simple to confound it with outward and visible 
forms, whereas we judge it to be something far more mysterious, 
ineffable, and sacred." "You would not then, it appears, con 
cede," asked Blancombe, " that your system is one of absolute 
negation, or of mystical nihilism, as if you loosened in turns the 
several foundations on which the belief of everything depends." 
"Certainly not," answered the Saugata, "though such a descrip 
tion of it, as I have heard, has been given. Whereas the Bauddha 
faith, so far as I am capable of judging, reposes, as all true know 
ledge amongst mankind must ultimately repose, upon the two 
foundations of perception and intelligence, external things being 
perceived by the senses, and internal or spiritual things inferred 
by reasoning. Hence I both believe in the revolution of life and 
external forms, on some such evidence as to yourself appeared 
probable, and I also seek the sanctification of my intelligence 
by purity and knowledge, as well as by religious worship." 
: May I then ask farther," continued Blancombe, "with respect 
to Him whom we consider both the Creator of the external world 
and the Giver of intelligence, do you both acknowledge and 



BAUDDHA RELIGION. 11 

honour him ? in which case I suppose the Bauddha designation 
of Him must be explained on the same principle as those other 
terms already mentioned : or is it true, as some have said, that 
your religion is only a deification of the human reason, and 
thereby a putting of man in the place of God?" "You have 
asked indeed a hard question," answered the Saugata; "but 
assuredly we do not deify each man his own reason. On the 
contrary, we subject it to the necessity of practising virtue, of 
reverencing all life, of worshipping with pure oblations of honey 
or flowers, restraining the passions, forgiving injuries, doing good 
to all men, and especially promoting their eternal welfare, hold 
ing fast the faith, obeying the true priests, and honouring the 
relics of holy men. By persevering in such practices we trust 
finally to attain Nirvana, or the blessedness of a perfect calm, 
and freedom from the passions which attend a personality in 
volved in the errors and obstructions of this life : but we are 
well aware, that by passion the intelligence may become dark 
ened, and so entangled in the necessity of suffering, that it must 
undergo many transmigrations before it arrive at the blessedness 
of repose. Seeing then that we acknowledge the allegiance of 
piety and duty, and do not pretend that these are established by 
ourselves, it cannot fairly be said that we deify our own reason : 
least of all should such an account of us be given by any Chris 
tian : for many of our doctrines correspond so nearly, that who 
ever ridicules the one may be said to injure the other. You have 
sacred books or treatises upon retributive justice ; so have we ; 
you also recommend universal repentance, and so do we ; and 
if you boast of expecting everlasting life, we also entertain the 
same expectation." " These remarks of yours," said Blancombe, 
" interest me highly ; and I should be desirous of learning here 
after on what grounds the great expectation which you have just 
mentioned is entertained among yourselves ; but first it occurs to 
me to ask, since you have spoken of worship, to what Being in 
particular is your worship addressed?" "Evidently," answered 
the Saugata, "to the supreme Buddha." "And Buddha, if 



12 THEORY OF THE WORLD. 

I understand aright," interposed Blancombe, "means intelli 
gent." 

SAUG. " Precisely so." 

BLAN. "Well, since the Deity must be conceived to have cre 
ated and disposed all things by wisdom, and since the commands 
which he utters to his creatures must be the expression of intel 
ligence, I do not know that any better name need be given to 
Him who is properly ineffable, than the one you appear to have 
chosen," 

SAUG. " But here, if you please, we must go gently ; for 
although some of my friends would willingly acquiesce in even 
the appearance of agreement with one so much honoured as 
yourself, you must not suppose me to believe that the Highest 
of all intelligences is degraded by contact with such grovelling 
things as are employed in the fashioning of the world, or that 
his blessed calm is disturbed by anxiety about things constantly 
changing, and being destroyed. For, unless you think other 
wise, that would appear to me an impious lowering of the Most 
Blessed to our imperfect conceptions ; and again, there are many 
things daily happening, so full of passion, and darkness, and 
suffering, that we cannot piously make the Deity accountable 
for them, instead of rather laying the blame, as we ought, 
upon our own folly, negligence, and ignorance. As to creation, 
you may, if you think proper, suppose certain inferior intelli 
gences, or Bodhisatwas, either stooping from the higher blessed 
ness of the supreme Buddha, or, as I should rather say, not 
having yet attained to that highest tranquillity, though far 
above our troubled state, to have fashioned the existing form 
of the world, and arranged its contents in some such self-regu 
lating order as might work like a vast machine; so at least 
many Bauddha philosophers have taught, and I find no fault 
with their mode of conceiving the theory. If, however, you ask 
me what is necessary, I do not see in what respect an utter 
blank would be better than the world as it exists, or therefore 
why we should suppose a blank ever to have been ; nor again, 



THEORY OF THE WORLD. 13 

is it easy to explain, how out of nothing a complex fabric of 
things could ever have begun to be ; and once more, if this 
world had been contrived by a pure intelligence, the contrivance 
would probably have been more perfect, or at least not so 
liable to disorder from darkness and passion. So that, just as 
the life of each individual now begins, and, when it comes to 
an end, gives place by its very death to some new life in suc 
cession, in the same manner I suppose forms to have succeeded 
forms of life indefinitely ; but I dare not say the whole aggregate 
had ever a time when it was not in some phase, for fear such 
an assertion should be, as it appears to me, both irrational and 
impious." "Well," answered Blancombe, " you do right to avoid 
the assertion, if such is its nature ; but pray explain to us why 
it would be irrational ; or rather, if you please, how the opposite, 
which seems your own belief, escapes being irrational. For to 
many persons, a long string of beings in succession without 
beginning or end is the most inconceivable picture possible ; 
especially if those beings are like blind men, with little control 
over their own motions, and yet with no wiser hand to guide 
them." 

SAUG. "Perhaps it is to you inconceivable, because you take 
your notion as it were from a river which has its source in a 
mountain and its outlet in the sea, or because you conceive of 
time as moving straightforward in a line, to which your imagi 
nation, influenced by daily experience of little things, requires 
that there should be ends ; yet probably you have seen a circle, 
which has neither beginning nor end. Now since Time is, like 
space, a certain medium for mentally classifying objects, there 
is no difficulty in classifying the forms of life which succeed 
each other, as arising in a circle, rather than in a line. Nay, 
that this is the true conception, may seem suggested to us by 
the shape of the world, which wise men say is round. Just, 
then, as all the nations of the earth might follow each other 
round, some sinking in each country, and others rising in their 
place, supposing that a perpetual peregrination of men were 



14 CAUSATION. 

necessary, so in the vast round of time, life may follow life, 
and at each date, as if on each spot of space, some overwearied 
may sink down, and others rejoicing in fresh birth rise into 
their place in the ranks ; so that neither beginning need have 
been imagined, nor termination be apprehended. Nor here 
should that image of the river, which seemed in your favour, be 
left without a closer examination ; for it appears, no doubt, as if 
the river had a beginning and an ending ; but to those who 
investigate such things more closely, it becomes manifest that 
the moisture from the sea is drawn up by the power of the hea 
venly heat into the clouds, and from thence dispersed upon the 
mountains, which in turn pour it down in the form of a river 
along the thirsty plains. So that here too there is neither 
beginning nor end, although possibly if the drops were as easily 
deluded as mankind, they might dispute, as they rolled along, 
which was the more dignified of the number, or which should 
live the longest, fancying that they had begun to exist when 
they entered on the river s channel ; or again, not knowing that 
the individuality of each may be decompounded, and the parts 
severed as they are re-cast into new combinations of particles. 
Or again, with equal wisdom they might dispute what was life 
and what death, or which ought to be called the cause, whether 
the river of the ocean, or the ocean of the dew, and so on." 

BLAN. " Your answer shews so much as this, that there are 
circles now existing, which no one denies ; but that these circles 
can have been from eternity is quite a different supposition ; 
and perhaps indeed both those larger cycles of life and decay, 
and these smaller revolutions of water by which you illustrate 
the others, both bear in themselves unmistakeable traces of 
being in their whole circumference effects, and of its being 
impossible for them to contain in themselves alike cause and 
effect. For example, I should myself say that the revolutions 
of dew and river and tide were so framed as to testify both the 
wisdom and beneficence of some higher being by whom they 
have been arranged ; or again, I might remark that explorers of 



CAUSATION. 15 

the earth have discovered clear proofs of life, in its most ex 
tended career, having proceeded from a beginning in a line, 
rather than of its revolving in an infinite circle. Since however 
these things constitute in themselves an abstruse study, and I 
am at present rather learning from you your opinions, we will 
dismiss that particular point, only remarking that, if we find 
hereafter, or if any other persons should find clear signs of a 
beginning of life, that discovery will alone sweep away a consi 
derable portion of your theory. But at present please rather to 
explain by what sort of operation, if not agency, you suppose 
this wonderful ocean, as you call it, of life to ebb and flow, or 
the myriad forms of existence to succeed each other. For I sup 
pose you do not deny that a certain order may be observed, so 
that all things take place, in fact, as if some mind were governing 
them." 

SAUG. "I neither deny on the one hand, that there is a 
certain appearance of order, nor, on the other hand, have I disco 
vered it to be so perfect that I should say it was constantly 
watched, or even that it had been originally arranged, by any 
very perfect intelligence. At least it appears to be more pious 
to conceive of the highest and most adorable Buddha as neither 
vexed by the anxiety which must pain one deeply interested in 
what goes on in this fluctuating scene of change, nor yet respon 
sible for the misery, such as the mutual destruction and canni 
balism which exist among living creatures, and which, according 
to some venerable persons, from whose doctrine, however, I 
shrink, must be ascribed to the Creator. But how it arises, that 
things in the mass and in the rough proceed in something like 
order, just as stones roll down a hill, rather than upwards, I 
consider myself happily excused from explaining; since we 
have among us the justly celebrated Sadananda, who as a master 
of the Sankhya philosophy will explain everything, on nearly 
the same principles as myself, but with far greater sagacity ; 
while, as a professor of the Hindu religion he may perhaps be 
%tened to with greater acquiescence by the venerable Achdrya." 



16 BAUDDHA AFFINITIES. CAUSATION. 

Here then we all turned to Sadananda ; but he began gravely 
to decline the compliments offered him, as well as the task of 
explaining. " Rather," he said, "it belongs to the Muni to com 
plete the exposition of his own system ; especially since he has 
admitted his own habit of relying only on two sources of know 
ledge, namely, perception and reflexion ; whereas we include 
also a third, namely, the tradition of revelation, or holy writ ; 
so that confusion might arise if we attempted to blend together 
systems of discordant principles. Let the Muni therefore pro 
ceed with the same clearness which he has displayed hitherto." 
Upon this, Blancombe, turning to the Saugata, asked, " How 
is it that you now appeal to Sadananda here for confirmation, 
whereas some time ago I understood you to fraternise rather 
with Canada, the master of the atomic school, and Gotama, the 
Hindu logician ?" " Why," replied the Saugata, "it is not won 
derful that our system, being the truth, should have affinities 
upon different sides. For example, as regards the aggregation 
of atoms, we do, as already explained, approach to an agreement 
with Canada. So again in our methods of discriminating truth 
from falsehood, we do not shrink from the distinctions of Go 
tama. We have no objection to say, there are six paddrthas, 
that is, categories, or descriptive heads, under which all things 
may be reduced ; for all things may be described as coming 
either under substance, or quality, or action, or participation, or 
individuality, or association. But moreover all substances have 
some kind of inherent qualities, as things are either heavy or 
light, sweet or bitter. What we especially agree in, then, with 
the Sankhya philosophers, is this belief, that all substances act 
according to their qualities, and not against them ; and this 
quality, being also a tendency, is the reason of their so acting ; 
so that really the effect of every action or result is already con 
tained in its cause ; for otherwise it could not be superadded by 
any external maker. You would not yourself say, that a spin 
ster makes woollen yarn out of sand, but out of a fleece ; nor 
could a sculptor carve his statue except out of a block, which 



CAUSATION. 17 

already contained its capability. So the wise Sada*nanda here 
could tell us out of the treatises of his school, that oil is in the 
seed of sesamum before it is extracted; and milk, not water, 
must be taken to make curds. Just as any one seeing an 
earthen jar, would infer that a lump of clay had previously 
existed, or from a golden coronet would infer the virgin gold, 
or even on seeing a rigidly abstemious novice, imagine his 
parents or teachers to be of a sacerdotal tribe ; so, in all cases, if 
we look forward, we find materials must be selected which have 
in them a quality or aptitude for the purpose, and if we look 
backward, we must infer the cause to have contained already 
the effect; for the nature of cause and effect is the same. 

11 You now therefore probably begin to understand, how 
certain aggregations of atoms, being once constituted, have a 
quality or a tendency in themselves, the heavy ones to fall 
lower, and the lighter ones to mount upward ; and seeds, being 
once developed from earth, and moistened by water, and animated 
by air, and warmed by fire, tend to germinate, and the germs to 
branch out, and the branches to bear flowers, and the flowers to 
become fruit. Yet, in all such processes, no intelligent man will 
say that the germ and flower are conscious in themselves of their 
own destination, if even of their being ; nor, again, do we per 
ceive any interference from any external hand with their going 
on. Whether, indeed, you look at the immediate cause, which is 
the seed, or at the concurrent occasions which are the earth and 
so on, you in neither case detect a plan of forethought, such as 
you wish me to ascribe to your Creator. Again, if, upon the 
the same principle, you examined the human frame, you would 
find the same elements of earth, water, fire, and air, contributing 
each something to its parts, and each in turn acting upon their 
aggregate, so that sensation (ve dana), and longing (trishna"), 
produce effort (upadana), and effort produces merit or demerit, 
(dharma and adharma), and either of these has a consequence of 
reward or punishment ; while along with them all runs intelli 
gence, through which we observe what exists, and are alone 
M. p. 2 



18 CAUSATION. 

assured of its existence. While men follow true intelligence of 
things, as they really are or rather are changed, they tend up 
ward like air and light ; but if they follow passion, which comes 
of ignorance, they both bring misery through sin upon them 
selves, and beget in turn a race of children destined to go 
through the same cycle of delusion. You see then, how no 
external interference with the course of the world is necessary 
in order to give things what you observed was a certain appear 
ance of order. For all things act according to their qualities, 
while they possess them ; but the substance being changed, the 
quality changes, and life changes into death, or death into life, 
or either of them leads on to Nirvana, or else to renewed trans 
migration." 

BLAN. " Perhaps I hardly understand the nature of your 
argument; though many difficulties occur to me; partly, for 
instance, in the shape of a doubt about what you call causes, 
whether they are not more properly sources, and whether our 
tracing of a particular source gives us any real clue to a general 
or original cause ; and partly also about those qualities which 
you speak of, whether they are not merely attributed by your 
imagination, and so are figures of speech; or, again, if those 
qualities are real existences, how they became inherent, or who 
fixed the law of succession, whether progress or revolution, by 
which they guide, or, at least, the things to which you attribute 
them are guided ; while concurrently with this last doubt, or as 
a part of it, comes in my old difficulty about a beginning ; and 
that I can scarcely ask you to explain, because to you it appears 
a difficulty which need not even be raised." 

SAUG. " Certainly I must abide by what has been said 
about not ascribing to the whole ocean of existence a beginning; 
for, if there ever had been a time when the entire whole was 
a blank, neither then (as Saddnanda will demonstrate to you) 
could anything but a blank have begun to be. Moreover, such 
a supposition would make even the Supreme Intelligence, Adi 
Buddha, himself unnecessary. For, if there was no world, why 



CO-EXISTENT INTELLIGENCE. 19 

should we any longer suppose any Deity to be ? So that, although 
I have heard some Europeans call us Bauddhas atheists, which 
it seems is an ugly appellation with you, in my judgment, the 
true atheists are those who say the vast order of things and 
events ever began to be, or had a time when it was not, instead of 
rather, as is the reality, always being, and always becoming." 

BLAN. " Pray pardon me, if I have seemed for a moment, 
by mistake, to imitate those unwise persons who put all their 
arguments in the shape of reproaches. Such was not even for 
an instant my intention ; yet let me acknowledge that I don t 
quite understand how the benefit of this last argument belongs 
to you ; for you imply that the existence of the world is the 
reason from which we infer a Deity, which is a just inference 
with us who make the Deity the Creator ; but since you deny 
Him apparently any share, or at least any active and operative 
share, in creation or control, I feel a difficulty in seeing the sort 
of connexion which you imply between the eternity of the world 
and of the Supreme Intelligence." 

SAUG. " Well, we have never denied that the whole sub 
ject is, from its vastness, one of difficulty ; but you allow, I sup 
pose, that man in general has intelligence." 

BLAN. " Certainly." 

SAUG. " And you infer the real existence of what you call 
a mind from seeing a human body in full life." 

BLAN. " Exactly so." 

SAUG. " But yet you allow that some of the operations of 
the body, dependent on health or disease, go on pretty much 
mechanically, or with little aid from the mere volition of the 
mind." 

BLAN. " Partly I allow that." 

SAUG. " Well, then, partly you will comprehend how, in 
allowing the world to exist, I also admit the existence of the 
Highest Intelligence ; but to say, that this Supreme Being is 
cumbered about the ordinary processes of the world, would be 
like saying that the wisest or holiest of men has no better 

22 



20 SUPERINTENDENCE OF DEITY. 

employment than making his hair or his nails grow, all which 
sort of things proceed naturally, neither needing his aid, nor 
perhaps being much benefited by it. Our full conviction there 
fore that this universal frame has what, if you please, you may 
call a soul, or a Deity, or any other name, but which we have 
learnt to call the Supreme Intelligence ; and, again, our belief in 
numerous other beings, some nearer and some farther from the 
highest and most serenely blessed, are neither absurd, nor yet 
imply any necessity of troubling what is highest with the care 
of what is lowest." 

BLAN. " Perhaps I might remark, in passing, that the case 
of this universal frame and its Highest Intelligence, as you put 
it, differs from that of our body and our soul, inasmuch as what 
ever care our body may need, independent of our exertions, may, 
it is conceivable, be supplied by the forethought of a higher or 
external Being ; whereas the world must be either cared for by 
its Highest Ruler, or not at all ; or again I might argue, that 
because some of the lesser processes of our animal constitution 
go on without much aid from our mind, it does not at all follow, 
and it is an illegitimate extension of the facts of the case to 
suppose, that the mind has no share in guiding, controlling, 
and even preserving the body ; for surely we might find, even 
in this instance, the lower does not exist without the supervision 
of the higher ; but it is more interesting for me at present to 
ask, if the supreme Buddha be so tranquil as you conceive, not 
to call it what my countrymen in general would, so inert, why 
do you offer worship ? wherefore all your temples, and priests, 
and prayers, as well as your own anxiety, which I have observed 
is very great, not to act in any way against what you conceive 
to be piety, either in injuring animal life or otherwise? For 
piety, I suppose, means conformity with the will of Buddha, 
does it not ? or, at least, your prayers seem to imply a belief in 
some Being capable of answering them, and of whom you 
imagine that he may grant your petitions." 

SAUG. " Evidently it is not to be supposed that the 



USES OF PRAYER. 21 

Supreme Intelligence can will what is wrong, for then He would 
not be intelligent though neither do I see why we should 
encumber Him with much volition, supposing, as we believe, 
that to see clearly all things, as it were with a mental eye, is 
in itself the highest happiness ; but although the Deity neither 
wants anything, nor therefore should be said to wish anything, 
it is clear that mankind become happier in proportion as they 
draw nearer to what is most perfect. Now I suppose you will 
not deny that prayer is an instrument by which man is exalted 
and improved, his intelligence raised, and his passions calmed; 
so that by devotion we may draw ourselves nearer to that which 
is in itself immovable." 

BLAX. " Certainly ; we may walk, for example, towards a 
city, yet no man in doing so utters exclamations to the city to 
come nearer him, for he conceives of the motion as a thing de 
pending upon himself; whereas in prayer we ask for something 
which depends upon another; and, except for this mode of 
thinking, I imagine men in general would scarcely pray at all." 

SAUG. " Have I not, then, heard that your own great 
Teacher told you that your Heavenly Father knoweth what 
things ye have need of, as if it did not much concern the 
Supreme to hear from us a list of our desires, and yet he com 
manded you, I believe, to pray?" 

BLAN. " That means, that we are not to use pompous 
declamations, as if a true prayer to God was to be cast in the 
same mould as an harangue to men ; but it still leaves asking 
as a condition of our receiving, though not as a means of our 
Heavenly Father s learning." 

SAUG. " If you please, I am willing to allow that the 
distinction which you draw is correct, or, at least, intelligible; 
but still it is our belief that prayer is a part of virtue ; and, 
although we attach little value to devotional ceremonies, when 
put in the balance against doing good actions, we should still 
think it an unpropitious beginning for a teacher of religion to use 
arguments against prayer." 



22 PRAYER AND ASPIRATION. 

BLAN. ll Such, pray believe me, was far from my intention; 
only it occurred to me that devotions, if they are undertaken 
rather as the means of self-improvement than in the hope of 
obtaining any petition from a higher power, might, in our 
language, be called not so much prayers as aspirations." 

SAUG. "What is the difference?" 

BLAN. " Something of this kind. Prayers are, as it were, 
from a child to his father, asking for something. Aspirations 
are rather a lifting of the affections, as of a man gazing on 
some beautiful object, or rising in conception to some sublime 
idea, either of which he endeavours, as it were, to draw himself 
nearer to." 

SAUG. " Perhaps I understand." 

BLAN. " But it is also part of my distinction, that prayer 
to the highest of all Beings would most naturally be addressed 
by those who fancy they have some positive reason for knowing- 
it will be favourably received, and be of some service to them 
in bringing down an assistance from above, as the light and 
rain come upon flowers ; whereas aspiration will be rather the 
mental posture of those who by reasoning or inference have 
conjectured some higher intelligence to exist, but are either not 
persuaded of his hearing prayer, or deny his active government 
of the world. This, then, I would gladly ask further of you." 

SAUG. " What do you mean ?" 

BLAN. u What is your ground of belief that one kind of 
religious worship is better than another, or upon what is that 
expectation built, which you profess to entertain, of arriving 
by a certain course of conduct at Nirvana?" 

SAUG. "Our expectation is part of the faith taught us 
by the last Buddha, and our worship is also shaped according 
to his directions, or those of the saints who have followed in 
his footsteps." 

BLAN. " In saying the last Buddha, you denote that others 
had preceded him?" 

SAUG. " Certainly." 



OBJECTS OF WORSHIP. 23 

BLAN. " Then, I suppose, they are not all supreme?" 

SAUG. " They all enjoy the title of supreme, in token of 
their having attained the supreme perfection of intelligence." 

BLAN. "Am I to understand, by their having attained, that 
there was a period when they were in some lower state, and, 
perhaps, one of humanity like our own?" 

SAUG. "Exactly so. The twenty-four Buddhas had all 
lived as men, and, in turns, acting either singly or with each 
other, they regenerated the world from the effects of ignorance 
and irreligion." 

BLAN. " Then is it to any of these twenty-four Buddhas 
that you apply the title Adi Buddha, or is it these persons, 
who formerly were mere men, that you worship?" 

SAUG. " You ask rather a difficult question to answer ; for 
it may happen that all of us may not quite agree what is the 
fittest answer to give. For my own part, I humbly conceive 
of the single Supreme, Adi Buddha, as above all the others, 
and in a manner distinct from them. Perhaps, indeed, by Adi 
Buddha, I mean most nearly what in your language you term 
God the Father, since of him alone I do not presume to conceive 
as ever having been any other than he now remains, the highest 
and most perfect Intelligence, and I am afraid of irreverently 
ascribing to him any unworthy office ; whereas, both the twenty- 
four Buddhas already mentioned, and also Grotama, the last, 
as well as the numbers numberless whom I need not mention, 
have lived in the form of men not only once, but for numerous 
lives, until by vanquishing sin they escaped the necessity of 
being born again. With this highest Being, or Father of all 
intelligences, I ever associate Dharma, the law which comes 
forth from him, and Sanga, the Union, or Bond of Fellowship, 
in which all the saints are bound to Buddha and to each other. 
These, then, make up the three blessed ones. Nor do I myself 
see any use in a distinction, which is often practically drawn in 
Nepaul, between the more glorious deliverers, who are con 
sidered emanations of the highest Deity, and other saints who 



24 ABSTRACT IDEA OF DEITY. 

have acquired blessedness by striving and aspiring. For since 
Adi Buddha is highest, and best, and alone originative of good, 
he is the fittest object of prayer ; but since he is the source of 
all intelligence, so in worshipping it anywhere I really worship 
him ; and those who rise to partake of this perfection can only 
do so by being essentially akin to it. There are, however, 
among the professors of our religion, persons, with some of 
whom I have recently been conferring, who think somewhat 
differently as to the Deity." 

BLAN. " That is just what I supposed ; and you would 
confer on me one of the greatest possible favours, if you would 
convey to me even a faint notion of the difference between you." 

SAUG. " Perhaps it is something of this kind. They believe, 
as I do, in the eternity of matter, or of something out of which 
the world goes on renewing and fashioning itself, and they also 
believe in intelligence, which, as long as we admit the eternity 
of the world, we may also conceive to be eternal. So that there 
is, you see, as it were, a soul and a body ; only that by soul, 
perhaps, we mean something different from what you would. 
Now the persons, about whose opinions you inquire, entertain 
the same fear as I do, of ascribing to that Highest Intelligence 
any of the accidents which encumber the minds of ordinary 
men. They go, however, somewhat farther; and not only sepa 
rate it from passion, or terror, or anxiety, but even from volition; 
(lest, I suppose, wishing should seem to imply wanting, or to dis 
turb seeing;) and therewith, in a way, disengage it from all which 
you, perhaps, would call personality. It remains mere and pure 
intelligence, just as matter is mere ignorance. Now that which 
is thus pure, abstract, and spiritual, cannot be conceived by the 
impure and selfish, or even by those who are blinded in the 
conception of their having life in themselves, endeavouring to 
hold fast a perishing individuality, instead of knowing them 
selves parts in the great whole which has one life throughout ; 
but, on the other hand, the perfectly sanctified, who have van 
quished sins, and obtained power by prayer, may become par- 



ADI BUDDHA AND SAKYA. 25 

takers at length even of that most spiritual intelligence. They, 
then, as we say, obtain Buddhahood, or become themselves 
Buddhas; and, since nothing can be more perfect than the 
intelligence and the tranquillity of which they are alike par 
takers, there seems to many of us no necessity, even if it be 
possible, to suppose anything higher." 

BLAN. " Your friends, then, appear to have no difficulty in 
conceiving of many persons as united, in a way, in one Supreme 
Intelligence? 1 

SAUG. " Neither should I, so far, provided that our idea of 
this Supreme is not encumbered by any attributes of passion 
and volition, taken from what we observe in mankind." 

BLAN. u Then, I suppose, it is either to some of these 
Buddhas, or to the Intelligence of which they all partake, that 
the friends of whom you have been speaking direct either their 
prayers or their aspirations ?" 

SAUG. " Exactly so ; but chiefly to the last of all, the 
Saviour, Sakya, who, by the establishment of our faith, as we 
now hold it, regenerated the world, and delivered mankind from 
the miseries of sin." 

BLAN. " Then, again, they see nothing wrong in praying 
to one who was formerly a man?" 

SAUG. " Certainly not, any more than would the most 
venerable teachers among the Hindus ; for they many of them 
believe that their deities have been incarnate, though not with 
such good reason as we believe Sakya to have become divine 
and omniscient." 

BLAN. " But did I not understand that you prayed yourself 
to the supreme Buddha, which seemed to me at the time to 
mean Adi Buddha " 

SAUG. "Neither do I say that you understood wrongly; 
though, indeed, it appears of little importance ; for though the 
highest Being, who never was subject to the necessity of birth, 
may seem the fittest hearer of prayer, yet Sakya, as the vener 
able Tathagata, who has entirely gone beyond any such necessity, 



26 REVELATION OR DISCOVERY. 

and who partakes now a certain divine omniscience, is no 
less worthy of honour ; and as it would be impious in me to 
disparage either his faith or his holy relics, so neither do I 
refuse to invoke him with prayer. In fact, he may stand to me 
as the representative of pure Intelligence, which in itself, how 
ever, may be the thing properly worshipped; but the Saviour 
having escaped from the accidents of human personality may be 
identified with that truest Being." 

BLAN. " Here then is another question which I much wish 
to ask. Is this religion of yours to be considered on the whole 
as a revelation, or as a discovery?" 

SAUG. " Perhaps you will explain to me the nature of the 
distinction." 

BLAN. " By a revelation we mean generally a self-uncover 
ing, as it were, on the part of the Deity, as if by drawing aside a 
veil of mystery He disclosed to us things which otherwise we 
should not have known. Whereas a discovery in religion would 
be rather an advance of the human mind, either by the discipline 
of its own faculties or by a larger survey of regions hitherto 
unexplored, to some higher truth. Now I rather suppose that 
the first of these processes can only be expected by those who 
ascribe to the Deity, whether rightly or wrongly, agencies of a 
more personal and more active kind than you are inclined to 
place among the divine attributes ; so that the distinction, again, 
in this instance, will come to nearly the same as in the case of 
aspiration and of prayer. It is only, indeed, with some belief in 
a revelation that we in Europe generally associate the term 
religion; though we do not deny that much natural piety may 
exist without such a belief; but then we should call any opinion 
respecting the Deity in this case a philosophy rather than a 
religion. What I wish to inquire of you then is, whether Sakya 
professed to have a revelation, or whether he discovered by his 
own sagacity or merit the doctrines which he taught." 

SAUG. "Why it follows, as you have correctly inferred, 
from our conception of the Supreme Intelligence, that we do not 



SAKYA S CHARACTERISTICS. 27 

assert a revelation in the sense you have defined ; but it must 
not therefore be fancied that the religion of Sakya is either less 
true, or comes to us with less authority." 

BLAN. " Perhaps not, if he had attained, as you appear to 
say, a sort of divine omniscience. Only we should require some 
extraordinary guarantee to assure us of such an attainment." 

SAUG. " We wish no stronger guarantee than the pure life 
of Sakya in all its circumstances. First we have his self-denial, 
though he was a king s son, in leaving wife and palace and 
pomp, in order to become a teacher of mankind. Then come his 
tremendous austerities and his patient prayers, by which he both 
obtained power over nature, and forced even the Brahmans, 
whose scholar he had been, though he was only a Cshatriya, to 
do him reverence. Then again we read of the many wonderful 
miracles which he wrought, and of the thousands to whom he 
gave sanctification by teaching them the true faith. Such a 
personal career is alone sufficient guarantee of a teacher s sacred 
character. If we turn to the doctrine which Sakya taught, we 
find it eminently pure, and conducive to the happiness of man 
kind. He protested against the insolence of allowing men no 
escape from their hereditary castes, and declared the way of 
salvation open to the Mlechcha and the Chandala, no less than 
to the Brahman. The virtues, which he declared to be the six 
highest perfections, were bountifulness, righteousness, knowledge, 
activity, patience, and mercy; virtues, which, if you consider 
them severally, you will find to contain every essential of human 
excellence. Nor ought the wonderful success of Sakya s preach 
ing and the extension of his doctrine to be overlooked. Even 
in his lifetime he converted vast multitudes of disciples; and 
now the most populous nations, comprehending, as I have heard, 
a larger portion of the human race than follow any other religion, 
are believers in his name. Not that such a success would be an 
argument, if it had been attained by mere violence of conquest, 
as when Sultan Mahmud, or other Mahometans, spread their 
faith with the sword; but it is well known, both how Sakya 



28 RELIGIOUS CREDENTIALS. 

used no other weapons than simple preaching and miracles, and 
how the kings who first embraced his religion, such as the famous 
Asoca, practised the mildest maxims of toleration. No other 
reasons, then, can be given for the rapid progress of Buddhism, 
than the force of sacred truth, the divine character of Sakya 
himself, and the tendency of his religion to promote the happiness 
of mankind." 

BLAN. " Those, then, it appears, are the sort of things which 
you consider just evidences of the truth of a religion." 

SAUG. " Decidedly ; and we happily have abundance of 
them." 

BLAN. " Many of them, I own, are clear indications of good 
ness ; but it would be a considerable step farther to say that 
whatever proves a man good, proves him also to be a trustworthy 
teacher of all that falls within the compass of religion. For, 
whether the opinions which you have been explaining, about the 
being of the world, and the probability or certainty of a Deity, 
and the expectation of endless bliss, are held most correctly 
by you or by others, you at least observe that they relate to 
matters far removed from our daily experience; and therefore 
doubts of this kind may arise : if there be a state of happiness 
in another world, can any one either describe it to us or shew 
us the way there, who has not himself come from thence ; or 
whether the deepest guesses of the wisest men may not be as 
far from the reality as the dreams of an infant: and again, 
taking only the possibility of there being a Supreme Being 
somewhat more energetic than you conceive, whether any but 
Himself can teach us His willso distinctly as to save us from all 
danger of being like servants who run on their master s errand 
without having heard his orders ; so that, on the whole, we 
rather require in a teacher of religion some credentials different 
from those which might justify us in trusting ourselves to the 
hands of a physician or a lawyer." 

SAUG. " But do not you, then, allow miracles to be creden 
tials sufficient even for a teacher of a new religion?" 



MIRACLES NOT FREQUENT. 29 

BLAN. " You mean by miracles works greater than any 
human being ordinarily can perform, and somewhat out of the 
common processes of nature, so as to raise a probability of some 
higher power being concerned in them than either Nature or 
Man?" 

SAUG. " That description will suit my meaning tolerably 
well." 

BLAN. " But then of course it occurs to you that such 
things are rare, and" must continue to be rare, or else they would 
no longer deserve the description which we have given of 
them." 

SAUG. "Perhaps so." 

BLAN. " But have you quite determined in your own mind 
that for miracles to be rare, unusual, and not of every-day occur 
rence, is quite essential to their definition?" 

SAUG. " If you please, I have no objection ; though it 
would appear to me difficult to prove that divine teaching ought 
to be rare, rather than frequent." 

BLAN. " Then I am afraid this point about miracles being 
rare is one to which we ought to return hereafter. But it 
surprises me the more that you should not think so, because 
your conception of the Deity represents Him as less concerned in 
the affairs of this lower world than other wise men have believed. 
Upon your system, then, I should have imagined miracles ought 
to be rarer than they need be upon ours, since we believe that 
the Almighty cares for mankind." 

SAUG. " But then are you not forgetting that I have all 
along admitted the existence of intelligence, as a thing superior 
to brute matter ; and it is clear that both Sakya and all others 
among the supreme Buddhas, as also the Bodisatwas, or what 
ever other beings of kindred perfection may exist, undoubtedly 
partake of high degrees of intelligence ; it is, therefore, nothing 
incredible, if, in their indefatigable struggles upward, they have 
severally mastered the lower power of existing things, just as 
you would admit that thought controls matter least of all 



30 BAUDDHA DEVELOPMENT. 

should this be doubted, when the most perfect teachers have by 
their tremendous austerities given abundant proof of their 
triumph over whatever meaner things obstruct the fulness of our 
intelligence." 

BLAN. "What you now say enables me to understand 
rather better both what you mean by miracles, and in what 
sense your religion generally ought to be considered either a 
revelation or a philosophy. It does not seem to be a self-un 
covering of a power above, and distinct from nature ; so that it 
is not a revelation in our sense ; nor, again, is it a mere dis 
covery by one supposed not to partake at least a sort of kindred 
to the Highest Intelligence ; but it is a sort of up-growth or 
development of that intelligent principle which you conceive to 
reside in the world of nature, until, purifying itself as it rises, and 
approaching nearer to. that perfection to which it is essentially 
akin, it both acquires freedom for itself, and also power, either 
over the lower world, or to instruct mankind. Some such 
development of intelligence you appear to conceive was em 
bodied in Sakya. But now, I suppose, you believe that in pro 
portion to the great excellence of Sakya as a teacher, his works 
also were wonderful?" 

SAUG. " Certainly, I do." 

BLAN. "Well then, in exact proportion as anything is 
wonderful, it may also be considered less likely to happen, or at 
least to require more distinct and ample testimony. No one, for 
instance, wonders either at the daily recurrence of sunrise, or of 
the ocean tides, or of any other of the great and normal revolu 
tions of nature ; and therefore no one requires proof of any one of 
them having occurred. Whereas an eclipse, or an earthquake, 
which are somewhat rarer, though still in the natural order of 
things, we require to be informed of by some one well conversant 
with such matters, before we expect either of them to happen ; 
and as for the monsoons, which blow here, having their course 
altogether inverted, or as to men moving through the air upon 
burning carpets, it would require many testimonies from persons 



TESTS REQUISITE. 31 

not easily mistaken, in order to convince us of such things hav 
ing happened. You observe, I am not in the least arguing that 
any such things are impossible ; but all that argument of your 
own, about things acting according to their properties, comes in 
here sufficiently for me to remind you of it ; for if you saw a 
person making yarn without wool, or oil without sesamum seed 
for him to extract it from, you would consider it so rare as almost 
to distrust your own senses ; much more then, if other persons 
reported it, you would suspect some mistake to exist somewhere ; 
and so generally we shall find, in proportion as any thing is 
marvellous and out of the way, the more intelligent part of man 
kind would require clearer and more ample evidence of it. Pray, 
should not you think so ?" continued Blancombe, here turning to 
Sadananda. " For my part, I certainly should," he replied. 
" Then we see," resumed Blancombe, " that not only as regards 
the miracles of Sakya, but all miracles asserted everywhere, 
there is need to cross-examine our witnesses sharply, and inquire 
not only into their sincerity, but into their opportunities of obser 
vation, and their clearness of judgment. Perhaps, indeed, if we 
were discussing miracles which appealed to the whole world, we 
should desire them to have happened among a people of no 
credulous turn, but inquisitive and apt to test occurrences by the 
strictest methods. There is scarcely an art in the schools of 
Hindu dialecticians, Gotama and the rest, which in such a case 
must not admit of being resorted to. Hence not only the 
country, but the genius of the people, and the period of its 
history, and the predisposition of mind on part of the witnesses, 
should all be taken into account; and if the tradition of the 
miracles has been handed down for many generations, one would 
ask many questions as to the books in which it is preserved, and 
the persons in whose custody the books have been, and the 
authors to whom they are ascribed, and not least, as to the wit 
nesses by whom that authorship is asserted, and the number of 
years which may have elapsed between that assertion and the 
lifetime of the supposed authors, or the probability of their 



32 BAUDDHA SCRIPTURES. 

overhearing it. I do not here enlarge upon considerations of 
moral fitness, though it is obvious to persons of any gravity 
that amongst things wonderful those are most worthy of being 
received as credentials of a religious teacher, which are least 
capable of being called by any one either childish, or useless, 
or maleficent ; only, as you have mentioned the miracles of 
Sakya, I was willing to learn from you incidentally, how far 
y$ur system takes into account the necessity of greater evidence 
for a thing in exact proportion as it is extraordinary." 

SAUG. " What you say has a very reasonable sound, but it 
does not apply in such a way as to throw the slightest discredit 
upon the miracles of Sakya, which are handed down in our Holy 
Scriptures." 

BLAN. " But when were those Scriptures written?" 

SAUG. " Perhaps the different books at different times ; the 
earliest Sutras for instance by the immediate followers of Sakya, 
such as Ananda ; and the Abhidarma containing our philosophy, 
having been arranged at the first great council in the year when 
the luminary of the world was extinguished. But since the 
three Pitakas consist of different books, to which may be added 
the Atthakatha or commentaries on them, it is not unnaturally 
a matter of discussion among ourselves as to what date, or by 
whom, particular portions were written." 

BLAX. "Of what age may we venture to say the MaJid- 
wansa should be considered?" 

SAUG. " You mean the genealogies and histories of Ceylon ?" 

BLAX. " Exactly." 

SAUG. " According to the Cingalese, with whom I have 
recently been conversing, they were written about four hundred 
years after the death of the comforter of the world." 

BLAN. " It is in those books, I think, written about four 
hundred years after the death of Sakya, that we read of his 
flying through the air, of his astonishing the Yakkas with storms, 
and of various miracles being performed by his relics ; we also, 
I think, read of a princess being married to a lion, and of 



BAUDDHA MIRACLES. INSPIRATION. 33 

various beings, half serpents, and half something higher, all of 
which Sadananda here would say partook somewhat of the 
marvellous. Supposing then it should turn out that these sort 
of stories abound more in writings farther removed from the 
time of Sakya, while in the Sutras which can with more con 
fidence be traced to his immediate successors, such as Ananda, 
these stories appear less, but we find in their stead traces of 
your great teacher s wisdom and virtue, would that circumstance 
make such stories appear to you rather less certain, or less 
necessarily credible?" 

SAUG. " I do not see that it would ; for all our Scriptures 
were written before the age of inspiration had ceased. So long 
as inspiration lasted, it was less necessary that accounts should 
be written minutely; but when it was about to cease, though 
its influence was still felt, our Scriptures were written for the 
affliction of righteous men, if they compared the degeneracy of 
their own times, and their delight, if they looked back on what 
had preceded." 

BLAN. " Then I see, the whole question of inspiration ought 
to be considered by us. But pray how is it that you talk of 
Holy Scripture and inspiration, when it is generally imagined 
that Sakya was rather what we should call a sceptic, or a 
devout rationalist, throwing doubt upon the sacred books of his 
race, and professing to have secured the highest knowledge by 
the light of his own intelligence?" 

" That is a question," here Vidyacharya mildly interposed, 
" which it rather pleases me to hear asked ; for indeed the incon 
sistency both of Sakya and of his followers has always appeared 
to me wonderful. He made light of our sacred books, rejected 
sacrifices, and calumniated the Brahmans, teaching men to over 
throw all venerable distinctions, and permitting the Sudra, or 
even the Chandala, to boast himself against the wise and the 
honourable, so that both the natural and consecrated order of 
society was overthrown by him ; and not only this, but the justice 
of the Divinity was blasphemed, since those distinctions in life, 
M. p. 3 



34 SAKYA S CAREER 

which are in fact the due requital of whatever we have done in 
some former existence, were suffered to be lightly evaded, as 
indeed you have heard the Saugata here boasting ; yet after all, 
this man, whom the Vishnu Purana justly calls the great Illu 
sion, pretended to have been elevated to such a pitch, that his 
smile gave divine grace, and the effluence of his breath brought 
knowledge from heaven. Then we have heard even the reports 
of his discourses by his disciples spoken of as inspired, and con 
sidered as sufficient authority for any marvel. Thus, by over 
throwing a rightful and sacred authority, he was only paving 
the way for a greater despotism. Yet I do not deny Sakya to 
have been very eminent in knowledge and sanctity, but it sur 
prises me he should have taught such doctrines, that, according 
to Sancara, he may well be thought to have been an intentional 
deluder of mankind in the spirit of some Racskasa, rather than 
merely to have fallen into any human error." 

SAUG. " Well, how much may be said in favour of our 
Vanquisher of sins, has been already in part explained ; and also 
the sense in which his inspiration should be understood will be 
clear to any one who remembers how I shewed that men may 
become possessed of the highest and most perfect intelligence. 
But as for the accusation that he opposed the Brahmans, some 
thing more may be said. We read that before the conversion of 
King Asoca, he gave alms daily to sixty thousand Brahmans, 
and it cannot be doubted that in the earlier time, when the 
Comforter first taught the world his doctrine, the preponderance 
and the number of the Brahmans were equally great. Not only 
was it believed that men are born in particular castes on account 
of their merit or demerit in a former life, (which the Saviour 
never denied,) but they were excluded from the hope of rising to 
freedom through the highest knowledge. Sacrifices of blood 
were ordered in the books held sacred, and practised by the 
priests, though when the compassionate One beheld them, he 
blamed on that account the whole of the Vedas. In the mean 
time men cared only for themselves or for their caste, and not 



AND DOCTRINE. 35 

for mankind. While religious ceremonies had a great stress laid 
on them, good actions were little practised. Men had fallen 
through false conceptions into all manner of superstition, selfish 
ness, ignorance, and sin, with all that misery which such things 
must entail. Sakya therefore, the indefatigable straggler, had 
prayed to each of the supreme Buddhas, that he too might be 
come a Buddha, for the sake of delivering mankind from misery, 
and they all had foretold that he should succeed. In order to 
fit himself for his sacred work he studied first under the Brah- 
mans, nor did he at any time refuse them personal respect, 
though he extended to every man the free option of that sancti- 
fication by the highest knowledge, which it was previously 
thought must belong to the upper castes only. But by extending 
such benefits to others, he did no injury to the Brahmans. On 
the contrary, many of them became his disciples, and, assuming 
the yellow garb of mendicants, they not only forsook the world, 
but went about preaching the true faith, and inviting all men 
to be saved by the six highest excellencies. Then came those 
remarkable missions which spread our faith from Magadha over 
a large part of India, to Ceylon in the South, to Nepal in the 
North, and even to Thibet and China, and a large part of the world. 
The virtues of King Asoca, whose inscriptions remain to this day 
as an evidence of the truth of our faith, are well known, and not 
least was his anxiety for the souls of men. In all this, however, 
the Brahmans were not injured ; though it is true their bloody 
sacrifices were forbidden, and the books which enjoin them were 
considered on that account defiled." 

BLAN. " You appear to think, then, that a certain humanity 
of sentiment should be expected in all books which claim to be 
sacred." 

SAUG. " Certainly ; such for instance as we have in the 
inspired Sutras of Buddha. If, however, to resume my argument, 
Sakya from his victory over sin was called the Vanquisher, and 
from his benefits to mankind the Saviour, and from his complete 
liberation the Tathdgata, or if again the nations in their gratitude 

32 



36 BAUDDHA SCEPTICISM. 

honour his relics with worship in which they offer incense and 
flowers, or even if we address prayers to one who shares the 
perfection of the divine intelligence, such things offer no just 
subject for reproach, either against his sacred memory, or against 
our religion in general. Whereas on the other hand, the cruelties 
which our saints suffered at the instigation of the fierce Cumarila, 
when, after conquering India by persuasion, they were driven 
out of it by extreme violence, were such as I even shudder to 
remember." 

" But whatever may be said of Cumarila," here resumed 
Vidyacharya, " you do not deny that Sakya suffered himself to 
be considered as above our holy triad of deities, and to me I 
confess such presumption appears impious." 

SAUG. " Well, how far it was presumptuous, must depend 
upon how far those whom you term deities are true or eternal ; 
and perhaps on that point we are not agreed. Supposing then, 
as we hold, your deities are either creatures of the imagination, 
or so far as they exist, are only products of nature, and therefore 
destined to pass away like all other forms of the natural world, 
it is clear that the enlightened one, having overcome sin, and 
attained participation in the supreme intelligence, would have 
attained a superior rank. But this same rank he holds out 
as possible to be attained in turn by others who aspire to it 
through the same piety, knowledge, and excellence. It was 
not therefore arrogance, as you suppose, but the perfection of 
his knowledge which rendered the claim you allude to, on part 
of the Saviour, perfectly legitimate." 

Here Vidyacharya said nothing, but Blancombe resumed, 
"You conduct your argument in this part with as much spirit as 
you did with clearness in the former part ; and if our venerable 
friend here does not reply to you, neither shall I attempt it. 
Only, from what you relate of Sakya, I should augur, there 
must have been a great difference between his view of the 
sacerdotal caste, and the practice now current among you. At 
least I have heard, that in Ceylon the institution of caste is 



SACERDOTALISM. VARIATIONS. 37 

now pretty rigidly observed by the professors of your faith ; 
and it is certain that in Thibet, and elsewhere, you have a more 
thoroughly organized hierarchy than now exists among the 
Brahmanical Hindus. Your many monasteries, your temples, 
your chanting, and in short your abundant ritualism, all savour 
of something different from the humane yet fervently devout and 
somewhat mystical rationalism which it seems was the character 
of your founder." 

SAUG. " Well, it is not surprising that a religion thoroughly 
established should need somewhat different provisions from those 
which suited its commencement. Something even of human error 
may creep in. All those things however, to which you allude, 
have not come about among us at random, but were established 
by the wisdom of the saintly followers of the Saviour, when 
they assembled in various councils. There are three such 
councils which we especially venerate. The first already spoken 
of, at which the Holy Scriptures were arranged, took place in 
the year of the Saviour s death; the second, in order to ex 
tinguish schisms, a hundred years later ; and the third, in which 
it was determined to propagate the faith by missions throughout 
the world, after another interval of about one hundred and 
eighteen years, or not much more. In such councils then our 
wise men made various useful regulations ; and we are far from 
thinking as the Acharya here supposed, that all authority 
ought to be despised ; for in fact it does not follow, because the 
older Brahmans were blameable for using authority in order to 
exclude men from the truth, that therefore authority should not 
be obeyed, when it is used to establish and spread abroad the 
truth by holy men." 

BLAN. " I understand. But now I begin to fear you will 
think me very wearisome, if not almost as great a persecutor as 
Cumarila. Yet there is one, and I believe scarcely more than 
one question yet, with which I would venture to trespass upon 
your patience. You have spoken of the purity of Sakya s doc 
trines, and also of missions for the sake of propagating the faith. 



38 SHORT-COMINGS. 

Pray then, how has it arisen, that you have never yet converted 
some of those in Ceylon, and in the parts of India nearest to it, 
who might appear most favourably situated for the influence of 
your missions to operate upon them; and again, among those 
who profess your faith in both those countries, how is it that 
practices prevail, such as probably Sakya, as much as any man, 
would have condemned? Not that I here speak of personal 
vices, such as in the case of reckless men elude or defy the 
controul of even the purest faith ; but I allude to forms of belief 
and modes of worship, which stand in the strongest contrast to 
the purity which you have ascribed to Sakya. Need I tell you 
of the crowds who worship idols ? or of the homage paid in such 
absorbing excess to what you consider sacred relics, as to draw 
away the worshipper s mind from any thought of the high and 
holy one, by whatever name we style him, who, as we both 
agree, ought to be worshipped ? Or what shall I say of the 
devil-worshippers of Tinnevelly, who (if I understand their 
doctrine aright) endeavour to propitiate the spirit of evil ; and 
certainly their vicious lives, in many cases, prove they have 
fallen sufficiently below humanity for such a horrid kind of creed 
to correspond well enough with their practice? Then again, 
rites are spoken of in India, though, I believe, in parts which no 
longer fall within the range of your religious influence, in which 
unclean passions and the sensual vices, such as even bad men 
generally are ashamed of, are both practised and considered a 
kind of piety. But what a piety can that be, which thus arrays 
itself against the modesty of every pure conscience, and enters 
into alliance as it were with whatever is evil in man, against what 
ever aspiration he might raise towards the holy and the eternal ? 
Such a kind of religion in fact is on the side of passion and of dark 
ness against intelligence. Yet of those three things you fully 
admit the first and second to be evil, and the third to be good." 

SAUG. " Undoubtedly we do ; but of the persons you allude 
to, some are descendants of the old Yakkas*, or the demon race, 

The speaker uses here a Pali form, as quoting the MahaVansa. 



COMMON GROUND. 39 

who never fully received the Saviour, and we have not been able 
to make an impression upon their obdurate minds ; again, as to 
the others, the ignorance of mankind is always apt to degenerate 
from a pure religion, and I do not see that such degeneracy 
is the fault of the luminary of the world." 

BLAN. " Certainly not of Him whom we should call the 
true luminary ; nor again is it a fault in the personal character 
of Sa"kya, whom you probably mean ; but it remains to be 
inquired, whether the circumstances I have alluded to may not 
indicate some inherent weakness in his religion. But now I am 
so anxious to see men happier and better, by whatever name 
they call themselves, that I would earnestly entreat you in the 
name of Sakya, if you please, to consider with me how we can 
enlighten the intelligence, or purify the imaginations of those 
miserable persons we have spoken of; and this I promise, if 
your way appears the more likely, I will so far join it as to con 
sent at least to your giving these benighted people the purest 
form of your faith ; whereas, if any other way should appear 
better, you perhaps will not refuse to follow whatever method 
the most perfect intelligence may point out as the best?" 

SAUG. " Perhaps we will so consider it. At least I quite 
agree that the practice of virtue is the principal thing." 

BLAN. " It appears to my own mind there are several points 
we so far agree in, that it is worth while attempting to come 
nearer each other; especially I think we agree that whatever 
course the most perfect intelligence would approve, that ought to 
be followed. We are also agreed that bountifulness or benefi 
cence is a virtue to be practised, and that of all gifts we could 
confer upon men, the gift of salvation, or the knowledge of the 
true faith, would be the greatest ; for certainly we should be 
most anxious about their souls. You have spoken also of 
knowledge, and I suppose knowledge implies possession of the 
highest truth of all ; if this then is so valuable, we should 
not close our eyes against any beam of it, from whatever quarter 
it may fall." 



40 SUMMARY. 

SAUG. " To all tliat I see no objection." 

BLAN. " Shall we however try to sum up briefly what has 
been said, lest any one should have dropt as it were the thread 
from his hand?" 

SAUG. " If you please." 

BLAN. " It appears then that you distinguish the Bauddha 
doctrine from that of various Charvacas or materialists ; that you 
consider intelligence and matter as two things eternally co 
existent, of which the one, being visible in its properties, leads us 
to infer the other, though it is not clear how far either acts upon 
the other. Nor again, do you object to the opinion of your 
friends who deny the existence of anything except internal per 
ception or intelligence. In the same manner again, you think 
that a highest form of intelligence exists, answering more nearly 
to what we conceive of the Deity, but you do not censure those 
who think such a supposition unnecessary. Your own reason 
indeed for making it, seems to be chiefly an application of the 
analogy of body and soul, to the world and God ; or else a per 
ception of the fitness of giving symmetry to the various 
gradations of intelligence by admitting one form higher and 
more perfect than the rest ; and not in the least any need of 
attributing the world to a creator ; for life and death, decay and 
quickening, succeed each other, you imagine, in a cyclical series, 
which may be compared to bubbles and waves rising and falling 
in alternation around a ball. You are all agreed in resting your 
essential belief upon the last supreme Buddha, or Sakya ; and 
he, having been once a man, became so enlightened as to share 
the highest intelligence, and to have authority in matters of 
belief, though his divinity seems a kind of growth or develop 
ment rather than an original inheritance; and his doctrine, 
though superhuman, may more nearly be described as an aspira 
tion than as a revelation ; but on this point I found some difficulty 
in reconciling all that dropt from you. You conceive however 
of the standard both of your belief and practice as being some 
thing external to yourselves, and will not have it described as 



SUMMARY. 41 

a mere deification of any individual man s reason; and lastly, 
while you appeal to the authority of Sa"kya, you admit your 
religious practices in the present day to vary considerably from 
his doctrine. For while his life might almost seem a solemn 
mission against caste and sacerdotalism, its result seems to have 
been the establishment of a system more elaborately sacerdotal 
than the one against which he protested ; and among many of 
those who are called Buddhists, as well as the neighbours who 
should be converted by them, the grossest idolatry and super 
stition prevail. But such things you would probably say were 
no strong argument against the original truth of your religion, 
supposing its evidences, and especially its miracles, to be satis 
factory, and its sacred books to be written, as you believe, both 
in an humane spirit, and also by divine inspiration. In other 
respects you appear to agree with Hindus in general in the belief 
of the transmigration of souls, and in the endeavour to attain 
a certain tranquillity in a future life, as the reward of certain 
conduct here ; and this tranquillity appears from what you said 
of Sakya to consist in freedom from the necessity of being born 
again, so that some would consider it but a negative kind of 
enjoyment." 

SAUG. " As far as I observe, your summary is, for a brief 
one, tolerably correct ; though as we have seen that some of our 
terms are misapprehended by Europeans, so perhaps I should 
make allowance for the inadequacy of your language to express 
the fulness of our sacred truth." 



NOTES ON CHAPTER I. 

THE Bauddhas have many sects, of which the Saugatas are one. 
Those who wish to test the assertions of the speaker in this dialogue, 
may compare them with the numerous citations in Colebrooke s Col 
lected Works ; with Eugene Burnouf s splendid and critical Analysis ; 






42 AUTHORITIES. 

with Mr Hodgson s Account of the Nepaulese Buddhists, Trans. 
RA.S., Vol. II. ; with various notices in the Writings of Professor 
H. H. Wilson, especially in his edition of the Yishnu Purana ; with 
Mr Tumour s Introduction to the Cingalese Mahawansa; with A. 
Kemusat s Melanges Asiatiques, Yols. I. and Y. ; and with Lassen s 
Indische Alterthumskunde. Some of the above books may be con 
sidered as standing references for subsequent chapters in this volume. 
M. Y. Cousin has somewhere described Buddhism as un nihilisme 
dbsolu ; and Mr Hodgson as a deification of human reason ; while 
Mr Turnour argues that it should be rather considered as a revelation j 
and again, Lassen finds no clear intimation of a Deity, he says, in the 
primitive Sutras. On the whole, however, the citations in Burnouf 
and Turnour, with the statements of Colebrooke, and the ingenious 
criticism of A. Remusat, point to some such doctrine as that of the 
Saugata Muni in the text. For Bauddha history, Colonel (now Lieut. - 
General) Sykes s paper in the Royal Asiatic Society s Journal has also 
a real, though a controversial sort of interest. His results cannot 
be considered probable, but his reasons are worth reading. 



>SANKHYA PRIORITY. 43 



CHAPTER II. 

What the Vaishnava Sankhyast thinks. 

(( The historian ... will be painfully struck by the inferiority of the ethical deve 
lopment to the physical and merely speculative. The [German] mind appears 
overpowered by the contemplation of God as Nature and as Thought. His mani 
festation as conscious Spirit and Will is neglected : abstract reasoning absorbs the 
mystery of conscience, and the feeling of reality." BUNSEN, On German Thought. 

"The distinction which the Sankhya draws between the sensuous consciousness 
and the self -consciousness, is a proof of the very strong disposition to refer the inner 
development of our sensuous conception to a higher and more general force, and 
thereby to separate it from man s true personality." RITTEK, Hist. Philosophy. 

" IT appears then," said Blancombe, now turning to Sadananda, 
" that much of the doctrine which the Muni has been explaining 
finds its justification in the treatises of the Sankhya philosophy." 
" With respect to some portion of it," answered the other, " the 
case is so." " Well then/ continued Blancombe, " if your 
treatises are older than the time of Sakya, such a circumstance 
may be thought somewhat to detract from his originality as a 
teacher ; for there will be some tilings which he will appear not 
so much to have revealed or to have discovered, as to have 
borrowed from others." u Just so/ assented Saddnanda. 
"Well now," resumed Blancombe, "I am curious to know 
whether in virtue of this speculative affinity between your philo 
sophers on the one hand, and the followers of Sakya on the 
other, you consider yourselves as on the whole his allies and 
votaries, or whether you are still to be classed as professors 
of what is more properly the Hindu religion." " Evidently," 
answered Sadananda, " the fact of Sakya s having learnt from 
our treatises which is the case, for Capila our teacher is at least 
of far earlier date no more renders us Buddhists than the 
Brahmans themselves in general are so. For Sakya had Brah- 
manical teachers, some of whom he may have subsequently 
seduced, as the Saugata has asserted ; yet the great body retained 
their faith ; and in the same way our agreement or our priority 



44 VISHNU. 

as regards Sa"kya in some subjects of speculation has never 
led us to imitate him in rejecting the authority of the Hindu 
Sastras, and especially of the Vedas. You have heard that the 
Buddhists admit only two sources of knowledge, whereas we, 
not thinking that the knowledge enjoyed by mankind is too 
great as it stands, consider it prudent to retain the third source, 
namely revelation, or its tradition, as embodied in the sacred 
books of our race." 

BLAN. In fact then you practise the rites of the Hindu 
religion, and worship its deities." 

SAD. " Certainly, I practise the rites so far as my own 
weakness and the deplorable degeneracy of this Cali age will 
permit, and I do not intentionally omit due honour to any of 
the deities, but especially to Vishnu, the great preserver of all 
things." 

BLAN. Vishnu then, it seems, is your name for the Supreme ; 
and pray do you associate with him also his wife either as Sri, 
or as Saraswati?" 

SAD. " Certainly, as the goddess of plenty, Sri, and of 
prosperity, Lakshmi, but hardly as the Queen of eloquence, or 
speech, Saraswati ; for most think that this last name belongs 
properly to the wife of Brahma, nor do I quarrel with their 
mode of considering it." 

BLAN. " But I had imagined you, perhaps erroneously, to 
be in some things a disciple of Ramanuja s, and he I conceive 
worshipped Rama." 

SAD. " You say correctly, in some things, for we are not 
bound by his metaphysical opinions ; he however considered 
Rama as an incarnation of Vishnu, which is also our belief." 

BLAN. " You extend then the same incarnation theory to 
Crishna?" 

SAD. " Yes, I am inclined to consider the deity Crishna 
as a form of Vishnu, becoming incarnate in Rama." 

BLAN. Then what am I to suppose is your belief respect 
ing Siva and Durga, Indra and Sachi, Agni, Kartikeya, 



POPULAR DEITIES. 45 

Varuna, Yama, and all the other names which I sometimes 
hear spoken of with veneration ? 

SAD. " You may, if you please, suppose me to conceive of 
them according to the pious traditions usually current among 
my countrymen., of the general bearing of which I imagine you 
are scarcely ignorant. Vishnu, for example, as the preserver of 
all things, may well be considered the highest, and with him 
Sri, or Lakshmi, as his bountiful associate in giving pro 
sperity." 

" Again Siva, as the destroyer and rebuilder of various forms 
of life, has his place of worship, though I am not agreed with 
those who rank him above the preserver. With him, however, 
Durga, or Parvati the mountain-born goddess of terror, may be 
mentioned, though she has also a milder aspect, as Bhavani. 
Then Indra, the god of the sky, may well deserve grateful 
oblations, and worship, as well as his consort Sachi ; for with 
out the bounty of the sky, this Earth of ours would be barren 
and wretched. He may fairly also be called Maghavdn, the 
possessor of bliss. Nor again, do I suppose any one so blind 
or ungrateful, as to deny the benefits which men receive from 
fire, and air, and water. All these then have their deities, Agni, 
and Pavan, and Varuna, whom we honour as the lords of their 
several gifts or regions. So with Indra the god of heaven, I 
might have classed Surya the deity of the Sun, and the 
father of the twelve Adityas, who give us light in their 
turns ; or I might have spoken of Ganesa, who had once 
exclusive votaries, and whom now men chiefly invoke, when 
they commence any undertaking ; or of Manasa*, the healer of 
mankind from the wounds of serpents. But I do not wish 
to perplex you with the various names and attributes of the 
deities, respecting some of which and their respective ranks 
all our teachers are not quite agreed. Suffice it generally, 
that from whatever quarter mankind derive any especial benefit, 
we think it reasonable to ascribe the good to some benignant 
giver, and to honour the giver therefore with grateful offerings, 



46 POPULAR DEITIES. 

as well as with the prescribed prayers. But besides those 
gracious and more bountiful beings, whom we honour as our 
preservers or benefactors, it is evident that there also exist in 
nature many terrible agencies, the influence of which we may 
well tremble at. Kartikeya, for instance, is the god of war, and 
Kali the goddess of bloodshed, whose terrors we think it not 
unnatural to avert, without inquiring nicely, whether she is 
distinct from Durga, or only the same described as the dark 
goddess; but in either case, I do not see why it should be a 
mark of wisdom to ridicule us for deprecating the displeasure of 
a being powerful to injure. Then even beyond this life there 
is Yama the god of death, who as regards our certain removal 
may be termed inexorable, though either in postponing it, or in 
judging us mercifully when we stand before his tribunal, we 
hope he may be rendered propitious to us by prayer. Nor in 
deed can I blame those who think no other deity so fit an object 
of their exclusive devotion as this gloomy king. With him 
may be classed his messenger Chitragupta, who conveys us to 
Yam-alaya, the abode of death, and all the array of witnesses, 
who give account in that dread presence of all our words and 
actions; such as Swarga, Chandra, Pavan, and many others, 
there being no place either in heaven or earth, which does not 
send forth his embodied witness to give unerring testimony of 
what has been good or evil in each action of our lives." 

BLAN. " Any such tribunal as you describe must certainly 
be a tremendous one to stand before. But how do you know so 
much of its nature?" 

SAD. " Perhaps something may be known respecting it in 
many ways ; but amongst others it is said that some one having 
been carried off once by Chitragupta in error, before his time 
was fully come, he returned to life, and described all the punish 
ments which he had seen." 

BLAN. " Upon my word, if we had happened to fall in with 
that person, I think we should have agreed to ask him a great 
many questions. For the subject is one so momentous, that I 



KNOWLEDGE IMPLIES TRUTH. 47 

cannot conceive any rational man s not feeling an interest in it. 
But your notion generally of the punishments is, I imagine, the 
same as that of other Hindus. You made them consist in the 
necessity of undergoing some new form of existence, in which a 
man starts with advantages or disadvantages, corresponding in a 
way to his conduct in any previous life." 

SAD. " Very much that." 

BLAN. " Then the highest reward will be freedom from any 
such necessity?" 

SAD. " Just so." 

BLAN. " Then for the fortunate person who has obtained 
such liberation there will remain only the tranquillity which our 
friend the Muni has already described, as consisting in entire 
exemption from the anxieties of an isolated personality, and 
perhaps a communion in some way with the tranquil volition 
or the serene contemplation of the Supreme Spirit." 

SAD. " I will not object captiously to his way of describing 
it, or to your own ; only it is evident that the highest enjoy 
ment must be in thorough knowledge, and the way to it is also 
through growth in knowing." 

BLAN. " Does not this high estimation which you form of 
knowledge clearly imply that there is something to be known?" 

SAD. " Certainly." 

BLAN. " And therefore that there is such a thing as positive 
truth, or that external things are in a certain way so far as they 
exist, or that they have been acted in a certain way so far as 
they are facts, and a conception of these, according to the 
manner in which they really are or have been, must be know 
ledge ; so that truth in any man s thought or affirmation will 
require as its correspondent a certain external reality?" 

SAD. " I do not see how what you say can be denied." 

BLAN. " Then if any one assured us that the internal 
conceptions of the mind bear no clear relation, or need not 
correspond to external things as they either exist or have 
been enacted, or that there are no such spiritual realities as 



48 HINDU SECTS. 

true ideas, or mental views of external things, to which we 
ought, as far as possible, to make our own notions approximate, 
such a person would take away the very ideas of truth and 
knowledge, and consequently destroy the possibility of that 
highest liberation to which you think the human soul should 
aspire?" 

SAD. " Quite so." 

BLAN. " Then it seems clear that we should not suffer our 
selves lightly to be embarrassed by any difficulties which a man 
arguing for so despondent an opinion might possibly start ; but 
rather we should spare no effort to arrive at the truth, and keep 
alive in ourselves by all holy or wise methods a courageous hope 
of attaining it." 

SAD. " I certainly admit that by right methods the soul 
may learn to know, and it is the great triumph of the Sankhya 
philosophy to have devised such methods." 

BLAN. " Very well. But you profess in part to accept the 
doctrines of Ramanuja; and again you profess a certain alle 
giance to the religious books of the Brahmanical religion. Will 
then the venerable A chary a here approve of your selecting Vishnu 
as the main object of your worship, or will he admit that the 
Supreme Being is most properly considered as the preserver?" 

SAD. " Probably not, nor perhaps in some other things far 
more important, will he approve of the conclusions to which our 
philosophy leads us. He at least is, I believe, a worshipper by 
preference of Siva, and probably will not admit that human 
souls are each one essentially distinct from the other." 

BLAN. " These differences, however, do not seem to make 
your religion in its general idea a different one?" 

SAD. " Certainly they do not ; for we agree in appealing to 
the same sacred books, as the traditionary depository of a reve 
lation." 

BLAN. " Does it not then appear to you that the doctrine held 
is of more consequence than the book in which it is recorded?" 

SAD. >l Why, without affirming or denying anything upon 



SA NKHYA THEOLOGY. 49 

that point, it must at least be considered of great importance to 
hold fast the written depository of divine truth ; for so long as 
we both appeal to the same books, our difference will be only 
one of interpretation, and there may be a chance of our some day 
arriving at an agreement ; whereas, if we, like the Buddha, 
Sakya Muni, threw off all allegiance to the tradition or history 
of a prior revelation, we should have lost one of the great sources 
of knowledge, and be more hopelessly divided." Thus far Sada- 
nanda ; and Vidyacharya then assented to what had been said of 
the importance of appealing to the same religious books, at the 
same time that the difference of interpretation as between himself 
and Sadananda was exceedingly great. 

" May I then ask," resumed Blancombe, "why you have 
selected Vishnu in particular as the most worthy of all the 
Hindu deities to be ranged as it were at the head of things 
divine?" "Partly," replied Sadananda, "because the earliest of 
our Scriptures speak of him either in that character, or at least as 
not apparently inferior to Indra 1 . Although it may be true that 
the Yedic songs speak chiefly of the divine agencies of Nature, 
and of Heaven, or Indra, who encompasses all the rest, this may 
arise from that temporal or economic character which, I con 
tend, should be ascribed to Holy Writ. But still more," he con 
tinued, " we think Vishnu worthy of the highest honour, because 
nothing appears to us more wonderful than that in the constant 
flux of things and succession of forms, such as the Saugata has 
described, any power should seem to preserve the world from 
ruin, and enable us to enjoy long periods of happiness and 
opportunities of seeing nature as it were exhibit herself to our 
gaze. For this so great an instance of benignant wisdom we 
thank Vishnu, and honour him as Narayana, the great pervader 
of all life, and preserver of things that are." 

BLAN. " You do not appear to agree with the Bauddhas, 
then, in considering the world as self-preserved?" 

* In what sense Vishnu is a Vedic Deity, will be discussed lower down. 
M. P. 4 



50 CAUSE OK SOURCE. 

SAD. " Not in such a sense as to exclude the deities from 
any care of it." 

BLAN. " But yet you seemed to adopt, or even to be quoted 
as authority for, that doctrine of all things moving in a certain 
order in virtue of their inherent qualities, or because they are 
such as to do so and so." 

SAD. "Why, undoubtedly facts, when examined, lead us to 
that conclusion. You gather of every tree in nature the fruit 
which belongs to its particular kind, and you see born of every 
animal young ones corresponding to the sire ; so in the arts, the 
painting or the statue implies first the colours or the stone ; and 
for any man to go about an action with means utterly dispro- 
portioned to it because they did not contain in themselves some 
capacity for achieving it, would be reckoned justly a kind of 
insanity. This principle holds good alike, whether the soldier 
should attempt to have a sword forged without iron, or a village 
maiden to draw water without going to the well. You see 
therefore that in everything like begets like, or that the effect 
is already contained virtually in the cause, like the oil in the 
berry. All things thus act according to nature, or, if you please, 
according to their qualities." 

BLAN. " You speak of effects produced before our eyes ; and 
since we are not the earliest men, every one knows that whatever 
now is, has had some antecedent. We all acknowledge that the 
stream flows from a fountain; but what are we to say of the 
visible source itself; or of that which you call the cause, and 
which you say involves the effect ? Is it also an effect of some 
prior cause, or do your observations at all help us towards 
discovering that more primary and general cause, to which 
these things of to-day, whether effects, or causes, or sources, or 
only links, must ultimately be traced? I should be glad to 
hear from you a little more as to the farther bearings of your 
philosophy." 

SAD. " Since you wish it, I will proceed farther. But our 
teachers generally begin their explanation at the part farthest 



51 

from us, because it resembles most as it were a beginning of 
the things spoken of; whereas perhaps you will understand me 
better if I begin at the part nearest to us. You see then the 
outside of things. The colour of any fruit or flower is perhaps 
painted on it by the heat of the sun, yet it only becomes of such 
a tinge in virtue of the skin or the sap being already of a 
particular kind. Then as to the substance of the fruit itself, it 
evidently is composed of juices according to the nature of the 
plant. Break up, if you will, the fibres, and divide again and 
again the parts with all their smaller parts, whether moist or 
dry, then you will find all the atoms themselves ultimately 
resolvable into one element. Not that perhaps every one will 
be able to reach this ; for within the gross body which is per 
ceptible by our senses, and which suffers from rough collision, 
there is a more subtle modification of matter, in which all the 
parts are more refined and, as it were, transparent, like gold 
beaten out into a delicate leaf. This may be termed the inner 
body, and should be considered either as the fugitive essence of 
life, or as the vehicle wherein personal life resides ; but rather, 
I should say, the latter. Within this more subtle body, then, 
which is so far more refined than our gross body, that it extends, 
as we see by the presentiment of touch, to a little distance from 
our grosser organs, like the flame of a candle leaping beyond 
the wick with which it is connected within, I say, this subtle 
body dwells the personality of man ; and that personality we 
admit to be more durable than the gross body, just as air and 
water are not so easily injured by blows as earthenware ; but 
for this personality or life to conceive of itself as a distinct 
being is as absurd as for music to think itself distinct from the 
instrument by the combination of whose parts it is produced ; 
for in reality this "subtle person" or personal life can only act by 
material organs, whether of the more refined order among which 
it dwells, or the grosser kind which it throws around itself as an 
outer sheath ; and it is even itself the mere product of conscious 
ness ; and consciousness of intellect ; for it is evident that no 

42 



52 PRIMARY MATTER. 

one is conscious either rightly of existence, or wrongly of an 
imaginary personality, unless he has, first, intellect. Therefore 
intellect is the truly great one, and the first production of 
nature. It manifests itself even in darkness, and then changing, 
it becomes sensitive or passionate, and again changing, it shews 
itself as goodness. So that in three divine manifestations it 
remains one essential form; from which fact also we worship 
Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheswara, or Siva, the great ruler. But 
farther, even intellect (Buddhi), though it be the great prolific 
principle from which consciousness proceeds, and, through con 
sciousness, life, could itself have neither action nor being, unless 
there lay behind it a potentiality of organisation out of which 
it might be evolved, or an eternal bubbling, out of which the 
many-coloured waters of darkness, sensibility, goodness, life, 
organisms either more subtle and with only sentiment, or more 
material and therefore with sensuous feeling, and in short, all 
opposites co-operating, may flow forth, swelling and subsiding, 
according as various qualities are blended in mysterious com 
binations. So that behind or beyond all the other things 
spoken of, there is in fact Pracriti, or what men call the 
indiscrete or irresoluble, because it is the primary element which 
no one can resolve into minuter parts ; rather indeed no one 
reaches it, except by the necessary inferences of an acute under 
standing. You may, however, consider it as it were preforma- 
tive life, or the seed of life ; it flows like water, or like quicksilver, 
into all shapes and forms and combinations. Out of it is evolved, 
under some circumstances and in some compositions, one thing, 
and in others, another ; but its first and greatest evolution, or 
offspring, is intellect." 

BLAN. " May I here interrupt you for a moment?" 

SAD. "Certainly." 

BLAN. " I don t quite understand how you make intellect an 
evolution of Pracriti, even on your own system, I mean, or at 
least considering it in relation to its affinities. For the Bauddha 
Muni has made intelligence something eternally coexistent with 



INTELLECT AS SENSIBILITY. 53 

matter ; and you, I believe, consider soul as also eternal ; so 
that I should have expected you to speak quite as honourably 
of intellect as the Bauddha does of intelligence, which seems 
nearly the same thing, and I should have thought you would 
have made it an accompaniment of soul, rather than a mere 
evolution of matter ; for this Pracriti after all seems only to be 
the most subtle and plastic form of matter." 

SAD. " Pardon me, the facts do not lead us in that direction, 
and accurate knowledge must follow facts. You will readily 
acknowledge that intellect understands something. What does 
it understand ? Evidently it takes cognizance of objects before 
our eyes, of things that are born and decay. Again, by what 
means does it apprehend them ? Evidently by instruments of 
sensation, or organs more or less bodily, that is, either of the 
grosser or the more subtle body. What is intellect then, but 
something correlative and congenerate with these organs, which 
are themselves evolved out of the Pracriti, with the kindred evo 
lutions of which they are again conversant. Intellect involves 
sensation, and therefore the pre-existence of Pracriti, which you 
may term, if you please, primary or plastic matter. Whereas, 
on the contrary, soul is that observant and eternally existent 
principle, before the eye of which, if it be duly purged, nature 
exhibits herself like a dancer going through many postures, and 
twisting herself into a thousand shapes." 

BLAN. " It would seem then as if you meant by intellect 
something different from the Bauddha intelligence, while some 
thing more nearly resembling the latter seems implied in your 
term, soul ; although indeed the Bauddhas appear to make 
their intelligence capable of a certain development, whether it 
should be called refinement or evolution ; so that I am almost 
embarrassed by the resemblance of your doctrines and at the 
same time by their discrepancy. But pray tell me, is nature 
then in your theory soul-less, and does she move under the 
control of any higher principle, or independently, and as it 
were collaterally?" 



54 D11AMAT1C ANALOGIES. 

SAD. " If you understood clearly what I have already said, 
you would see that nature, containing in herself the plastic 
element of life, neither needs the control of soul, nor would 
indeed submit to it. But doubtless each stage in the self- 
evolution of Pracriti has a connexion with the stage which 
follows, as well as with that which precedes. Therefore intellect, 
being once evolved, exercises a certain influence on what follows, 
and becomes capable of inserting by its inherent power a certain 
modifying control, such as I should not wonder if you were to 
call creativeness, but which is with me rather a result, and 
again a relative cause to what follows." 

BLAN. " But on such a theory, where is the necessity for 
what you term soul ; or why do you encumber your system with 
such a supposition?" 

SAD. " Surely you would not have a theatre and many 
cunning performers without a spectator ? Evidently there must 
be a looker-on, in order to enjoy. Soul, then, is the enjoyer." 

BLAN. " I should like to ask, if I was not afraid of per 
plexing the statement of your opinions by extrinsic arguments, 
what is the meaning of that word must, or, again, of the 
corresponding word ought, and why one thing must or ought 
to be, rather than another. But I suppose you would send me 
back to your old answer about inherent qualities, though I am 
not at all satisfied that being is owing, or that is should be 
considered an equivalent for must be. Perhaps, however, you 
discern in the system of nature, or rather collaterally to it, 
certain evidences of the existence of what you term soul." 

SAD. " Indeed we do. For it is clear from our own con 
sciousness that soul exists, and that it is multitudinous. For 
although men are often blinded by a passionate conception of 
being something distinct in themselves, and doing something 
each man for himself, so that he says, I am the cause of such 
things, and, I will also effect others, it becomes, on the other 
hand, clear to any vision purged by knowledge, that it is the 
great working of nature in us which implants certain instincts, 



PERSONALITY AND SOUL. 55 

paints as it were pictures, and lures or propels us as parts of 
herself into whatever inclination or action we blindly fancy is 
some origination of our own. Nature, I say, develops herself 
in our being, exhibits herself in our form, and plays as it were 
a manifold drama in the series of our passionate struggles. So 
that the conception of a man s independent individuality, as if he 
could say in building kingdoms, or rearing children, I did, or 
I will, must be utterly discarded as an illusion ; for it is clear 
that we could do nothing of the kind, if such effects were no^ 
already involved in their causes ; and the causes operate in us 
from the unceasing evolution of nature. 

"But now, you will please to notice, that besides all this 
human development which flatters itself with the conceit of an 
independent personality, each man has also in him a certain prin 
ciple which observes, and reflects, and knows. Now this principle 
indeed may be so blinded by passion and darkness, the two great 
obstructions of knowledge, (though again these are capable in 
some combinations of giving forth a certain higher product, as we 
have farther back seen them to be phases of intellect,) that it con 
sents to the illusion I have already spoken of, and believes 
each man to stand himself as something apart from nature. But 
when this observant principle has risen clearly above passion and 
darkness, like a man on some mountain-peak, below whose feet 
the clouds roll heavily, it discovers itself to have been distinct ; 
it recognises as it were its own being, no longer as a mere 
human consciousness of a personal agent, but as a faculty of 
most bright and spiritual vision. Then it takes note calmly 
from aside of all the processes of life and action, and pronounces 
them to be mere displays of nature, which once disturbed it, 
but are now for its amusement. Nature then having been 
discovered in the dressing-room of the theatre ceases to delude 
with her imagery, and ceases even to be, according to the vulgar 
conception of being. For all her ordinary forms and manifes 
tations are resolved back by knowledge, which is the eye of the 
soul, into mere Pracriti, that is, as I have already said, into the 



56 PERSONALITY AND NATURE. 

mere essence of life sporting itself. The world therefore in a 
way no longer is ; that is to say, it no longer is the world, but 
only a play of nature ; the illusion is discovered, and the play is 
over, but the soul enjoys knowledge, and by knowledge, as it is 
written in the sacred Veda, obtains the water of immortality." 

BLAN. " This is a wonderful sort of drama which you de 
scribe. It is not however clear to me, why the whole perform 
ance is undertaken, since at the end the only result attained is 
the knowledge of the illusion." 

SAD. " Such a remark implies blame on the art of the poet ; 
and neither our great poems of the Kamayana and the Mahabha- 
rata would be written, nor would our famous plays, either the 
serious ones, such as the Prabodha Chandrodaya. or the more 
playful, such as the Mrichchakati, ever have been presented on 
a stage even before famous kings, if mankind did not feel a 
pleasure in observing them, and also in discovering the illusion. 
For you know, men often rejoice in observing things represented 
dramatically, which, if they conceived of them as real actions, 
would be considered painful and horrible. Even so to the 
blinded individualist, who thinks himself and all other men are 
independent persons, each doing or suffering I know not what 
in a personal freewill, the crimes and sufferings, which abound 
through the world, must necessarily be a source of pain; but 
when soul has triumphed over such an illusion, and, on looking 
back, sees only the sport of Pracriti developing itself, just as 
water flows into any vessel or crevice of any possible shape, 
without being injured or anxious, soul then rejoices, and is 
pleased both with the drama, and also with having dissipated 
the illusion." 

BLAN. " If such a knowledge be ever actually attainable, 
it must be, I conceive, because the things really are as you 
imagine; but then such a picture would almost dazzle the 
mental gaze, and its very idea would be too tremendous and 
overwhelming for any finite soul to apprehend. But possibly 
you may conceive of the soul as partaking somewhat of the 



DIVERSITY OF SOULS. 57 

divine infinity, or perhaps you think in some way approaching 
to the Vedanta doctrine, that all souls are one." 

SAD. " The two suppositions of which you offer me an 
option are neither identical, nor does one necessarily imply the 
other. We admit the soul to be in a way infinite, for no bounds 
can be set to its knowledge, either of things past in time or 
distant in space ; so that it is present as much with things 
supposed to have been acted a thousand years ago, as with 
things appearing to pass before our eyes. Each soul then is 
infinite in the sense that no limits can be assigned to its capacity 
of knowledge. But, on the other hand, we are as far as possible 
from conceding to the adherents of the Vedanta philosophy that 
all souls are one. On the contrary, one of the ends of the more 
discriminating system, which we call Sankhya, is to dissipate 
such an error, and bring men back to the simpler truth affirmed 
by our consciousness. It is almost self-evident that, if all souls 
were one, all men would be simultaneously feeling alike ; and if 
one man married, and another lost his father, they would both 
be rejoicing and both be mourning in the same instant. Many 
other absurd consequences would also follow. But, as the case 
stands, we find the soul of one man rejoicing, and that of another 
afflicted ; one enlightened by knowledge, and another ignorant ; 
nay, even the different conceptions which the Vedantists and we 
ourselves form of the same opinions, sufficiently prove our souls 
to be distinct. Neither again do I, myself, follow Patanjali and 
other doctors, who have partly taught the Sankhya wisdom, and 
partly departed from it, in making mere devotion, or mystical 
contemplation, the best way of liberating the soul from such 
illusions as have been described. On the contrary, Capila has 
more correctly taught us, that the soul is to be liberated by 
knowledge ; and to this opinion, even the Vedas, already quoted, 
partly assent." 

BLAN. " Souls then, it seems according to you, are many, 
and they are to be liberated by knowledge rather than by 
mystical contemplation. Your method then is scientific, rather 



58 DEITIES 

than devotional. But am I to understand that those deities, 
whom you mentioned with respect, and especially Vishnu, the 
preserver, are at the head of all souls ; or what conception am I 
to form of them?" 

SAD. " Clearly from what has been said, it follows that the 
deities are not above soul ; for then they would no longer be 
preservers. Soul, I must remind you, is the enjoyer, the ob 
server, or the recipient ; and it is the excellence of soul to be 
liberated from anxiety about this lower world, or any other 
interest in it, except such enjoyment as a contemplation of the 
play of self-fashioning nature may reasonably afford. But the 
deities are employed in regulating and controlling all sorts of 
lower processes. It remains then only that they be high forms, 
and probably very glorious and eminent forms, of intellect." 

BLAN. "But I understood you that intellect is the first 
evolution of nature." 

SAD. " Rightly so; for it is clear that intellect is so evolved 
out of the plastic energies of the lively principle." 

BLAN. " But who then is your creator, your Iswara, or 
your supreme Lord? Can any less than such a one be the 
preserver? Who then put the drama of nature on the stage, 
or built the theatre, on which those wonderful evolutions display 
themselves? You know the earthly poem implies a poet, and 
every building, whether intended for a drama or for other things, 
must have had a builder. Supposing then all nature to be, as 
you imagine, a certain divine or world-long drama, we require 
for so grand a performance a master-manager, and a builder as 
much above earthly architects as this framework of the heavens 
and the earth is above all earthly mansions and theatres." 

SAD. " Your question shews the danger of introducing into 
scientific discussion ornamental imagery. When our treatises 
speak-, as they do, of nature exhibiting herself like a dancer, 
they mean only to illustrate an abstruse subject by a common 
image. You must not, however, push a metaphor beyond the 
purpose for which it was intended. We have already seen that 



EVOLUTIONS. 59 

all visible effects in nature are resolvable into one infinitely 
subtle element. Now as to any creator, he could (as a matter 
of possibility) bring nothing out of this element which was not 
already involved in it, for effects must be contained in causes ; 
and again, (as a matter of necessity,) no external care seems 
particularly needed to produce what goes on reproducing and 
fashioning itself; though I do not mean, as already has been 
made clear, that intellect as an evolution of nature is not an 
efficacious principle in helping forward the various processes as 
they continue up to a particular point of the cycle, and then, 
being resolved, re-enact themselves. Now if, as you appear to 
wish, we represented soul as a creator, we should first disturb 
soul with unworthy anxieties, instead of leaving it the serene 
contemplation which is its highest excellence ; and secondly, 
we should assign it an impossible task of creating ; and thirdly, 
an unnecessary trouble of guiding. Whereas, by the scientific 
analysis of principles, we find all that is required to be contained 
in these two things, nature the blind worker, and soul the 
enjoying spectator. As to the deities then which we honour, 
different opinions may perhaps innocently be held ; but we see 
no harm in considering them as glorious and eminent links in 
that grand cyclical series of living things, in which nature by 
her mysterious power is developed. They pervade, they con 
trol, they preserve. Their destiny perhaps is higher, and 
their existence more protracted that that of man, in proportion 
as higher or subtler intellect has evolved itself in their sacred 
forms ; but in the infinite roll of ages they, like ourselves, must 
become subject to the eternal law of change ; their wisdom and 
their power have bubbled up out of the froth of the abysmal 
ocean as it heaves with existence, and in time they will subside, 
and give place to others, whether better or worse. For time is 
hard to overcome. Many things have been, and many will be, 
but the grand whole suffers neither increase nor lessening. You 
have seen a spider throwing out a hundred threads along the 
dewy branches of the lotus in the early morning, and again the 



60 SA NKIIYA THEISM ILLUSORY ; 

same spider draws in the same threads, neither losing nor gaming 
any particle in its vital totality. Thus the Vedantists teach ; 
and, without confusing, as they do, Soul and Matter, we agree 
so far as to say, thus the world of nature puts forth threads of 
existence. Some are longer, and some are shorter, but all are 
alike resumed into the capacious form of the universal mother." 

So far, or at some such point as this, for perhaps I have not 
the exact words, Sadananda had arrived, when Blancombe ut 
tered, as it were involuntarily, an exclamation of astonishment, 
and said he had neither expected, nor could he quite understand, 
on what principle it could be held that divine beings could pass 
away. Then after some discussion how far the deities ought to be 
held to have souls, which Sadananda declared had nothing to do 
with their personality, but so far as souls were attached to divini 
ties, he said they would enjoy the same capacity of liberation 
by knowledge as the souls of human beings, Blancombe pro 
ceeded : "I cannot conceal from you that this Sankhya doctrine, 
if it be the most scientific, is also to my weak faculties the most 
awful, not to say alarming, of any I have heard. For, in listen 
ing to our Bauddha friend, I cherished a sort of hope that his 
Supreme Intelligence, however apparently tranquil, might still 
have arranged matters for our happiness by some far-seeing 
wisdom, or at least, in any extreme peril to poor mankind, 
might be so far roused as to put forth some energy for our help ; 
but with you soul is apparently passive, and nature blind, and 
those deities, to whom we might look up for succour, are them 
selves mere evolutions of nature, divine plants, as it were, 
blossoming for an hour, and fading. So that, whether the jaws 
of extinction yawn for me, or whether any error springing from 
passion or darkness obscure the glance of my soul, and lead 
my footsteps astray, there is no provider of help for me mentally 
to lean upon. Nor again, can I quite reconcile your doctrine 
with the professions of allegiance which you made some time 
back to the received deities, and your worship, for example, of 
Vishnu." 



OR PHYSI-THEISTICAL. 61 

"That indeed," interposed Vidyacha"rya here, "is very dif 
ficult." Sadananda however answered, "We neither wish to 
annoy any one by obtruding our knowledge on those who have 
been educated in different notions (and I have not attempted to 
change the religion of England), nor again would we withhold 
correct knowledge from those who inquire, as you seemed 
yourself to inquire for it. But this alarm of yours proceeds 
partly from your having learnt differently elsewhere, and partly 
from your not considering how vast are the periods of time 
over which we recognise the existence of the gods as ranging. 
When we speak of a day of Brahma, we mean a period of 
2,160,000,000 years, and perhaps a full hundred of days of that 
length may go to make up the existence of Brahma or of 
Vishnu the upholder. Now, beings whose wisdom preserves 
them so long, may well be more powerful than man, and may 
play an important part, even as any very eminent man may, in 
the great drama of Nature. They may reasonably be conceived 
therefore to give assistance to lower beings, who are like our 
selves in part, products of the same plastic force. Our doctrine 
therefore does not discourage piety, though we lay more stress 
upon accurate knowledge of things than upon mystic dreaminess. 
But as to our conclusions, they are forced upon us by the state 
of the case. For, if there had ever been a time when an Iswara, 
all-wise and all-sufficient, such as you imagine, existed alone 
without a world, he being happy in himself would have had no 
inducement to create, nor again could he have created without 
materials ; and, if even he had created a world, being all-wise, 
he would have made it more perfect far than the state of things 
around us. Living things would not have preyed upon life, nor 
man have injured man. But now consider again this argument. 
You think that the world is sufficiently good to imply an Iswara; 
we ourselves think otherwise. But your argument sufficiently 
shews that a certain order is observed, and that too very much 
such an order as would arise upon our theory of like begetting 
like, or causes containing their effects. For all things you see 



62 NATURE EVOLVING. 

proceed in the gross, and as it were by waves of the tide, rather 
than by droppings from the hand. The more perfect then you 
conceive this order to be, we make no objection so far, but 
advise you to derive consolation from the comparative certainty 
of things in respect of cause and effect. Such a certainty may 
well assure you, that by adapting your conduct (if you believe 
that a man is a free agent) to the revolutions of nature, or, as 
we should say, by contentedly suffering the unavoidable, and 
liberating the soul so that it can rejoice in the grandest of all 
spectacles, you will both secure such a happiness as it is in the 
nature of things for you to enjoy, and also act consistently with 
piety, whether your notions or ours may be the more correct. 
Not, however, that I venture to offer you the above counsel, 
as if I thought our opinions doubtful. For you have already 
seen them to be founded upon scientific investigation. 

u You may also please to consider one argument for their truth, 
which is not generally given in our books, and which therefore 
I have not yet mentioned. Many people imagine that the world 
is daily becoming better. That, indeed, is not our own received 
belief, either as derived from our religious books, or as dependent 
upon reasoning. Let us, however, for a moment entertain the 
opinion as not an absurd one. Why then should the world 
become better? Is it not clear that nature is daily struggling 
through her manifold forms of activity, so that, upon the opinion 
we are now supposing, there is an upward growth, and an 
evolution of higher forms of being ? Whereas, on your theory 
of a creation once for all, the world would remain as it came 
from the hands of its Iswara. But the course of things, evolving 
daily life and novelty, especially if, as some suppose, the evo 
lution is of the nature of a higher development and aspira 
tion, shews that Pracriti must be considered as the primal 
element, which is the fruitful womb of many successive births. 
Let it however be remembered, that the analogy which I 
above borrowed from the Vedanta, of the spider putting out 
its threads and drawing them in again, is a more instructive 



TENDENCIES OF DOCTRINE. 63 

illustration of what we consider in general the nature of the 
world." 

"Perhaps," rejoined Blancombe, "it would not be proper 
for me to deny that your system may turn out to be founded, as 
you believe, upon systematic investigation though, as far as we 
have hitherto gone, I observe only illustrations or analogies, 
rather than arguments, adduced for its groundwork : but at least 
the reflexions, which you suggest as consolatory, do not remove 
from my mind the overwhelming awe with which I contemplate 
a theory in which the universe seems whirled on a blind career 
without compass or guide. Supposing however, upon greater 
familiarity with your views, this alarm of mine should subside, 
as you imagine it would, I almost fear that it might give place 
to even a greater disease of the mind." 

" What might that be?" asked Sadananda. " Why perhaps 
scarcely less," answered Blancombe, " than an incurable reck 
lessness of the difference between right and wrong, or a readiness 
to indulge whatever vicious temptation, either the promptings 
of Pracriti, or of whatever is lowest and most bestial in man, 
might engender. Not that probably such an effect is produced 
in persons like yourself, in whom it may be neutralised by some 
better disposition ; but with many men your doctrine would at 
least tend, either to alarm, or to corrupt ; either taking away 
the stay of their mental hope, or the safeguard of their moral 
conduct : and that this latter apprehension is not merely imagi 
nary may seem proved by some of the sectarians whom you 
do not willingly acknowledge as associates, and who, indeed, 
appear ashamed of their own secret worship. For you are 
aware, and indeed I have heard pious Hindus lament, that 
bodies of men exist whose worship is addressed merely to the 
productive powers of nature in their animal aspect, and who 
therefore indulge secretly in a licentious ritual ; while, although 
the opinion of other men tends somewhat to check their vile 
propensities, it can scarcely fail but that their belief must act 
injuriously upon their general conduct in the relations of life. 



64 TENDENCIES OF DOCTRINE 

You call such persons, I believe, left-handed worshippers of 
Sakti ; their sacred books, if such books can in any propriety 
of speech be designated sacred, are the Tantras ; and they are 
themselves so ashamed of their degrading ritual as rarely, if 
ever, to profess it in public; thereby shewing that evil shrinks 
from the light. Now I think it quite needless, in arguing with 
yourself, to condemn such men ; but it seems not irrelevant to 
remark that their conduct might derive some sanction from your 
opinion of the all-absorbing activity of Pracriti, and from the 
passive character of the soul of man. For thus you appear to 
degrade mankind from accountable beings into machines ; and 
to leave thereby little room for either praise or censure. At 
least you allow, I apprehend, that praise and blame imply at 
any rate volition, and probably also some kind of sequence 
between volition and action ; whatever therefore magnifies the 
mechanical power of nature, and so lessens the sphere of volition, 
seems to leave bad men a greater liberty of obeying whatever 
evil impulse a good man would, by the energy of conscience 
and will, endeavour to restrain. So that, on the whole, your 
doctrine, if it does not create uneasiness of the saddened spirit, 
seems to encourage a licentiousness of the animal appetite. 
Whether then that can be true knowledge, which tends to such 
evil results, appears to me at least a question." 

" Say rather," here answered Sadananda, " that there 
ought to be no question of such evils as you describe being 
due to ignorance and passion rather than to knowledge. 
The first form of intellect is virtue (dharma) : and knowledge 
(jnydna) is followed by dispassion (vairdgya) ; for he who 
knows the practice of the pious is animated thereby to 
strain after their felicity; and having distinguished the ex 
cellence of soul from the elements of whatever partakes of 
tamas (darkness), a man accomplishes its liberation. Whereas 
for want of knowledge, not only lower temptations may 
corrupt a man, but even the scriptures (sruti] may become to 
him the means of entanglement. Thus, for example, a man 



WHETHER IMPROVING. 65 

who reads of bloody sacrifices in the Vedas, is tempted to shed 
blood; whereas by knowing that such ordinances were only 
temporary or faulty, he will learn to respect life. Thus you see 
that all true knowledge has a constant tendency to improve, 
even to an indefinite extent, until man becomes truly divine, 
and so enjoys the highest blessedness. By no lower means, 
such as human works , could he aspire to such a reward, for it is 
evident that, as they are themselves finite, so their recompence 
must have an end ; but since knowledge is capable of indefinite 
expansion, and since the soul enjoying it is completely extricated 
from the trammels of Pracriti in any of her manifestations, so it 
alone renders perfect and eternal. But even venerable persons 
who suffer themselves to be fettered by scripture without true 
knowledge, must find impediments to their onward progress ; as, 
for example, they may feel compelled to sacrifice blood, or 
authorised to practise incantations against the life of their enemy, 
because such actions are enjoined or sanctioned in the Vedas. 
Much more then, such left-handed worshippers as you alluded 
to, sin not from knowledge, but from ignorance. Thus you will 
find the Tatwa-samdsa justly class intoxication, sloth, and im 
purity, with atheism, as fruits of tamas." " Very well," 
answered Blancombe, " but the proper remedy for ignorance is 
instruction. How then shall we proceed to give those benighted 
persons of whom we have spoken true instruction ; or by what 
method of enlightenment would you propose to reclaim them 
from their errors? For surely we could do them no greater 
service, than by imparting to them that knowledge upon which 
you believe the salvation of their souls depends." " Why," said 
Sadananda, "we have not been wanting in efforts of the kind." 
"But to what then," asked Blancombe, "are we to ascribe the 
vicious practices, the low idolatry, and the ignorance, which 
prevail among so many men who may naturally be capable of 
better things?" " Perhaps the reason may be," replied the other, 
" such men are not really capable of improvement. They may 
have committed sins in a former life, for which their present 
M. p. 5 






66 MISSIONARY CHALLENGE. 

degradation is a just punishment; or they may come of some 
stock hopelessly incurable. We have already seen that all things 
act according to their qualities; and in certain families there 
are hereditary diseases; for which reason our wise lawgiver 
Manu forbids the Brahman youth to marry into any tainted 
family, however large may be the dowry he might purchase by 
doing so. If then persons are for any reason cursed with in 
curable blindness, it is not wonderful that the wisdom of our 
Sankhya teachers should not have been able to rescue them 
from an inevitable lot." "But at least," said Blancombe, 
" you must feel that it would be a great triumph of benevolence 
and enlightenment to succeed in such a task ; perhaps, indeed, 
if any doctrines should appear more capable of such success 
than others, that circumstance would alone go far to prove the 
superior excellence of the doctrines which so prevailed. What 
then if we both try, by disseminating the highest truth, to lift 
up a larger portion of the benighted children of Manu into the 
enjoyment of knowledge? It will be no mean testimony either 
to our sacred books, or to your profound and subtle doctrines, 
if either of us renders a whole community of men purer in life 
and more enlightened in understanding than they have ever 
hitherto been. There are parts of India, as I have heard, where 
men murder their children newly born under the impression 
that such murder is an act of piety ; nor need I enumerate to 
you a thousand acts of wickedness which we daily observe, and 
which are forbidden even by the laws of Manu. Tell me then, 
how you would proceed in such a benevolent undertaking as the 
reformation of the moral sentiments among vicious or ignorant 
men. Or if, as you imply, your efforts in that direction have 
not hitherto been successful, may not such a failure imply some 
want of adaptation in your doctrine to the eternal conscience of 
mankind. At least let me repeat here some such declaration as 
I have already ventured to make in reference to the duty of 
searching after Truth. Just as there it was admitted that we 
should not lightly despair of finding that treasure, the existence 



AUTHORITIES. 67 

of which somewhere is implied even in the term knowledge, so 
here let all the virtues of which the Miini has spoken, and which 
you also endeavour to practise, persuade us to think hopefully of 
the possibility of enlightening large masses, even though they 
consisted of the Sudra and the Chandala, and let us not desist 
from this inquiry, until we have decided, either what is truest, 
or at least most likely to lead men into the paths of knowledge, 
and to the waters of immortality." 



NOTE ON CHAPTER II. 

IN addition to Colebrooke may be mentioned as authorities for 
this and for the following chapter, the texts and lectures published 
for the use of the Benares College, on the Vedanta, Nyaya, and other 
philosophies ; the Rig- Veda hymns, translated by Professor Wilson ; 
the same eminent scholar s lectures, his account of Hindu sects in 
general, and his editions of the Vishnu Purana, and of the Sankhya 
Karika. 

For the Benares College texts I am indebted to the kindness of 
Mr Muir; and I understand that the comments, by which the 
difficulty of the original texts is so much mitigated, are due to 
Dr Ballantyne. They tend to place Hindu thought in a more 
favourable light than some works more generally read ; such as the 
meritorious, but far from penetrating, work on Missions, by the Rev. 
Dr Buff. Many of the Hindu deities are described by Sir William 
Jones ; whose account, however, should be tested by the more accurate 
ideas derivable from the Rig- Veda and Professor Wilson s other publi 
cations, such as that on the sects of India (published in the Asiatic 
Researches, and reprinted at Calcutta) and the analyses furnished in 
Colebrooke. 

A friend tells me that the infanticide occasional among the 
Rajputs is not connected with religion ; but that at Ganga Sugar, 
at the mouth of the Hooghly, it was so. The challenge in the text, 
however, might be applied to either. 



68 VEDANTINE REMARKS. 

CHAPTER III. 

What the Saiva Veddntine thinks. 

"It must be clear, from all that has been said, that such a system, if it be even 
perfectly comprehensible, cannot be represented by language, but must be inferred 
by the mind from the principles." SIR GRAVES HAUGHTON. 

"The highest point of speculation is that in which thought and existence, for 
mally considered, become one ; and the logos, or reason, as an emanation of the 
Divinity, reigns alone, at once the essence of all being, and the content of all thought. 
Every complete system of philosophy, accordingly, rests in GOD, as its highest idea 

and its final aim Thus it is the goal, that God should be ALL IN ALL." 

MORELL. 

"The Supreme Being has no feet, yet He extends everywhere; has no hands, 
yet holds all things ; has no eyes, yet sees all that exists ; has no ears, yet hears 
everything that passes His existence has no cause He is the most subtile of 
things ghostly, and the greatest of things great ; yet is He in reality neither small 
nor great." RAM-MOHUN-ROY S Exposition of the Veddnta. 

HERE Sadananda, after a little pause, replied, " What you say 
has a very reasonable sound ; but we cannot alter true knowledge, 
for the sake of gratifying the prejudices of men, who, after all, 
may perhaps be incurably blinded by passion and darkness." 

Blancombe then was silent for a little, seeming to be either 
weary or discouraged ; and "Vidyacharya took the opportunity of 
making some remarks upon what had been spoken. " It ap 
pears to me," he said, "not wonderful that the wise teachers 
whom our friend here represents should fail in endeavouring to 
reclaim men from errors possibly of a darker kind. For if the 
remedy which they themselves bring forward is somewhat 
vicious, or at best is but imperfectly drawn from the only in 
fallible source of enlightenment, how is it likely that they 
should be able to enlighten others ? Now true knowledge must 
be of God 5 and we are well taught to pray, in the sacred words 
of the Gayatri, May the adorable light of the divine ruler 
enlighten our minds. But Sadananda has himself confessed, 
and therefore it is not harsh to say of the Sankhya philosophers 
generally, that they set aside many passages of holy scripture 
as not consistent with their own human speculations; hence 
although I am pleased with the acknowledgment, which indeed 



HETERODOXY OF S^NKHYA. 69 

truth extorts from them, that the Vedas are to be respected, 
I cannot recognise the Sankhya teachers in general as faithful 
interpreters ; nor is it wonderful that, as they wilfully set aside 
some parts, so they are strangely mistaken in others. Now I do 
not complain of what Sadananda here has told us, that he con 
siders Vishnu as a supreme object of worship preferable to Siva ; 
for on such points many things are held differently by wise men, 
even of similar schools, and the wisest are thoroughly aware 
that the Deity whom they worship is at last essentially One ; 
but it seems to me a graver matter of complaint, that Sadananda 
loosens the authority of the Vedas ; and that his friends generally 
consider our sacred revelation of the supreme Being as a thing 
merely relative, or as instructing mankind, as if for a temporary 
purpose, in their duties or sentiments towards each other 1 and 
towards the Divinity. Whereas it surely ought not to be 
doubted that our sacred books have the fullest inspiration, as 
indeed some of our Rishis have held that they proceeded from 
the very body of Brahma ; and those who have not affirmed so 
much, must still admit the revelation to be of positive, and un 
alterable truth. For want of paying due honour to our religion, 
by such a recognition, even the wisdom of Sadananda is betrayed 
into lamentable errors. He thinks, for example, that all the 
forms of life may be resolved back into one fluid of a most 
subtile and irresoluble kind, which therefore has been called the 
indiscrete, but which still he considers a material fluid ; though 
indeed soul is distinguished by him from matter, but yet 
rendered impotent by the passive character assigned to it as 
compared to the active powers of nature ; and I could scarcely 
refrain from exclaiming aloud, when that plastic fluid was re 
presented as more permanent in duration than even the heavenly 
rulers, and as having been apparently the mere cause by which 
all things come into existence. Against such a blind nature, 
then, we affirm that God the Almighty is the Creator; for 
the scripture calls him soul (dtman) ; and against the conceit 

1 See Aphorisms of Vcdanta, IV. 5. 



70 PKACKITI CREATION CASTE. 

of magnifying human knowledge above scripture, we also affirm 
that God the all-seeing is the teacher. He was alone; he 
thought, I will be many or, I will create 1 worlds; thus he 
created these worlds ; namely water, (which means heaven,) 
light, mortal earth, and the waters. Although then the theory 
of a plastic fluid, or Pracriti, may have appeared to some wise 
men probable, and I do not dispute in this place how far it may 
be a way of conceiving of the divine energy, or Maya, yet at least 
I speak moderately in saying that the all-embracing Deity to 
whom the sacred Veda ascribes both volition and soul, ought 
rather to be taught to mankind, than the mere play of this 
Pracriti. Nor again do I blame the Sankhya teachers for despair 
ing, as you say, of large masses of mankind : since whatever 
sounding phrases Christians may use about the brotherhood of 
mankind, any observant person must admit there is a difference 
between races, and this difference our hereditary laws have 
taught us to observe as the institution of caste. What then 
we observe out of pious obedience to our ancient laws, Europeans 
themselves take sufficient account of, when it suits their pride 
or their interest to do so ; for they behave very differently in 
the usages of life to men differing in rank or in country. In 
one or two points then I rather agree with what has been said 
by Sadananda. But whoever may be the persons addressed, it 
is quite necessary, that the doctrine inculcated should be true; 
and in order to prove its truth, we must find it in harmony 
with the sacred Vedas." 

Here for a moment the A charya paused, and Mountain, 
the elder of the two strangers, appeared much interested by 
what he had heard. "It seems then," he said, "that the 
Sankhya teachers respect the body of Yedas in word, rather 
than follow its guidance in forming their sentiments of doc 
trine. Or, at least, you conceive there are considerable dis 
crepancies between your religious books, and the philosophy 

1 See the Aphorisms of the Vcdanta, 24, and Colebrooke, Vol. I. pp. 33, 47, 
57, 64, 338. 



VEDIC DEITIES. 71 

which we have just heard expounded?" "That is precisely the 
case," answered the Acharya, " and we are of opinion that no 
human conjectures ought to be put in comparison with the 
teaching of divine inspiration." "In that sentiment," said 
Mountain, "we are entirely agreed; and I expect from this 
beginning to be able to concur with you more nearly than with 
Sadananda. But let me venture to ask, for what reason you 
appear to select Siva by preference as the especial object of your 
adoration?" "I do so chiefly," answered the A charya, u on 
that principle upon which we are agreed, namely, that scripture 
should be followed; for I understand Siva to be the form of 
Deity which is mainly, though manifoldly, alluded to in the 
Vedas, and I gather the same truth with greater distinctness of 
enunciation from the Puranas." 

"Your answer somewhat surprises me," remarked Mountain; 
" for as far as I remember what appeared to be spoken of in 
the Vedas, those books, which you so highly honour, consisted 
of many hymns to a great variety of beings, among whom I 
hardly recollect that Siva is so much as mentioned. Far more 
frequently, at least, it is manifest that the hymns are addressed to 
Indra, who seems to be what in our language we should call the 
Heaven. He chiefly, as the slayer of Vritra (whatever that may 
mean 1 ), appears to be mentioned with honour; and besides him, 
I remember particularly Agni, whose name seems akin to the 
Latin ignis, and to denote what we call fire, while Siirya, and 
Vayu, and Aditi, and Piishan, with Mitra and Varuna, the 
Aswins, the Maruts, the Ribhus, and Ushas, not to mention 
Twashtri, and perhaps some others who o not now occur to me, 
are also addressed in strains of poetry or adoration. One of the 
Vedas indeed abounds in hymns, of which by far the larger 
number are apparently in honour of Soma ; and Soma, if some 
one informed me rightly, means the sacrificial libation of the 
juice of a certain plant. But perhaps you will tell me if that 

1 Vritra is the obstructive mass of dark clouds, which Indra, as heaven, dissi 
pates, thereby giving the earth rain, and so .slaying the hostile giant. 



72 VEDIC DEITIES. 

interpretation be correct." " Certainly it is," answered Vidy- 
a*charya. "And may I then continue to ask," proceeded 
Mountain, "what is meant by some other of the names or 
deities mentioned? For example, what is Siirya?" " The word 
Siirya, in its simplest sense," answered Vidyacharya, " means 
naturally the Sun, as also does Savitri, though perhaps the 
words may often designate emblematically something still more 
divine." "I thank you; and what is Aditi?" he continued 
asking. " Perhaps by Aditi/ answered the other, " is meant 
mother earth, or the Universe, who may very prettily be repre 
sented as the parent of the Adityas." " I see ; but who are the 
Adityas?" "If you remember, there are twelve Adityas, and 
these are the twelve manifestations of Savitri, or the months of 
the revolving year." "A certain light begins now to dawn 
upon me ; only I should like in the same manner to ask who is 
Vayu?" "Clearly Vayu is the god of the wind." " But what 
then are the Maruts ?" " The Maruts are the winds in general, 
and therefore they are with great propriety called the allies of 
Indra in his contest with Yritra." " Pray why so, or what is the 
meaning of the contest?" " The contest is between the divinely 
blue heaven, as you have yourself not amiss interpreted Indra, 
and the sullen mass of clouds which, like a hostile giant, with 
holding the rain in their lap, threaten mankind with dearth. 
Indra then, the beneficent and the divine, makes war against 
the sullen giant; the genial winds, who are his friends, and 
indeed his offspring, as well as the sons of Prisni, or earth, come 
to his assistance against the withholder of rain; so Vritra, or 
Ahi, who may well be called the king of hostile Asuras, is 
slain ; and hence it is divinely sung : 

RIG-VEDA. 

First Ashtaka. Fifth Adhyaya. Varga XXX. XXXI. 

Thy thunderbolts were scattered widely over sixty and nine 
rivers; great is thy prowess; strength is in thy arms, manifesting thy 
rule, 



VED1C DEITIES. 73 

A thousand mortals worshipped him together ; twenty (priests) 
have hymned his praise : a hundred (sages) again and again laud him : 
so, Indra, is the offering lifted up, manifesting thy rule. 

Indra by his strength overcame the strength of Yritra : great is 
his manhood, wherewith, having slain Yritra, he made the waters 
flow, manifesting his rule. 

This heaven~and earth trembled, thunderer, at thy wrath, when 
attended by the Maruts, thou slewest Yritra by thy might, manifest 
ing thy rule. 

( Yritra stayed not Indra by his trembling or his clamour : the 
thunderbolt of many-edged iron fell upon him ; Indra manifesting his 
rule. 

When thou, Indra, didst encounter with thy bolt Yritra, and 
the thunderbolt which he hurled, then, Indra, thy strength determined 
to slay Am was shewn in the heavens, manifesting thy rule. 

At thy voice, wielder of the thunderbolt, all things moveable 
or immoveable trembled : even Twashtri, Indra, shook with fear at 
thy wrath. 

So again in another place," continued the Acharya, " it is sung, 
Indra upholds, and has spread out the earth ; having struck 
the clouds, he has extricated the waters. 

"In fact, then," here remarked Blancombe, u some of the 
most striking hymns in the Big-Yeda describe merely the slay 
ing of Yritra, in the sense of making it rain ; and if that is the 
language in which you metaphorically describe the operations of 
nature, it is not difficult to conjecture why the Sankhya philo 
sophers yield only a partial assent to the Yeda, or perhaps inter 
pret it in a peculiar manner." " But we have not finished the 
explanation which you are kind enough to give me," resumed 
Mountain, "and I have not yet asked you who is Ushasf" 
u Ushas," answered the Acharya, " is the goddess of the dawn." 
"Then again, who are Mitra, and Yaruna, who are called, as 
I observe, dispensers of waters?" " That," answered the Acha 
rya, " will not be obscure to you, if only you notice that one 
is called the ruler of day, and the other of night. Mitra also is 
called one of tlie Adityas, and hence it is clear that he is either 
the sun, or a manifestation of the sun ; and similarly Yaruna, 



74 VEDIC DEITIES. 

though in modern times he is considered merely as the regent of 
the waters, must properly have been the moon l . You see, there 
fore, how divine wisdom instructed us thus early in our scrip 
tures of that which Europeans were many centuries before they 
fully discovered ; namely, how the heavenly bodies govern the 
movements of the vast ocean below." u But I observe," re 
marked Mountain, " that the words Pushan and Aryaman are 
also applied apparently to the sun, and yet in a way contrasted 
with each other." u That arises," answered the other, " from 
the difference of aspect under which the same thing may be 
considered. When we call the sun Pushan, we consider him as 
the nourisher, or the great vivifier by heat and moisture ; but 
again as Aryaman he is represented as the god of twilight, or 
the divider, there being a period at which the sun seems to 
separate day from night." " Very well; and now the Aswins?" 
"That," said the Acharya, "is not altogether an easy question 
to answer. But you may remember that the Aswins are called 
the sons of Sindhu, or the sea ; they are also termed physicians 
of the gods, since they bring healthful alternation ; and they are 
said to pervade all things, one with heat and the other with 
moisture. Hence, although some have explained them either as 
Heaven and Earth, or again as Sun and Moon, I should myself 
more gladly consider them as Day and Night, who with pleasant 
alternation heal all living things. Thus they are very fitly 
termed Dasras, or destroyers of diseases ; and Ndsatyas, having 
no untruth, since their promise of return is never broken, like 
that of unfaithful friends, but they come day by day." " Once 
more, then, what do you mean by the Apr-is, or who is Twash- 
tri?" " Why, the Apr is have been understood to mean deified 
objects in general, but especially Agni, of whom I have much to 
say : and again, Twashtri is called the workman or artisan of 
the gods ; and since he is also represented as an Aditya, perhaps 

This inference is the speaker s own. But WEBER S comparison of ovpavos 
seems to have etymology in its favour, and may remind us of the ovpavbs, 
darp ev alOepos 



SIVA AND THE VEDAS. ? 

it would be not improper to consider him as another phase of the 
sun: if, for example, the sun were contemplated as performing the 
behests, or executing day by day the vivifying functions of the 
gods, then probably he might in that aspect be termed Twashtri." 
" I am exceedingly obliged to you," here resumed Mountain, 
u for giving me a clearer notion than I had before of those among 
the names in the Rig- Veda which just now I felt a curiosity to 
inquire about. Only all this time there has been no mention of 
Siva ; and indeed, since my friend Blancombe here happens to 
have a copy of the Veda, if you do not object to take it from 
him, perhaps you would be good enough to turn to some passage 
in which the Maheswara, or great lord, is pointed out as the 
Deity to be especially worshipped." "Just at present," replied 
the Acharya, " perhaps you will be good enough to excuse me ; 
though many wise men conceive that Siva is in the Veda called 
Rudra ; but indeed the question is not of any such importance 
as you appear to imagine : for the Puranas, which are also a 
portion of our sacred scriptures, clearly set forth Siva in the 
sense which I humbly adopt. If you wish an instance of this, 
perhaps it may be allowed me to quote to you the Linga Parana, 
in which we read how Brahma and Vishnu contended together 
for the superiority, but were put to shame by the appearance of 
the fiery column. In vain they botli attempted to traverse the 
extent of that mysterious emblem of lifegiving power ; and after 
observing it to have neither beginning nor end, but that upon 
its extent was written the triple monosyllable AUM, and that 
from it proceeded the Veda of inspiration, they learnt that the 
destroyer is also the restorer, and that neither the creator, who 
indeed only seems to create what has really been before, nor the 
preserver whose thousands of years, during which he upholds 
the perishable, are but a moment compared to the larger circle 
of death and life, are worthy of veneration when compared to 
Siva, who was before Brahma, and who swallows up Vishnu, 
the puller down and also the rebuilder, who drinks up the worlds 
and breathes them forth again. Such are the conceptions of the 



76 MULTIFORM UNITY. 

primeval and archetypal Deity which we gather from the Linga 
Purana, and which might be confirmed by reference to other 
Puranas, such as the Matsya and the Kiirma. Nor are they 
inconsistent, as some strangers appear to insinuate, with the 
general tenor of the Vedas : for all the hymns in those venerable 
books are addressed either to some of the divine agencies in 
nature, as we have already seen, or to some holy beings in whom 
the excellence of the all-embracing Deity has more especially 
manifested itself. Nothing then hinders us from saying that 
Siirya, or Savitri, whether he nourishes or whether he divides the 
seasons, and the Dawn, and the Stars, and the Skyey Influences 
in general, as well as Heaven which embraces them all, and 
Holy Men who by prayer or contemplation have become worthy 
of a like serene felicity, are all alike manifestations, if our friend 
here prefers it, I will say of Vishnu, or if any other follower 
of the Vedas should so require it, I would say of Brahma, but 
this or these again both, of Siva, from whom we come, and to 
whom we go, who was before all thought, and who although he 
is eternally modified, or rather because he is so, will be for ever 
one. Satisfied with the calm contemplation of this great truth, 
I am not much disturbed by little differences, though in them 
selves persons who introduce such things may be blameworthy, 
and they should beware of the invisible witnesses who will 
accompany them to the house of Yama ; but leaving all such 
things, I endeavour to take refuge with the Eternal, that I may 
escape further contact with this disturbing world, and pass into 
participation of the unspeakable blessedness of Swarga." 

Here the A charya paused, but Mountain made no answer, 
seeming to be either satisfied with what he had heard, or rather 
perhaps to be considering it inwardly; so Blancombe asked, 
"What, then, is Swarga?" "By Swarga," answered Vidy- 
acharya, " we mean nearly Avhat you term paradise, or heaven. 
It is the name of one of our places of blessedness ; only you need 
not understand me as if I intended to assign local limits to either 
that presence of Deity which is universal, or to the abode of 






HINDU QUIETISM. 77 

spirit which ought not to be confined. Since, however, men in 
general approach divine things only by means of parables and 
images, our scriptures are mercifully adapted to the needs in 
this respect of people in general ; and, if this seemed expedient 
to divine wisdom even in former times, much more it must be 
needed in this degenerate age." "I understand," said Blan- 
combe ; u but this loss of the local appropriation as it were of 
the term does not appear to deprive you of the happiness which 
should be connected with it ; for you evidently enjoy a tranquil 
lity of mind in the prospect of an hereafter, though in the 
uncompassable sort of extent of the revolution of life and decay 
which you speak of, as in the somewhat analogous one mentioned 
by Sadananda, my own frail intellect sees matter for awe and 
blank prostration rather than peace." u Certainly," replied the 
A chdrya, " I enjoy tranquillity, which indeed seems to be the 
gift of our religion in a greater degree than of any other I have 
heard of: for in the first place we are taught to subdue all the 
turbulent passions from which war and misery arise among man 
kind. To refrain our senses, and to keep them low, has been in 
all ages the virtue of the Hindus, as you may read it to have 
been a characteristic of the heroes in our earliest poems. Again, 
although Manu, our wise legislator, has taught us to consider 
the duties of life and family as having a certain claim on our 
regard, we are still permitted after a proper time of life to retire 
into a state of contemplation. Most indeed of my countrymen, 
even of the better sort, are prevented by the circumstances of 
these times from enjoying such a retreat ; but to those who do 
so, what can be happier than to prepare for a higher union with 
the Eternal Spirit from whom we come ? Yet indeed something 
of the same happiness belongs to every regenerate man ; for in 
the first place he is bathed from sin, since his daily bath repre 
sents the purification of his mind ; hence Medhatithi, son of 
Kanwa, divinely sings in a hymn of the Rig- Veda : 

Waters, take away whatever sin has been in me, whether I have 
done wrong, or have pronounced imprecations or untruth. 



78 THEANTHROPISM. 

< I have this day entered into the waters : we have mingled with 
their essence : Agni, abiding in the waters, approach and fill me, thus 
bathed, with vigour. 

Soma declares, that all medicaments are in the waters. (Sukta, 
xxiii.) Compare Elphiiistone s Hist. Ind. Book I. Chap. iv. 

Secondly, the regenerate man who is duly instructed in 
our religion, has the consolation of knowing that the divine 
benevolence has often been incarnate to deliver the world from 
evil ; hence, whether he worship Rama or Crishna, or whether 
he judge otherwise, still he holds in reverential regard that 
which pious persons declare to be their divinity, and in which 
he himself also perceives something divine ; then again , what 
ever accidents befall him, he knows them to be the divine rule, 
and thus lie has an unfailing source of tranquillity. With 
respect, however, to the grandeur of the scale of that vista of 
things eternal, opened by our religion, we readily confess not 
every gaze to be so purged that it should sustain the con 
templation without being appalled. Surely, you would not 
yourself say that eternity can be a little thing, or that men 
whose souls are laden with sins and absorbed in evil passions, 
can look over such a precipice unamazed. Rather the power 
of so doing must be the reward of many prayers, and much 
meditation, and a lifelong struggle; thus to the devout, the 
resigned, and the passionless, the great God gives justly as a 
reward the capacity of that divine vision in which all things are 
very good ; and so they return, like sparks re-absorbed into a 
parent flame, into that one everlasting and unutterable Being, 
from whom they were separated only by ignorance and then 
blown about through existence as if by gusts of wind. Why 
should any one not think such a prospect happiness ? To those 
indeed who separate the divine from humanity or the human 
from divinity, many things must happen terrible in the progress 
of this present world. They may lose friends, or suffer pain, 
and see mankind subject to war and oppression; while it is 
certain that many living things destroy life, and the wrong in 






BEATITUDE. 79 

many ways seems to triumph. Then again, if a man seeks for 
a reward through human works alone, it is clear that he builds 
upon the sand, for such things pass away with time, and leave 
no trace behind. But when a man has learnt that what appears 
free-will (Swdtantrya) is really the operation of the Deity, or 
divine grace (Iswara-prasdda) in each part of the whole, and 
that what seems an individual is really not distinct, then by 
faith (Sraddhd), and by devotion (Yoga) resigning what ap 
peared himself more entirely to the guidance of God, he is 
lifted beyond the reach of accident ; and even in this life we 
think it not absurd for him to be believed to perform super 
natural acts 1 (jivan-mucti /) then when his soul quits this body, 
it ascends to the supreme light which is Bralim, and comes forth 
identified with him, being conform and undivided, as pure water, 
dropt into the lake, is such as that is. 

You in this fair world 
See some destroying principle abroad j 
Air, earth, and water, full of living things, 
Each on the other preying ; and the ways 
Of man a strange perplexing labyrinth, 
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each, 
Render life loathsome, arid destroy the hope 
That should in death bring comfort. Oh ! my friend, 
That thy faith were as mine ; that thou couldst see 
Death still producing life, and evil still 
Working its own destruction ; couldst behold 
The strifes and tumults of this troubled world, 
With the strong eye that sees the promised day 
Dawn through this night of tempest ! all things then 
Would minister to joy : then should thy heart 
Be healed and harmonised, and thou shouldst feel 
God always, everywhere, and all in all. " 

"All that you have said," here again remarked Blancombe, 
" about the happiness which you conceive to be connected with 
your views, only renders it more wonderful to me, that you should 

1 Colebi-ooke, Vol. I. pp. 369, 376. 



80 CASTE ACCOMMODATION. 

not attempt freely to impart a knowledge of them to all man 
kind. No man s light is lessened because his neighbour s candle 
is lighted, and goodness should not grudge to others a portion 
of the happiness which it enjoys. Yet you distinctly agreed 
with Sadananda, that it was unprofitable, if not wrong, to give 
all men a knowledge of the sacred books of your faith." " How 
far it is wrong," replied Vidya*charya, " ought to be settled by 
those sacred books from which the knowledge of our religion 
proceeds ; and it might suffice to observe, that we are forbidden 
in the Kig-Veda to give a knowledge of its contents to a Sudra. 
But it is more in accordance with my own disposition to remark, 
that the attempt to raise the mere masses of men, in the manner 
you recommend, has not been successful. So far indeed as 
very gross and dangerous errors are concerned, the great San- 
cara exerted himself with more than human wisdom and energy 
to root them out ; you can scarcely be ignorant, how for ex 
ample he refuted the worshippers of Sakti, or the mere female 
principle in nature, as well as the Sauras, the Charvacas, and if 
it were not for the Muni who is present, I might truly add the 
Saugatas. In short, it may be said that every heresy of his 
time was refuted by him, and that his own doctrine was alike 
pure and lofty, being a revelation of Brahm, or the eternal 
spirit, as the one cause and supreme ruler of the world. But 
in the present impure age, he said, the bud of wisdom being 
blighted by iniquity, men are unable to apprehend pure unity ; 
they will be apt therefore again to follow the dictates of their 
own fancies, and it is necessary for the preservation of the 
world, and the maintenance of civil and religious distinctions, 
to acknowledge those modifications of the divine spirit which 
are the work of the supreme 1 . These reflexions having 
occurred to Sancara, he sanctioned the many varieties of 
worship which may be found innocently subsisting among us. 
The reason however of such sanction, you see, is the necessity 
which arises from the ignorance or fancifulness of mankind." 

1 The passage is quoted in Wilson s Hindu Sects, Calcutta, 1846. 



UNITY OF SOUL. 81 

" But is this reason so invincible as you suppose?" here again 
asked Blancombe ; " or how does such a notion agree with what I 
understood of your doctrine that all men come from God, and to 
him, I think you said, they return ? Can there be any radical or 
insuperable difference between persons of one origin, and perhaps 
of a destiny ultimately alike ? Or, are we to retract this doc 
trine of the unity of the human race, inasmuch as we despair of 
a large part of it?" " Your question implies," answered Vidya- 
charya, " that there is some inconsistency in deducing all man 
kind from the divine Being, and again, in making a difference 
between them. We do however the first, because religion 
teaches us so, and the second, because experience compels us. 
Many men appear born into this world under a necessity of 
sinning and suffering, as the just consequence of their guilt in 
some former state of existence ; and hence they differ widely from 
those who by holy living had already almost attained libera 
tion (mtfcsha), and who perhaps are only travelling with pure 
feet the last stage before their deliverance from earthly life, and 
their absorption into Spiritual Being. Yet there is nothing in 
the fact of such difference to interfere with the identity of their 
original source. In a thousand drops of water you may find 
a thousand degrees of purity or of muddiness ; yet they may 
come nevertheless from one fountain, and be slowly or quickly 
filtering again into the ocean. Just then as one water may be 
sprinkled in many different-coloured vessels, or as one string 
may support many beads of coral, thus one soul is diffused 
through many forms of nature, and supports the bodies of all 
living things. Or again, as the Moon, though but one, appears 
multiform in many vessels of water ; thus in all living things, 
movable or immovable, dwells only one soul, by which this 
universe was spread out. It is one alike in the Brahman, the 
worm, and the insect; in the Chandala, the dog, and the 
elephant ; nor is it deprived of its identity in the goat or the 
cow, the gadfly, or the gnat. Yet these humbler creatures no 
one, I suppose, blames us for not teaching: on the same principle, 
M.P. 6 



82 SOUL AND LIFE. 

then, among men, it is no defect in our religion that the 
Mlechha differs from the Brahman, or that vicious persons obscure 
with impurities that in which they participate of the divine 
soul. Yet for doing so, they will render each man his account." 
" Are we then to understand from you," asked Blancombe, " that 
the one divine soul dwells actually in brute creatures, or perhaps 
by soul do you only mean what we call life, and therefore 
possibly you assert a certain similarity or unity in kind of the 
vital principle everywhere ?" " If you prefer," answered Vidya- 
charya, " to mean by soul merely jivdtmd, or the vital principle 
of animated beings, certainly I shall be slow to contradict you ; 
but the doctrine of the Vedanta-sara, and, as we believe, of 
the Vedas, is very different. Not but that I know Madhwa 
Acharya, though a great teacher, erred in this point, for he 
distinguished between jivatma and Paramatma in such a way 
as to make life different from soul, and communicated to matter 
by God, therefore so far indissolubly connected with him, but 
still not identical with him. * As the bird and the string, said 
Madhwa, as juices and trees, as rivers and oceans, as fresh 
water and salt, as man and the objects of sense, so are God and 
life distinct, and both are ever undefmable. " "What you say 
of Madhwa," here remarked Blancombe, " makes me desire 
hereafter to learn more of him ; but at present it will be more 
agreeable that you should proceed to explain how you differ from 
his doctrine, which appears at first sound not to be an unreasonable 
one." " We then on the contrary hold," proceeded Vidyacharya, 
" that whatever is the internal check in man, and whatever is 
seeing in man, and whatever is breathing in any man or animal, 
and whatever is etherial above, and whatever is light in heaven or 
earth, must each be truly and in its innermost being soul, and soul 
is in one word God*; for it can be nothing less, since all things 

Slightly varied, but essentially the same, is the doctrine of the Bhagavat- 
gita, in which part of Crishna s speech has been prettily rendered : 
I am the Best ; from me all beings spring, 
And rest on me, like pearls upon their string; 



IDENTITY IN CHANGE. 83 

save itself are inferior to it, and it can be nothing greater, for 
God is the greatest of all things." " But when you say," asked 
Blancombe, "that all other things are inferior to soul, you 
admit a difference in things. Does it not then appear strange 
to you that such vast diversities and differences of objects should 
all contain one identity, and that the most divine ? When some 
beings are ignorant, and animals brutish, and light is ex 
tinguished before our eyes often, does not it become manifest 
that God cannot be in all, for their qualities are not such as 
you would ascribe to Him?" "You have exactly hit," said 
Vidyacharya, " the same objection as Madhwa, only he applied 
it more to the future. He argued that from the difference 
between omniscience and partial knowledge, omnipotence and 
inferior power, supremacy and subservience, the union of God 
and life cannot take place. But then he must have failed to 
notice, that cause and effect are often dissimilar ; yet you see 
hair and nails, which are without sense, grow from a sentient 
body ; and vermin which have life spring every day from sub 
stances without life. The same food is transmuted in the animal 
frame into all sorts of flesh, blood, and bone ; so the same soil 
produces different plants, and the vast bosom of earth, which 
is one, becomes pregnant with every variety of vegetable and 
mineral. There is nothing therefore absurd in saying, that as 
milk changes into curd, and water into ice, so spirit assumes 
different shapes ; and as the spider spins a thread, such as you 
might not expect, out of its own substance, so Brahm, being 
omnipotent, puts forth the world and all that it contains, in 



I am the moisture in the moving stream, 

In sun and moon the bright essential beam; 

The Mystic Word in Scripture s holy page, 

In men the vigour of their manly age ; 

Sound in the air earth s fragrant scent am I 

Life of all living good men s Piety 

Seed of all Being Brightness in the Flame 

In the wise Wisdom in the famous Fame. 

Griffith s Specimens of Old ffindti Poetry. 

62 



84 DEITY IN ALL. 

the infinite modifications of the form which he has thrown 
around him." 

" Perhaps we may consider by and by this answer of yours," 
said Blancombe ; " but in the mean time if the unlikeness of 
earthly objects to the Divine Being does not compel you, as it 
compelled Madhwa, to discriminate between them, tell me if a 
certain reverence towards the Supreme Ruler, whom you justly 
invoke as the Giver of knowledge, does not teach you to shrink 
from treading, as it were, upon Him, when you confound that 
Divine Majesty, to which the wisest of mankind can never even 
allude without a certain sobering awe, with the meanest of things 
under our feet ? And especially, is it not a matter of trembling 
that we should make our Master as it were our servant, or our 
Judge the agent, and therefore a criminal answerable as regards 
every impure or bestial action into which animals or men may 
fall?" 

"Your question," answered Vidyacharya, "being a double 
one, will require a double answer. First, then, our doctrine is so 
far from being an irreverent one in its tendency, that it rather 
leads us to reverence every living thing upon this very ground, 
because it contains in it a particle of the Divine breath. That 
gross abuse of life, and sensual indulgence in horrible eating of 
even any animal, which some nations do not scruple to practise, 
is with us an abomination. As one of your own poets says, 

All shapes that creep, swim, fly, or run, 
Are of the same clear substance spun ; 
The elemental heavens are one. 

Therefore, instead of lowering Grod, our doctrine ought rather to 
be represented as raising all things below. But, secondly, with 
respect to impurity or sin, which guilty persons may commit, 
this is not, in so far as they know themselves to be partakers of 
the Divinity, but in so far as they are ignorant of it. Blind in 
the darkness of ignorance, the individual soul sympathises with 
body through its association with it, and although it is guided 



THOUGH CONSCIOUSNESS REPUGNANT. 85 

by the universal soul of which it is a part, even as being a 
branch of that great soul-tree which stands firm in the heavens 
with faces in every direction and embracing all, yet that guid 
ance, you see clearly, can only make it act according to its own 
acquired propensities; just as the same fertilising rain causes 
one plant to bear good fruit, and another to grow up barren 01 
poisonous." 

" Your answer," said Blancombe, " is certainly very in 
genious ; but yet it seems to betray the existence of something 
in the world separate from God, as for instance those very pro 
pensities, or whatever it is which produces, or enables the indi 
vidual soul to acquire them. Here then possibly we ought to 
inquire what that something is; or perhaps it may lead us in 
the same direction if I venture to ask, whether the conscious 
ness of every man and all men does not utter an audible protest 
against all this theory of our imperfect intelligences being iden 
tical with the Omniscient, or our weakness, folly, and sinfulness, 
with the Divine ? Do we not feel and know that we are flesh 
and blood ; that the animals around us are even lower than our 
selves in the scale of creation ; and that the earth we tread is 
solid matter?" 

"Why, that we feel something of the kind, need not be 
denied," answered the A charya, "but that we know it, is quite a 
different assertion; for, in fact, that very feeling is partly ajndna 
and partly May a" 

BLAN. " By ajndna you mean probably ignorance." 

VID. " Certainly." 

BLAN. " But what is Mdyd? " 

VID. " Clearly, Mdyd is illusion." 

BLAN. " Are we then illuded, when we affirm ourselves to 
be here present, and to be conversing, as in fact we are?" 

VID. "Why, that our souls are here present, I am not 
obliged to deny ; but that they are only present in virtue of the 
presence so far of the supreme soul, is what I steadfastly main 
tain ; and again, that we are flesh and blood, as you seemed, 



8(5 THE THREE QUALITIES. 

perhaps without duly considering it, to say, as if these limbs 
which may be mutilated in all sorts of ways without destroying 
ourselves, made up our actual self, is what no pious person could 
concede. But now, how much of ignorance or mere ajndna there 
must be in all the conceptions which you have rapidly glanced 
at, is clear even from the tenor of our conversation; for the 
Muni, in expounding the opinions of the Saugatas, has both 
made the soul to consist in intelligence, which rather belongs 
to bodily organs, and also has avowedly rejected all our sacred 
revelation; and again, Sadananda, because he thinks natural 
objects act according to their inherent properties, removes all 
necessity of an Iswara, or supreme Lord ; and again, to me that 
which he calls pracriti, or plastic nature, appears to be purely 
May a: so that somewhere among us there is certainly ignorance ; 
and no one has yet shewn, at all events, why it should not be 
ignorance, as I contend, for the individual soul to conceive of 
itself as distinct from the supreme, rather than to think in what 
ever way other persons may prefer." 

" Well," said Blancombe, " I have to thank you for correct 
ing me as to the flesh and blood; by which, however, all I 
intended to say was, that there is an external world patent to 
our observation and consciousness, which I am not able to iden 
tify with the essence of the supreme soul." 

"Neither do 1 wish you to do so," answered Vidyacharya; 
" but if you wish to avoid ignorance, you must conceive of the 
external world as Maya." 

" Once more, then, will you be good enough to explain to me 
more distinctly," asked Blancombe, " what you understand by 
Mayd?" 

" I will endeavour to do so," answered the Acharya, "though i 
indeed the subject is a very difficult one. But now you are 
aware that whatever we feel or perceive externally may fall 
under some one of three descriptive heads, either under goodness, 
or passion, or darkness, or possibly under a blending of more 
than one of them ; for either we rejoice, or at least acquiesce in; 



MAYA ILLUSION. 87 

things around us, or again we are irritated or roused by them, or 
again we are stupid and bewildered as regards them. These 
three, then, are the three Grunas, which make up what I have 
heard certain Europeans, in attempting to explain our doctrine, 
have called the limitations of human thought, but by which I 
seem to myself rather to mean the conditions of sensation, or the 
circumstances within the range of which all outward sensation or 
perception must necessarily fall. You may, if you please, call 
them impressions, or the three catagories of impressions. Most 
briefly, perhaps, Maya, which comprehends the three, may be 
termed the seeming of things so and so, however they may seem. 
That objects, however, seem to us as they are, or even that they 
are at all in any true sense of being, we have nothing to assure 
us; for change, fluctuation, misconception or false appearance, 
and insubstantiality, seem to be their characteristics. This fol 
lows as a consequence, partly from what you have heard in the 
reasonings of our friends here about the difficulty of reaching 
any substance underlying the manifold appearances of the outer 
world, and partly from what I have heard European philo 
sophers have argued with more or less subtlety in a similar 
direction. The existence of a stone or a tree consists, as far 
as we know, in certain sensations only which we have of its 
hardness, or its solidity, or its growth ; but what is underneath, 
hard, or solid, or growing, no one has ever manifested, so that 
in fact it may be called Maya or appearance. Thus the Muni 
almost proved to you that matter is ignorance. If ever, then, 
the individual soul fancies itself to consist of such appearances, it 
is as much in error as a man who, seeing a rope coiled up, mis 
takes it for a serpent." 

" But if I understood you aright some time back," Blan- 
combe here said, " you objected to the doctrine of the Saugataa 
or of the Bauddhas generally, that it made the existence of ex 
ternal objects uncertain, and you relied upon our perceptions as 
sufficient proof to us of such existence. How then do these two 
positions of yours agree together ? 



88 MAYA DIVINE ENERGY. 

" They agree well enough," answered Vidyacha rya ; "for 
the Bauddhas, in taking away the substantial existence of ex 
ternal objects, are not careful to put in their place the visible 
Maya. Now we do not so much annihilate external appearances, 
or the results of our perceptions, as resolve them into Maya. You 
will perhaps understand me better if I tell you what I once saw 
on the esplanade at Calcutta. Some Italian stranger, who had 
come to India by one of your vessels, took whoever chose of the 
passers by into a darkened chamber. In the middle was a plain 
white table, and upon this table we were made to see the figures 
of men, horses, and carriages moving to and fro, as if they had 
possessed a real life. Yet all this was Maya; for though the 
figures moved regularly, yet the table was a plain white surface. 
Something of the kind again takes place in what you call a 
magic lantern. There, too, the beholder sees pictures, which if 
he is simple he may take for realities. Now I do not say that 
the pictures of the visible world do not exist in some sense, but 
that they are simply pictures." 

" But pray does it not occur to you," again asked Blan- 
combe, " that in the darkened chamber the figures which 
you saw were reflexions of persons outside, who were actually 
moving, as you saw their reflected shadows move ? So that the 
Maya there had a substantial something which it represented." 

" Similarly, I doubt not," answered Vidyacharya, "has the 
Maya of the world." 

"What, then, is that?" asked Blancombe. 

"What can it be," answered the other, "but the picturing 
energy of the Divine Being?" 

"Then if I understand you aright," remarked Blancombe, 
" all this world is a sort of pictured reflexion of the thought of 
the supreme Iswara" 

1 You probably are not far wrong," assented VidyacMrya. 

" But, then, why call it Maya?" asked Blancombe; "for if 
the Divine Being is Truth, the reflexion of His thought must be 
true." 



RELATIONS AND IMPRESSIONS. 9 

" So far/ answered Vidyacharya, " as men apprehend it for 
what it really is, the manifestation of the Divine energy, it is 
true enough; but so far as they take it for a reality in itself, it 
becomes illusion. In fact, it is appearance caused by God ; and 
this meaning is properly expressed by Maya. Now if I pro 
ceeded to say that the world is a sort of dream, I should do 
violence to the sacred power of sleep : for really in sleep the soul 
is free from many external illusions, and being undisturbed by 
the external world, rests in the quiet of the supreme Spirit. But 
since perhaps you apprehend, as many men do, that sleep is less 
real than a waking state, you may understand the matter better 
if I compare the life of an unthinking man to a person dreaming. 
Just as a dreamer sees things which you would say were only 
pictures, so the ignorant man awake sees a world of appearances? 
which he fancies to have some real existence of their own." 

" Perhaps I understand you," said Blancombe, "though the 
very explanation is difficult to me ; so that I almost begin to 
doubt what you mean by existing, and what by appearing. I 
suppose, however, you admit the same things cannot both exist 
and not exist ; which then ought we to affirm of the world?" 

"On the contrary," answered Vidyacharya, "we hold that 
things may both be in a way, and not be in a way. What, for 
example, are we to say of a thing pictured ; or again, of a whole 
series of things ever fluctuating and changing? But of the 
world this much is clear; so far as any thing truly exists, it 
does so by virtue of the Divine energy manifesting it; and so far 
as it does not partake of the Divinity, it is at best mere appear 
ance." 

"In the next place, then," asked Blancombe, "are we to 
say that the world is created on the whole by intellect, or by 






ignorance? 



" By both in a way," answered Vidyacharya. 
" Pray explain that to me," said the other. 
" We have already seen," proceeded Vidyacharya, " that all 
appearance, or Maya, is made up of three kinds of impressions : 



90 MATTER INTELLECT HUMANITY DEITY SPIRIT. 

now to apprehend these impressions requires a certain kind of intel 
lect; but to mistake the impressions for substance is again a kind 
of ignorance. The mere human intelligence, then (prdjna) , being 
very defective in each individual, both apprehends the impressions 
and unduly substantiates them, so that it both understands and is 
ignorant. Now it is evident that, as a wood is not different from 
the trees which constitute it, so any whole whatsoever is not 
distinct from all the parts which it contains: therefore all the 
intelligences of individual men make up one intelligence, and 
all their ignorances make up one ignorance : again, the high< 
intellect (Chaitanya} of the Divine Being which presents th( 
impressions above spoken of, may be called Iswara, but still 
so mixed up with its representations that they become its sheath 
or its covering; the aggregate then of impressions or ignorances 
may be called the body of Chaitanya ; but now farther, just as 
a wood occupies space, and all spaces require an absolute space, 
or illimitable expanse, which comprehends them, so even this 
Chaitanya is intelligent only in virtue of that which I despair of 
expressing in words. It is what we call the FOURTH. Possibly 
you may rise to a conception of it in this way. A very ignorant 
person will say when burnt by a mass of ignited iron, that the hot 
iron burns him ; but he means that the heat in the iron burns him. 
Thus then Intellect, when associated with Maya, that is, external 
impressions in general (or when considered together with the or-, 
ganisations which produce those impressions) is indeed Iswara, 
and him we address as Brahma. He is the Creator and the 
Ruler; but then as heat would not be in the iron, if there 
were not absolute heat apart from the iron, so neither could 
Intellect have created objects, or have become associated with 
Maya, unless it had for its ground an absolute and pure Intel-. I 
lect, which is Bralim, or eternal Spirit, the blessed, the tranquil, 
the single without duality, and the unutterable God. But again, 
beware of understanding me as if I thought the trees or the 
water were distinct from the wood or the pool which contains the 
aggregate of each ; or as if there could be any intelligence dis- 



DEITY SPIRIT LIBERATION. 91 

tinct from, and not in virtue of, the One and indivisible, even 
that beyond the supreme Soul. That then is Brahm, but our 
sacred books wisely call it That (Tad), because of the difficulty 
of expressing it in words. It is the unseen and ungrasped, there 
fore inexpressible. In your language probably you would attempt 
to expound our doctrine in some such way as this : There are the 
impressions of the natural world, which make up one ignorance ; 
there is the individual intelligence of man, which is overpowered 
by those impressions ; there is also the creative or representing 
intelligence of God, which being possessed of omniscience, om 
nipotence, and superintendence over all, imperceptible, and all- 
pervading, is rightly called the Lord (Iswara) ; this is Brahma ; 
and beyond these, but containing these, or dwelling in these, is 
the potential or the pras-creative, (and if such a thing may be 
said in your language,) the prse-eternal Spirit., before all thought, 
and itself the possibility of any thinking. That is Brahm. 
Again, to invert the process, consider it in this way. Out of 
Brahm comes Brahma. By Brahma, associating himself as Chai- 
tanya with organisation, and throwing before himself various 
modifications of Maya, some grosser, and some finer, all things 
and beings whatsoever there are, consist. Existing by Brahma, 
and also his offspring, the human soul shines more faintly, like a 
spark detached from a fire over which there is a veil, and hence 
it even supposes in its ignorance that the clothing of organisation 
given it is something more than an appearance thrown around 
himself by Brahma, or the reflexion, as we have already said, of 
his thought. Otherwise, if the immortal soul within us were 
mindful of the Being from whom it comes and to whom it is 
kindred, all earthly actions, and their consequences which are 
connected with earth, would perish from it; alike its past sins 
would be blotted out, and its future offences would be prevented. 
Thus in the UpanisJiad of the Chdndogya it is written, As water 
wets not the leaf of the lotus, so sin touches not him who knows 
God ; as the floss on the carding-comb cast into the fire is con 
sumed, so are his sins burnt away. Thus again it is said, i All 



92 HIGHEST LIBERATION. 

sins depart from him; and again, The heart s knot is broken, 
all doubts are split, and his works perish, when he has seen the 
Supreme Being*. For indeed, my friend, we are not ignorant 
any more than yourselves, that neither sin, which is of passion 
and darkness, nor any earthly act, which must be of imperfect 
goodness, can abide in the heart and consciousness of him who 
has looked upon the unveiled being of the blessed and indivisible ; 
but rather such things are burnt away by gazing on that 
heavenly presence, as alloy is purged by fire out of gold. Only 
perhaps the consequences of past sins may remain even with pure 
knowledge for a little time in life, as a wheel continues turning 
from some former impulse even after the hand which turned it is 
removed. But at least, when liberated from the body, the soul of 
one who has attained such blessedness of knowledge goes straight 
by the shortest way, whether it be, as some hold, through the 
solar rays and the realm of fire, to the abode of the Gods, and 
from thence, being helped at each stage by the presiding dei-* 
ties who for that object chiefly dwell at convenient distances, it is 
conducted, like a faint person by a guide, until it enters the realm 
of Indra, and thence attains the very abode of Prajapati, who 
is no other than pure Brahm or even if the path of spirit should 
be in any respect different from that which our sacred books have 
presented to the imagination in wise parables still in any case 
the soul which has never prostrated itself in worship to any 
meaner or more earthly being, but gazed steadfastly with the eye 
of devout knowledge upon That ineffable, which is without stain 
as it is without duality, goes straight whatever may be the 
shortest way, to reunion with the pure and divinest being of 
Brahm, and having been long ago freed from every trammel, 
or impression, or personality, is restored to Oneness, becoming 
therein not a thinker, but thought; not omniscient, but om 
niscience; not joyful, but very joy. Not indeed that I myself, 

* These striking passages are quoted in Colebrooke s Essays, Vol. I. On the 
Veda"nta. 






TRANSMIGRATION. 93 

my friend, (would that it were so !) profess to have attained as 
yet the certainty of this blessedness, but rather shall count 
myself happy if I gain possession of the lower liberation which 
belongs to the humbler feelers after immortality. Yet the im 
pediment alike to greater achievement by myself, and which 
prevents so many men from even thinking of these things, or 
suspecting their own glorious capacities, resides chiefly in that 
which we have already spoken of as the first when we began 
with the outer world, but which now having begun with That 
ineffable, we shall inversely and less properly call the fourth, 
namely, Maya : for the human soul, being cased in a body, as 
in a succession of sheaths, the first of which is intellectual or 
apprehensive, and the second affectionate or capable of joy and 
grief, and the third merely psychic or vital, unites itself with 
these so as to form a personality, and thus individualises itself 
in isolation from the supreme soul; therefore also in its many 
passages from life to life the unhappy soul of man carries with 
it this subtle body above spoken of, and thereby is constituted 
what we call a person, being subject to many pains and be 
reavements, as well as necessities of sinning, each of whic \ in turn 
entails, by the righteous decree of the Gods, a necessity of also 
suffering; so that for many ages, to which I dare not ascribe 
either beginning or ending, it is possible for a wretched soul, 
thus carrying with it that subtle body which makes it a person, 
"o be born in various stages of less or more degradation, as well 
is between each birth renewed to undergo whatever scourges the 
.nvisible Justicers may inflict. But besides this subtle body is 
ilso the grosser frame, which perhaps the very ignorant or animal 
imong men would consider as our true body, by which men feed 
ind grow, and do all things animal, whether seemly or unseemly. 
3f course it is evident that of such bodies as this outer frame, 
me soul may inhabit many in turns, being born either among 
he brutes, if it has so deserved, or again in the human form 
imong Mlechhas or Chandalas, if it be somewhat better; or 
igain, among those races which have not fallen so far from the 



94 DEITY AND WORLD. 

Divinity, and whose bodily frame is somewhat less coarse, and 
affects less injuriously the operations of the soul. We need not 
then wonder if any particular soul, being incased in so many 
sheaths, becomes obscured so as to burn dimly; or if, in its 
ignorance, it converts the impressions, whether dreams, or pic 
tures, or shadows, or by whatever name you please to call them, 
of the outer world, into substantial realities, thereby creating 
what some men absurdly call matter, fancying perhaps that the 
primeval Spirit is inferior to Pracriti ; or even dreading, with the 
Charvacas, lest, consisting itself of mere material atoms com 
bined, it may perish, when the grossest and most external of all 
its bodies is dissolved. Such and so great may be the ignorance 
of any particular soul ; and the ignorances of all human souls 
together compose, as it were, what they call the world, out of 
Maya; whereas the world is really, if you can apprehend it, only 
the body of Brahma ; that is to say, it is the aggregate of ap 
pearances, which He, the Creator, the Lord, and the Omniscient, 
has thrown around Himself as the embodiment of His thought, 
and even associated Himself therein, as intelligence, with all the 
forms of organisation. Supposing, therefore, any one chooses to 
call what some persons call matter by the more philosophical 
term of ignorance, I see no objection to such a mode of desig 
nating it. Perhaps also now you begin to understand with what 
meaning I declared the world to be created in part by intellect 
and in part by ignorance. Just as it was the heat contained in 
the iron which burnt, so it is intellect expressing and embodying 
itself in appearance which creates ; or in other words, that which 
is truly creative is either Brahm, or partakes of Brahm ; yet as 
man might affirm, the heated iron burns, so it may be asserted 
that ignorance, that is, what some call matter, being impregnated, 
or more correctly it should be said animated, by intellect, bodies 
forth the world; and here you will no longer doubt that you 
have together the body and the soul of Brahma the Creator; nor 
will I run the risk of confusing you, as perhaps I might do by 
many distinctions, if I paused to explain nicely how, as the 



CONCEPTIONS OF SOUL. 95 

human soul has four sheaths of body, so the Creator also has 
various bodies, more or less subtle or gross ; [and indeed some 
wise men represent four forms of intellect, all distinguishable 
from Maya, namely, the feeble in each man (prdjnd), and the 
collective in all humanity (vaiswdnara) , and the divine intellect 
pervading creation ( CJiaitanya, as Iswara) and then the Fourth, 
which is That unutterable One, nor do I say that such is not the 
most correct distinction ;] but it is now clear to you in what sense 
ignorance as well as intellect creates the world." 

" I have been humbly and sincerely endeavouring," here said 
Blancombe, "to understand you; but I fear that the partition 
wall is not yet broken down between the British and the Hindu 
intellect, or else perhaps you use the word ignorance in a some 
what different sense from any we are accustomed to, such as 
possibly putting an active substantive for a passive verbal, and 
by the term unknowingness meaning rather what we should call 
unknown. Shall I, however, understand you to mean a doctrine 
of this kind ; that collective Mdyd which comprehends the three 
gunas, or descriptions of appearances in the natural world, is in 
regard to man s senses illusory, unsubstantial, and fluctuating, 
but in itself, so far as it is any thing, or rather perhaps, since 
you call it unsubstantial, I should say in its relation to the 
: Deity, it is the play of the Divine energy, and scarcely even so 
: much as the dress of thought, but the very thought of spirit 
made visible : for from the very grand and meditative character 
. of a large part of your doctrine, I am sure you do not imagine 
that the Deity is illuded." 

" Very far from it indeed," answered Yidyacharya ; " nor do 
I know that any stranger has ever penetrated our meaning better 
than you now appear to have done. It is a pleasure to me to 
- converse with a sober person, who, instead of cavilling at our 
: language before he understands it, will endeavour to penetrate its 
meaning in a spirit amicable towards ourselves, and reverential 
: towards the great Being of whom we inadequately reason. Hence 
forward you at least will be in no danger of misapprehending 



96 ABSTRACT OR PERSONAL. 

our doctrine of the nature of soul, as if we imagined its true 
being to be fully expressed by the mere metaphors applied to it 
in the Vedas, as for instance when it is compared to a favourite 
son ; nor will you accuse us of confounding it with the gross 
body, as some Charvacas do; nor again, as others, with the more 
subtle organs ; nor of making it the mere breath of life ; nor of 
substituting for it the sensuous and affectionate mind; nor yet 
will you regard us as making the soul what many Bauddhas 
make it, our own intelligence or self-consciousness; nor, as cer 
tain Prabhacaras say, that ignorance or substratum in which our 
intelligence dwells changefully, being more or less from time to 
time ; nor again, which however would be rather more plausible, 
and not far from the truth, will you consider us to compound 
soul out of our own intelligence and the ignorance or substratum 
animated by it ; nor, lastly, will you accept the term void which 
certain Bauddhas offer you as an adequate description of the mys 
terious nature of the soul ; but deeper than all these, and beyond 
these, and finer than these, yet bodying them all forth so far as 
they have body at all, you will clearly apprehend soul to be 
unseen and ungrasped, being thought, knowledge, and joy, and 
no other than very God." 

"I listen thankfully to your explanation," here said Blan- 
combe, " though not without a kind of awe at your conclusion. 
It also rather puzzles me that you speak of intelligence (buddhi) 
in the sense perhaps of what we generally term apprehension, 
and again, you speak of knowledge and joy, without clearly 
defining to whom each of them belongs. For example, whose 
property is intelligence?" 

"Intelligence," answered Vidyacharya, "resides in organ 
isation." 

" And organs?" asked Blancombe. 

" Organs," proceeded the other, " invest soul." 

* Then soul," argued Blancombe, " seems to be your sub 
stratum of all things, which, considering what you have assumed 
soul to be, is not unreasonable. Only you added that the soul is 



SUBJECT OBJECT AGENT EFFECT. 97 

very thought ; but thought must belong to some one ; who then 
is the thinker?" 

"The thinker," answered Vidyacharya, "and the thought 
are One." 

"Here, then, I am puzzled," resumed Blancombe, "and 
perhaps you will be good enough to remove my difficulty." 

"What is it?" asked the other. 

" Something of this kind," proceeded Blancombe: "in saying 
or doing any thing you start from some point. That point is 
placed, or put down as the beginning. In short, it is the subject. 
Thus a subject in speaking is the name which goes before the con 
necting-speech, or the nominative case to the verb ; and again, 
a subject in action is the agent which looks at or acts upon some 
thing else. The subject, then, is not the same as that some 
thing else beside it, which may be called the object. Still less 
is it the same as its own action or contemplation, for it may 
cease to act or contemplate, and still be in its place. It does 
not then appear easy to understand people who compress the 
subject, and either the characteristic which may be asserted of 
it, or the object upon which it acts, or its action as regards that 
object, all into one identity ; for they seem virtually to make no 
difference between cause and effect, or between agent, acting, 
act, and thing acted upon ; so that, if the realities of the world 
corresponded to such men s reasonings, all opposites and dis 
tinctions, such as fathers and sons, friends and enemies, rulers 
and men ruled, would be confounded together. Some such 
difficulty as this appears to me to wait upon your conception of 
the thinker and the thought being all one. Or, again, if the 
thinker be merged in thought, so as to have no other self-sub 
stantiality, I fear our metaphysics will be in the same danger 
as that ingenious fable which is in some of your Indian books, 
about the earth resting on an elephant, and the elephant on a 
tortoise with nothing under it ; for we shall have reasoned so 
as to make all things, without being balanced too against each 
other, hang upon nothing." 

M. P. 7 



98 COMPREHENSION OF OPPOSITES. 

" Then it appears/ resumed Vidyacharya, " that I must go 
somewhat farther. It is curious that you should have fallen 
upon the same difficulty as Canada and other doctors of the 
Vaise*shica philosophy, which is employed about the particular 
parts of nature. They too, being ingenious men, but unable 
to grasp either nature or divine wisdom as one whole, thought 
it necessary to divide all things under certain descriptive heads, 
(paddrthas) such as, perhaps, you would call categories. Thus 
they came upon the notion of there being what they called 
substances, and these substances they made nine in number, 
such as earth, water, light, soul, and the rest. Here, if it were 
necessary, I might remark how their own ingenuity deceived 
them, when they enumerated among such substances even time 
and space ; to which it is only wonderful that they did not add 
nonentity, or classification, or arrangement ; for these would be 
evidently as much substances as those. But it is more to the 
purpose for me to illustrate your difficulty by remarking, that 
although the Veda says distinctly, Brahm is eternal knowledge 
and joy, yet the followers of Canada interpret this text as 
meaning that Brahm is the possessor of knowledge and joy ; 
for they fancy that they must have what you call a subject, or 
a sort of substance, in which these things may reside as qua 
lities, or to which they may belong as properties. Their diffi 
culty then seems to be pretty much the same as your own. In 
the particular objection too, which you apparently have to the 
identification of Deity and his outshadowing, because you think 
there must be a certain chasm between the subject and object, 
or as in this case you would say, between the maker and the 
thing made, you again resemble Madhwa, and perhaps come 
very near indeed to the Pasupatas. They have just such a 
conception of the creature being distinct from the Creator as I 
gather from your difficulty must reside in your mind. Yet pro 
bably you would allow that the flowing stream may be consi 
dered as one with its fountain, and that any person s preferring 
to distinguish them by two names does not distract their essen- 



PHENOMENAL NATURE DIVINE THINKING. 99 

tial oneness. Nor, again, is it to be denied that the calf, whether 
an embryo or just born, may justly be called one with the cow, 
of whose substance in a way it comes. We, for our part, con 
sider that there are two sorts of meditation, (Sarnddhi) ; namely, 
one which recognises distinctions such as this between the 
knower and the thing known (Savikalpaca) , and another, which 
sinking all such distinctions (Nirwkalpaca) , lays hold of the 
essential oneness in the projecter and the thing projected, or in 
the thinker and the thought. Now this last kind of meditation, 
which is the highest, is neither disturbed nor puzzled by mere 
modifications of that which it knows to be essentially one. 
For instance, cold and heat are only different degrees of what 
is essentially one thing, namely, temperature. Or you may 
take for a good example, speech, and that which you call 
action. What underlies and animates speech is thought, for 
without thought it would be no longer speech, but merely noise. 
He then who recognises the oneness of speech and thought, 
preserves both, yet as one ; but he who separates speech from 
thought, thereby annihilates while he endeavours to make it 
independent. Similarly action, if it be not animated by thought, 
is no longer acting. But we must also acknowledge farther, 
that the same Being may think of himself ; he then being one 
becomes two, that is, two as the thinker, and the thing thought, 
yet remaining essentially one. He is no more multiplied in 
essence than any human body is changed by the modification 
of what is called time, or by change of place, or by accident of 
colour. Just as neither time, place, nor colour, change essence ; 
so neither does modifying self-contemplation, or appearance, 
multiply the Supreme. The case is not unlike that of a man 
gazing in a mirror, and beholding himself so that he becomes 
both the subject seeing and the object seen in one ; only that 
you will readily allow the primeval Spirit could have no mirror 
save his own thought which he threw forward out of himself. 
Here then we come back to that same appearance in three kinds 
of modification, which has now been several times spoken of, 

72 



100 VACH LOGOS. 

namely, Maya. Have you still, my friend, to apprehend that 
the same appearance, which to men from their ignorance is 
illusion, is also on the side which more nearly resembles sub 
stantial reality, that which the Big-Veda calls Vdch, namely, 
the speech of the primeval Spirit, the eternal yet transitory 
daughter of Brahma. 1 1 uphold, she says, both the sun and 
the ocean, the firmament and fire, and both day and night. 
Me the gods render universally present everywhere, and per- 
vader of all beings. Even I declare this self, who is worshipped 
by gods and men ; I make strong whom I choose ; I make him 
Brahma, holy and wise. For Rudra I bend the bow, to slay 
the demon foe of Brahma ; for the people I make war ; and I 
pervade heaven and earth .... Originating all beings, I pass like 
the breeze ; I am above this heaven ; beyond this earth ; and 
what is the great one, that am I. This same VdcJi, many wise 
men say, should be understood by Sachi, the wife of Indra; 
for her name too signifies speech. Yet speech, we have seen, 
is nothing without thought. Hence it cannot be wrong to say, 
with our religious books, that, before any of these worlds, or 
sky, or aught above it, before day and night, and before death 
or immortality, the same Vdch was sustained unshaken within 
the primeval Spirit, who was alone, breathing without breath. 
Besides Him nothing was yet, which since has been. First in 
his mind then was formed desire, which the wise recognise by 
the intellect in their own hearts, as the link of being where as 
yet is nothing. This sustained within Brahm, therefore, 
(Swadhd) becoming Vdch, the daughter of Brahma, presents 
herself throughout all worlds as Maya; so that whatever is 
anywhere seen in creation is the voice of the creating God, and 
His voice is the thought of the eternal Spirit. The appearance 
of all creatures is the voice of the Creator, and that again the 
volition of the Eternal." 

While Vidyacharya was uttering the last three or four 
sentences, Blancombe appeared to be listening most attentively, 
and yet to be half lost in wonder ; for he exclaimed to himself 



DIVINE OUTSHADOWING. 101 

unconsciously, yet half aloud so that I could hear him, " How 
wonderful ! wonderful alike in its resemblance, and in that, 
resembling so nearly, it still differs so much !" But at the pause, 
he said, " So far I have no great difficulty, however much in one 
respect you may astonish me ; but still the essential difference 
between the thinker and the thought is a sort of chasm which 
to my feeble apprehension is not quite bridged across." " Per 
haps, then/ resumed Vidyacharya, "you have not sufficiently 
noticed how the same man often thinks of himself in different 
lights, and as it were from different points of view, according 
as he rejoices or mourns, justifies his own conduct or condemns 
it, and conceives of himself again as contemplated by other 
persons who pass their several judgments upon him. Yet many 
a man s mind is in reality a sort of inward drama, in which he 
being one plays in himself many parts, and sees in himself 
many apparent objects. So the Deity, throwing forth His own 
thought, throws forward Himself, and as on one side He con 
templates Himself, so on many other sides all human beings 
contemplate the reflexion or the embodiment of his thought in 
a thousand various modifications as it happens to be presented 
to each ; so that hence they call the world what is truly ap 
pearance, and the appearance is the outshadowing of the pro 
jected self of the Eternal Spirit. Just then as one man gazing 
upon many figures fashioned in clay might affirm, These are 
elephants, or tigers, or cows ; but another might as truly say, All 
these are porcelain or clay ; so the truly instructed will say of 
all living forms in creation, These are the appearances of the 
thought of the Eternal as He comes forth from Himself, and 
modifies Himself in infinite varieties of outshadowing. He 
then is not only the potter, but also the clay ; for out of His 
thought the world is fashioned ; by His life things live ; and 
in Him everything rejoices. Only these appearances in which 
He dwells are indeed subject to the limitations already spoken 
of as the gunas; whereas no one can piously ascribe any such 
fetters, or sensations, or conditions, to the Supreme ; and Him 



102 APPARENT INCONSISTENCIES. 

therefore we call Nirguna, the free from all qualities. Here 
then, lest you should repeat to me the old difficulty which you 
have in common with Madhwa and the Pasupatas, how things 
subject to the gunas can be the same as the one Nirguua, 
let this suffice for an answer ; it is the necessary condition of 
Knowledge coming into contact with Ignorance ; or, in other 
words, the Illimitable can only mirror forth His thought by 
making its reflexion subject to limitations. Just then as one 
sun being reflected in many parts of water, has his brightness 
agitated in many or in fewer of them, as may happen at any 
time, yet is free from agitation ; so the Supreme Soul putting 
itself forth in subjection to the trammels of feeling, whether 
goodness, or passion, or darkness, is yet free from trammels, 
being tranquil, and without duality. That human soul, there 
fore, which would be reunited, as a ray of light with the sun, 
must become daily more independent of all earthly sensations, 
and doing good acts rather than bad ones, yet not resting in 
any earthly acts soever, since all are alike perishable, must take 
refuge alone with the Eternal." 

" I seem now," remarked Blancombe, " to have come as 
nearly perhaps to an understanding of your doctrines as it can 
well be in the nature of things for me to arrive; and after 
troubling you with so many questions, I will not weary you 
farther at present with doubts how far all your own expressions 
and those of your religious books cohere together in a system. 
In some respects, indeed, it appears to me there is less difference 
between your doctrines and those of some Indian speculators, 
as for instance, the Bauddhas, than you apprehend to be the 
case ; for particular words seem to be used by you in different 
senses, rather than opinions radically different to be intended. 
But let that point now stand over. Yet here is a little difficulty 
which occurs to me. You began, if you remember, by explain 
ing to me some of the sacred names in the Rig- Veda, and also 
you magnified Siva as the deity to be especially honoured. 
But in all this latter part of your discourse, in which you have 



SIVA REVOLUTION. 103 

unfolded to me the profounder philosophy of your belief, all 
those names of the Eig-Veda have entirely disappeared, and not 
only is Siva left unmentioned, but the room which he might 
occupy seems assigned to a far earlier tenant. At least I under 
stand that the province of Siva is to destroy what exists, and 
in destruction to reconstruct. Surely then creation must have 
gone first, as indeed you appear to lay down, when you make 
Mayai the earthly appearance of Vach, the heavenly daughter 
of Brahma, and again identify her with the volition of that 
Spirit whom you consider so absolutely primeval, that to de 
scribe the absence of anything else you lavish phrases expressive 
of nothingness. Surely you meant me to understand all this of 
a beginning prior to any manifestation of the power of Siva?" 
"Certainly, you are quite right," said Vidyacharya, "in 
your conception that I spoke of a beginning." " Then why 
not worship the author of that beginning?" asked Blancombe. 
" I have no objection to do so," answered the other, " and I 
trust you do not understand us to reverence under the form of 
Siva any other spirit than that which has been distinctly set 
forth to you as supreme, and without duality." "Very well; 
yet why as the destroyer, rather than as the Creator?" asked 
Blancombe. "You seem to think," answered Vidyacharya, 
" that we have started from the wrong point of the cycle ; and 
certainly we are not unaware that the beginning of this Cali 
age, for example, has already been, and its end is not yet 
arrived. But what, my friend, must have been before it be 
gan? Surely there must have been an end of all the former 
ages. You have travelled, as I believe, in that mountain range 
which our inspired ancestors happily termed in Sanscrit the 
abode of snow; or, at least, you have been in your lifetime 
upon other mountains. You have observed, then, how each of 
the lower peaks appears to you in turn to be the last ; yet upon 
reaching its summit, there is perhaps a short descent, and then, 
peak upon peak again, each perhaps of greater altitude and dif 
ficulty ; just so is it then with the successive creations of the 



104 SIVA KEVOLUTION. 

world. But still more justly, perhaps, we may compare them 
to a succession of circles, of which we ourselves stand in one of 
the innermost, and perhaps the smallest; whenever the line 
which bounds our immediate vision is broken down, we say, 
Lo, a beginning; and indeed things begin again and again. 
But beyond each circle to which the horizon of our contemplation 
expands, there is again another circle, and another. No Deity, 
therefore, or, to speak more accurately, no manifestation of the 
Eternal Spirit in any form can better represent the fluctuation 
of our worlds, or more worthily receive our homage, than the 
breaker down and the re-constructer of all things in succession ; 
who Himself never ends, because He is the end of all things, 
and in Him all things begin again. From this explanation you 
will already have perceived, both why we worship principally 
Siva, and why all the benign powers, which are represented in 
the Rig-Veda as animating the lively agencies of nature, may 
be considered as forms of Him who is eternally changing, and 
in change remains the same *." 

* Vidya"charya seems to unite in his speech the philosophy of a Veda"ntist, and 
the mythology of a worshipper of Siva things difficult logically to combine. But 
such inconsistencies ought not to surprise us. 



NOTE ON PAGE 74. 

In considering whether Varuna be ovpavos, we should remember 
that in early Hindu cosmogony the heavens are called the waters, (as 
the Hebrews spoke of the waters above the firmament ?) and hence 
Varuna may possibly have got his function as " regent of the waters." 
Thus some think, that from the ambiguity of the word Rishi the seven 
stars became the seven wise men. 



APPROXIMATION OF SYSTEMS. 105 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW CHA RVA CAS MAY BE REFUTED. 

es els TOV oupavbv KO! TO d<ppa<rTOJ> ai/rou /cdAXos, {px6/j,e0a ets twoiav roO 
AT}/j.iovpyri<rai>Tos } ws (j>r]<rl H\drwv. Vet. SchoL in Aristot. Op. Compare the 
TimcKus, p. 47, a, b, c, d, e, (p. 40, ed. Tauchnitz.) 6\f/ts 8rj /carao-r^afyiefla. 

There is a spirit in Man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him 
understanding. Book of Job. 

Bene adhibita Ratio docet quid optumum sit ; neglecta, multis implicatur 
erroribus . Cicero . 

"WELL," said Blancombe, "there is one consolatory result 
from all that has been said hitherto, however much the three 
doctrines which we have heard expounded may differ, they 
agree in a confession that there is something immortal in man, 
for the future happiness of which it is at least part of our busi 
ness upon earth to provide. For although the Muni seemed to 
make his tree of eternal intelligence have its root in earth or 
nature, while the A charya rather conceives of his soul-tree as 
fast rooted in the heavens with its faces in all directions, yet 
the first conceives of what is rooted in earth as branching up 
into the illimitable expanse of immortality, and the second 
makes his heavenly outgrowth drop its pendant boughs along 
all the worlds, so that, like a venerable banyan-tree, it becomes 
rooted frequently, and all living things grow, as it were, in its 
growth. Then again, although our wise friend Sadananda might 
seem to have departed much from all others, in that he removes 
farther from our visible world any need for a presiding and 
controlling intelligence, yet he too is warned either by nature, 
or by some monitor either inward or external, of the necessary 
existence of something, which must survive every possible dis 
location of our earthly frame, and which should disengage itself 
therefore, in time, from whatever may disqualify it for entering 



106 OBJECTIONS OF MATERIALIST. 

into the mansions of the blessed. Moreover, in the stress which 
our wise friend justly lays upon knowledge, I recognise an 
important testimony to the existence and to the value of un 
changeable truth." 

" Suppose then/ proceeded Blancombe, " we all start toge 
ther from these points on which we agreed, and add to them, if 
you think proper, any others which are not disputed among us, 
such as that the Divine Being whom we worship cares at least 
for man, and has even dwelt either once or oftener in human 
form upon earth; but in any case let us endeavour both to 
assure ourselves and to persuade others of the immortality which 
is reserved for man, and endeavour to spread the knowledge of 
whatever Divine Wisdom may enable us to lay hold on eternal 
life. For I suppose there is no danger of any Chdrvdca, such as 
those whom the Saugata refuses to associate himself with, being 
able to cheat us out of this hope ; or to persuade us that, when 
this body is dissolved, there remains for the soul no hope of an 
inheritance to come." 

" But, if you will excuse me," said Wolff, about whose 
lips there had been for some time an occasional twitching, 
as if he was itching to put in a word, " I am not quite 
sure that the materialism, as it is termed, of the Charvacas 
ought so lightly to be set aside. There are at least a few 
difficulties which they probably would allege if any of their 
abler champions happened to be present; and such as, if you 
have no objection, without at all pledging myself as one bound 
personally by them, I should like, acting only on their behalf, 
to throw out for your consideration." " They will have in you, 
I am afraid," remarked Blancombe, somewhat drily, "as I 
thought, quite as able a champion as they could have found 
in their own ranks ; but pray what are the considerations which 
you allude to as things which should be taken into account?" 

"Why it appears to me," responded Wolff, "that a large 
portion of what has been brought forward by each of our friends, 
either in explanation or defence of their several opinions, would 



CAVILS. 107 

be taken hold of by any perverse Charvaca, as throwing weight, 
so far as it goes, into his side of the balance. He would assent, 
for instance, to all that the Bauddha doctor suggested in dispa 
ragement of the Brahmans, and their sacred books, while he 
would embrace, with still greater eagerness, the Sankhya doc 
trine, expounded by Sadananda, of all things acting according 
to their properties, and especially the notion that intellect, or 
perceptive apprehension, is only an evolution of matter ; while, 
again, he might take occasion from the Vedantine subtleties 
about non-duality (Adwaita), to reject so clumsy a contrivance 
for explaining the world as that of matter and spirit; only 
instead of refining away the positive, and taking refuge in the 
impalpable, as the A charya has done, he would rather take his 
stand upon the solid substratum of the visible world, and desire 
farther proof before he assented to the necessity of anything else 
existing than that sensuous matter, which is evidently capable 
of being refined into sentient life, and which, when duly com 
prehended, seems alone to furnish as probable a solution as any 
one is, of the riddles of the world." "To be quite candid," 
proceeded Wolff, "we must observe, that whatever has been 
said of the fixed character of natural processes, and of the 
regular order in which all things proceed, or revolve, might be 
made to tell strongly on the side of any thorough materialist. 
If the control of any Deity is, as the Bauddha tells us, unne 
cessary, why should we imagine such a Being even to exist ? 
Again, if things act according to their properties now, why 
should not they always have done so ? Or why do we talk of 
beginning and ending ? where, perhaps, there may be no room, 
certainly I see no necessity, for either." " But how do you 
account for the world s being?" some one here asked. " I might 
just as well inquire of you," replied Wolff, " how would you 
account for its not being, supposing there was no world. For 
there are only two contingencies open to supposition. Either 
the world was to exist, or not. The chances may have been 
equal either way, and I am no more bound to account for the 



108 DIFFICULTIES. 

one, than you are for the other. There are many things difficult 
to explain ; but we must not therefore have recourse to an unten 
able explanation. For example, upon the principles of most of 
the persons here present, the existence of a Deity is a mystery, 
which they cannot explain ; but they do not therefore deny it. 
What if in the same manner I fully admit the existence of 
matter in general to be difficult of explanation ; yet as a neces 
sary preliminary to my own body I may consider it as necessary 
as others consider a supreme Spirit, and I may assume the one 
as my starting-point, just as priests in general may assume the 
other. Not that again I see any radical objection to admit of 
the Spirit of life as pervading matter ; though, since life is not 
everywhere, it seems to be rather a product of particular forms 
and conditions of matter. But if we only assume existence in 
any sense, things must exist in some way ; and that the way of 
their actually existing in our world is not the most intrinsically 
spontaneous, or the most likely product of the doctrine of 
chances, you would find it, perhaps, more difficult to make good 
than you may expect." 

" Not that I am ignorant," proceeded Wolff, " of all that 
has been said by pious people on the subject of design ; for they 
conceive themselves to find in the world certain traces of con 
trivance, which they argue must imply necessarily a designing 
or creative mind. Upon the whole of this topic, however, I am 
entirely agreed with the wisdom of the Sankhya philosophers. 
They justly observe, that if a minute design had either arranged 
the several parts of our system, or if a special Providence con 
trolled them severally in their motions, the result attained in 
each case would be far more perfect. For whether you suppose 
that goodness, or happiness, or anything else, is willed by the 
Creator, you do not find it produced so as to correspond with the 
will which you imagine. Nor do I speak here of what you 
would say results from the wickedness of man, but of things 
which would be parts of what you consider the original scheme. 
The seeds of life, for example, are scattered upon barren and 



DIFFICULTIES. 109 

inhospitable shores, where they languish or perish ; desires are 
implanted in man, which in many cases he can never hope to 
gratify, but without the gratification of which he cannot be 
happy ; and if, by some perverse logic, you resolve this neces 
sary disappointment into the fault or sin of mankind, you still 
observe the rest of the animal creation, without any such sin, are 
liable to similar sufferings; nay, they seem even appointed to 
prey upon each other ; and thus mutual rivalries and lusts and 
slaughters, such as one of the speakers to-day has termed canni 
balisms, come in aid of that stock of pain which was already 
engendered by the unequal operations of nature storm and ship 
wreck, earthquake and pestilence, tropical fevers and Arctic 
freezings, with all the accidents of fire and water which confirm 
what our friends here believe of Nature being blind, rather than 
any theory of her manifesting a creative design. 

" But, indeed, the pious people to whom I have alluded do not 
seem to reflect, that what they call proofs of design should rather 
be termed conditions of existence. Either water is to flow, or it 
is to stand still ; if it is upon a declivity, I want no design to 
account for its flowing down, rather than up, or for its cleaving 
itself a channel, which in time will be a torrent, and which men 
will call the handiwork of God. Thus, if a plant is to live, it 
must struggle forth into the light; and all the organisation, 
which botanists explain, of stem and bark and leaves and calyx 
and blossom, with the moisture feeding it from below, and the 
air from above, are only circumstances, or conditions, within 
which alone earth and air and water could be refined into a tulip 
or a rose. The case, as regards the higher forms of life, is essen 
tially the same. There is no chemist who cannot explain to you 
the proportions in which various earths are mixed, or ought to 
be mixed, together in our bodies ; and there is no part of our 
intellectual functions which may not be sufficiently explained by 
reference to the organs of which we are made, and the order in 
which they are disposed. Not that I deny the organising breath 
of life, as it is the last refinement of nature, so to be most subtle 



OBSCURITY ALLEGED. 

in its operations, and most difficult to apprehend. There is no 
reason, however, for making it different in man from what it is 
in the elephant, or for supposing it to be any other than a pro 
duct of sensuous matter. But so much of the systems of some 
one or other of our three friends might here be quoted in his 
favour by any materialising Charvaca, that it is needless for me 
to dwell longer on that point. 

" Perhaps, indeed, with reference to any supposed author of 
the conditions of life already spoken of, it might be safer to 
observe a guarded neutrality, not very unlike that of the Saugata 
Muni, than either to adopt the direct negation of Sadananda, or 
the positive dogma of Vidyacharya. All that need be said on 
this branch of the subject is, we have no evidence of a supreme 
and designing Iswara so cogent as to justify us in making it an 
article of necessary belief, instead of rather leaving the whole 
question, as being a very intricate one, to the researches of specu 
lative men. But the weak point in each one of the systems 
which has been expounded, is evidently that at which they begin 
to insist on a future state, as a thing either of certainty, or of 
imminent concern. As to those arguments indeed of an histo 
rical kind, which may be drawn from a supposed revelation, 
perhaps I am not quite competent to deal with them. But on 
this head it may be sufficient to balance the Saugata and Vidya 
charya against each other. When they have fully agreed, which 
of their opposite revelations has the greater claim on my accept 
ance, it may be time for me to consider it. But upon what 
ground the philosopher Sadananda should agree with them in 
such a general principle as that of a future state, fairly passes 
my comprehension. The same life which dwells in man is also 
the vital principle of beasts, and since we do not find it careful 
to reanimate in their case the forms which it has once tenanted, 
and which have perished from its grasp, why should we imagine 
it to act differently in the case of man? 

" We can have done nothing, as two at least of the speakers 
already agree, to merit a renewal of that life which it is sufficient 



PHYSICAL INFLUENCES. Ill 

for us to have once enjoyed. The foundation for a hope of its 
revival seems either to be a certain knowledge which we are 
supposed to attain as an immortalising principle, or else the 
identity of our souls with the supreme Being. If then that 
knowledge be a dream, and that fancy of identity a delusion, 
what becomes of the inference which has been drawn from them ? 
In fact, if our perception be the product ofPracriti, as Sadananda 
informs us, or, as perhaps we should say, of organisation, there 
is no manner of reason, as Dr Blancombe justly suggested, for 
importing the supposition of a soul. For why humanity, or its 
life, should be like a stage-play, I cannot pretend to understand. 

" Upon the whole, the simplest mode of belief appears also 
the more rational ; or so at least the Charvaca might argue. He 
might plausibly enough urge, that no sufficient ground has been 
shewn for suppositions which are unnecessary either to the 
happiness of life, or to the logical completeness of our theories 
respecting it. Say anything that you please, of man being a 
higher and a more conscious form of life than a vegetable, or a 
being of nobler destiny than the short-lived beasts of the field ; 
but any firm arguments for removing him out of the same great 
order of nature, and placing him apart, as a sort of supernatural 
visitor in this life, and by right an heir of immortality, are as 
yet to be adduced by the defenders of that theory." 

Some such sentiments as the above were propounded by 
Wolff, half in the person of a Charvaca, and half (as it appeared) 
in his own. But I confess that I may not have done full justice 
to him, for his speech was longer than I have reported. He said 
a great deal about the influence of climate and soil upon man 
kind; how some men under the sun of the Tropics became 
negroes, and others amid Northern snows were bleached and 
stunted into dwarfs ; how the thoughts of men were as much the 
creation of circumstances as their forms ; how imagination in all 
ages had been active, and all religions were so blended with 
error, that it was difficult to disengage the modicum of truth ; 
how again, if spirit and matter were distinct things, it would be 



112 BODY SPIRIT SYNTHESIS NATURALISM. 

impossible for the two ever to come into intelligent contact ; how 
some might consider the two as eternally incompatible, and 
others make form an out-bodying of spirit, and others fuse the 
two into one self-modifying and self-contemplating consciousness, 
or activity; but how all difficulties were best solved by the 
simple expedient of considering matter as the starting point of 
speculation, and then imagining this matter to be refined into 
various forms of life ; which, having enjoyed their day, might 
be again recast into new forms of inertness or activity, as the 
case might be. In some parts of his argument it nearly re 
sembled that of the Saugata, except that he entirely rejected the 
religious teaching of Sakya, as a rule of life; but again he 
allowed a certain weight to the humane affections and aspira 
tions after good in general, which he represented as being in man 
something like flowers upon trees, the legitimate, and perhaps 
ornamental, outgrowth of our development. All such things, 
however, he contended, ought to be rigorously restrained within 
limits, lest, being natural in some men, they should be enjoined 
as a law upon others, who had no such tendency, and in whom 
it could only be a weakness or a servitude. 

From these hints you will readily conjecture the nature of 
the man. Perhaps also you will be able to divine how each of 
the native disputants endeavoured to refute him. For example, 
they each and all appealed to their various sacred books, of 
which there is more to come hereafter. The Saugata seemed to 
lay much stress upon the necessary tendency of good men to 
grow upwards in a kind of devout intelligence. Sadananda 
again urged the general need of some worship, and appealed to 
the consciousness of mankind for proof that soul exists within us 
as a spectator, and that it is something different in kind from 
the material agencies of life ; nay that it is even known by 
itself with more certainty, as of self-recognition, than they can 
be observed. But the more difficult arguments were those of 
Vidyacharya. They turned partly on authority, and partly on 
moral grounds, but still more upon some subtle metaphysics, by 



CHRISTIAN PREMISES. 113 

which he shewed all this material world to have no more solid 
existence than pictures or shadows in a dream, so that the only 
remaining substantiality was, as he argued, the eternal thought, 
or all-embracing spirit, of which he had before spoken. But, I 
must confess, that in listening to all this discussion, I lost occa 
sionally the thread, and became so confused with over-strained 
attention, as not always to know upon which side any one of 
the party was arguing, or what he intended to prove. 

After some time, however, Blancombe again spoke. " Well," 
he said, " it would not be easy for me to profess entire adoption 
of the sentiments of any one of the speakers hitherto. But, if my 
vote were to be given with either of the two parties into which 
this stage of the discussion is splitting us, it would certainly be 
with those who maintain a hope beyond the grave, rather than 
with the saddening ingenuity, which has endeavoured to take it 
away. Perhaps, after all the wisdom which has been exerted 
on the same side, it may be of no great use my speaking ; yet, 
since there are some considerations which have not been brought 
forward, and which, without being distinctively Christian, still 
harmonise with the faith which we entertain, perhaps you will 
not refuse to take them into the general reckoning." Being here 
encouraged by the company, who were evidently disposed to be 
attentive, Blancombe then proceeded : 

" As we are sitting with our eyes more or less directed to 
each other, it is sufficiently clear, how much of our knowledge is 
gained through the faculty of sight. Nor would there be much 
use, in the presence of persons who have analysed the human 
frame pretty exactly, if I were to enlarge upon the other senses, 
such as our power of hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling, if 
indeed these three last, or rather the whole five, are not simple 
modifications of one, namely, touch ; or rather, of nervous 
sensation. All these, however, may be called the five mes 
sengers, as in some of your books I have seen them called; 
for by their means all kinds of intimations from the external 
world are conveyed to whatever constitutes our self, or, as 
M. p. 8 



114 SENSATION AND JUDGMENT. 

some of you say, mimics a personality within us. But we feel 
in ourselves at least one kind of knowledge, sufficiently dis 
tinct from perceptions derived through the senses, though not 
unconnected with them. For we not only record and classify 
our perceptions, but we form judgments upon them ; and draw 
all sorts of inferences from them. This internal faculty of 
judging, which seems to me what I should call my self, but 
which any one who pleases may call the subtle person, or by 
any other name, does not always accept appearances as they 
strike the eye, but brings them as it were to its own tribunal, 
and judges them by a law of its own. Often, even although the 
bodily senses may affirm them positively, it rejects them as not 
true, or condemns them as it were to annihilation, if they con 
tradict this mental law, which is in whatever way established." 

"But may I interrupt you for a moment?" here interposed 
Wolff. " If you please," said the other. " Suppose then," said 
he, " our reason (as you think) rejects things manifestly contra 
dictory or irrational as untrue, however strongly a diseased vision 
may paint them, still is this law of reason anything more than a 
collective inference, or a generalisation from things already 
observed? Or what is reason itself, but taking account of 
things perceived? Ratiocination comes out of counting, and 
perhaps counting from the formation of our fingers. So that, 
in fact, is it not the majority of appearances, after all, which 
being treasured in the memory, overbear the minority? Your 
mental law then, as an offspring of the mind, vanishes." 

"Why," answered Blancombe, "there are wise men who 
hold, in opposition to what you have advanced, that pure reason, 
or the very power (and perhaps I may call it the ghostliness) of 
the mind, sees truths with as direct an eye of its own, as the life 
in the body apprehends external objects ; and this directness of 
vision may be called intuition. All the highest and most 
general truths, either of a moral or an intellectual kind, are, as 
such persons conceive, presented to that power in the soul, 
which is the most godlike and illimitable element in its being, 



LAWS OF THOUGHT. 115 

so that it seizes upon them intuitively, and, in virtue of such 
appreciation of primal truths, becomes able to talk with the 
unseen destinies, which have moulded the remotest Past, and 
will direct the course of the Future for ever. But for my own 
part I must confess a suspicion, that what is often called intui 
tion, is, in fact, only a rapid inference ; and I have not argued 
as if the law, by which our mind tries appearances, would have 
been apprehended as it is in the present life by the mind itself, 
if it had not been first educated for the scene with which it is 
here conversant through those very perceptions which furnish it 
with facts to reason upon, though certainly not with the power 
which reasons. But even the act of comparison, without which 
the mind could not classify things, putting like to like, and 
setting inconsistencies asunder, alone implies a faculty quite 
distinct from any bodily organ. If indeed any one likes to say that 
it involves mental intuition, I will not object to it. Only it is 
sufficient for me to observe, that the necessary order in which 
perceptions must be noted and brought to account, so as to 
mould their results into truth, is not itself a product of sensation; 
but is either some instinct which may be educed from the mind, 
or rather perhaps a portion of that higher order, which the mind 
observes to embrace both itself, and all things whatsoever w^ith 
which it comes in contact, and which it naturally conceives to 
imply a Thought, not to say at present a Thinker, presiding 
over the course of the world. You will perhaps catch my 
meaning more clearly, if you remark the different use made 
of the same appearances by a man in his sound senses, and a 
madman. There is such a thing as madness, and the sensations 
of persons suffering from it are often very acute. Yet they, 
seeing the same things as other men, draw most absurd and 
distorted inferences, for want of that controlling faculty which 
compares and arranges according to the law apprehended by the 
mind. Without then venturing to say that ideas are innate, or 
even inherent, in the mind, I certainly ascribe to any reasoning 
man a kind of knowledge, or at least an internal law and a 

82 



TRUTH OF NUMBERS. 

method of dealing with knowledge, distinct from that of the 
senses, and I conceive your objection extends only so far as to 
indicate a part of the instrumentality, just as one may point to a 
mason s scaffolding or his bricks ; but you no more negative the 
existence of something higher, than in the other case one could 
argue that a builder had no power of contriving and measuring. 
" If now you ask for specimens of the kind of knowledge 
referred to, I fully believe that clear instances of it may be 
found in the general rules of right and wrong, and in all the 
broad principles connected with the conscience and the affections 
of man ; yet many persons will conceive there to be more evi 
dent signs of it in the positive sciences which regard number, 
quantity, and space. You will tell me, as before, that arithmetic 
depends upon counting. But you may detach any sort of num 
bers you please from all sorts of visible objects ; and you can 
deal with them as pure abstractions of the mind. Now it is 
only when thus abstracted, or set apart from sensation, that 
numbers acquire that certainty which all the world ascribes to 
them. People may differ by scores in counting a flock of sheep, 
and by much more in numbering cowries or sand ; but remove 
your figures out of the range of sensible objects into the intellec 
tual region of pure knowledge, and immediately you have the 
means of arriving at results, which our clever friend Sadananda 
would not hesitate to adopt, and which persons differing from 
him widely in other things, and in countries far apart, still 
would never venture to impugn. There is then such a thing as 
truth, and it can be most irrefragably affirmed of things most 
within the range of the mind. If I had studied the measure 
ment of space as thoroughly as some neighbours of mine in 
Britain, I could multiply a number of apposite principles, such, 
however, as Saddnanda will be good enough readily to recollect 
for me ; for example, that any two sides in any triangle must 
exceed the third, though we may not have measured with our 
fingers the particular triangle spoken of; or again, that some 
kinds of figures, and some numbers, are commensurate; while 



MATHEMATICS. 117 

others (setting aside the unit) are not so ; or again, that parallel 
lines will never meet, which we foresee, though we cannot test 
it to infinity; or that the whole is more than its part, or that 
the equal of one of two equals must be equal to the other. For 
these very simple instances will perhaps serve my argument as 
well as more abstruse ones. Now all these, and a thousand 
other such things, are truths intellectual, rather than sensible, 
though the senses may help in leading us up to them. We are 
also more certainly persuaded of them, in proportion as the pure 
intellect has more to do with them. When such things are 
taken hold of by men of deep thought and patient calculation, 
they grow up into vast sciences, such as are utterly remote from 
the ordinary perceptions of mankind, and yet such as are quite 
indisputably certain, even while they startle us most. You 
know that the mathematicians and astronomers of India were 
not uncelebrated in former times. It is related of Bhascara, 
who is believed to have lived six hundred years ago, that he 
gave clear solutions of some problems in algebra, which were 
not known in Europe until four hundred years after his time ; and 
the same priority is claimed for him as regards a certain method 
of calculating ; and yet as soon as the result and the method 
of Bhascara are known in Europe, the truth of the one, and the 
merit of the other, are immediately recognised for it does not 
depend on local differences, or on any choice of our own, whether 
we shall acknowledge such truths, or deny them ; because they 
are evident. You can therefore appreciate the kind of intel 
lectual certainty of which I am speaking. 

" Then again it may be worth noticing, that such general 
truths as are apprehended by the intellect in science, may also 
be applied to all manner of useful contrivances in the external 
world. All the practical arts and manufactures flourish most 
wherever science is cultivated by their side. Whether men 
make fire and water their servants, compelling them either to 
draw their chariots, like horses, or to put in motion all kinds of 
machinery, so as both to lessen human toil and increase the 






TRUTH PROCREATIVE. 

comforts of life, or whether they extract from the earth minerals 
and medicines such as ruder ages never dreamt of, you have the 
intellectual process of knowing in every case supposed as a 
preliminary. By such means the face of countries has been 
changed, and nations have attained power or civilisation. 
Whereas other nations, among whom intellectual knowledge 
languishes, either gradually lose whatever useful inventions their 
fathers may have possessed, and fall back into the state of 
savages, or at least they are outstripped in the race of greatness 
by more intellectual nations. 

"Here then I doubt whether to argue, or only to prepare you 
for my arguing hereafter, that general principles, or truths of 
the most intellectual kind, may be observed by us as clearly 
involved in the very fabric of the world. You see, already, to 
how great a conclusion this idea points the way. I am not in 
this place employing the old argument from design, in the sense 
of adaptation of means to ends, though probably we shall see 
hereafter that it is a thoroughly sound one. Only, as you have 
attempted to explain that away, and the refinements of our 
Sankhyast friend on the subject of Pracriti, as well as his obser 
vation of irregularities in the world, will render him unwilling 
to admit it, so I here suggest to you a distinct idea. The 
argument from design will apply to such a thing as a watch, 
or whatever is made with art, by hand. It holds good for the 
world therefore, so far as any one can reduce the world within 
that description of things. But now, suppose an artist could 
throw down the materials of a watch apparently at random, yet 
really in such definite proportions that they should unite and 
begin to proclaim the time, the process would be still more 
wonderful. Or again, suppose he threw on the ground a vast 
and apparently infinite quantity of materials, with silver, steel, 
glass, and so on, or even their ruder elements, all in confusion ; 
yet suppose he had so contrived these, that, although the mass 
was indefinite in quantity, its several parts should unite in 
clearly defined proportions, so that in each case either a watch, 



FORETHOUGHT IN CREATION. 119 

or something like a watch, should be produced ; and this not so 
much by special contrivance in each case, as either by the 
affinities and tendencies skilfully imparted to each kind of com 
ponent element in the general admixture of materials, or else, 
if you please, by the unseen hand of the artist associating what 
ever might duly correspond, you would certainly say, this 
forecasting power, which implied an intelligence acting upon the 
most general laws or universal truths, was also a more manifest 
exhibition of Mind. That then which I would here observe in 
passing is, if the world does not shew special design in each 
particular case, it shews something more wonderful. It shews 
general laws, which imply ideas or thoughts in a mind, which at 
any rate must be to the whole expanse of the universe nothing 
less than the mind of a man in proportion to the house which 
he builds by his mechanical knowledge. An ancient Greek, 
whose thoughts were somewhat akin to the better wisdom of 
India, said that God works by geometry ; and in the same sense 
another said, Mind must be the arranger of the world ; for both, 
as I imagine, found the most positive and yet the most general 
ideas to which science leads us, involved as principles in the 
combination and evolution of the universe. No one, for example, 
would ascribe a balance on the grandest scale, or the power of 
maintaining the universe in equilibrium by a combination of 
opposing forces, to chance ; or imagine it possible without such a 
knowledge of mechanical principles, as cannot be without Mind. 
But surely I need not instruct you whose ancestors 1 are said to 
have suspected the key to the solar system, while the centre of 
its gravitation was yet inverted in Europe, how wonderfully the 
planets, of which our Earth is one, revolve around the central 
orb of the Sun, being at once attracted to him by his greater 
weight, and yet repelled by the swing of their own career, so 
that they persist in regular revolution throughout countless 
years. Why then should I stay to argue, except by a passing 

1 Compare Colebrooke s Essays, and Elphinstone, Book III. Chap. i. and the 
authorities there quoted. 



120 ATOMICAL COMBINATION. 

suggestion, that this wonderful balance, even if it did not 
minister to purposes of life and beneficence (which however 
makes my inference stronger), still would come of a law, which 
implies thought, and that by thinking we are led up to Mind ? 

" Or again, to take a case, which will fall in tolerably with some 
of your atomical philosophy to which the Saugata has alluded ; 
though Canada and his followers among you have very ingeniously 
reduced the existing forms of life to minute atoms, they were 
apparently not aware that such atoms combine in certain fixed 
proportions. For they are not mere particles, consisting all alike 
of an indiscrete mass, and differing only, or resembling, in size. 
But they are of different kinds, harder or softer, and heavier or 
lighter, with different properties of all sorts, such as metals or salts, 
and so on. These kinds are perhaps upwards of fifty in number. 
Some of them do not appear to admit of combination, so far as 
I know ; but most of them may be combined and mingled, so 
that from their mingling, some third thing results as a compound. 
An atom of hydrogen, for instance, and eight times its weight 
of oxygen, whether this weight come of one atom or of more, 
combine in water; or again, an atom of hydrogen and sixteen 
times its weight of sulphur, give you hydrosulphuric acid. Now 
these proportions in which the atoms, estimated by weight, are 
found to combine, are neither arbitrary nor variable. Wherever 
you have water, you have the same proportion in its elements ; 
and whatever elements combine, do so either in one or more 
proportions, as the case may be, but not indefinitely, or without 
a limitation tending to some result, as a mean tends to an end. 
Again, if two kinds of atoms combine with a third, then they also 
combine with each other in such degrees or quantities as admit 
of being compared and measured against the degree of combi 
nation with the third ; or in such quantities as can be measured, 
for example, by the numbers one, eight, sixteen, and thirty-two. 
Perhaps this proportion may be more nicely traced in the 
rolling fluid of bodies melted and made volatile by heat, or in 
what are called gases, than it can in bodies of a more solid kind. 



NATURAL LAWS DIVINE THOUGHTS. 121 

But so fixed are the proportions of combination, and so evidently 
natural, that if in experiments you put the right quantities of 
two kinds of atoms together, they will all mingle, and be mutually 
absorbed ; but if you put too much of one, the other will take 
up so much as is naturally due to it, and leave the rest un 
affected. So again, when you have learnt the proportion or 
degree in which single atoms of certain kinds combine, you 
may calculate the ratio which the whole mass of the one kind 
will bear to the other in any given compound. All this may 
be followed out by close observers of such things into very 
complex combinations. But you must allow, that nothing is 
traceable as a system by thought, but what thought first devised. 
For the observer s method is the author s design. Chance, if 
there be such a thing as chance, has no rule ; and mystery, so 
far as things are really mysterious, admits only of imperfect rea 
soning upon whatever law it conceals, or dimly hints to us. 

" Here then I say, that to have embodied even in the primary 
processes by which particles in nature combine, the traces at 
least of a law, which thought can investigate, is a thing which 
implies ordaining Mind. It has also been found, that the more 
widely men extend their glance over nature, and the more 
minutely they pore over each part, the more vividly are they 
struck everywhere by such marks of intelligence, forecasting 
as well as preserving, though the range of the forecast may 
be too vast, and with too many aspects, for us to be able to tell 
out all its counsel. 

" While then good men in general prefer, and perhaps wisely, 
to find those apprehensions of the Deity which they consider 
necessary, planted deep in the affections and aspirations of Man, 
I could not refrain from urging, that no less positive and bind 
ing testimony to the same need is furnished also by the naked 
intellect. So that, without denying that the lively and believ 
ing agent within us, may be in general most wholesomely 
appealed to, in virtue of its hopes and sympathies, as the Soul, 
I still think a heavenward aspect may be won, not merely from 



122 MIND OF MAN - 

what it hopes or fears or is willing to embrace, but also from 
what it is convinced of in its unbiassed understanding, as the 
Mind. 

" But we ought not to be here anticipating the question about 
a Creator, so much as inquiring whether, apart from our bodily 
organisation, we have what is properly called Mind. It has 
sufficiently come out, as, at least in my own judgment, a necessary 
inference, that from our having a non-bodily or suprasensual 
knowledge, we have also a non-bodily knower; and I should 
not wonder if, just as our most intellectual science is if compared 
to the sensations of the moment, so our immaterial intellect may 
be when compared to the bodily machinery with which it is 
associated for awhile. Our most vivid sensations, and even the 
most violent passions of love or suspicion, pass away so entirely, 
that we almost wonder at ourselves for having ever entertained 
them. But the acquirements of the intellect are, at least for 
mankind as a whole, a more durable property ; the deep thoughts 
of the mind fly upon the wings of speech, from father to son ; 
and the sacred inheritance of knowledge is often transmitted, 
through the wreck of empires and the entire subjugation of races, 
to regions remote in time and space from the explorer with 
whom some great discovery began. It seems then to me not 
natural that an immortal fruit should grow on a perishable tree j 
and I conceive that, whatever element within us acquires or 
prolongs the kind of knowledge above spoken of, will at least 
outlive the bodily frame, whose sensations manifestly perish 
with itself. It confirms me somewhat in this opinion, that I 
observe no animals lower than man appear to enjoy anything of 
this kind of knowledge, or to have any higher guidance than 
blind instinct, and accordingly they leave no work behind them, 
or only such things as nests, which the storm of any year may 
sweep away. However difficult it may be to make good against 
your Indian ingenuity, so wide a gulf as we conceive to exist 
between Man and all other animals, you must admit the above 
difference to be a striking one. Man improves and perpetuates ; 



DISTINCTNESS OF MIND. 123 

the lower animals follow each their species, and work, as they 
live, for a day. 

" One more remark I will here make, and then I have finished 
with this section of my argument. Just as the knowledge 
above especially spoken of, is most intellectual when it is most 
abstracted from combination with material objects, so the know 
ing principle which corresponds to it, or our mind, seems to use 
the bodily organisation as a necessary accompaniment up to 
certain points, rather than to consider it as any part of itself; 
and as the catastrophes which destroy men or nations often fail 
to extinguish the light of their knowledge, so the injuries which 
mutilate our body seem to have no correspondent power of 
crippling our mind. We find, for example, that a man loses 
one limb after another, without the power of thought being 
necessarily impaired ; and even after death, no cunning of the 
anatomist has ever demonstrated any organ which constituted in 
itself the essential power of thinking. Kather indeed we observe 
that every limb may remain entire, but the whole bulk of the most 
comely or gigantic form takes no cognisance of either friend or 
foe, if that far more subtle and etherial spirit, which no one has 
ever touched with scalpel, or weighed with scales, has vanished 
into the unsearchable embrace of Him from whom it came. As 
then our knowledge, in proportion as it is purely intellectual, is 
permanent; and yet in this life it cannot be altogether disengaged 
from things which perish ; so I trust the intellect which entertains 
it, will, when, separated from things corruptible, be itself immortal. 

" But secondly, as in the first place, I have attempted to 
sever the intellectual from the sensuous, so now let me distinguish 
the will from the appetites, which may also be called the lusts. 
Now here, again, it is very evident that men are prompted by 
natural instincts to seek certain things, for which they stretch 
out their hands greedily, as conceiving them to be either neces 
sary or pleasant. For example, I mean the appetites or lusts of 
meat and drink, or any kind of seeking to which our bodily 
desires prompt us. It seems ridiculous to say that such things 



124 DESIRE AND VOLITION. 

are altogether wrong in themselves ; for how without them 
would mankind exist ? Yet to you least of all men living need 
I explain the calamities which men bring on themselves and 
others by over greedy indulgence in all sorts of appetites. 
Hence it is often said by men who do not much reflect on such 
subjects, that the will of man is depraved. If indeed by will 
they mean merely futurition, or what a man is likely to do, 
their statement might be correct enough. But pray consider, 
whether by will we do not rather mean choice, or that which a 
man chooses either to do or to have done, supposing he be free 
from any kind of coercion as regards his own conduct, or can 
guide the course of events as to what he wishes to obtain. 
Perhaps, indeed, we may conveniently apply the name of 
wishing to the desire of objects which are at the disposal of 
others ; and so we may retain the term will as denoting rather 
choice in relation to our own conduct. But now what a rational 
man wills to do depends very much upon his knowledge. There 
can be no motives applied to the will stronger than those which 
result from our knowing how things really are. I should not 
then wonder if what is most properly called the will should be 
the determination of our reason, or that inclination to act in a 
particular way which arises from knowing truth. If then the 
eyes of the understanding are darkened, so that a man fancies 
whatever any lust may persuade him is pleasant for the moment 
to be also for his permanent happiness, the will is perverted by 
a wrong bias, and the man perishes for lack of knowledge. But 
very often, where the will is thoroughly informed, and is deter 
mined in itself upon full vision of the truth to choose the right, 
there arises a conflict against it from all sorts of lusts and temp 
tations which endeavour to overbear its purpose, and make a 
man against his will embrace perdition. In such struggles a 
man cries out, What I will that I do not, but what I will not 
that I do. He is conscious that his true humanity and his will, 
or his innermost self, are on the side of Good, but all manner of 
appetites associated with the senses beset him so as to form the 



STRIFE OF THE INNER MAN. 125 

mimicry of a will, or a spurious personality not unlike that 
consciousness which Sadananda has called the subtle person, 
and which he distinguishes somehow from the innermost soul. 
Probably all men feel often in the course of their lives many 
symptoms of the conflict to which I allude ; but the difference 
between good and bad men is that, in the first, by some power 
or assistance, the true will, which was the offspring of truth, 
triumphs gradually more and more ; while in the second, I mean 
the bad, the lust thrusts itself step by step more into their inner 
being, and so darkens their perceptions of right, that it becomes 
at last the very will of the sinner, the light which God gave 
him of a purer knowledge, which should have kept alive a holier 
inclination, being at last utterly extinguished. What power or 
what help that may be, whether inherent, or supravenient, which 
keeps alive in the happier man a true knowledge and an un- 
depraved will, perhaps here we need not stay to inquire. But 
it is clear, that whatever such power may be, it belongs to that 
which is most godlike, either in the original kindred of the soul, 
or in some heavenly alliance which it contracts ; and what par 
ticularly strikes me is, that such a struggle being carried on, 
and often brought to a triumphant issue by the soul, against all 
the temptations with which perishable things encompass it, may 
furnish one testimony, and that not the slightest, to the proba 
bility of some better destiny s awaiting it hereafter. 

" Thirdly, however, the will of man, which, in so far as it 
knows the truth, chooses life and goodness, is not only distracted 
by a false inclination from the lusts already spoken of, but is 
also associated with other desires and feelings, which perhaps 
generally we may class as the affections. By an affection we 
perhaps mean any lively personal feeling, of which one is con 
scious in regard to something external. For whether a man 
has something pleasant happen to him, so that he rejoices, or 
painful, so that he grieves ; or whether he receives kindnesses 
or the contrary, so that he feels gratitude or resentment; or 
whether he regards his neighbour for any cause with either love, 



126 AFFECTIONS OR PASSIONS. 

hatred, or compassion; or lastly, whether he hopes for some 
uncertain advantage, or fears some possible evil, or looks upward 
with aspiration to whomever he regards as highest and best, in 
all these and in any similar cases, which come within the class 
of affections, there is implied both a lively activity, and also a 
reference to something external. Perhaps also the affections 
take hold in some measure of the entire personal consciousness, 
so that the mind, or whatever appears to us mind, claims a 
larger share in them than in the mere appetites. Whether then 
the affections are right or wrong, that is, whether they are 
exercised as they are due to their several objects, seems either 
to determine, or depend upon the question, whether the man 
owning them is good or bad. I need not prove what all man 
kind allow, as for instance, in the case of filial piety, or of 
unnatural hatred. Only here let us put aside those among the 
affections which are least dependent upon the will, such as we 
generally call the Feelings, because a man feels them involun 
tarily. Nor do I wish to include at present those of a religious 
kind which seem higher, since at least they aspire to the highest 
object. But of the great mass of affections remaining, some 
have the greatest power to torment, and some to bless. The 
furious paroxysm of anger, and the scowling brow of discontent, 
with all the pale pining, the restlessness, and the crime, which 
make bad men scourges no less to themselves than their neigh 
bours, have been often described by poets, and are proverbial 
among mankind. The man who harbours such guests in his 
mind, if ever he awaken from the madness which they inspire, 
confesses himself miserable under them, but he seldom knows 
how to escape from their control. Yet there was, probably, a 
time in his life when he might have done so. But when such 
affections have waxed mighty, so that one suffers in constraining 
them, they are properly called passions, and the same change of 
name might have been applied to the appetites. When however 
any conflict, such as has been mentioned, takes place, it is far 
more terrible with an emotion which absorbs the whole personal 



BETTER AFFECTIONS. 127 

being than with an appetite which only torments the body. 
Here then, as before, I wish you to observe, that if any man 
comes off triumphant in the struggle with the worst enemies 
that ever assail his peace, and with calm brow leads resentment 
or jealousy a silent captive, he obtains this deep joy only 
through the religious sentiment which the theory of the mate 
rialist tends to obliterate." 

"Is that altogether the case?" asked Wolff, "or do not 
scenery, music, and in general either quiet or distraction calm 
the disturbances of the mind?" " Perhaps in such things there 
is a mitigating power," replied Blancombe; "especially in the 
roar of ocean, or the deep stillness of the mountains. For in 
such places there dwells silently something of the majesty of 
their Maker ; but after all, it is chiefly in virtue of the religious 
solemnity with which such things imbue the mind, that they 
have power to tranquillize it. Otherwise, the mere physical 
relief through any variety of silence or of noise can only divert 
for a time, and does not reach the deep sources of the more 
turbid passions. Or at least the case is so with many men, 
though possibly not with all. Whereas in prayer, which is the 
expression of the religious feeling, men find a wonderful relief. 

" But turn to our more pleasant sensations of mind, such as 
hope and love. These are things so necessary to us, that the 
springs from whence their instincts flow can never utterly be 
dried, but if they are denied a healthy outlet, they turn into 
dangerous bitterness. Yet all these either seldom or never con 
tinue pure and blessed throughout any man s life, unless he has 
mingled them with that higher sentiment, which all along now 
we are beginning to have in mind. Who is a faithful friend, or 
who is righteous in all the temptations of love and hatred, or 
whose hope is unshaken in distress, and his calm trust in some 
unfailing resource continued throughout all the changes and 
chances of this mortal life ? I will render for myself no answer, 
but only desire any one who has experience of the world to 
observe, whether such a description does not invariably apply 



128 RELIGIOUS INSTINCTS. 

to persons who will be found on our side in this stage of the 
discussion, and not on that of the Charvaca. Go on now, if 
you please, to what I have called the higher, or more heavenly 
affections. We all know, there are such things as awe, and 
reverence, and trust, and love of that mental kind which fastens 
itself on unseen or ideal things. It would require many days 
for me to enlarge upon these affections, as each of them deserves. 
But any one can easily see, how one of them gives soberness, 
and another gentleness to a man s character ; or again, how to 
trust in any friend essentially free from limit of time and dis 
tance, and darkness or dungeon, may strengthen an afflicted soul 
against every fleshly or mental enemy ; while indeed none but 
those who have had experience can imagine, what deeds of 
self-devotion, and suffering, and charity, have been gone through 
by men who, in loving God, seem thereby to have imbibed 
somewhat of His nature. Whereas, on the other hand, these 
very feelings like the others, if they are not rightly directed, 
seem to fall back and harden in corruption. One becomes re 
morse, and another shame, and another a torturing superstition. 
So that, in short, all the affections of man, which, trained in a 
particular way would either have begotten religion, or have 
cherished it, and in that case would make a man happy, useful, 
and honoured, all these, if they are not allowed to grow into 
religion, harden and corrupt themselves into divers forms of 
misery. What conclusion then can I draw, but that, for some 
reason or other, religion is as necessary to a man s mind as the 
light of heaven is requisite to aid his bodily vision ?" 

" But I have never denied," here remarked Wolff, " that for 
a man s feelings to be rightly directed, is a very happy circum 
stance ; nor have I so much argued against any general devo 
tion, in which the instincts find a satisfaction, towards whatever 
mysterious Power may encompass the world. It is the unne 
cessary minuteness of dogmatism, and the unwarranted assump 
tions about a soul and a future state, with which my Charvaca 
client would find fault." 



CONSCIENCE. 129 

"You have reminded me," replied Blancombe, "of what I 
doubted whether it should not be mentioned immediately after 
the Understanding and the Will I mean the Conscience. But 
since the affections have much to do with it, and, in my own opi 
nion, contribute essentially to its operations, it seemed right to 
defer it ; yet principally the Conscience is a product of the Under 
standing and the Will, especially when these are biassed against 
their choice by an inclination from any passion. I must not, 
however, omit to mention with due honour what the venerable 
A charya will esteem a wiser opinion. Many have imagined 
that conscience is a sense of the clash between divine know 
ledge and our own guilty remembrance; as when our sense of 
doing a thing wrong, and God s sight of the wrong, come in 
collision. But, again, here it suffices me, if, either from want of 
penetration, or from a fear of thinking unbecomingly of the Most 
Blessed, any one will consider our conscience as ourself judging 
ourself ; or as the Mind discriminating right and wrong, such 
discrimination being most keenly sensitive as we become con 
scious of wrong. Still please to observe, that conscience pre 
supposes knowledge: and what kind of knowledge? Surely the 
most spiritual form of that higher kind which we have already 
seen belongs to nothing grosser than Mind; for neither the most 
abstract numbers or measures, nor the most subtle consequences 
ever deduced from any combination of them, imply a knowledge 
so little dependent on the bodily senses, as this faculty of forming 
moral judgments even on the thoughts of the heart, and awarding 
praise or blame according to a standard higher than even lan 
guage can express. Much more then, I say, the whole power of 
conscience is an argument for greater faculties in man than 
belong to the brutes, and for a higher destiny awaiting him. 
If any one told us, he found a jury of tigers met to try any 
animal who had violated the laws of life, we should reject the 
story as not only a fiction but absurd; but there is no nation 
among men in which the power of conscience has not shewn 
itself so far as to devise some methods of aiming at justice and 
M. p. 9 



130 CONSCIENCE. 

arresting crime. You see then how much better we are than 
the brutes; and better in virtue of a power which implies a 
knowledge, such as only a spiritual faculty could support, and 
perhaps only the Highest of all possible spirits keep alive." 

" But, if conscience were all that you say," interposed Wolff, 
"men of all nations would hear its voice alike, whereas there are 
all sorts of differences between the moral judgments of men." 

"Different applications, no doubt," answered. Blancombe, 
"but all men agree in the fact of judging; all men have some 
right, and call some things wrong. The words praise and blame 
are nowhere unintelligible. Then observe how the more that 
knowledge increases the more men agree in attaching praise and 
blame to the very same objects. Two thousand years ago the 
Saxons thought, as some of the wilder Tatars may think now, 
that cunning and cruelty were venial proceedings; but the 
English, who are partly descended from these Saxons, though 
mingled with gentler races, have learned to think, as our Hindu 
friends here, that humanity is rather to be praised and encou 
raged. Probably, if the Tatars are better taught hereafter they 
will also change their judgment. There is then a certain stand 
ard, though I have not said that ignorance follows it. Kather 
I argue all along, that our acceptance of that standard depends 
upon our knowledge; though in some things perhaps the voice 
of the human heart speaks alike in every clime. Again, it is 
very remarkable, how the faculty of Conscience, being en 
lightened by knowledge, tends constantly to clear itself from 
false associations. For example, it distinguishes easily betweei 
accidental or involuntary actions, and things done with treachery 
or with guilty forethought ; nor does it acquiesce in any condem 
nation of a crowd, if it perceives the censurers either to be preju 
diced, or not to be aware of the turning events of the case; noi 
again, is it appeased by mere flattery, or ignorant praise. S 
intimately does our Conscience seem to be acquainted with th 
deep places of our being. It animates all through life the gene 
rous and the good; nor can any ingenious pleading about Pra 



CONSCIENCE. 131 

criti, or nature and organisation, or any theory of man s not being 
morally accountable, altogether deprive it of its power to punish 
the wicked; but much more its power is apt to increase towards 
the end of life. You remember the story of the Emperor 
Alamgir (Aurungzeb) ; he certainly was a most utter hypo 
crite; and, after many crimes, strode over his father s corpse to 
a throne: but it might have been supposed that with long 
villany he might have hardened his heart so as to be at ease. 
Whatever empire and wealth, or revenge, or pleasure, or employ 
ment in strengthening himself against enemies and controlling 
the destiny of nations can confer, was all at his disposal, who 
reigned from Delhi over India. Probably also wise men could 
have told him that to deceive his brother or murder his father 
was only the operation of Pracriti, and that all his soul need do 
was to enjoy the spectacle; or again, a deadlier wisdom still 
might have taught him, that the belief of his having a soul was a 
delusion. Yet this most able and powerful Emperor could never, 
with all his knowledge or his armies, appease the sting of 
remorse, or persuade himself, as death approached, that he had 
no penalty to undergo; on the contrary, in those remarkable 
words, which are not the least striking in the history of India, 
ne exclaimed, Wherever I look, I see nothing but God. I have 
committed numerous crimes, and I know not with what punish 
ments I may be seized. The agonies of death come upon me 
fast. Such a vision of wrath to come sat before his guilty 
mind. If you remember this instance of so powerful an Em 
peror, you will more readily believe me when I add, that in 
many countries there are well-attested instances in which the 
conscience has shewn that its power increases as death ap 
proaches. Such a circumstance does not appear as if then it 
spoke for the last time; for if any one observes two different 
cavalcades of persons, of which the one journeys with unfaltering 
step, and the other with blind or palsied imbecility, so long as 
both are in sight, he will not easily believe that the strength and 
attitude of both are changed, the moment that a distant mist 

92 



J32 PRESENTIMENT OF FUTURITY. 

settles on the path which they have gone. So in beholding 
good men enjoy a peace of mind which increases as they grow 
old, and great criminals suffer, on the contrary, as their life 
advances, with growing restlessness, we do not readily imagine 
that when they enter the unseen world the progress of either 
will come suddenly to an end. All that we see clearly in this 
life is a group of figures coming suddenly out of unknown dark 
ness, and again vanishing, after a few strides, at the entrance of 
the great Hall of Eternity; but, in the little interval of visible 
life, acts have been done, habits contracted, and the conscience 
and affections of man go severally with their burden of report 
before the Unseen Judge. 

" Now, since conscience thus terrifies men often with a dim 
foreboding of some spiritual recompence in the world to come, it 
might be fancied that persons in general would wish no other 
life to be probable, and so that the doctrine of the Charvacas 
would become generally popular; but it is wonderful to remark 
how little such a kind of consolation accords with the unbiassed 
instincts of mankind; on the contrary, we all seem to shrink in 
stinctively from annihilation. The forces of decay and darkness, 
as their stealthy footsteps make inroads upon our consciousness 
of life, are felt to be enemies which, if it were possible, we would 
repel; nor is our sensation, in this respect, confined to a mere 
animal feeling, such as a shrinking from gloom or a love of en 
joyment. For men who contemplate with calmness the idea of 
their body being laid under the sod, still consider their inner 
self as having a kind of property in a conscious futurity; nor 
does this presentiment hold good of ourselves only, but still more 
vividly as regards our friends. For my own part, I have never 
been able to imagine that the persons whom I have known 
familiarly, and who have been taken from me by death, have 
therefore ceased to exist; their bodies, I know, have mouldered 
in the grave, but that better part of them, which was capable of 
thinking, and loving, and adoring, seems still to be a living 
dweller in some part of the unseen world, though I know not 



PRESENTIMENT OF FUTURITY. 133 

in what part. You will perhaps smile at what you will call 
a fanciful dream ; but the great concurrence of so many men and 
nations in some thoughts of the kind, appears to bring me the 
confirmation of many witnesses. There is no country or climate, 
however far apart and differing in manners, as well as separated 
from the probability of a one-stemmed tradition, in which some 
such great hope has not supported men in the prospect of death, 
and mitigated the pain of bereavement. Although then I dare not 
say a strong wish is itself an evidence, yet this widely-spread 
community of feeling, on so great a question, seems either to 
attest a natural instinct, in which case the instincts of mankind 
may be expected to prophesy a fulfilment, as much as those of 
the bee and the ant who lay up stores for a winter, or those of 
the bull-calf which butts with yet unarmed brow, or else that 
feeling has found everywhere common grounds of reasoning, such 
as I have myself partly indicated; and, in this case, the concur 
rence of so many thinkers in one conclusion will approximate to 
the most convincing kind of evidence which on any moral ques 
tion is possible. Perhaps, indeed, it may have seemed best to 
whatever higher power has ordered the degree of our knowledge, 
that some obscurity should rest on our anticipations, in order 
that, by dwelling oftener and more anxiously on the possibilities 
of the unseen world, we might be roused to a far keener interest 
in whatever concerns it, just as the imagination has more play in 
gazing on some great painter s sketch of a new country than in 
copying the literal plan of a surveyor; for most of you will con 
cede this, that mankind everywhere are ultimately governed 
through the medium chiefly of absorbing ideas, so that whatever 
method gives the amplest range to ideas of a wholesome kind, 
must therefore be the best. 

" But although I have introduced here the strong wish of 
mankind, whether it be instinctive or whether it arise from a train 
of reasoning, or from anything else, yet you will have observed 
that its main force as an argument consists not so much in itself 
solely as in its connexion with conscience; for it becomes doubly 



134 DEVOUT EXPERIENCE. 

remarkable when these two things, which might be expected 
rather to clash, both co-exist together, and act each upon the 
other so forcibly, that there seems a certain kindred between 
them. Though I do not think the conscience alone generated 
the expectation of a future state, yet it constantly leads men in 
that direction, both by the presentiment which each one cherishes 
of some result awaiting his own thoughts, and by the require 
ment of some future arbitration to set right all the inequalities 
of this world. We see all things tending towards the confirma 
tion of a rule of Right, and our heart and our wishes, no less than 
our conscience and our reason, cry out that Right ought to pre 
vail; yet all things are not yet put under its absolute sway, so 
that it remains, as we hope, for the tendency, which hitherto has 
been interrupted by many exceptions, to be realised hereafter. 

" At such a junction of our thoughts with our feelings, or of 
that knowing faculty within us which apprehends the most de 
monstrable science with the purer class of our affections, we 
find the whole man as it were crying out for an immortality, 
and refusing to be deprived of its great hope. Here also must be 
remembered what I will venture to call the tentative experience 
of the best and holiest men. Some persons may mock at the 
expression experience, as applied to what has not yet come to 
pass; but it is easy to know by numbers of experiments under 
what kind of expectations men live holily or happily, as well as 
the contrary. There are thousands of instances in which men 
have either recorded the course of their mental thought in books, 
or embodied it in actions, or in some way made it manifest. We 
cannot indeed come familiarly in contact with men, without 
forming some kind of judgment on their belief and the influence 
it has on their happiness, neither of which can be altogether 
hidden. Just then as before I ventured to ask, whether the 
materialist and irreligious tone of sentiment, or the contrary, did 
most to chasten the affections ; so here I ask, and I do not wish 
the answer to have any controversial bias, which carries to the 
mind of any one entertaining it the fullest witness of its being 



DEVOUT EXPERIENCE. 135 

true? You have spoken as if in praise of the purer affections; 
"but theories like yours do not enable men to practise them. But 
now take the experience of praying men everywhere, and see 
whether it confirms their faith or militates against it; or consider 
that groundwork which exists in our mind for the affections of 
hope and trust, and observe whether these do not peremptorily 
require some object to fasten upon, and whether every attempt at 
religion, and every defiance of religion, has not been alike unsa 
tisfactory, which did not encourage them to believe in the reality 
of such an object. We shall find here, as before, that the 
feelings and the intellect correspond. On the one hand, the mere 
act of praying earnestly, or singing devoutly, and, in short, any 
exercise of the religious affections, seems, either by eliciting an 
immediate answer, or in virtue of some general law of Providence, 
to be a great instrument of mental peace; and, on the other 
hand, persons who have enjoyed such a consolation could not 
retain it, unless they believed in the positive reality of that Being 
whom they address. It is not like the rage of a passionate 
child, which is soothed after it has vented itself, or like the me 
chanical pattering of a mystic, who, with closed eyes or mind 
excludes from his piety all intervention of his reason. But reli 
gious people in general, and at least in so far as they are intel 
ligent or sound-minded, require intellectual belief as well as 
emotional faith; and when such persons have, from any clash 
of opinions in speculative times, or from any waywardness or 
sensual vice on their own part, lost hold of what they once 
firmly apprehended, they almost all agree in confessing that they 
suffer a sorrow to which no other earthly sorrow is comparable 
for magnitude. I do not here speak of mere animal men, who 
seem never to have risen into any conception of the great capaci 
ties of their souls, for indeed of such I know not what to say, 
except that one would no more envy them than one envies a pig 
or an elephant; but of all who unite intelligence and affections 
such as we call humane, it may be affirmed that they seem not 
to retain this standard of humanity uprightly and blessedly, 



136 REQUIREMENTS OF HUMANITY. 

without acquaintance with that higher Being upon which man 
depends." 

" Then I am to understand you to argue," here asked Wolff, 

"that because religion is desirable, therefore it is true." "I 

beg your pardon," replied Blancombe, " certainly that is not my 

argument, in such a sense as to bear being put nakedly and apart 

from the other considerations with which I have connected it. 

But to Man, considered as a being who naturally aspires to 

make the best of himself, either for happiness or beneficence, or 

whatever nobler end he may be capable of conceiving, it seems 

no slight argument that a particular class of sentiments require 

his most earnest cultivation, if he finds that without them the 

very nature of which he is possessed cannot otherwise thrive, or 

put forth its best powers. Of course this argument would have 

infinitely more force to persons already persuaded that the 

world s order is under the direction of Mind; for they would 

feel convinced, that whatever is necessary to carry out a design 

of the grandest magnitude, must have entered into the plan of 

an intellectual contriver, and it would be a part of natural piety 

with them to infer a high moral probability of such conceptions 

being true, as God s creatures cannot be good and happy without 

conceiving. Whereas at present without such aid, I am compelled 

to throw myself upon the deep necessities of our being. Nor 

indeed does this issue frighten me; but even if it should be 

conceded, to a greater extent than any philosopher has ever yet 

proved, that all things act, as Sadananda tells us, according to 

their inherent properties, or that those acts which appear to us 

the free offspring of volition are only minute links in an infinitely 

subtle and all-embracing chain of causation, for that men are 

a kind of human vegetables, only influenced by more delicate 

modifications of Pracriti, because w^e consist of such ourselves, 

even so, my friends, I despair neither of morality nor of faith, 

which seem the cause of God amongst mankind. For I observe 

among plants too, that they are liable to disease, and that some 

things cause health to them, and others decay. The hyacinth can- 



REQUIREMENTS OF HUMANITY. 137 

not lie long torn from its stalk, without withering : and I suppose 
no flower or herb can live without some kindly influence from 
the light of heaven. At least I observe that plants enclosed in 
any dark closet grow lank and pale ; and if there should be any 
crevice through which a fragment of light enters, they stretch 
their consumptive stalks towards it, so as to imbibe a dubious 
life. Pretty much in the same way I observe men who in 
savage places are shut out from opportunities of sound know 
ledge, throw all their passions with more desperate swing into 
some wild or abnormal form of superstition: and generally it 
may be said, the religious sentiments of which we have spoken, 
are, at least in some form, as necessary to man s mind or nature, 
as the light and breath of heaven are to the flower of the field. 
So that, whatever is the cause of our being so, the fact of our 
being such as to require the mental nourishment of piety cannot 
be denied. Prayer, as our Bauddha friend here most truly 
observed, is a necessary part of human virtue, which the very 
relief it gives us in many ways sufficiently proves. We have 
also seen, that together with this experience we have others of 
the kind. For, not to repeat yet my first argument about Mind, 
we have seen the innermost will of man protesting against any 
grosser appetites, as well as any unruly passions which attempt 
to overbear our more righteous choice ; thus also knowledge, in 
that it tends daily to more and more of concurrence everywhere 
in the purest standard of morality, is a witness against any blind 
materialism which makes virtue or vice a matter of caprice or 
organisation. More strongly still, it may be said the conscience 
refuses to be persuaded that sin is no evil ; and in like manner 
the purest feelings of man, which agree with conscience, cry out 
aloud against the denial of a God to be worshipped, or against 
a surrender of our being voluntarily to annihilation. So that, 
on the whole, what is wisest and best in our nature seems to be 
on one side, with which also happiness takes part in experience ; 
while what is most brutish, selfish, and miserable, only is left 
for the other. At this point, then, I should say to any Sankhyast, 



138 INFERENCE OF DIVINE OBJECT. 

or other speculator who makes the apparent freedom of a man 
only a deceptive form of necessitarianism, Be it so, if you please, 
but then at least religion is a necessity of our nature there is 
either some heavenly influence, or at least the capacity of belief 
in such an influence, which is to the virtue, the peace, and the 
permanent happiness of Man, pretty much what the physical 
dew and light are to all plants that grow. Even then upon your 
principles, I must still turn the eyes of my mind to that light 
without which all my moral perceptions are in danger of being 
obscured, and my hope, of languishing away. 

"Now, however, arises a farther question, Can we stop here? 
For my own part I cannot ; and probably few can, if they only 
consider. Surely it seems absurd to find prayer necessary for 
man s mental health, yet to imagine there is no one to pray to. 
Even logic, although the most remorseless of sciences, cannot 
refuse to recognise here the existence of the heart, and its prac 
tical needs. For the logician can only argue upon facts, and if 
he does not take them into account as they are, his art becomes 
useless. Again, it would be very strange if the same cast of 
sentiment which is most for the honour of a Divine Being should 
also be most for the benefit of all mankind, and yet that Being 
should have no consciousness whether this sentiment is enter 
tained. Still more does my own impression of the strangeness 
of such an imagination grow, if I extend my thoughts from each 
man individually to men assembled in societies. For whatever 
happiness springs from a pious regard to the Deity, and what 
ever wickedness or misery creeps on with the reverse, it becomes 
in either case multiplied, when its effects extend over a family. 
Neither affectionate care for the helplessness of infants, nor again 
filial gratitude, nor in general the due reverence for the sanctity 
of life, and all the ties necessary to its improvement, seem to 
retain a firm hold upon society, except where each man considers 
himself accountable to a Divine Kuler, who has fixed the duties 
of his place. I should only weary you by attempting to follow 
out at large the same idea, as applied to the destiny of nations : 



NECESSITY OF POSITIVE OBJECT. 139 

though indeed it is in the history of the kingdoms of men that 
the principle for which I contend is exemplified on the grandest 
scale. Not that in politics the nature of religion should be 
different from what it is in any man s secret prayer. Only, as 
the field extends, good and evil principles have a more compli 
cated play. The history of India alone would shew that when 
nations are strong they believe firmly in God, as if not only 
virtue, but strength and success, could not exist without that 
principle to animate them. For if you mount up to that re 
mote period when the Brahmanical tribes were extending their 
dominion from the Punjaub over Southern India, you will find 
a religious faith was then strong in them ; and whether you 
modify the test by examining the progress of Sakya Muni s 
principles, to which our friend here has alluded, or whether again 
you read of the incursions of Sultan Mahmud, or, later still, of 
the establishment of the Mogul Empire, you would find a 
strength of religious belief animating in each case the conqueror. 
Again, at a period nearer to our own times, when the Sikhs 
organised a mixed multitude into a formidable kingdom, the 
great bond of union was a fervid glow of faith, which one might 
justly call fanaticism. But yet, if any one says to men, Let us 
believe, and in the strength of our belief succeed, such an 
exhortation, without reasons or disinterested motives to believing, 
has no sort of tendency to realise its effort. Kather indeed, those 
who have talked most loudly of the force of belief relatively to 
man s mind, without having an adequate object to propound, 
only fall into the greatest imbecility of heart and mind. For it 
is the very nature of faith that it cannot be purchased, but 
must be fixed on some one who has a right to it. Shew to 
mankind the person or the being who has that right, and they 
require neither bribery nor compulsion to believe ; but discourses 
upon the energy of belief signify nothing. The case then stands 
thus. Not only the affections of every man severally require a 
Divine Being to trust in ; but the whole history of families 
and nations everywhere involves the same requirement. Even 



140 WHETHER ANALOGUE TO MIND OR BODY. 

language bears the impress of that general feeling ; and it may 
be added that all righteous laws are intended to embody prin 
ciples such as men conceive to be the will of the Supreme Ruler 
of the world. Who or what however that Ruler may be, indeed, 
there are different conjectures, and we have still farther to in 
quire ; but that he is some one, and that we ought to think of 
Him as far as possible as He is in reality, and not to dream of 
making Him be in a particular way by thinking of Him in that 
way, are points on which the sound-minded among mankind 
have long ago agreed. Here then let me revert to that first 
argument, which in recapitulating about the affections I omitted. 
" The question here is, whether we have any reason to take 
for our beginning either Deity as Mind planning and governing, 
or Nature as matter blindly evolving itself. You may try it 
either by the existence of the world, or by its history ; that is, as 
men generally say, either by Nature or by Providence. Certainly 
the second of the two will be stronger, but even the first appears 
absolutely binding. For every one allows that Thought is more 
motive than any of the physical agencies which it employs, and 
it is in virtue of thinking, and in proportion as he thinks, that 
man makes and disposes. Thought on man s part underlies all 
the greatness of mankind. Just then as a child, who had lost 
its parents among mankind, and went about searching for them, 
would certainly not begin with stones, or even with brute beasts, 
so, if ever mankind are to find their first Parent and Author of 
their being, they must begin with nothing lower than them 
selves, nor with the lower and less active principle in themselves. 
Whatever intellectual knowledge we have, certainly to the Deity 
we must ascribe more ; and whatever we call Mind as that to 
which our higher knowledge belongs, far more eminently must 
that be attributed to Deity. You say it makes no difference, 
whether we start in our speculation from mind or matter, that 
is, from God or the world. I answer, fully as much as whether 
we say the living horse draws the dead chariot, or whether he 
is drawn by it. It is true that animal life can generate simply 



POSSIBLY TRANSCENDENT. 141 

its like ; but we see only one kind of Being anywhere which can 
produce a multiplicity of things, some of which therefore are 
unlike: and this manifoldly creative being is merely Mind. 
Now that our conceptions of the Supreme Mind which is above 
all things, as an architect is above a house, must be inadequate, 
I most readily allow ; and I will endeavour to explain hereafter, 
why the argument from design probably appears to you not so 
convincing as it does to men in general. But, though such a 
feeling of inadequacy may well induce one to wish for more 
light on the subject, and perhaps none could ever duly image 
the Eternal without its throwing forward some likeness of 
itself veiled in flesh, and so coming in contact with our earthly 
humanity, yet to the common sense of mankind there remains 
the conviction, that after all our researches in the world of matter 
and sense the Eternal Upholder remains behind. He may be 
higher than heaven, so that we know nothing, and deeper than 
hell, so that we understand Him not ; yet the certainty of His 
being is as clear as that of an architect to those who observe a 
house, or of a poet to those who read a well-constructed poem. 
Willingly indeed we confess that our frail reasonings have need 
to be enlightened farther, and we shall gladly accept any inter 
vention which, by bringing man more face to face with Deity, 
may open a fuller assurance ; but however difficult it may be to 
settle what exactly man ought to believe, the necessity of some 
such belief as we contend for, is a matter of most solid reasoning, 
and not only of gentle feeling. The very language of all 
nations, as a record of their instinctive logic, bears testimony 
to what I am saying. You spoke, (here Blancombe directed 
himself towards Wolff), of a fixed order, and a regular order, 
and a character in nature. How remarkable that you could 
discover no words usual among men which were not fatal to 
your theory ! For the very word fixed implies a thing done, 
which must have had a doer; so a character is something stamped, 
and an order is something arranged, and again, by the word 
regular, you lead us to a rule, which cannot be without a ruler. 



142 YET MENTAL, RATHER THAN MATERIAL. 

It is not then the same thing as yon suppose, whether we start 
with a conception of nature or of creative mind. 

" But if you ask what difference it makes, I answer first, 
that we have seen mankind want an object to believe upon, and 
yet are not able to believe merely because it is good for them to 
do so, unless the object proposed is satisfactory to the intellect. 
But our mind, of whatever it may be made, can rest in no 
cause for the universe less than mind. It observes a thousand 
energies, which may be called causes, in daily operation ; but 
although you may magnify any one or all of these together to an 
infinite extent, neither one, nor all, will upon any scale satisfy 
the mind when alleged as a creative or governing principle. For 
no one of these blind forces is capable of weighing and mea 
suring, but the world is evidently made by weight and measure; 
it is made therefore clearly by some being capable of conceiving 
laws and thoughts; but these we do not find entering into the 
conception of a blind nature. That my distinction here is prac 
tically a correct one, is in fact clearly and thoroughly proved by 
the very names which are current in India for soul and for 
matter. We have heard the Saugata calling our soul by the 
term intelligence ; and again, many Hindus call matter simply 
ignorance (afndna). They feel instinctively that the one has know 
ledge, and the other ignorance ; hence they describe the things 
by their characteristics ; for such seems to my mind the simplest 
explanation of this way of speaking ; though more subtle reasons 
are also given for it. In those two phrases, then, the Hindus 
supply us with a practical proof that in all speculation about the 
world, pure intellect cries out against matter, for the necessity of 
some governing principle more akin to itself than any material or 
sensible object. Mere intellect therefore associates itself with all 
those yearnings of the affections upward of which we have before 
spoken. But secondly, I observe that it cannot disdain to take 
them into account, as in turn it is purified by them. For when 
it observes them act over the range of nations and centuries, with a 
recurrence nearly uniform enough to admit of their effects being 



MORAL WITNESS FROM HABIT. 143 

grouped in masses, and classified under heads, it says of these too, 
they must have a cause, and it finds no cause worthy enough, ex 
cept some being which must be to all the hopes and aspirations of 
man either as analogous as the fountain is to the stream, or else as 
transcendent as the fashioning thought is to the material wrought. 
" Nor here probably will the intellect be able to avoid 
taking notice of what we call habit. I mention it, because you 
will not be able to say of it, as you implied of the affections, 
that it is a mere sensation or sentiment, implying no law of 
mind. At least, if any one were to imagine beforehand what 
sort of bias from the force of habit he would wish for the 
benefit of mankind should be given to our actions, he might 
perhaps despair of any such bias being made wholesome, ex 
pecting it to be the same probably in every kind of action. But 
if he were told that good actions would, however disagreeable at 
first, become easier and pleasanter as they were persevered in ; 
while bad actions, being the perversion of some capacity for 
better things, might for a little time seduce, but would gradually 
lose the outside varnish of honey which gilded them, so that 
good men would become stronger or happier, while the ob 
stinately bad would become more and more loveless and misera 
ble to themselves and others, so that at last goodness would be 
the greatest blessing, and wickedness turn out to be the greatest 
punishment, I humbly conceive, any purely spiritual thinker, in 
considering from a remote world the possibility of such a law of 
moral recompence being established, would find in it manifest 
trace of some being who is to our conscience, what the highest 
Mind may be to the worldly fabric, or an infinite Love as com 
pared to the holy affections of man. Especially also would such 
a conclusion be drawn, supposing it was seen that young sinners 
would, on their first going wrong, have many checks from vio 
lent emotion, and a tenderness of shame, like the blush on a 
maiden s cheek ; but yet that all these sanctities, being again 
and again violated, might fade away, and the safeguard involved 
in them be destroyed. But now I need scarcely argue at large 



144 MORAL GOVERNMENT CLEAR IF METAPHYSICS DOUBTFUL. 

that such is the principle of moral recompence, which by means 
of the force of habit is intertwined into the constitution of the 
world. For if you either observe or reflect, you will find it to 
be so ; and I should only weary you by illustrating in detail 
every step in this long argument. Finding then, as we do, that 
modesty as a safeguard against recklessness is only destroyed by 
obstinacy ; and that all the holier and purer affections grow up 
into habits, which become a second and a happier nature to a 
man, while on the contrary, selfishness, in all its forms of 
insincerity or crime or sensualism, becomes an avenging scourge, 
must we not say that the logical reason in man consents to 
whatever element in us apprehends righteousness, and whatever 
feeling rejoices in things amiable, that both some being is to be 
worshipped, and that such being must be intelligent, holy, and 
lovely ? Something like that, I suppose, is what most men in 
tend by an Iswara, or what we call God. Was I not therefore 
right in saying, that the hard as well as the soft in man, or the 
masculine understanding no less than the feminine love, cries out 
for some such religious sentiment as your argument disparages ? 
" I say here some religious sentiment, or some worship of 
God, including therefore the belief in God ; for let that suffice as 
our principal object of proof just now. It has come to light 
incidentally more than once in my discourse, that I conceive the 
common cause of my friends here and of myself against you, 
(here Blancombe turned to Wolff,) is best supported by argu 
ments which they are not quite agreed about. Yet it is not 
impossible for some of my arguments to be wrong, yet for our 
main cause to be right. Suppose, for example, all the ideas 
which I have suggested on the subject of mind as distinct from 
matter, were to be so far mistaken that one substance in many 
modifications should turn out to be the cause and the material 
without duality of all possible causes or effects ; still, the modi 
fication which this substance would undergo in its thinking stage 
and its wrought stage, would be so important as to render it for 
all practical purposes two distinct things, as to the popular 



METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESIS RELIGIOUS NEED. 145 

apprehension of mankind it undoubtedly seems. If then you 
prefer still to understand the term mind as meaning matter 
sufficiently refined to be the organ of mental powers, do so. Not 
but that, with such a change in our mode of viewing that of 
which the world consists, I confess, a strong argument for the 
revival of our personal being in an immortality after this life, 
would appear to me lost ; but again, many pious persons, of 
whom our friend Vidyacharya may partly serve as an illustrious 
instance, think quite differently upon that point ; and whatever 
became of a personal immortality, I conceive that at least the 
necessity of worshipping and loving God in this life would 
remain. We should not be a bit more able to do without 
religion, though it would be more difficult to say in what 
manner we ought to be religious. Again, in the same way, 
I remark, that if the attributes of wisdom, righteousness, and 
goodness, have been assigned by me to the Deity with more 
confidence than they ought, yet at the very least you acknow 
ledge that we are surrounded by tokens of superhuman power. 
What that power may be, in at least its relations to ourselves, 
and how we ought to feel mentally towards its intelligent 
wielder, if such be its origin, or how mould to our purpose 
whatever may be permitted of its lesser agencies, and triumph 
over any dread attached to them, are still questions of awful 
interest, and may well invite our most devout attention. Only 
I cannot look at such questions without including among the 
elements of the problem to be solved the moral experiences 
of mankind. From those experiences it appears that prayer 
is an instrument of obtaining peace, and of what to its possessors 
appears knowledge, whether, as we should say generally, because 
the prayer is answered by some higher power, or, as your theo 
ries would imply, because it is itself a mental effort of the most 
intent and aspiring kind. We must then take in prayer together 
with our inquiries as to either the being of God or our eternal 
destiny. Then it seems to me already self-evident that no kind 
of natural piety will allow us to deprive the Deity of whatever 
M.P. 10 



146 INFERENCE OF ULTIMATE BEING. 

attributes we should think holy, or pure, or lovely, in the higher 
forms of being ; nor can I shake off a presentiment, which goes 
upon sufficient ground to deserve the name of a conviction, that 
we shall find at last the mass of mankind have anticipated with 
their feelings, what the keenest searchers may for a time make 
difficulties about, but must at last admit is a necessity of their 
understanding. So that it may be with spirit as with matter. 
We have already heard how difficult it may be made to prove 
that any solid substratum underlies the objects which our senses 
deal with ; yet at last the thinker says by inference that some 
thing must be there, whether he make that something material 
or mental ; a body or a form ; an underlying solid or a combining 
principle of law ; and, by saying this, he returns, in effect, to 
what simple people never doubted. In fact, even our positive 
knowledge of geometry, and perhaps all our cognition of the 
material world, may be said primarily to rest upon faith, or 
ultimately to revert to faith ; although the most sceptical rea- 
soners admit it would be absurd in this case not to have such 
faith. For any reasoning or knowledge which made this prac 
tically doubtful would make everything doubtful, so that it 
must be itself doubted. By being so universally destructive 
it would destroy trust in its own process. Even sceptics thus 
come round in mathematical science to agree with those who 
accept in a kind of faith the preliminary axioms and postulates. 
Just so, I conceive, will be the case with what we call Mind, 
which, at least so far as our common consciousness is a guide to 
any truth, we recognise as distinct from bodily objects; for it 
seems properly active, while they are comparatively passive. 
Perhaps we call by its name some appearances which may 
not be mind ; but, beyond all or within, I know not how many 
subtle sheaths, as our friends would call them, either mind rea 
soning or soul feeling must dwell. Either of these seems a name 
for what is immortal in us ; and so long as men believe that the 
highest lord of all is infinite in all which they feel highest in 
themselves, so long they have what we call a religion, whether 



ATTRIBUTES OF HIGHEST BEING. 147 

it be recorded in histories, or expressed in prayers, or in any 
other way embodied and directed to some one infinitely better 
than ourselves. Upon this condition only does a religion seem 
to satisfy all those portions and capacities of Man of which we 
have spoken, or exercise a ruling and wholesome influence. For 
whatever wonderful things may be said of Pracriti, no one is 
raised, or awed, or comforted by dwelling on an infinite fluid, or 
infinite electricity, or, in short, by the application of the idea of 
infinity to anything else than Mind in the highest and largest 
sense of whatever may be Mind. If instead of mind you would 
prefer me to say thinker, with the understanding at present that 
it is not settled how far a subtle modification of matter can think , 
I have no objection. Only, on your part again, there must be 
no hesitation in ascribing to this unknown author the most abso 
lute infinity as regards all the higher powers of man, or, what 
would be the same thing here, as regards a power capable of 
creating those. You must not, therefore, exclude government, or 
providence, or dread majesty, or anything else which is noblest 
in man, except you do so by putting something nobler still and 
transcendent, because creative, in any one of their places ; for it 
will be absurd to seek the Deity in anything less than ourselves. 
Moreover you will hence understand why, just as we exclude 
earth and water and electricity, so also I reject the mere range 
of human affections as adequate expounders of the sentiments 
which here we ought to entertain ; and as they themselves 
cannot cling kindly, unless they are justified, or as it were up 
held, by strengthening intellect, much less can that highest and 
illimitable object, which is to satisfy our whole affectionate and 
intellectual being, be less than infinite itself in all wisdom and 
majesty as well as goodness. Nor is any kind of worshipping 
belief worthy of being properly called a religion, as embracing 
what men in general mean by that sacred word, unless it have a 
positive and intellectual element referring to God, not merely as 
life, or as order, nor perhaps even as law, though indeed he is all 
these, but also as a providential governor. 

102 



148 THE POSITIVE AND THE MYSTICAL. 

Of the truth of what I am now saying many countries afford 
sad experience. Probably it is not unknown in India how men 
who have once believed intellectually in the historical traces of 
mankind being governed by an unseen governor, have fallen into 
strange crimes or delusions when that belief was lost or dreamt 
away. At least, in other countries, men have been brought up 
to fear the God by whom their religion has been ordained and 
history governed ; yet, either from waywardness, or from finding 
that accidents of human error had clung round the essential 
belief, they have fallen away from their religion, until they knew 
not what belief to hold, beyond a vague confession of signs of 
power and life encompassing us. But then it is also found, that 
when men thus exchange the definite belief of intellectual beings 
in One who is mighty, good, and wise, and by whose laws they 
must shape their lives, for vague surmises about the sources of 
beauty and marvel, they appear generally also to exchange a 
calm and equable trust in one who is the upholder of their steps 
in life, for a feverish over-bubbling of the emotions, which may 
be called an animal enthusiasm. Thus, as their belief becomes 
imagination, and their religion mysticism, so their prayers be 
come patterings, and flow from the affections of joy and grief; or, 
as they themselves would phrase it, from the spirit, but not from 
the understanding. Then, if they even continue in such a state, 
their reason is no longer hallowed, nor their entire manhood a 
sacrifice, but they have fallen back into such worship as is com 
mon to animals and vegetables; for these things also exult in 
the beauty of creation, and the beneficence of its author, as they 
look up towards his all-embracing light. But oftenest by far, 
man, who has had a higher guide assigned him than the mere 
impulses of even the most amiable temperament, is not able, after 
letting go the higher guidance, to sustain himself by means of 
the lower, in a firm balance of the capacities of his mind ; but, if 
he is depressed by natural sorrow, he carries despondency into 
things heavenly; or, if doubts are presented to him, he accepts 
them as certainties; and especially if some strong temptation, 



MYSTICISM AND SCEPTICISM. 149 

like a despot rising amidst anarchy, come over the unsettled 
feelings of his fluctuating mind, he bows himself in sinful acqui 
escence to its lawless rule ; and then again, if his conscience 
awaken from heavy sleep, he suffers unspeakable pangs of re 
morse and bewilderment, like one of weak eyes unbearably 
scathed by lucid gleams across a shipwreck in darkness ; and 
perhaps at last the man struggling back to the home of certainty 
from which he had strayed, takes shelter in some cave of the 
most abject superstition, having thus passed in turns through 
many phases of imagination rather than of faith. For it is the 
sentence of eternal righteousness, that when any kind of per 
versity has shrunk from even moderate constraint, it must bow 
itself at last to a heavier yoke. But many, not even so fortunate 
as we just now imagined, fall through bewilderment into mon 
strous sins, and suffer accordingly a greater abandonment of 
God. As they do not choose to retain him in their knowledge, 
he gives them over to an undistinguishing mind. Such as these 
are antinomians, anarchists, criminals without remorse, and, in 
general, they who stride on in an unblest career, ruining either 
their own bodies, or families, or the countries which nurtured 
them, owning no other guidance than self-will, and acknow 
ledging no restraint, until, the hand of the Eternal laying hold 
of them, the retribution of their sin finds them out. Yet how 
heavy a scourge they have carried, though unacknowledged, all 
along in their minds, is clear even from the restlessness of their 
face and gestures, as well as from that rudeness which so often 
creeps over their manners, as the offspring of unhappiness rather 
than of intention ; though indeed benevolence is generally weak 
in such men, if it be not altogether extinct : but especially we 
see the heaviness of the scourge appear from the violence of 
death, to which such men have often had recourse, because life 
had become unbearable to them in a world of which they dis 
dained to serve the only righteous Ruler. 

"I do not then myself doubt, that of the two alternatives 
propounded farther back, it suits truth and humility best to 



150 CREATION AND EMANATION. 

consider God as our Maker, and therefore as transcending even 
our spiritual conceptions, rather than as a source from which 
we might be said to have spontaneously bubbled into light. 
Yet so long as any one retains the spirit of subjection suffi 
ciently to acknowledge the Governor, I will not presume to 
agitate much this question of Maker or Source. Indeed, I 
had rather abstain from it, out of reverence to him of whom we 
reason; as well as partly from respect to my venerable friend 
here, who deserves a distinct consideration of his views; and 
partly also I cannot help observing, that very devout persons 
.are able to acquire modes of expression, which imply a nearness 
and a sort of acquaintance with God, such as I can scarcely 
describe by any less name than kindred, and which goes far 
to justify men in calling the Divinity a mysterious fountain, 
from which Humanity is a visible stream. Only such persons 
do not lose, and it appears to me we must not waive, the idea 
of government as belonging to God. Nor again do they throw 
away that positiveness of belief which belongs to things on 
which the intellect lays hold, and without which religion cannot 
fill the mind of the whole man. But some arguments, which 
here suggest themselves, cannot have justice done to them with 
out going into those historical records, the discussion of which 
you have waived. For with the clear positiveness which we 
require, there must be a regard to the facts of history. Here, 
if you will excuse me, I observe you are ready to remark, that 
the variety of claims made by discordant histories presents a 
difficulty. But to this the reply is obvious, that such claims are 
so many reasons for inquiring more diligently; since they all 
agree that there is something to be inquired about. 

" Here then perhaps we might proceed to discuss the claims 
of religious records. The mention, however, of devout persons 
leads me to consider the especial confidence with which they 
seem to entertain the belief of a future life as a certainty. We 
have seen the instincts of mankind rather pointing to such a 
hope, and the purer affections unwillingly letting it go. Con- 



PRESENTIMENT WITH PIETY. 151 

science also, though a faculty belonging to the scientific, quite as 
much as to the affectionate element in our mind, throws almost 
without hesitation its weighty vote into the same side of the 
scale; and pure intellect, without affirming that hope is demon 
strative, encourages rather than checks the aspiration, both by 
the nature of its own processes and acquirements, and by the 
firm conviction which it is compelled to embrace of there being 
to the world and to our life some Author, among whose attributes 
must be contriving intellect, or wisdom, and who cannot be 
without the power of restoring what he made. But now let it 
be remarked, that all the above grounds of hope, either receive 
an important accession, or else are sublimated into a form more 
glorious than they naturally wear, in the experience which de 
vout persons believe themselves to acquire by prayer and trust. 
It was not uninteresting to me to notice in the discourse of the 
venerable Acharya, that he distinctly affirmed such hopes to 
become more vivid in proportion to a man s sanctity of life. 
But much more, it appears to me, may devotion have a natural 
tendency to generate such confidence of hope, when it is directed 
to a personal Being whose power and goodness admit, on our 
hypothesis, of neither doubt nor limit, and to whose very like 
ness men appear to be in a way transformed, when they are both 
persuaded of the goodness of his moral attributes, and endeavour 
by prayer or effort to partake of like qualities. For such pro 
perties as righteousness, truth, and love, appear to fall away 
from that range of things to which accident or death can be 
fatal, and are in common with that Being to which we ascribe 
immortality. At least I suppose that in some such way, and 
perhaps in other ways, as for example by being brought nearer 
to Him who is emphatically the Life-giver, and whom nothing 
can approach without being quickened by His contact, but at 
any rate in some way, though possibly by thoughts more 
mysterious than I have fully apprehended, men imbibe a con 
viction of their souls being destined not to pass away. Perhaps 
they feel, that as they have contracted a sacred friendship, and 



152 RELIGION EXALTING INSTINCT. 

are become children of one who is alike all-mighty and all- 
truthful, he will not, either as their friend or as their father, 
give over to extinction those who have loved him and become 
akin to him. But certainly, for some reason or other, a pious 
confidence of everlasting life seems from experience to spring up 
in men who have a knowledge of the living God. For my own 
part, I neither dare to speak, or even to think, over-confidently 
in such things; nor is it my own business to assert the suffi 
ciency of pious aspirations without the warrant of some historical 
groundwork, such as we have not yet laid in the present dis 
course. Only, I could not forbear from mentioning what is 
thought to be the experience of more saintly men; and I will 
add one more remark upon it. There is no doubt, that both 
individual men are happier, and also that human virtue flourishes 
most in communities, in proportion as the expectation of a future 
life is strong; so that undoubtedly men seek such a hope. Sup 
posing, then, such an assurance as we have spoken of should 
exist among the best men, what would it be, but a crowning 
answer, and a satisfactory supplement, such as both our dramatic 
instincts and our trust in divine providence suggest as probable, 
to all those deep longings of the affections, that crying out of 
the heart against annihilation, and that inextinguishable fore 
boding of the rational conscience, which we have already found 
to pervade mankind. Or, if such an assurance were destined 
anywhere to exist, who would be so likely as men of deep piety 
to obtain the privilege of concluding these natural prophecies, 
and throwing the notes of joy amidst the uncertain sounds which 
divine influences seem ever calling forth from the strings of 
humanity? That such confidence may exist only among the 
few, appears to me, from the nature of the case, no clear argu 
ment against the probability of its being well-grounded. 

" It suffices me, however, to mention these things only as 
reasons for seeking more earnestly what religion is true and 
acceptable to God. For that all human beings, if true humanity 
is to survive in them, have need to fear, love, and obey, some 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 153 

divine object of worship, and that this object must be a being 
who has a right to their worship, and therefore can command it, 
are points which have been clearly established." 



NOTE ON CHAPTER IV. 

With the above Chapter, and with portions of the next, may be 
compared the first part of Butler s Analogy ; the Natural Tlieology of 
Paley, especially its concluding chapter ; Dr Whe well s Bridgewater 
Treatise, and the extracts from it, published as Indications of the Crea 
tor; the first book of Hooker s Ecclesiastical Polity ; and the works of 
Samue] Clarke, including his correspondence with Butler. For readers 
of Greek, and even for thoughtful persons who have access only to 
translations, the Republic of Plato remains still a work worthy of 
being studied, as a very wonderful blending of the appeal to intellect 
and to conscience, though with some fantastic disfigurements. Cud- 
worth, with Mosheim for his commentator, as a vast repository of 
ancient faith and speculation, I would rather recommend to the few, 
than expect to be read by the many. More succinct arguments may 
be found at the commencement of Pearson, and of Burnet, and in 
Thompson s Bampton Lectures ; where, however, the argument from 
design in creation is not quite forcibly enough dwelt upon. Nor are 
the better among the English Deists, and others who have approxi 
mated to them in reasoning, such as Tucker and Culverwell, without 
some useful suggestions. But their general defect is, that they set 
positive history too much on one side; and, in attempting a sort of 
demonstration, not warmed by the affections, they make faith a dry 
problem, instead of a living spirit. Much better, therefore, are some 
of the life-experiences and confessions of great men, such as those of 
Sir W. Ealeigh in his History of the World, Burnet, at the end of 
the History of his own Time, instances, in short, where feeling, 
thought, and experience, seem to converge in a confession from Man s 
life to his Author, Preserver, and Governor. 



154 SA NKIIYAST INDIFFERENCE. 



CHAPTER V. 

Criticism of Hindu Systems, particularly the Bauddha and the Sdnkhya. 

"Deus non est seternitas vel infinitas, sed aeternus et infinitus; non est duratio 
vel spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper, et adest ubique; et existendo 
semper et ubique, durationem et spatium, aeternitatem et infinitatem constituit." 
Sir /. Newton. 

"Tanto a te longius, quanto dissimilius ; neque enim locis. Tu, Domine Deus 
omnipotens, in Principio quod est de Te, in Sapientia tuft, quse nata est de substan- 
tia tua, fecisti aliquid et de niliilo. Fecisti enim coelum et terram non de Te ; nam 
esset sequale unigenito tuo, ac per hoc et tibi ; et nullo modo justum esset ut sequale 
tibi esset, quod de Te non esset. Si Augustine. 

AFTER Blancombe had finished, there was silence for some 
time, as if the company were thinking over his speech. Then, 
on some one s asking him, " Which religion, since we have need 
of one, is the best?" "There," he answered, "is the question 
which we have to inquire about; for it is clear that none can 
be best, which is not also the truest possible." " Or, rather," 
here asked Sadananda, " is not the question an unnecessary 
one?" "What? do you, who think knowledge the liberation of 
the soul," answered Blancombe, "conceive it unnecessary to 
inquire what ought to be known? If truth is a thing so in 
different, how is the soul to be liberated?" "Why, perhaps," 
rejoined Sadananda, " the knowledge which sets free the soul 
is not so dependent as you imagine upon what is generally 
termed religion. For there are many devout Hindus, who are 
far from having attained true knowledge, because they start by 
wrong methods ; so in other religions, which in themselves are 
mistaken, or at least only fit for the countries in which they are 
professed, I do not say that liberating knowledge may not be 
attained." "But surely," said Blancombe, "it is a part of 
religion to have a right belief; and we have seen already, that 
the intellect refuses to believe anything which it supposes to 
fall short of truth. Either then you must take truth into your 
religion, or else you must strike the intellect out of it; and the 
first plan appears to most men the best; for unless we know the 



VEDANTIST S APATHY. 155 

truth, our piety may even offend that highest Being whom we 
profess to worship; nor can men in general be persuaded to feel 
devoutly, unless they have also reason to be in some measure 
intellectually satisfied." "Well," said Sad^nanda, "I feel no 
objection to the inquiry which you propose." 

" But I must confess," here interposed Vidyachdrya, " that 
to me, too, the question now arising appears not perhaps indif 
ferent in itself, but, as regards the different natives of countries 
far remote from each other, not very necessary. We are abund 
antly convinced, as it is our duty to believe, that we possess in 
our sacred books a revelation divinely given to the people of 
India. If you think otherwise, we are willing to concede that 
perhaps your religion may be better suited to your country. 
We are often obliged to tolerate the sight of practices, which, if 
you will excuse my saying so, appear to us profane and bar 
barous, in the conduct of foreigners. Yet to you such practices 
appear right; and we endeavour not to blame you. Perhaps 
the mode in which the Supreme Spirit has instructed you is 
different from that which he has employed towards ourselves. 
And as I have already acknowledged that there is a great 
diversity of names and attributes among the deities which our 
tolerant creed permits to be worshipped by different men, yet 
under all these disguises the twice-born man who is well- 
instructed worships one eternal Spirit, so perhaps under your 
different names it may have been permitted you to express 
something of the one spiritual truth. So far, at least, as you fulfil 
the duties enjoined by your own religion, I am willing to hope 
you may have, not absolutely the best, but yet a sufficient form 
of piety; and such, you may be aware, is the sentiment which 
our wisest* teachers entertain towards you." " Why, however, 
do you require of us, that we should be faithful in certain 
duties?" asked Blancombe. " That I need hardly teach you," 
replied the other; " for it is clear that there are virtues of justice 
and mercy, which all mankind agree to respect; unless, therefore, 

* Elphinstone, B. VI. Sekander Lodi. 



156 



ARGUMENTS FOR INQUIRY. 



you practise these, you are condemned by your own rules." 
"You would not then permit us to inflict wanton cruelty?" 
asked Blancombe. " Certainly not," answered the other. "Nor 
to practise treachery, nor theft, nor adultery?" "Certainly 
not." " Nor again, to pray with an outward show of devotion, 
but with an absence of sincerity and purity of heart?" " Cer 
tainly not." " And you would forbid all these things," con 
tinued Blancombe, "upon an idea that they were highly dis 
pleasing to the Deity?" " Precisely so," answered Vidyacharya. 
" Do not you then observe that our conceptions of the Deity 
are at least so far alike; and the reason of our agreeing so far 
is probably that, notwithstanding other differences, we have yet 
in this respect the truth ? What then should hinder this agree 
ment from being extended farther? For I suppose the truth 
must be one; and if either of us could teach the other what is 
truth throughout, we should then agree entirely." " I do not 
see," answered Vidyacharya, " why the truth should be one. 
Two witnesses may see things differently, yet both relate truly 
what they have seen." "Truly, perhaps, as they think," said 
Blancombe ; " but not in truth as the things are. But for a man 
to have ever so much truth of intention, in the sense of sincerity, 
will not save him from suffering miserably, if he mistakes for 
food what is truly poison; or if in many other modes he con 
ceives of outward things otherwise than as they are. So, 
perhaps, as regards this question of religion, if a man have 
an unworthy conception of God, he may, by so conceiving, 
deprave his mind, or insult the Majesty of Heaven; or again, if 
he associate his conception with untrue accounts of facts which 
have not really occurred, it may become gradually warped; or 
he may lose all anxiety about historical truth in the sense of 
reality, and all power of distinguishing it from falsehood. But 
if a particular fact happens only in one way, or if a being is of 
any definite kind, it is clear that one account only of either can 
be the truth." " I know," said Vidyacharya, " that it is difficult 
for your countrymen to conceive of this matter as we do; and, 



TRUTH AND SENTIMENT. 157 

perhaps, that very difficulty shews we were intended to be 
different. That things, however, have happened to you, we do 
not deny; but that the same things have happened to us, we 
are certain is not the case. What, however, should prevent 
your accidents from being a vehicle for teaching you the spiri 
tual truth which purifies the heart, and our accident -s also from 
leading us in the path of ultimate liberation? or, if you wish 
me to use your term, I have no objection to say redemption. 
That we agree in praising certain virtues, and in making them 
moral requisites, is with you a reason for seeking farther agree 
ment; whereas to me it shews clearly that anything farther is 
unnecessary." " You imply," said Blancombe, "that we may 
have the essential sentiment of piety in common, though we differ 
as to the facts or images which we associate with it." 

VID. " Possibly so." 

BLANC. "Just as the sentiments of love and hatred may 
be expressed in many different languages, with every variety of 
sound, and yet they will be essentially akin in every case." 

VID. " That is very much what I mean to say." 

BLANC. " Then we may notice, even in this illustration, that 
no one loves or hates, except under the belief that the object of 
either sentiment is really lovely or hateful, so as either to attract 
or to irritate. Probably then there is no such thing anywhere 
as feeling without an accompaniment of supposed fact ; and be 
lief, either true or false, must, after all, go along with sentiment, 
and be the mould in which our very affections are cast. But 
now consider our question in this way. Have you not a prayer 
which you call the Gayatri?" 

VID. "Certainly; we pray in that sacred text that the 
adorable light of the Divine Ruler may enlighten our minds." 

BLANC. " Thank you ; and by the Divine Ruler in that text 
you mean the spiritual sun or the divine enlightener ? " 

VID. " Whom else could we?" 

BLANC. " Then I should be afraid of asking you whether 
this divine being teaches truth or falsehood; but have you 



158 UNITY OF TRUTH HINDU PREDICTION. 

considered sufficiently that whatever he teaches must be true alto 
gether, and that you have in this prayer no feeble testimony to 
the sacred duty of searching for the highest knowledge we can 
attain of the only true God ? Surely, my friend, that which he 
is to one man he must be also to another. You, who have such 
grand conceptions of infinity and spiritual omnipotence, can 
never think that our little differences of skin, and hair, and tem 
perament, are worthy of mention, when compared to the deep 
thoughts of our souls in the sight of that pure Being whose 
thought, you say, is the world, and to whom you also imply 
that time and space are only conditions of his action, and infinity 
the range of his creative will. Especially, if we come forth 
from him, as you say, like sparks from a flame, we must be all 
capable of remounting to our source ; and this affinity is a 
greater reason for our seeking alike the eternal truth than any 
external accidents can be for our acquiescing in distorted frag 
ments of it. I can hardly, indeed, conceive how variety of 
country is to alter truth, unless it can first alter the very being 
of the eternal God; but as he has given to all mankind one 
reason, though from imperfect education they partake unequally 
of it, so I augur that he has for all men one revelation of him 
self, though from moral backsliding or inadequate teaching 
many men have as yet fallen short of learning it. Have I not, 
indeed, had a passage shewn me in one of your sacred books, 
which not only declares faith in Vishnu to be universally possi 
ble, but prophesies that it shall be brought about and rendered 

universal?" 

1 1 
; You may," answered Vidyacharya, "have seen a passage I: 

to that effect in the Sri Bh&gavat*." 

" Well," proceeded Blancombe, " that is a far more cheering 
anticipation, than the dreary prospect you held out of many 
races being doomed to almost hopeless ignorance. Suppose we ._ 
start on this more hopeful track ; and let us consider whether I 
you or I can do most to improve those among the natives of | 

* Wilson s Analysis, Pref. V. Pur. 



WORTH OF PROBABILITIES. 159 

India whom you lament as sunken in ignorance or vice, and 
whether also either of us can convince the other." " Why," 
said Vidyacharya, " I am far from pretending to equal you either 
in enlightenment, or power of argument; but as regards our 
religion, I have partly explained it, and, if you wish it, I am 
ready to do so farther." " Well, we have gained something," 
remarked Blancombe, "if it has appeared, either from reason, 
or from your own sacred books, that as God is one, so truth is 
one, and that the tendency of mankind hereafter will be both to 
improvement in other things, and also to unity in the knowledge 
of God." 

" Before we go farther," asked Sadananda, " should not the 
stranger tell us what he thinks of the systems which he has 
heard expounded, and since he agrees partly with them all as 
opposed to the Charvacas, which of the three he prefers?" 
"You mean," said Blancombe, "which of the three I prefer 
in itself, apart from the authority of the sacred books?" " Pre 
cisely so," replied the other. "Whether then am I quite 
justified in making such an attempt?" said Blancombe, hesi 
tatingly, and half to himself. " For many things about the 
Deity may appear to our feeble capacity strange, which yet if 
taught us upon proper authority, we could not venture to deny. 
It is true that any immorality in a doctrine would shock the 
conscience, and self-contradiction would repel the reason; and, 
according to my own argument, our mental perceptions have 
quite as great authority to persuade, as our sight or hearing. So 
that there may be inherent in a religion a sort of internal evidence 
of its truth, so far as it is good or the contrary. Still, if I re 
flect, how inadequate all our faculties must be to comprehend 
the Infinite Being from whom they came, and how negative our 
ideas become, either of mind as a thinking principle, or of spirit 
as a creative power, the moment we attempt to describe their 
character, instead of contenting ourselves with asserting their 
reality, then I must confess that any uncovering of Himself by 
the Deity would easily outweigh all our refined speculations ; and 



160 



ASPECTS OF BUDDHISM. 



I am half inclined to wait for some command to believe, instead 
of determining beforehand what is believable. There are, how 
ever, limits to this predisposition in favour of assent; since the 
laws of thought, or what perhaps my friends here might call the 
spiritual limits applicable to mind, seem to give us a primary 
revelation of God, which, as coming from himself, we may be 
confident he will not set aside. I particularly hesitate," he con 
tinued, now raising his voice, "as to offering any criticism upon 
the doctrines of our pious friend the Saugata Muni. For he 
appeals expressly to the authority of Sakya or Gotama, though 
he considers him as an aspirant in the course of human develop 
ment, rather than as a divine revealer. Now, certainly, there 
are parts of this Bauddha doctrine, which would not be incre 
dible in themselves, if the authority which guaranteed them to 
us were sufficient; as for instance, that more than one agent 
may co-exist in the same Divine Being, and again, that one who 
lived in the weakness of humanity, sin only excepted, may now 
be exalted so as to be our representative of Deity, and a proper 
object of worship. Then, again, as to miracles, or acts of 
preternatural power, if they were also acts of goodness and 
beneficence, I see no objection to admitting them as divine 
credentials ; and, again, that religious doctrines may be ex 
pressed in writing, or even important facts recorded in books, 
by men under the influence of a divine teaching, so that they 
may hand down after death the truths with which they were 
inspired, appears to me highly credible, and indeed only a result, 
such as spiritual feeling, which we ascribe, like you, to heavenly 
grace, would naturally produce, when once brought in contact 
with the practical understanding of mankind, which we also 
ascribe to divine providence. If the words of any living teachers 
were worth listening to, their writings after death will be about 
equally so. Then, again, it must be fully allowed, that the 
spread of the Bauddha faith by the innocent means of missions 
and preaching, may stand for one of the most remarkable facts 
in the history of the world. 



DIFFICULTIES OF BUDDHISM. 161 

" When, however, we ask, what was the authority of Gotama, 
very great difficulties arise in the way of proving it satisfactorily. 
In the first place, if we examine the miracles you have alluded 
to, I certainly have read extraordinary things in the Mahawansa, 
but they are of a kind which repels rather than persuades me. 
For instance, Mahinda, as the missionary of Ceylon, is said to 
have travelled through the air ; and something similar is related 
of his predecessor Gotama. Certain demons, or Yakkas, are 
represented as shivering around the Bauddha teacher, and as 
being alternately terrified and pitied by him. Then there are 
certain alliances of a strange kind. There is a king, for ex 
ample, married to a female Yakka ; I mean Vigaya ; and per 
haps one ought not to wonder at his marriage being strange, 
since his descent was extraordinary; for he is made the grand 
son, I think, of a lion. Then, probably, you remember strange 
stories about serpents; and how a king, called Susunaga, ob 
tained his name from a serpent s watching over him, and being 
frightened (Su, Su) by the people of the city. You may, in 
deed, object, that I am quoting from a Ceylonese book, of some 
what less authority than your Nepaulese Sutras, or the three 
Pitakas. But so far as I have seen the Sutras, they also abound 
in stories of a marvellous kind; or at least the legends of Sakya s 
birth and life, of his contest at Sravasti, and general career, are 
different from ordinary history; but this is implied in your own 
appeal to miracles. 

" Now, of all such narratives we may say generally, that if 
they are brought within the range of that Sankhya philosophy 
which you praise, their credibility will be in danger. For men 
moving through the air, and sitting on fiery cushions in the 
midst of demons, and princesses marrying lions, are effects 
which would not be contained in any cause with which we are 
acquainted. You do not find such things happen now-a-days, 
because in fact there are no causes in nature likely to produce 
them. Why then should they ever have happened? If a 
supernatural power introduces a new cause we may expect an 

M.P. 11 



162 UNSATISFACTORY MIRACLES. 

extraordinary effect; and you have ingeniously remarked, that 
there is no reason why the Deity should not teach mankind 
often. But first, this argument from supposition of the Divine 
interference is somewhat less open to you, venerable Muni, than 
to people in general ; since you are not strongly convinced of 
there being a Deity, and if there be, you think he suffers Nature 
to take care of herself. The more then you fall back upon mere 
nature, the more imperatively are you bound, by the Sankhya 
wisdom which you praise, to make all your assertions of results 
consistent with the most regular operation of causes clearly inhe 
rent in nature. 

" But secondly, if the Deity works wonders in order to teach, 
we cannot doubt that such wonderful lessons will be instructive ; 
they will have something in them calculated to teach men. 
Whereas, except so far as some of the stories in the Pitakas may 
tend to magnify the personal renown of Gotama, the wonders 
I have alluded to in your books have in general no moral 
meaning ; they do not set forth the connexion of human suffer 
ing with moral disorder, or shew the Divine mercy healing pain 
in proportion as it removes sin, or, in short, do anything but strike 
us as something extraordinary. Then why should our scrupulous 
friend Sadananda here believe effects to have arisen of which he 
finds no causes in nature? you say, because they are written in 
your books. Then, excepting only from my next remark those 
moral precepts which many believe to have made up the original 
Sutras, as containing the doctrine of Sakya, and supposing all 
those, so far as they were arranged at your first council, to be 
genuine, I must take a great objection to mere records of won 
derful incidents in books written confessedly some hundreds of 
years after the date of the supposed event. Such an interval of 
time is allowed in the case of the Cingalese Mahawansa, though 
I do not know how far in respect of some of the continental 
Pitakas. 

You will see how great a difficulty such a fact involves, if 
you consider the tendency of all stories to grow (especially if 



TRADITION AND INSPIRATION. 



163 



they are wonderful) in passing almost from one mouth to another. 
Mere oral tradition thus constantly expands itself even in a few 
hours, and in the course of a few years may do so indefinitely. 
How much more then in the interval of a century or two, when 
a whole generation has both caught from its father s lips all the 
expansions of their fancy, and had time to superadd those of its 
own ? Nor does your answer satisfy me, that your sacred books, 
although in some cases removed from the date of the events, 
were still written in the age of inspiration. For although we 
believe firmly that the Holy Spirit of God enlightens the mind 
of man, we yet observe such enlightenment to have its most 
proper sphere as regards heavenly things, or spiritual doctrines, 
rather than the record of earthly events ; and so far as it acts 
even upon this latter order of things, it does so by an extension 
of its purifying influence through the legitimate faculties of the 
understanding, rather than by setting them arbitrarily aside. 
For example, it would deepen a sacred writer s perception of 
the Divine dealings as shewn in earthly events, and by awaken 
ing in him a more reverential attention would also fortify his 
powers of memory, and perhaps might act in other ways of this 
kind. But as to any dream, that events which have happened 
in former generations of men are first suffered to be forgotten, 
and then revealed over again in circumstantial particularity in 
order to be recorded in writing, I have as yet found no clear 
instance of such a revelation in the history of mankind any 
where, and shall never admit it except upon very clear proof. 
For, hitherto, in proportion as any one has preferred on behalf 
of sacred books claims of this latter kind, either error or impos 
ture has been found to prevail. Pardon me if I point out to 
yourself what a learned man (Mr Tumour) has shewn in refer 
ence to the Mahawansa. He there finds a prediction by Gotama 
of the conversion of Ceylon to the Bauddha faith. This book 
was written for Ceylon. But on referring to the continental 
Pitakas the whole passage containing that prediction does not 
occur. If it does, you can shew it me now. But if it does not, the 

112 



164 THE ODYSSEY IN CEYLON. 

inference becomes too clear, that the prophecy was one inserted 
after the event, not having been in the original books. Con 
sider also that very curious story of Vigaya marrying the female 
Yakka. His companions have been bewitched by her. He by 
wisdom and firmness resists her blandishments, until with drawn 
sword he has both compelled their deliverance, and extorted 
from her a sacred oath of true alliance. Now all this story is 
not written in Ceylon until about 440 years after your first 
council (or as we should say, about 104 B.C.), whereas it had 
been sung in heroic verse among the Yavanas some eight 
hundred years earlier, being in fact an episode of the Odyssey. 
Now you may urge, I cannot prove that the Greek bard did 
not get the groundwork of his story from India; but you will 
observe, even if he did, the author of the Mahawansa is still 
necessarily wrong in placing the transaction so near his own 
time as the life of Vigaya, who preceded Mahinda by only three 
generations. Such an error in time must be considered as con 
firming the mistrust which the marvellous character of the story 
is itself calculated to inspire ; not to mention, what some critics 
would say, that the Greek poet was perhaps the inventor, and 
the Bauddha annalist a borrower." Here Wolff, interposing, 
said, " That would be precisely my own opinion." " But, how 
ever that maybe," resumed Blancombe, "you see, my friend, 
the difficulty of asking persons so scrupulous as your half ally 
Sadananda to believe miracles ascribed to Sakya, on the strength 
of any inspiration which has first to be proved of books written 
long after his time. 

" Here then it is impossible to avoid a doubt, how far stories 
of the kind alluded to may have been exaggerated by error, or 
by the overgrowth of later times. This suspicion will haunt 
us more, if we see reason to believe that the very doctrine and 
practices of Sakya have undergone some change. From what you 
have yourself told us, and from what I recollect of other accounts, 
Sakya appears to have been impressed with the transitoriness of 
all earthly things, and indignant at the exclusiveness practised 









SA KYA BAUDDHA SCRIPTURES. 165 

by the Brahmanical priesthood. Hence he threw open the doors 
of his religion to every caste ; and although it is disputed how far 
he acknowledged an Adi Buddha in some such reserved manner 
as yourself, it is clear that his faith had no artificial order of 
priesthood. His very word for religious rites, I have been told, 
was P&jd, or worship, as distinct from the older Brahmanic 
Yqjna, or sacrifice. Thus he appears to have been a democrat in 
religion. Whereas, those successors of his who enjoyed the favour 
of king Asoca, or some who followed them, appear to have sought 
the transfer of sacerdotal dignities, rather than their annihilation. 
Thus their yellow-robed fraternity planted itself in the place of 
the Brahmans ; and the number of priests who came over, as 
soon as this transfer was affected, helped to change the character 
of your faith. At least, I conceive, the gentle nature of Sakya 
would be surprised at the pomp of yellow robes, and incense, 
and chants, with which your temples are now filled ; certainly, 
I think he would forbid the relics, consisting of his supposed 
bones, to be worshipped ; and in many things, if Sakya was a 
Divine teacher, you have need to return to the first principles of 
his faith. To myself it appears probable, that as his practices 
have been changed, so the story of his life has been magnified." 
" But," here the Saugata threw in a reply, " you would not 
retain that supposition, if it appeared that our sacred books were 
arranged by the early councils of our Church, before any such 
developments as you conceive to be corruptions had taken place 
in our practice." " In that case," answered Blancombe, "part 
of my objection would be removed; for wonderful events are 
better attested the nearer competent witnesses stand to them." 
" Well, but you know," rejoined the Saugata, " our Pitakas, 
were arranged at the very first council, in the year when Buddha 
entered on his blessedness." " On that account," resumed the 
other, "I feel compelled to admit the probability that such 
books give a sufficiently faithful account of the original doctrine 
of Buddha; but I have been alluding to the case of interpo 
lations, and of wonderful stories in books of a later date. Now, 



166 BUDDHISM HARDLY ORIGINAL. 

if we examine that doctrine of your teacher Buddha, or Sakya, 
or Gotama, in its authorised records, has it such a character of 
novelty as to deserve properly the name of a revelation ? You 
scarcely yourself affirm that it has." "Pardon me," said the 
Saugata, " we call Sakya the intelligent, or rather the en 
lightened, (Buddha,) in order to denote the fulness of Buddha- 
hood, or Divine intelligence, which came upon him, as I have 
partly explained." " Yes," answered Blancombe, " and so the 
professors of any religion may consider Divine enlightenment 
necessary in order to apprehend spiritually their acknowledged 
truths ; but that is a different sort of enlightenment, or at least 
is generally conceived to be so, from the one which commu 
nicates truths not previously known. For example, the A charya 
has appealed to the Vedas as the doctrinal standards of his faith, 
but yet he has spoken of Divine grace as necessary to each 
believer; and I apprehend most Christians to make generally 
the same sort of distinction. Am I not right, my lord," con 
tinued Blancombe, here turning to his elder friend Mountain. 
" Certainly," replied the other, " the revelation of a new truth 
to the world, and a revealing to each person of grace to appre 
hend that truth, are distinct things." " Well," resumed Blan 
combe, when we ask what was that doctrine which Sakya 
taught, and in virtue of which he claimed to be a Divine teacher, 
we find it very much the same as the Sankhya philosophy. 
If at least we were to take the old maxims of this meditative 
sect, and superadd to them a certain devout contemplation of the 
IL oga kind, we should have the original of Sakya as a founder 
of a religion, sufficiently explained. We should have a devout 
mystic endeavouring to raise himself by contemplation and 
benevolence above the illusions of this transitory world, while 
also he would possess in his philosophy a weapon keen enough 
to assail the received religion of his contemporaries. You will 
observe, I am not denying the personal virtue of the man ; and 
we may admit that the rapid progress of his religion was due to 
something good in it ; a re-action, as it were, of spiritualised 



SA NKHYA PSYCHOLOGY. 167 

humanity against the zealous sacerdotalism of the Brahmans. 
There is no longer, however, so much as a shadow of a pretence 
for considering the system of Sakya as an original downdropth 
from Heaven; and the very possibility of its having Divine 
authority at all depends upon whether your theory is correct, 
that nature or humanity can develope themselves, either by 
prayers or otherwise, into a kind of Divine enlightenment. But 
such a theory is the offspring of the Sankhya philosophy. I 
shall, therefore, do you no injustice in classing you with our 
wise friend Sadananda, and in considering both your theories 
as one. Or rather, I will look at the offshoot in its stem. 

" Notwithstanding many things which puzzle me in this 
Sankhya system, it contains some which rather attract me. At 
least, I am not startled disagreeably by the subdivision of man into 
different parts which are called the gross and the subtile person, 
and the latter of which we are said to carry about with us into 
different forms of existence, though it consists, like the grosser, 
of matter, but of matter in most subtile and primary form ; for 
in such a doctrine, when it is coupled with the idea of a soul 
entirely distinct from matter, I recognise a sort of confession of 
the truth, that the personality of Man would not exist as a whole, 
nor what we call humanity be entire, without two elements. 
Thus, in one respect you, Sadananda, seem to be nearer the truth 
than either the Vedantine reasoner, who resolves everything into 
spirit, or any one, on the other hand, who approaches nearer to 
the Charvacas, by making man consist only of sensuous body. 
Whatever our souls may be, there seems some reason in your 
belief that the consciousness we have of ourselves as a whole in 
cludes an organic development, or a balance of powers depending 
partly on the play of those natural forces around us, which yet we 
hesitate to call part of ourselves. Perhaps then you here supply 
an escape from a difficulty which some have keenly felt as re 
gards the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body. It 
is the creed of Christians, that not only their souls will live, but 
their bodies be raised again. Some ingenious persons, who 



168 RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY. 

think the immortality of the soul probable enough, have still 
cavilled at the resurrection of the flesh, as thinking it too humble 
and gross a conception ; but if, as you say, the soul is so distinct 
in its kind from every particle of earth, that we cannot even con 
ceive of ourselves as human beings, nor be what we are without 
some combination which is developed out of matter, and enables 
us to apprehend things material as we do, then it will be clear 
that any restoration of our full identity in a new life will require 
the revival of this sensuous companion of the soul ; and as you 
see no difficulty in the conception of this subtile person s being- 
revived, so the Christian doctrine of the body which was sown 
corruptible being raised incorruptible, and therefore in some way 
spiritualised, turns out not to have been a gross conception, but a 
profoundly refined one. So far I have therefore to thank you 
for a sort of confirmation of a Christian doctrine. 

" Again, I am still more pleased to find you acknowledge so 
decidedly the immortal soul of man as something distinct in 
itself, not dependent on things earthly, and not liable to death, 
nor yet flowing out of an undefined source of spirit, but as indi 
vidual and immortal. The careful way in which you isolate this 
soul from any combinations or processes of matter has also an 
interest for my mind, as recalling somewhat the language of 
St Paul, an apostle of Jesus, and a bishop of his Church. For 
he also confesses that there was a something in him by which 
he was affected with passionate feelings, and which he disliked 
to call himself; yet without which his consciousness of his own 
being would have been other than it actually was ; yet, again, 
inside he had a deeper something which he felt to be more truly 
himself, and which consented to the law of Eight, though yet his 
whole being did not, but was at variance. I delight, he says, 
in the law of God after the inner man ; but I find another law 
in my members*. Only there was one difference between your 
doctrine and that of the apostle. You wish the soul to be re 
minded of her distinctness until she becomes indifferent not 

* Epistle to the Romans. 



RESPONSIBILITY SEAT OF AGENCY. 169 

merely to the events of the outer world, but also, if I understand 
you aright, to the very actions of the entire man. Whereas 
St Paul wishes that inner being, in virtue of which he says, I, 
to suffer patiently losses or wrongs, as things both imposed on him 
by a Heavenly Father, and also as of little import to one who 
expected an eternal inheritance; as regards all actions, however, 
his feeling is very different; he does not attempt to persuade 
himself that whatever he does is the blind doing of Pracriti, in 
such a sense as to make him not personally responsible for it. 
On the contrary, he blames himself for whatever in his per 
formance comes short of the idea on which he has fixed the eye 
of his mind. Here then is a difference as to which I could wish 
you to reconsider your doctrine. For although you call the soul 
puruslia, and perhaps rightly, as if it were more truly ourself ; 
yet if we are only conscious of our entire personality, or, in fact, 
only become men in virtue of a sensuous though subtile orga 
nism, it will seem to follow that whatever we do as one being we 
may suffer for as one. Remorse, shame, and despair may ac 
company our humanity revived in some new world, for the actions 
it either was guilty of, or suffered itself to be betrayed into, while 
it lived here. So far then I do but partially agree with your 
doctrine about the soul; nor indeed is the fitness of rendering 
the soul indifferent to moral actions a doctrine agreeable to the 
sacred books for which you profess not to have shaken off your 
reverence. Perhaps you will consider whether the human con 
science, if properly cultivated, and the very instinct of right and 
wrong which the soul displays, if she is truly educated, instead 
of misguided, would not make your doctrine here nearer to St 
Paul, and also make it more consistent with itself. 

" It seems to me rather extraordinary that you should make 
knowledge in the highest sense reside in the soul, but agency 
generally in the body as a product of Pracriti. For surely it is 
clear that where there is knowledge there is power, or, as an old 
proverb says, to ken is to can. For although by power some 
men may mean brute force, we know that such things yield to 



170 SOUL AND DEITY PARTLY CORRELATIVES. 

contrivance, which comes of sagacity and mental perception. 
I cannot therefore admit it to be reasonable that Pracriti should 
be said to do everything and yet be ignorant, while soul is said 
to know everything and yet to be impotent these two concep 
tions do not well agree. 

" But now, what surprised me most in your system, as it 
seemed also to shock the A charya, is this. You give the human 
body a soul, but you are not convinced that the vast frame of 
the world has any supreme soul, except so far as forms of power 
and intelligence may have been developed out of the sea of life, 
like other productions of nature. You made it clear that the 
beings you call gods should be described as having souls ; but 
still you represent their divine personality, in so far as they are 
objects of worship, to be entirely a transitory thing, since it is an 
efflux of nature, and everything except soul must pass away. It 
does not in the least console me, that you talk of such vast periods 
of time ; for how do I know they will be so long ? or who told 
you anything about them ? I certainly could have wished you 
would have persuaded our Vedantine friend that each human 
soul is distinct in itself, as we believe; and that he in turn would 
persuade you to believe in Deity as the Highest Soul, and that 
Deity exists at least as independently of nature, as primaeval 
before her life, and as eternal throughout her every change or 
annihilation, as you conceive the human soul to be in relation to 
our body. Seriously, I would ask, can you think the soul of 
man so godlike as to have life in itself, and to survive easily 
any multitude of bodies until finally it exists as soul, though not 
as humanity, apart from flesh or blood; and do you think the 
supreme Deity could have no being apart from earthly shapes, 
or the moulding of nature ? 

" You say that an independent Deity could have no induce 
ment to create a world ; but can we easily limit the range over 
which either the ambition, or the beneficence, or the desire to 
expand himself in any way, of even an ordinary human being 
may extend? One might as well argue that Alexander of 



MOTIVES OF CREATOR. 171 

Macedon, or Mahmnd of Ghazni, having Greece and Afghanistan 
to dwell in, could never have wished to overrun India. Yet the 
first is said to have wept for another world to conquer, and the 
history of the second I need not remind you of. But surely 
beneficence is with good men as strong a passion as the love of 
conquest is with kings. You see instances of it sufficiently in 
your own missionaries, such as those of the Baudclhas formerly, 
or in the life of Sancara who went about teaching. How can we 
venture, then, in either modesty or soundness of mind, to say 
that an Intelligence which must be to all others nothing less than 
the aggregate of worlds is to a peasant s cottage, can have the 
range of its beneficence restricted, or the depths of its motives 
fathomed, by guesses which our ignorance makes in the dark ? 
Pray observe, that the motives of any supreme Mind creating 
and ordering the universe would, from the necessity of the case, 
transcend our comprehension. On my theory, therefore, I am 
not bound to explain the divine motives ; for they may have been 
either any out of many such as may be piously attributed to an 
Object of the highest reverence, or they might even be of a kind 
beyond our conjecture. Having once reached the footstool of a 
Supreme Father, I can most reasonably believe His will a mys 
tery, and acknowledge a point beyond which I despair of pushing 
the inquiry, yet without, on that account, being vanquished in 
our great argument ; whereas, upon your theory of nature, you 
are bound to explain everything. If science would prove the 
world to have been made by ignorance, or by itself, she must 
shew how either of them made it. Take, for example, that pri 
mary plastic matter of yours, which I can compare to nothing 
but infinite quicksilver, but which you describe as a sort of ubi 
quitous fluid, and as being in fact the bubbling seed of life. 
Much more I ask, as even the greatest of physical inquirers have 
asked, where did such a fluid get its motive ? could it even be 
moved at all, if law as the result of design or thought did not 
underlie its movements ? You will readily admit that it moves 
in subjection to certain rules, and that however truly all the 



172 LAW, THOUGHT, CHANCE, 

forms of matter may perhaps be resolved back into one primary 
fluid, that fluid has at least been varied into a thousand forms of 
life, according to the conditions under which it has moved. 
There has been heat melting, cold condensing, liquid flowing, 
lightness flying up, and gravity tending downward these things 
are not more facts historically, than the order in which they are 
on the whole arranged is metaphysically a thought. Indeed, 
I humbly conceive, metaphysically, that it would not be possible 
to trace back the process by thought, unless its arrangement, in 
fact, had been orderly, and such as proceeds from design. For 
if ever you arrive at things which are literally the work of chance, 
though it is not very easy to find such, no one then ventures 
to predict an order, or attempts to trace one. Thus, as to which 
of the myriad drops of salt water will wet each grain of sand on 
the shore we give no account, for it seems to be chance ; but the 
great body of the tide we predict, and that seems to be law. 
The same remark of the utter uncertainty of pure chance may 
often be made as to the units, even when we have no doubt as to 
the aggregate. Thus we do not know which pigeon out of a 
flock will get a particular grain of corn when we throw a handful 
at random, though we may be certain the corn will be all eaten, 
and the pigeons in the mass fed. I have, in talking to Dr Wolff, 
already glanced at the idea of fixed proportions, according to 
which the primary forms into which we actually trace nature 
become combined together. If all these are evolutions, as you 
suppose, of one indissoluble fluid, they must have been evolved 
out of it, on some law of combination equally implying arrange 
ment. Again, it seems a favourite theory with some of us, that 
time is the mental order of events, and space the capacity of 
arranging objects. So far as I at all understand* such an imagi 
nation, it seems very consistent with my argument for a creative 
mind, though not perhaps necessary to it. For just as time 
would be nothing to us if we did not notice it and devise ways 
of marking it, so that, in fact, we create human time by thinking 

Confiteor tibi, Domine, me nescire adhuo quid sit tempus. St Augustine. 



IDEA, MIND MORAL FITNESS. 173 

about it, and imprint it as an order upon our lives, thus the 
absolute idea of time would perhaps be an impossibility if the 
Highest Spirit had not designed an order, and marked out a suc 
cession either of causes and effects, or of days and nights and 
seasons in which events should happen. Similarly, I suppose 
the absolute idea of space implies a potential arrangement of 
objects by the creative spirit. What shall we say then? If 
time and space, and I suppose similarly many such mental clas 
sifications, such as causation, and gravitation, and combinations 
of number, are quite necessary in order to enable us to understand 
the world we live in, which, without them, would be a confused 
chaos yet all these in their largest reality, which has certainly 
something external to ourselves, imply an eternal thought as the 
only thing which can give them substantiality have not we 
already an Eternal Spirit as the Creator of all things standing 
out as visibly to the eye of the mind, as the world itself does to 
our bodily sense ? Not but that an easier answer to those who 
doubt of a creative Iswara may be drawn for people in general 
out of special instances of design, to some of which I may pre 
sently refer; but to you, who en* rather by boldness than 
timidity in your metaphysical speculations, some such argument 
as the above from thought shewing itself as law in the creation, 
may be properly addressed, and ought to be convincing. Per 
haps you will permit me to remind you here of your own argu 
ment for the distinct existence of soul. I did not, when you 
used it, see why such an argument should convince you ; but 
was too glad of your conclusion on that point to quarrel much 
with your mode of arriving at it. You said, as there is a spec 
tacle in nature so there must be soul as a spectator. But why 
must or ought one thing to be rather than another? This in 
ference of yours implies moral fitness ; and it would be ridi 
culous to talk of fitness as regards the very nature of mun 
dane existences, without a Supreme Mind to settle, or at the 
very least to judge of it. For you did not mean fitness in the 
sense of a key fitting a lock, though even that would imply, as 



174 MORAL GOVERNOR CAUSES OF INCONSISTENCY. 

every one allows, some mental design ; but you meant fitness in a 
far more delicate and truly spiritual sense, of the correspondence 
between two things being such as to recommend the plan for 
admiration, or even its possibility for credence. Consider what 
far higher conditions of mental thought this latter problem in 
volved ; and then tell me whether your theory did not uncon 
sciously assume a moral governor, even while you professed to 
deny one. At least there seems to have been here a practical 
inconsistency in your argument. It is true that others whose 
wisdom is based on piety often reason from the fitness of our ex 
pectation as regards the moral government of the world to the 
probability of future events on the grandest scale ; but then the 
instincts which lead them to do so seem to be a testimony which 
God has planted in their mind of his own great being, and either 
a kind of faith, or at least a foundation on which a more perfect 
faith may be built. You, however, are open to the sneer of 
Dr Wolff on this point ; since there is no reason why the drama 
of the world s history should be wrought out in goodness unless 
its Author and Exhibitor be good. 

" But now, if any one were to ask me why you, in spite of 
all your wisdom, are betrayed into inconsistencies almost as 
great as those of the Charvacas, for you in effect put matter 
before mind, and the thing made before the Maker, as they do, 
I should answer that perhaps the reasons are chiefly these. 
Both you, and all other Hindu thinkers on these subjects for I 
may now include the venerable Vidyacharya are very desirous 
of carrying your inquiries about the Deity to the most subtile 
point of refinement. You observe with great justice that none 
of the phenomena of nature give an adequate representation of 
one whom we can suppose to be their author. He is neither 
Tempest, nor Fire, nor Ocean, nor Sun ; and though rude nations 
may have fancied the thunderbolt to be brandished by his hand, 
or the clouds to conceal his chariot, yet these and all other 
things in nature prove empty, the moment we search in them 
for the incommunicable signs of a right to our worship. For 






REFINING SUBTLETY VASTNESS OF SCALE. 175 

they all obey something higher or deeper, and have nothing 
which answers to our heart. Thus, although they "betray an 
order disposed by Divine wisdom, they shew no signs of par 
taking that very wisdom. One by one then we mentally separate 
from these things that which we believe to be very Deity. But 
the natural train of thought in such an investigation has been 
happily glanced at by the Saugata Muni. For thus at last there 
remains nothing in nature, that is, nothing we can touch, or 
hear, or see, by means of our bodily senses, which we either 
dare or condescend to address with prayer. To what then shall 
we liken our God ? The mind, which by its refinements seems 
to be ever removing Him farther and farther backward, despairs 
of perceiving what He is, and because it cannot describe the 
fashion of His being, becomes in danger of disbelieving its rea 
lity. Here, then, is a terrible error. For although the veil of 
the flesh prevents us from seeing what sort of thing is behind 
the scene of nature, we should not the less infer there is some 
thing just as the Bauddha infers a solid matter, or others would 
say, a combining principle, to underlie what we feel and see and 
handle in external objects, though these apprehensions on our 
own part may not be infallible clues to what the solid or essen 
tial and formative principle is in itself; so we must much more 
infer an eternal spirit to underlie what we conceive of spiritual 
things. Yet certainly it is not wonderful that the mere explorer 
of nature, being accustomed to measure things local, and weigh 
things solid, should not know where to place the more mysterious 
being of the Deity, and should therefore gradually lose sight of 
him. From the language used by the Saugata, I gathered that 
he did not wish to deny a Deity so much as to subtilise our 
conceptions of the Divine Being, by excluding as far as possible 
everything earthly. With that desire I so far sympathise as to 
go some way in that direction myself. If, however, something 
of vagueness thus creeps in around our idea of that great First 
Cause, which as yet perhaps we have not denied, we become in 
danger of obscuring it still more by apprehending the vastness 



176 MORE WORLDS, MORE SIGNS OF GOD. 

of the scale upon which all his doings are conducted. Here, 
indeed, is the second great peril of Hindu wisdom. You notice 
that the generations of living things have been by thousands 
such as no man can number. Perhaps, also, if something of 
European science is superadded, or if your own ancient astrono 
mers should have gone so far, you learn that the earth we tread 
is but one among innumerable worlds; and vast as it appears to 
our limited senses, must yet be reckoned by the gaze of science 
as only a speck in the immensity of all the starry worlds which 
exist around us. Thus you learn to talk of infinite periods of 
time, and of boundless worlds, and of cycles recurring as if it 
were without beginning or end. The mind then amazed, and 
as it were stupified by the extent of a scheme which it cannot 
grasp, is in danger of acquiescing in the mere order which it 
observes near it, or even fancies that because this order is large 
in relation to our weakness, there can therefore be nothing 
beyond it. Whereas, if our faculties were enlarged, as our 
horizon extended, we should find at last that the necessity of a 
Governor and Preserver to the utmost whole of all smaller circles 
is as real and vital as it appears to be to some child or to some 
simple old woman, who perceiving only a part of what science 
reveals, infers rightly that this part could not exist by itself, 
but must depend upon something higher, even as it is connected 
with something larger. We ourselves have heard Sadananda 
speak of Vishnu as preserving our world. But if this little 
speck of ours must be preserved by some intellectual being from 
falling into vague confusion, and undergoing physical or moral 
anarchy, how much more must the vast whole of space, and the 
infinite periods of time which belong to its career, require to be 
preserved and upheld by some supreme and eternal and all-em 
bracing Intelligence. If order in little things implies design, 
how much more in great ones. Multiply as much as you 
please in imagination the extent of space or time, you do not 
therefore lessen, but rather increase the necessity for that higher 
and deeper Being, without which they could not consist. The 



INFINITY, INFINITE MIND. 177 

mind truly disciplined will easily overleap therefore whatever 
interval of generations any sort of history may multiply, and 
ascend in thought to the great Father, without whom there 
could be no offspring. The Saugata Muni points out the cycles 
of water as it is generated in dew, or descends in rivers, or col 
lects itself in seas. Does he not then perceive, that these cycles 
depend upon our connexion with the heavenly "bodies. It is the 
sun which by its heat attracts the dews, and the moon which by 
the attraction of her substance lifts up the body of the tides, 
so that they proceed in order and by method, as if the designer 
of them had entered into covenant with mankind, that His pro 
vidence should not fail them, but afford daily proofs of His own 
wisdom, as well as marks by which we should shape our course, 
and take note of things by which life may be assisted. Now 
just as the earth depends on something higher, even so do we. 
Again, Sadananda speaks of infinite cycles, and here I am sorry 
to observe, that Vidyacharya, by the account which he gives of 
his preferential worship of Siva, appears too nearly to agree in 
considering creation in its largest sense as a vague infinity, with 
neither beginning nor end, but an eternal revolution of life and 
death. But do not you both perceive, that although a circle 
returns upon itself, yet every circle has a circumference? It 
has, therefore, a limit. Nor are our minds able to conceive of 
any circle, as a possibility, which is not thus defined, and which 
has not been drawn upon some design. But where there is 
design, there chance is excluded. Now if I was to say that the 
circle of all life and of all worlds has a circumference, I might 
appear either impious or unwise, in limiting the infinity of the 
Creator. But what shall we say If anything is designed, has 
it not so far at least a mental beginning ? and if anything attains 
its object, has it not so far an end ? Or do we believe the circle 
of space to be infinite for any other reason than because we also 
ascribe infinity to the Supreme Mind, which has disposed, and 
which therefore (if we consider it as an appearance) underlies it 
as its unseen Cause ? May we not then revert to that doctrine 
M. P. 12 



178 DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 

of Madhwa, which was before alluded to, and endeavour to clear 
up the controversy between him and Sancara ? Our most vener 
able friend here, as the follower of Sancara, whom he believes 
a true commentator on the Yedas, denies that the Deity has any 
Gunas, or qualities. I also agree with him, that we cannot 
piously ascribe any such limits to the Deity, as those of space 
or time, and whatever qualities we may venture to ascribe, 
should be in the way of reverential conjectures, and only attri 
buted as pious suppositions, rather than assumed to express the 
ineffable Being of the eternal I AM. But Madhwa says the 
Deity has all good qualities, though not bad ones. I humbly 
understand him also to say that the Deity is limited by such 
Gunas as are consistent with perfection, though not by others. 
Here, again, I agree with Madhwa, that nothing done by the 
Deity is done at random, or by caprice, but by wisdom. Is not 
then wisdom in itself a limitation ? for surely it excludes from 
its owner the arbitrariness of evil and, again, is not all per 
fection a Guna ? Would you then not agree with Madhwa, that 
the Deity is Saguna, or limited by excellence, supposing in 
turn he should concede to you, that the Deity is Nirguna, in 
the sense of our not being able to ascribe to Him any of the 
limitations of passion and darkness which fetter us creatures of 
an hour? I have some hope of your agreeing with him and 
with me so far, since I observed that you contend against Sada- 
nanda for the full certainty and correctness of that revelation of 
the Deity which you believe to be contained in the Vedas. For 
I need not explain to you, there could be no certainty in any 
revelation, unless it were certain that the Deity will abide by and 
make good that which He has revealed of Himself, whatever 
it may turn out to be. Agree therefore with us, that the Deity 
has Gunas, so far at least as to be bound by faithfulness, and 
by the truth of the declaration which He has made of Himself." 
Here Yidyacharya, appeared, as I understood, to give some kind 
of assent. Well, then," resumed Blancombe, " the Deity is 
not in such a sense infinite, as to be diffused in a vague atmos- 



TRANSCENDENCY. 179 

phere of shadowy immensity, but sufficiently positive and definite 
for us to trust in Him and pray to Him, and search after His 
truth, if haply we may find it. Having obtained this great 
practical concession, I am not anxious to push farther my own 
conception, which, however, appears to me not an unimproving 
one, of all space, however infinite it may appear to us, having 
still bounds in such a sense that it is all conceived and compre 
hended by the Supreme Mind which upholds it. There is, 
therefore, no infinity, except so far as He chooses perhaps of the 
volition of His divine wisdom to make it so. The worlds, there 
fore, throughout all space have metaphysical limits, inasmuch 
as they are subject to Providence, though whether in fact they 
have bounds of space, I confess myself not to know. For, on 
the other hand, I most freely concede to you, that whatever law 
of the Creator s wisdom may limit His creation or His doings, 
we cannot, except so far as He reveals it to us, compass it within 
the embrace of our faculties ; and as even our own thoughts run 
to and fro and forward and backward in space and time, without 
being limited by the detention of our bodies in one spot, or by 
the number of years and events which may intervene, much more 
the absolute Mind of the Supreme Foreseer and Governor must 
have infinite knowledge of things above and below, and of yes 
terday, to-day, and to-morrow. Nor dare I ascribe to Him any 
limits drawn from our conceptions in general, though His own wis 
dom may come forth assigning to Him the voluntary limit of law. 
" Indeed, that thought which Sadananda has started with 
reference to the Vedas, that they may contain sufficient truth for 
human guidance, though not the highest truth absolutely, may 
be applied fairly enough to my own argument. For though in 
a history of facts, which must have been in one way or another, 
we require strict correctness, and though a distinct revelation of 
truth is not to be explained away, yet it is probable enough that 
our conceptions of heavenly things may be so imperfect as to 
resemble them only by way of picture, and may be true relatively 
to us, inasmuch as they guide us adequately on our way, while 

122 



180 HINDU PASSIVENESS. 

yet the reality may in absolute truth be something transcending 
our thoughts, just as a mariner s chart serves to guide him, 
without representing to the eye the depth and majesty of the 
ocean. It seems, indeed, to be a necessary condition of exhibit 
ing on the stage of our apprehensions a Being properly infinite, 
that it should empty itself as it were of its glory by assuming 
limits, and being subjected in our thoughts to that without 
which we can hardly recognise life. Only, is it not still an act 
of reasonable faith to believe, that the unseen reality corresponds, 
not of course exactly, but sufficiently for our guidance, with the 
fashion of it which we have conceived ? It may be regulatively 
wholesome, though not speculatively adequate. 

" For example, I can thus imagine the divine agency in 
either creating or preserving may differ much from what we 
term action in man. Yet I would not, therefore, lose sight of 
the idea of a divine agent, or an Iswara, properly so called. All 
the Hindu theories I have ever heard, either now, or on former 
occasions, appear tinged with that love of quietude which is 
characteristic of your people, as well as by the refinement already 
spoken of. Both Sadananda in what he said of the soul, and 
others in reasoning about the Deity, seem to think it would be 
a degradation or a misery for any immortal being to be actively 
employed. Hence you leave neither the soul nor the soul s 
great Author anything but the passive enjoyment of extreme 
tranquillity. Not such, however, is the conception of happiness, 
which either men or nations would frame in their vigorous prime. 
I will not argue the point from pictures which Northern nations 
have imagined of gods delighting in war and the chase ; for you 
would smile at them as inspirations of the blood rather than of 
the soul. Yet consider a little what sort of man is considered 
noblest, whether one who lives in passive enjoyment, even of a 
harmless kind, or one who serves his generation by undergoing 
peril, or achieving exploits, even at the cost of pain?" " Every 
one will admit the second is the nobler," said Sadananda, after 
a little pause. "Then consider," said Blancombe, "what part 



WHY NOT ACTIVITY? 181 

of our lives we look "back upon with most pleasure. I believe, 
at least, so far as I can judge or observe, it is not the hours of 
ease, but the day of toil, or even of peril, and in general the 
scene of some duty well performed, which the mind lingers upon 
with instinctive satisfaction." " That may be so," said Sada- 
nanda. " But certainly," proceeded Blancombe, " no one doubts 
which is most useful to mankind, for we all acknowledge that 
the active man benefits both his family and his country, while 
the indolent, in so far as his example is followed, becomes the 
ruin of everything. Supposing then beneficence to be an attri 
bute of the Deity, I should doubt whether we do wisely in ima 
gining the divine happiness to consist in a listless quietude. 
For if honour, inward satisfaction, and thanksgiving, belong- 
most to the active, why should we remove from the Deity either 
these things or their cause? Yet please to understand me as 
not speaking of exertion, but of agency. 

" I should agree with you in not imagining the Highest 
Being as painfully toilsome, but I see no reason for conceiving 
of him as helpless. On the contrary, it is not mere power which 
would command our homage, so much as the purposing agent. 
There are many physical things in the world about us more 
powerful than man. An elephant is stronger, a volcano and a 
storm more terrible, and the sea more ample; perhaps, too, a 
steam-engine may be called more useful ; but no one of them 
engages our respect or veneration so much as a man who acts 
justly and beneficently. 

" Perhaps we may consider thus what a good action implies : 
it has moral purpose in designing ; it has intelligence in adapt 
ing ; it has skill in performance. But the Being who exhibits 
these virtues, would be nobler than one absorbed in Nirvana. 
As regards action, therefore, on the whole, I am inclined to say 
something like what Madhwa would probably have said : we 
must not ascribe to the Deity actions in such a sense as they are 
limited and tinged by human imperfection, but we may piously 
ascribe to Him an infinite life of agency in all wisdom, justice, 



182 ACTIVITY OF INTELLIGENCE. 

and beneficence, such as calls for humble adoration and obedience 
with thanksgiving. Two remarks only I would add on this 
point, that agency such as proceeds through the instrumentality 
of intelligence or providence is both the noblest in itself of all 
that we can conceive, or at least more so than any activity of 
physical force, and also such is the most consistent with that 
refinement of speculation, which you love, respecting the 
subtile and eminently spiritual nature of the Supreme Being. 
Again, it seems to follow from the very idea of agency that it 
presupposes an agent. For though in a steam-engine, for example, 
you have force, yet you have not properly agency. Thus for 
our Parameswara we clearly require a Being as personally in 
telligent and as sovereign by way of design, in His relation to the 
blind forces of nature, as the maker or guide of a steam-engine 
is in relation to the material force which he directs, and of whose 
instrumentality he avails himself to do his pleasure, yet doing 
so according to fixed laws. Moreover I think we need not fear 
to ascribe to Him agency in some such sense as I have mentioned, 
since to act is the property of those beings whom we instinctively 
reckon highest in this world, and to act well or beneficently 
excites veneration. Only if any one chooses to insist more on 
the possibly transcendent character of all divine agency, as 
being probably beyond our conceptions, I have no objection, so 
long as thereby he exalts the reality instead of lowering it. He 
may consider the process to be as subtile or as refined as he 
pleases, only he must not altogether take it away. Perhaps it 
may help him to retain his belief in it, if I remind him, that 
the more eminently the Deity works by intelligence, or anything 
higher, the more silent and mysterious will be the moving 
springs of His operation. It is only brute force that betrays 
itself by effort ; pure mind is able to produce effects which strike 
us, without thrusting its very finger as it were before our eyes. 
For some such reason, I suppose, the divine agency, though clearly 
inferred by the understanding, is witnessed only by faith, and 
not by sight. 



DIVINE RETRIBUTION. 183 

" Again, what I have to suggest to you on the twin subjects 
of judgment and of moral retribution will be something of the 
same kind as what has just been said. When mankind punish 
criminals, they frequently do so, either from revenge, that is the 
desire of inflicting pain in return, or else from fear of suffering 
again ; but yet we recognise a justice in the punishment of crime 
apart from those somewhat selfish motives ; and we also consider 
that justice to be most perfect in proportion as the Judge is 
least affected by any such working impulses, and deals out his 
sentence according to the merits of the case in righteousness. 
We do not then suppose the Deity to judge or punish, as being 
warped by any such selfish passion or fear; but yet the con 
science of all mankind points by its forebodings to the fitness 
of a recompense for actions, even when they have been secret 
from man. The course of this world confirms such forebodings, 
to a considerable extent, by the unhappiness which in a thousand 
ways of natural consequence waits upon guilt ; and where ex 
ceptional cases appear of what seems to be an escape on part of 
the guilty, we shew by remarking such cases that they are 
contrary to what is usual, or to what we consider fitting. Perhaps 
we know not how rare they are, for the punishment in sore 
stripes of soul may be as secret from us in some cases as guilt 
is in others. Perhaps again, those general tendencies which we 
observe stamped on the course of this world for guilt to produce 
misery, may in some future life be more fully and in every case 
carried out, and justice deal its abundant doom. Our friend 
Vidyacharya has told us that he thinks inequality and suffering 
in another life are the appointed penalties of sin in a former 
one. Sadananda too speaks of the abode of Yama, and of 
witnesses to every portion of our life, and of dread avengers to 
come. Only it is obvious that he does not ascribe such 
sentences to the original providence of any supreme and creative 
Iswara. Even Vidyacharya too appears to think such assign 
ment of doom not consistent with the serene beatitude which he 
considers the lot of the praecreative Brahm. But why all this 



184 DIVINE RETRIBUTION. 

imaginary intervention of inferior beings, unless it is that you 
are afraid to lower the Supreme Being by making him cognisant 
of such things ? May it not then be reasonably suggested, that 
the justice of the most High God may be free from the trammel 
of every imperfection such as clings to man, and yet be from 
everlasting to everlasting, without disturbance of passion, but 
wise in fore-ordaining, calm in observing, and mercifully inex 
orable in suffering the wicked to eat by way of natural conse 
quence the fruit of their own doings. I can imagine no other 
Being to whom the train of moral consequences in the Creation 
can be so reasonably ascribed, as to the Creator. I do not lessen, 
but rather magnify Him, by deeming Him to excel in that 
justice without some element of which no human being is other 
than contemptible ; yet I am far from saying that our mental 
conception of justice is better than a faint picture of that which 
probably is bound up in the eternal Being of the Most High. 
It is not anger I ascribe to Him ; not indignation at mistakes ; 
nor such disproportionate judgments of the true value of com 
plicated actions, varying as they do in all their circumstances 
of knowledge and intention, as we often find sully the sentences 
of man ; but that calmness of justice, which by way of image 
you may assimilate, if you please, to your fancied Nirvana, but 
to which you must leave as it were the unsleeping eye, and an 
obedience of all powers in earth and heaven having the effect 
of a thousand swords in an ever outstretched arm. Truly His 
thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways. 
Often perhaps, as we would willingly hope, He may choose to 
reclaim by mercy, where man in the paucity of his resources 
would have had no remedy but to strike. Yet 7 considering how 
much greater offences are when committed against the greatest 
of benefactors than Avhen against any ordinary person, we must 
expect the justice of the Deity, when it strikes the irreclaimable, 
to be terrible in its stroke. Perhaps also, as regards the interests 
of mankind, we require even from the love of our Universal 
Father some security for retribution upon secret and injurious 



DIVINE RETRIBUTION. 185 

crimes, such as wicked men madly fancy they can escape the 
consequences of by stealth or by dying. Nor do I think we are 
without such security in the very framework of the world. For 
it has been already noticed, that the tendency of sin on this 
earth of ours is to produce suffering of some kind. But astro 
nomers also tell us, that the same law of gravitation which 
suspends our earth in its course about the sun, controls also 
the orbit, and upholds the substance of every world. Supposing 
then it were possible for any atheist or wicked person to pass by 
dying into another world, he would be within the range of the 
same physical law, and clearly therefore of the same moral 
justice from which he thought to escape. Whereas indeed it is 
probable that by putting off the veil of the flesh he would only 
pass into more naked and undisguised proximity to that clear 
Spirit, from which no secret is hid, and which here too is about 
our path and about our bed and spieth out all our ways, but 
which we apprehend most distinctly when our sensations no 
longer disturb us with the noises of earth, or dazzle us with the 
colours of an hour. I will not ask, what imagination can 
measure the horror, which the remorse of all evil memories when 
brought into clear contact with judicial purity may awaken in the 
distracted spirit; for you too agree with me that there is in 
some form a judgment to come ; only I could wish no metaphy 
sical refinement to embarrass you, as if it were not possible for 
God Himself to judge the world, and yet be free from every 
trammel which attends what men call justice. 

" Moreover, just as I hope some of your difficulties in be 
lieving what is justly credible may be removed by considering 
the difference between our conceptions of the Deity and the very 
realities which lie perhaps behind our thoughts, like some unseen 
substance which throws a shadow with but an imperfect resem 
blance of itself, so I think some of the doctrines which you or 
your allies have advanced imply an entire forgetfulness of this 
great distinction between what is true enough relatively to us, 
and what may be absolutely true in the external object. For 



186 WHAT IS CREATION BY "IGNORANCE?" 

example, the Acharya talks of the world s being made by Avidyd 
or ignorance. This singular way of speaking puzzled me exceed 
ingly, only that the Saugata explained it in part, and other por 
tions of your systems throw some light upon it. If, indeed, by 
Avidyd it were meant only that matter made the world, because 
matter may be called ignorance, just as mind is called intel 
ligence, that would be only another way of saying that Pracriti 
made it, which is the very theory we are gradually discovering 
to be so irrational ; but again, if it is meant that ignorance 
makes the world, I beg to ask whose ignorance ? You give me 
no answer ; and indeed, after what Vidyacharya has said about 
Maya, I could not expect one; but it is clear that he means 
our own ignorance, or that of mankind in general. All this mys 
tery about Avidya then means only that, if we are not mistaken 
in supposing the world to exist, we do not know, how it was 
made. Naturally, my friend, we do not ; but it does not hence 
follow that other and higher beings do not. This internal dark 
ness of ours does not call into existence an external and praa- 
mundane darkness which has the power too of creating light. 
Such an argument is just as if an Englishman who had never 
been in India were to exclaim on seeing Hindus, these men 
come out of ignorance, because he did not know the land from 
which they came. Yet the solid land of India, Bharata-varsha, 
as your wise men call it, would not the less exist, nor would 
the Englishman s ignorance be anything more than a name 
for his not knowing. Very much of the same kind, again, is 
your account of the soul s resolving back all creation, by me 
ditating upon it, into the primary and indissoluble element of 
Pracriti. For you mean only that the imagination can so fix its 
mental gaze on things as to see no longer their manifold variety 
of forms, but to take notice only of that primary principle which 
runs through all in common. Now such a meditation on our 
part may alter the look of things to us, but it makes no difference 
in the things themselves ; although if it did, I must confess to 
you the gain thereby is not to me so evident. For I had rather 



SA NKHYA DEFECT OF SCIENCE. 187 

see the world in all its beautiful variety of mountain and sea, and 
shrub and flower, than have it all resolved into some moveable 
fluid, which you say is blind, therefore it has not the wisdom of 
mind ; and is not separable into elements, therefore it has not the 
beauty of nature. Such a kind of liberation of the soul, in which 
I should see nothing but such a dull kind of universal quick 
silver, appears to me so far from being a victory worth striving 
for, that I would pray to avoid it as long as possible. But, in 
fact, it is clear, and I think some of your doctors admit, that the 
connexion of soul with nature in being will continue, so that the 
liberation turns out to be an imaginary one ; and you seem to 
me altogether to have overlooked the difference between concep 
tion and reality, or as people who make plain things hard in 
Europe would say, between the subjective and the objective. 

" The great calmness with which you listen to me encourages 
me to ask, Vhere after all is the science in that system of yours 
which professes to be so scientific ? You surely have lived near 
enough to the disciples of Gotama and Canada to learn that a 
mere illustration drawn from comparison between some points of 
resemblance, which may be either unreal or partial, has not the 
force of an argument which follows necessarily from proved 
sameness of being. Yet all your system seemed to me built 
upon such probability as may be drawn from illustrations, that 
is to say, upon mere comparison, which may be ever so fanciful. 
Again, there are in the Nyaya* logic careful distinctions be 
tween different kinds of causes, such as the material, the condi 
tional, and the instrumental. But you Sankhya philosophers 
appear to argue that every effect is involved in its cause, as 
the oil in the olive-seed ; therefore the world must have pre 
existed in Pracriti, as you say with Capila, and I suppose also 
the followers of Patanjali would, unless they evolve it out of 
their Supreme Soul, for I do not see that they attribute creation 
to their Iswara, though guidance f they do. Some affinity, or 

* Nydya Aphorisms, Parts u. and in., and Dr Ballantyne a Lecture, Allahabad, 
1853 54. -f- See Yorja Aphorisms, 22 25. 



188 SOUL AND WOULD NOT ACCOUNTED FOR. 

unacknowledged sympathy with your premises, appears so far to 
influence Vidya"charya that he too makes the world come in a 
way out of the very substance of God. 

" But I must here ask, in what sense are you using the words 
effect and cause ? for the wheelbarrow is not in the carpenter, nor 
is the statue in the sculptor, except so far as either may excogit 
ate his idea. You cannot mean that the material is in the agent, 
though Vidyacharya argued as if it were so. Nor yet should I 
understand that you find the effect in the instrument; for the 
sword-blade is not involved necessarily in the blacksmith s ham 
mer and anvil. Rather, I suppose, you mean that the capacity 
must be in the material, which again you confound with the 
instrumental. As regards the world, this is much as if you 
had said that the stream is in the source, or the plant in the 
seed ; for you have chosen here arbitrarily to exclude the sup 
position of agency. But then who told us that the world was 
a flux or a growth? whatever signs the world betrays, either 
in its fabric of agency, or in all its history of an overruling provi 
dence, are all so many arguments against its being a mere flux, 
and, consequently, against your supposition of its origin having 
been in Pracriti. Here I should like to bring you and my vene 
rable friend the Acharya together, and ask each of you simulta 
neously a question. If the effect is in its cause, I ask you to what 
element in the indivisible Pracriti shall we trace back that which 
is truly spiritual in man, his conscience for example, or his purest 
aspirations, and again his guilty forebodings. These things 
certainly exist in us and not in Pracriti ; therefore Pracriti is not 
our cause. Again, to Vidyacharya I would put the question, if 
the Deity made the world out of His own substance, from what 
element in Himself did He make the passion, the darkness, and 
the guilt, which constitute the existence of so many depraved 
beings ? You both agree, that in the world are contained good 
ness, passion, darkness ; to you then I say, flux out of Pracriti 
will not account for the first, and to our friend here, creation out 
of the divine substance leaves the two others unexplained. 



THEORY OF CAUSATION IMPERFECT. 189 

" In one sense, however, I fully admit to you that the effect 
is implied in its cause, that is to say, every effect must have an 
adequate cause. But it is the necessity of this argument which 
leads me far and deep beyond the veil of Nature to a divine 
Iswara, who has created the world by mere choice of will and 
upholds it by wisdom. For though on this supposition I may 
not know how Pracriti came into being, I can give a credible ap 
proximation to an account of it ; for you see I attribute it to an 
adequate cause, since any design conceived by power and wisdom 
(which perhaps are two names for one thing) is sufficient to have 
involved all the effects of Pracriti. The thoughts of a Deity 
may in a purely spiritual sense have contained, inasmuch as they 
forecast, the appearances we behold in nature. Here then we 
have a self-moving cause. Whereas, by observing capacities in 
the material of nature we trace no cause but only observe links. 
Even as regards nature, then, I humbly conceive nothing could 
be a cause in the sense we are seeking for one, unless it an 
swered to the idea of a creative mind or an overruling governor. 
The cause we want must be an efficient or originating one. In 
the Nyaya* logic I rather think the efficient and the instrumental 
kinds of causes are not clearly distinguished, whereas surely they 
ought to be ; for the wielder of a tool is one thing and the tool 
wielded is another ; just as the material wrought from may be a 
third, or may be so constructed as to be an instrument to itself. 
Neither then the tool nor the material are properly causes, but 
only the first or the efficient is the true cause, for only the first 
originates the action ; but, if you please, I must here go a step 
farther, though on difficult ground, and must maintain that there 
is no true efficient, and therefore nothing which is properly 
termed a cause, as regards an action done, except where there is 
a personal agent. Perhaps person is not the happiest word to 
use, but I mean one who has a self-determining activity ; and 
this, I suppose, requires an unity of self-consciousness; just as the 
Nyaya admits that knowledge can only reside in soul. Common 

* Dr Ballantyne s Lecture, pp. 2838. 



190 THE CAUSER OF CAUSES. 

sense shews such an activity does not reside in the chisel or in 
the marble, and the reason of its absence is that these things do 
not possess consciousness, or understanding, or choice. Whereas 
the sculptor conceives a design, and proposes to himself an idea 
of his future work, which he might make differently if he chose. 
In him then we have, as far as humanity admits of such a thing, 
a true cause, for we have an originator of an action ; nor does he 
owe us any account of his making his work one thing rather 
than another, except so far as principles of beauty or fitness 
guide his will ; and these again depend, like everything human, 
upon some higher law, which the sculptor apprehends in virtue 
of his understanding. Every true cause, therefore, must be an 
efficient, and differs from capacities, or means, or any other things 
termed causes, just as the sculptor differs from the marble or the 
chisel with which he works. A circumstance which obscures 
this otherwise obvious truth from us, when we reason about the 
world, is, that as the divine work is by way of intelligence, so it 
betrays nothing of what we should call effort, but uses what we 
call capacities as not only instruments of its will but also as 
signs, if we are wise to read them, of its unseen forethought. 
Hence the silentness of its operation makes you liken it to a 
stream from a source, rather than a work from a worker. But it 
does not any the less really follow from what I have just been 
saying, that the only true cause even of a system of generations 
of life and death will be properly a causer of causes, or one to 
whom we may not only trace all intermediate links, as to a 
beginning, but to whom we may ascribe that self-determining 
activity which belongs to nothing less than mind, and which we 
call personality ; that is to say, our true origin must go back to 
or imply an originator. I am not sure that a persuasion of this 
truth is not thrown around us as it were direct from God our 
Maker, by the natural experiences which we acquire like second 
instincts through the daily contacts of life more vividly than by 
any laboured arguments. Perhaps you see in the structure of 
languages, as obviously as anywhere, the common confession to 



CAUSE AND CAUSER. MAKING AND MAKER. 191 

this effect. You have in Sanscrit, as well as in all the languages 
akin to it, from Persia to the Himalaya in the East, and to the 
extreme shores of Portugal and Ireland in the West, a kind of 
noun applied to the Maker or causer of anything, distinct either 
in gender or in termination from nouns which describe instru 
mental agencies. Brahma the creator is with you a masculine 
noun, though Brahm, or potential spirit, is neuter ; but all your 
names as applied to any one whom you suppose as creator are 
masculine. So are ours, and with us too in general they have a 
termination which is among nouns that which the active voice is 
among the inflexions of the verb. How well this unconscious 
testimony of language falls in with what I have said both of 
causation and of proper agency. It is not the thing done or 
made, nor the power of doing or making, but the doer or maker 
whom we reverence. It is only in the deep volition and the 
range of motives, whether more or less, which may be ascribed 
to a doer, that we find an adequate explanation of anything 
done. Perhaps also the wisdom of the Vaiseshica may here be 
alluded to as being somewhat to the point. You remember how 
in their aphorisms it is argued that there can be no quality 
without a substance, or no property without an owner, and, for 
example, we cannot call the Deity either power or thought, but 
must acknowledge Him powerful and thinking. Thus, even by 
the necessity of logic, no less than by the instinctive affirmation 
of our hearts, we find ourselves led on until we ascribe person 
ality to the Divine Being, and find it impossible to acquiesce in 
any vague pictures of infinity. For we cannot remove from our 
notion of the Deity anything essential to a personal agent (unless 
indeed we suppose something transcendent in place of it), with 
out removing what would alone be an adequate cause of effects, 
for which your theory requires some cause as much as mine does. 
Thus it seems that all our thoughts on the nature of agency, and 
even logic, whether philosophical or instinctive, lead us beyond 
Pracriti to a true Iswara or divine Creator. But I have been 
somewhat long upon this argument from causation, which perhaps 



192 DIVINE DESIGN, AND DIFFICULTY OF EVIL. 

in its naked thorniness comparatively few persons will find 
attractive. Certainly it would become much stronger if it were 
applied at length, not to mere physical life, but to the history of 
mankind and the moral aspects of the world. Here, however, 
all that was said to Dr Wolff applies sufficiently for me to 
pass lightly over this part ; only, if we find in ourselves traces 
of justice and the love of mercy, with forethought and the 
power of moral action, it would be absurd for us to perform 
Srdd dha, under the idea of knowing our first parent, to any 
being which did not possess these qualities in at least an equal 
degree. It is not mere power, considering it as blind, nor fer 
tility, nor expanse, nor, in short, infinity of anything less than 
that which is noblest in us as moral agents, before which I could 
bring myself to bow down and worship. You also, I conceive, 
will admit that if the world is governed by Mind at all, in the 
sense of a moral agent, that Mind will be of the highest kind 
and truly adorable ; for, in fact, we have not so much disputed 
on the point of power or of infinity, as on the point of conscious 
providence. 

"There seems to be only one reason of weight, in addition 
to those already mentioned, which leads you to deny such a 
creator and governor by foresight as I contend for. You said 
that if the world had been designed by divine wisdom, we 
should not have found such evil in it as now exists in manifold 
forms ; especially you seem to be repelled by the fact of animals 
preying upon each other. The allegation of evil, however, in 
some shape, has been the difficulty all the world over with those 
who refused to find in the world evidence of a Creator. Are we 
then to suppose that the critics who thus censure the course of 
nature are themselves free from the general taint of evil which 
they find around ? You probably would not say so, for you con 
ceive the actions of a man to be so influenced by Pracriti as to 
be not quite his own, or so at least as not to concern his soul ; 
but since they partake of Pracriti, they partake of its passion and 
darkness. What then if these judgments which condemn the 



EXTENUATIONS OF EVIL. 193 

world should themselves be dark and passionate. I confess 
I think one who attempts to charge the handiwork of the 
Supreme Being with crookedness should himself be perfectly 
straight ; or, at least, he should consider how liable his opinion 
must be to error, not merely from the limited field of his vision, 
but from the absolute distortion which may be inherent in his 
way of viewing things. In order to ascertain if this is so, 
I should like to ask what is evil, or whether anything is meant 
by the word more than the absence of good. Suppose, for ex 
ample, you were going to Benares, you might find hindrances in 
the way, which might make your walk slower, and give you 
occasionally labour without progress. Yet I do not know that 
such hindrances need be evil in themselves, except so far as they 
impede your journey ; but I can even conceive they may be very 
useful for some other end, or in their bearing upon something 
else. But, if there is to be any stability in the world at all, it 
would not be possible that things should be arranged for one 
purpose, and be simultaneously done away with, because they 
did not suit another. The help in one way may be a hindrance 
in another, or, in fact, one man s meat may be another s poison : 
but though in the multiplicity of uses to which objects may be 
put, some may be contrary to our wish, it does not follow that 
the things themselves are evil. Again, you might have a weak 
ness in your limbs, which, together with such impediments, might 
make you hang back and even recede from your object. Here 
then would be not only hindrance, but backsliding. You will 
say there is something positive ; yet I cannot for the life of me 
see what weakness is, except the absence of strength, just as the 
Nyaya truly teaches, that lightness is the absence of weight. It 
would not, therefore, be life, but it would be not having enough 
of life, or, in other words, not having enough of that which I say 
comes of divine support, and which you say is evil, that you 
would really be suffering from ; so that, according to your doc 
trine, the absence of evil is an evil. Again, in going forward, it 
might happen to you to miss your road and step aside. Of course 
M.P. 13 



194 VARIETY OF RELATION, SHORTCOMING, PERVERSION. 

you would not do this intentionally if you were Ibent on going to 
Benares, but from want of knowledge ; but, in fact, this turning 
aside would be only evil, because it was not in the right di 
rection; the wrong-doing would consist in missing the mark, 
and this would come from the absence of knowledge, or from the 
absence of that which I have all along argued it requires mind 
to entertain, and supreme Mind or Deity to support. I cannot 
therefore see, in your suffering from the want of knowledge, that 
the whole system should be arraigned as having any sign of 
positive evil. Again, in any plan so large as to contain many 
things for many different uses, there must I suppose be the pos 
sibility of accident, or, as I said before, of one wave falling on 
one pebble and another on another according to chance ; and 
especially if part of the plan imply dependence upon the facul 
ties of any living beings, that they will do what they are 
intended to do, particular units amidst the mass may possibly 
injure themselves by not complying or not attending. I do 
not suppose, for example, it proves any positive evil in a bath, 
if a man who is careless gets drowned in it, for it may be his 
own fault : or it is such an accident as has its possibility implied 
in the fact of there being water to bathe in. If I was talking to a 
person less considerate than you, I should be afraid of his ridi 
culing these remarks as all very simple ; yet if you please to 
change the scene from a journey to Benares into any other action 
of human life, you will find there is hardly any mischance or 
calamity such as we call evil, but it may be resolved either into 
shortcoming, or backsliding, or perversion of some good capacity, 
or, lastly, accident. We may have difficulty in realising any 
plan ; yet the strain may help us somewhat forward. We may 
even fall back altogether from the object we aim at, yet the 
hindrances which thwarted us may have been for broader ends 
beneficial. We may, again, pervert, or suffer from the per 
version of, what in themselves may be capacities of great good ; 
but of course power in one direction implies power in another, if 
it is to be in any sense a living one, not to talk here of mental 






EVIL OF THINGS NEGATIVE GOOD POSITIVE. 195 

choice. Nor lastly could even the most consummate guide or 
general we can ourselves conceive, exclude the operation of 
chance among units, if not only the bodies handled were nume 
rous, but the manifold bearings and relations of their parts in 
every possible aspect were innumerable. Hence, whether there 
appear to be much or little of chance in the world, it seems to 
me rather a condition of all action, or a necessary accompani 
ment of circumstance, than a reason for denying supreme agency. 
But you are well aware that the more even our knowledge of 
causes is enlarged, the less and less any effect appears properly 
chance ; so that perhaps I have allowed too much for it, because 
our limited minds consider it a necessary accident to essential 
stability in the recurrence of phenomena on a large scale. You 
would not yourself expect day and night to have their duration 
altered because to some particular person s harvest it might be 
convenient; nor, again, some winter s cold which arrested 
cholera to be softened for some delicate invalid ; nor similarly, 
the storm which purifies the elements into health to halt over a 
crazy fishing-boat. Out of wisdom comes law, and to law 
belongs either uniformity or something like it, and hence must 
arise the appearance to us at least of chance. But in all such 
things as I have mentioned there has been yet no sign of positive 
evil, or none at least of any which could be charged on the Ruler 
of the Universe as entering probably into His primary design. 
Partly the things we call evil are accompanying conditions, and 
partly the negation or abortion of something which the Divine 
Wisdom seems bent upon bringing to birth more fully from time 
to time. You do not blame an architect because the window 
which is opened for the air may admit the rain ; nor can you 
accuse him of building your house positively dark, because the 
shutters may be occasionally for some reason closed against the 
light ; nor do I know that evil can be better explained than by 
asking what is darkness ? Some may say of a dark closet, there 
is darkness in it ; but you readily understand that to mean there is 
a want of light there ; so of many things which happen otherwise 

132 



196 CARNIVOROUS CREATION. 

than we would wish, it may be said there is a falling short in 
them of that good which is desirable rather than positive evil. 
In short, it seems verily to me, as if everything everywhere was 
blank, until those attributes of Intelligence which we have traced 
to Mind as a creative principle, supply or hold under the elements 
of good in any of its possible forms ; then, by the wisdom of 
God good comes about, and evil is the want of something 
we might wish, or the imperfect realisation of something we 
might fancy the Supreme Mind to design, rather than anything 
positive such as could alone bear to be made an argument 
against a Creator. Very often indeed it means only the necessary 
condition of circumstance by which all actions as we conceive 
them must be limited. I do not mean to say such conditions 
need not be considered by the conceiver of any design, but only 
to distinguish them from that which seems to be aimed at. 

" You may here say, that this apology cannot comprehend 
the destruction of life by living things, which you appeared to 
regard as a kind of cannibalism. I grant it does not, for such a 
mode of shortening life in some forms and sustaining it in others, 
seems to be part of the original plan of the world, being in 
wrought (one may say) into the very constitution of nature. But 
then, will you let me ask, did you expect that insects and beasts 
should live for ever ? Or, is any wrong done them because they 
receive a gift for a time, and are then expected to restore it? 
You would hardly expect, I suppose, a perpetual miracle to 
prolong existence for such creatures beyond the date when the 
weakness of their fabric, and the whole conditions of its tenure, 
would make it a burden to them. But probably you object to 
the mode in which their life is liable to end. Yet as you seem 
by a kind of dramatic instinct to enjoy what you term the spectacle 
in nature, I should have expected you to observe that many ends i 
of combination and opposition and mutual stimulus may be gained j 
by the plan we find actually adopted. Perhaps you could not 
have the strength and activity of the tiger, which, in some of your 
heroic poems, is made a complimentary epithet of character, 



CONJECTURES. 197 

unless you had also tlie shrinking speed of the hare and the 
deer. Perhaps again the passion of fear, though we justly 
account it despicable when it makes men shrink from their duty, 
may yet be the instinct out of which the virtue of prudence is 
trained, and may in many other ways be needed to stimulate the 
forces of life. It seems to me probable that a system in which 
fear did not exist as a motive to vigilance or action, might be in 
many ways less perfect, and in particular less so morally, than 
we now have. Then again if you made a world, and deter 
mined to people it with mortal creatures, I suppose you would 
have some method of cleansing it from their carcases. For if the 
bodies of all things that live and die, were to lie rotting around 
us, I am afraid the fevers and pestilences which would arise 
might shorten rather the days of the survivors, even if the stench 
and disease did not render the world uninhabitable. Nor do I 
think exposing bodies to the Ganges the most prudent or rea 
sonable mode of getting rid of them. In what mode then, pray, 
would you dispose of the bodies of creatures whose kind have 
not reason enough to bury them ? Fire, you see, would not be 
self-governing. Nor can I imagine any mode, so well calculated 
to renew the earth for successive generation, as the provision by 
which brute creatures act unintentionally as scavengers for the 
world. That some idea of the kind underlies the fact which I 
imagine it may justify, seems probable from this ; it is only in 
the case of mankind, whose reason suggests to them burial, and 
whose nobler sympathies should render mutual destruction hate 
ful, that people in general abhor the practice of preying on one 
another ; whereas, with those carnivorous beasts to whom it is 
natural, few think of blaming it. 

" Not but that I must fully admit, if my conception of life 
was the same as that of Vidyacharya, it would seem to me 
horrible for even animals to prey upon each other. If all life 
were, as you imagine, the very substance of the Divine Being, 
I could not even think patiently of all that we see around us. 
But if two conceptions are incompatible, I must give up the 



198 MORAL EVIL POSITIVE. 

least likely of the two ; and certainly, as far as probability of 
reasoning goes, I see nothing to support the A chaiya s theory 
of life. It seems born out of a confusion between the spiritual 
passing of thought into action, and the materialistic transfor 
mation of the Maker s mind into the thing He makes. Or, even 
if that be not so, our daily experience of life being given for a 
while and then resumed in such ways as it is, seems to justify 
us in considering it as properly a gift rather than an emanation, 
and distinct, as Madhwa conceived it to be, from the ineffable 
being of the life-giving God. 

" Now suppose for a moment, that evil, either considered 
positively, or as I have represented it to be, the mere negation 
of good, were far greater than it is in reality, still you would 
admit that sinful creatures could not feel justified in murmuring 
at it with the confidence of perfect beings. For if our need of 
forgiveness is a reason, as you Hindus appear to admit, for our 
forgiving injuries from men, much more it may suggest to us 
patience under any evils which our Maker might impose. I say 
this would be a fair view of the case, even on the theory that 
human sinfulness were only an accidental accompaniment of 
pain, and not at all a cause of it. Whereas, we have next to 
observe, that all the possibilities of the idea of good being im 
perfectly realised, which I have enumerated above as forming 
the appearances of evil, must be infinitely multiplied, when the 
scheme of the world is seen to contain not only things but 
persons; that is, not only objects and physical contingencies, 
but thinkers and doers of right or wrong, such as technically are 
termed moral agents. For if all these are to act, in any real 
sense of action, they must enjoy some degree of freedom, or 
apparent choice. With the freedom then of every living man, 
there is imported into our practical problem a new element, and 
that one of some degree of uncertainty; for whoever makes a 
choice must be supposed capable of choosing otherwise, though 
the motives on one side or the other may preponderate. Any 
man then choosing wrong, may be expected, on the supposi- 



EVIL IN FREE AGENTS. 199 

tion of the world having a moral Governor, to bring on himself 
pain, or some other kind of evil ; and perhaps here is the first 
footstep we have found of anything which can properly be termed 
positive evil, and this is of such a kind, as not to be any argu 
ment against a good and wise God, but rather to follow from His 
being such. But again, whoever chooses evil for himself, is 
likely to persuade others to follow him ; for every one desires 
companionship ; and thus the freedom of every moral agent, 
which originally admitted of being somewhat biassed by motives, 
may receive a decided impulse for evil instead of for good, by 
having its motives tampered with, or that knowledge of truth, 
which is the strongest of all motives to the reasonable will, 
debased. Suppose then, we took all these things, and wrought 
them into a sum in a kind of moral arithmetic. If we took all 
those necessary conditions, and all the drawbacks, chances, and 
contingencies, which might impede the realisation of any idea, 
even in dealing with malleable matter, and multiplied them 
tenfold by a like idea of uncertainty as applied to the motives 
and choices of free agents, and again multiplied whatever possi 
bility of error, crime, and pain might thus arise, by all the 
corrupting contacts with each other of men who do wrong, we 
should have rather a formidable amount of either evil, or ten 
dency to evil, which yet might form no part of the design legible 
in the constitution of the world, and therefore no impeachment 
of the wisdom of a Creator, still less a reason why we worms of 
an hour should shut our eyes to His existence. 

" To sum up briefly this part, allow something for the pro 
bability of our judgments being mistaken ; allow very much for 
what I will venture to call by a word of my own, circumstan- 
tiation, which I conceive to be what many old speculators have 
intended when they spoke of the perversity of matter; and 
again, allow still more for the possible self-perversion of all free 
agents, and subsequently for their mutual corruption; then I 
think the result of our speculation will approximate somewhat 



200 EVIL REMEDIAL. 

to the Christian doctrine of original sin, or at any rate justify 
us in ascribing wisdom to our Creator, notwithstanding certain 
marks of crookedness in the creature. One remark only, which 
was half implied, I wish to draw out a little, and I have done. 
Just as fear may be an instrument not only in curbing, but in 
educating the world, thus many other pains, may be not only 
punishments of our moral disobedience, (which would be a 
sufficient account of them,) but they may be even benevolent 
remedies for the same mischief, considered as a disease. You 
fancy the c indiscrete or primary element straining itself into 
all possible forms. I, for my part, fancy the Mind of man 
straining itself under the influence of many sufferings which 
appear grievous to it, into far higher conceptions either of con 
trivance and ingenuity, or else of manly fortitude and patient 
meekness. Many men have become greater through suffering, 
and I believe also, some far happier, than if they had not so 
learnt either to do, or dare, or endure. Do not then let us be 
frightened by things, which after all, perhaps, are to real evil 
that which you suppose the spectacle of nature may be made by 
the soul, or what the A chary a would call Maya, a mere passage 
of shadows, below which may lie a substance of blessedness 
upheld by wisdom. To me evil, considered as a positive element 
in the constitution of the world, appears to become more and 
more shadowy the more we examine it. That only is true evil, 
which comes of voluntary doers starting aside from duty, and so 
failing in that part of the plan which devolved upon them as 
fellow-workers with God. Perhaps even this may not be with 
out remedy; for certainly in remorse and in forgiveness, even 
among men, we find instruments to both sides of moral health. 
But whether my account of evil be correct, or whether any one 
has anything better to advance, the utmost inference which can 
be drawn from its appearance is, that our view of the world s 
design, as a merciful one, may require to be less hopeful, and 
not, as you seem to argue, that there has been no design at all. 



EVIL REMEDIAL. 201 

Nothing, in short, which can be argued on this subject, ought 
to obscure the proofs of a Supreme and Wise Creator ; I humbly 
trust, for myself, that nothing need shake our confidence in a 
righteous Governor and a merciful Father." 



NOTE ON CHAPTER V. 

The Yoga Aphorisms explain the Theistic section of the Sankhya, 
which is probably an accretion upon the older and more negative 
system. For Vigaya, see Turner s Mahawansa, pp. 52, 53. For 
Sankhya sources of Buddhism, Lassen, B. n. p. 830, B. 1, and pp. 
66 80, B. 2. For the legends and maxims, E. Burnouf ; and as 
regards Ceylon, the Missionary Hardy. For Chinese comparisons, 
A. Remusat s Melanges. The Virgin-birth was ascribed to Sakya as 
early as St Jerome s time : but the age of the Bauddha legends gene 
rally is an unsettled, and a highly interesting question. Will not 
some scholar in India investigate it ? 



202 



ARGUMENT FKOM DESIGN. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Farther Criticisms of Hindti Systems, particularly of the Veddntine Design Moral 
Government Need of Hopefulness Pantheism and Idolatry Two Aspects of 
one Evil. 

"A little philosophy inclineth man s mind to Atheism ; but depth in philosophy 
bringeth men s minds about to Religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon 
second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no farther ; but 
when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it must needs 
fly to Providence and Deity." Bacon. 

"Our Morphology ought not to prejudice our Teleology." Wheivell. 

" You have not forgotten I hope," said Wolff, as there was here 
a slight pause in Blancombe s speech, "your promise to explain, 
why the argument from design, which you still hold by, does not 
appear to me so satisfactory as you think it ought." "Perhaps," 
answered Blancombe, "this will be as convenient a time as any 
for me to do so. The first impression, I suppose you will allow 
with people in general, which we derive from the varieties of 
animal life, is, that they are designed so as to carry out some 
purpose, or that their structure is full of means applied to ends. 
The wings of birds, for example, seem intended for flying: 
just as the webbed feet of water-fowl and the fins of fishes are 
for swimming; our own hands, with our thumb, as you see, 
placed conveniently opposite the fingers, appear designed on 
purpose for us to have the power of grasping, and certainly if 
our thumb with its complicated arrangement of joint and muscle 
had been differently placed where our little finger is, we should 
have been comparatively helpless ; and much more so, if the 
hand had ended, as on any principle of chance it might, like a 
serpent s tail ; just so the claws of fowl in general are arranged 
with an eye to convenience of walking, or of clinging to their 
perch ; while the solid hoof of the horse, and indeed his whole 
shape, points him out as fitted for the purposes upon which men 
actually employ him. Nor is it only the general varieties of 



FINAL CAUSES. 203 

animals which we find adapted to their abodes in air, earth, or 
water, whether they are beast, bird, reptile, or fish ; but there 
seems to be even special provision for cases of a peculiar kind. 
The double stomach of the camel, and its power of enduring 
privation for a length of time are not only wonderful in them 
selves, but appear particularly adapted to the deserts which the 
creature has to traverse, and have often stirred the admiring 
gratitude of men who must have perished but for what they 
hence considered as signs of a providential care. So the long neck 
which enables the Giraffe to reach its food from branches of trees, 
and the bodily organisation which enables the Sloth to live on 
trees, have been remarked as instances of the same kind. But 
illustrations innumerable, or at least as numerous as the species 
of living things, might be mentioned. For it is scarcely possible 
to look at any of the more remarkable kinds of animals, without 
observing that each has some gift, which perhaps another has 
not at all, or has in a different form, while each has generally 
some fitness for its abode, and apparently some purpose to 
subserve, whether work to do, or only happiness to enjoy. 

" While however we are making reflexions of this kind, two 
difficulties occur to disturb us, which though some persons may 
exaggerate their force, are not without reason. 

" In the first place it turns out, as we look more closely at 
animals, that these differences, which seemed intended to adapt 
each for its special position, are variations or deflexions from 
something radically common to all. An ostrich or a flamingo, 
for example, is unlike enough to an elephant, or a man. But if 
you look as it were with an unifying eye at what they all have 
in common, you will find not only a great backbone running 
through them all, and serving as a channel for the nervous fluid 
which, as it culminates in the head, we call in each case the brain; 
but also the wings of one, and the arms of another, correspond 
in the idea of their outline to the fore legs of a third. Perhaps 
also something of the same kind may be observed of the fins of 
fishes. Certainly the web of waterfowl is the growing in a 



204 GENERAL TYPES. 

particular way of animal fibre which is common to other 
creatures. So the formation of the human scull out of many 
bones, which seem multiplied and consolidated into a joint-work 
of such a kind as to give the amplest room for the swelling of 
the brain, and the best protection for its delicate tissues, turns 
out to be on the very same principle which obtains also in fishes, 
which we should have thought would have no need of such 
special protection. The people indeed who cut up animals and 
observe their structure, appear to have agreed, that all living 
things come under four classes, such as firstly creatures with 
back-bones, and secondly soft pulpy animals, then thirdly the 
dwellers in jointed shells, which seem almost distributed over 
bodies half jointed ; and fourthly those which branch out like 
a wheel or a star, pretty much in the manner of a vegetable moss 
growing from a centre. Thus instead of infinitely numerous 
special forms among animals, we seem at most to have only four 
great outlines or types, according to the model of which the 
animal kingdom seems to be distributed ; and some persons even 
augur that these four classes will ultimately turn out to be 
mere modifications of one type of animal life; which for my 
own part I see nothing to prevent our acknowledging, if the facts 
should happen to turn out so. To all which it must be added, 
that there seems no wide leap between what we call animals 
and vegetables, but intermediate beings partake somewhat of the 
nature of each, drinking in moisture like mosses, yet stretching 
out their venous limbs, as if with an animal presentiment of 
nourishment. So that even modern science does to a considerable 
extent support the favourite theory among Hindu thinkers of 
life being everywhere one. I have barely indeed hinted at an 
argument on which much more might be said, if one were to 
consider professionally the processes of digestion, and respiration, 
and the circulation of the blood, with other things of the kind. 

"But now, since the mind of man is so limited in its range, 
that it is hardly able to consider both sides of a question at 
once, so on observing the primordial unity of type, out of which 



SPECIAL AND GENERAL. 205 

all special provisions appear to have proceeded, many persons 
become so absorbed by the general, as to forget and overlook 
the specially distinctive, which does not, however, become any 
the less real. Not indeed, that they absolutely deny creatures 
to differ from each other ; but this difference no longer seems to 
them a substantial thing, as having its root in some Divine 
forethought, but only an accidental result from the circumstances 
into which the young life, or its seed, is cast. Things become 
such and such, they say, by habit, or by the effect of place, 
climate, or food, or even by the instinctive appetence of food, as 
any or all of these influences, and others such, may act over 
vast periods of time. Hence although such men are obliged to 
confess, if they speak truly, that the origin of life remains to 
them as mysterious as ever, yet they fancy they understand the 
processes by which life is adapted in its various manifestations. 
Hence possibly there may appear to them less need of a super 
natural Being, either as Creator or Governor, when like the 
Sankhya philosophers they find existing effects contained in causes 
which are close at hand, and which appear adequate. Or again, if 
from natural piety, and soundness of reason, they hold fast the 
belief in a providential Governor, they still apprehend but faintly 
the argument from design, as urged in application to special 
instances of what we term contrivance. The world becomes to 
such speculators a flux, rather than a creation. 

" So far I conceive myself to have stated fairly one reason 
why the argument from design may be obscured to your mind 
consciously, and perhaps also to our Hindu friends, without how 
ever their being ready to give a distinct account of the process." 
"Yes," here said Wolff, "I think you have stated it well 
enough." "Then again I suppose," resumed Blancombe, "that 
there comes in simultaneously the observation of many instances 
of failure as regards special provision. Desires, for example, 
the gratification of which is ordinarily attended with pleasure, 
and which so far we should allege as instances of the Divine 
goodness, are often frustrated, so as to cause in particular cases 



206 SPECIAL, RELATIVE TO MAN. 

exceeding pain, and even madness or death. All such things 
as famine, pestilence, and shipwreck, might here come in ; but 
especially such sufferings as seem to be least probably traced to 
any individual transgression, and such as imply a neutralisation 
or defeat of what is generally alleged as the Divine plan. Now 
I conceive myself to have described your second difficulty as 
regards the doctrine of design." "Certainly," said Wolff, 
" things of that kind have been urged by one of the native 
speakers, and, it appears to me, not without a certain force." 
"I too," replied Blancombe, "have thrown out some general 
reflexions, in considering the nature of evil, which go a great 
way, as I conceive, to remove the difficulty ; and I have also 
something to add about the largeness of the scheme in which we 
live. First, however, we must consider the effect of discovering 
that special provisions in animals are deflexions from a more 
general outline. 

" Have you ever reflected, why it is that we draw our in 
stances of design from our own bodies, or those of other animals, 
rather than from the grander structure of heaven and earth? 
Probably day and night, when taken in connexion with our 
need of alternate labour and rest, are as clearly convincing 
proofs of a benignant care being extended over the world, as 
any we could easily find. Or I might go a step farther, and 
remark, that all the genial processes of nature, as personified and 
deified in the hymns of the Rig- Veda, are in reality sufficient 
instances of a heavenly providence, supposing only we refer 
them to a more living power than dwells in the things them 
selves. Yet, somehow or other, it seems as if all persons who 
want instances of special design look for them not so much in 
the grand laws of the natural world, as in our own limbs, or 
beings, or experiences. Again, so far as they do take such in 
stances from the larger laws of the universe, it is chiefly from 
the points at which those laws come in contact with our per 
sonal wants or constitution ; so that the mutual fitness or corre 
spondency becomes the ground of inferring design. That light, 



SPECIAL RELATIVE TO MAN. 207 

for example, corresponds to the eye, and fragrance to our sense 
of smell, and other things to our senses severally ; just as dark 
ness also to our need of sleep, and the seasons of the year to our 
appetites for food, and the recurrence of variety in beauty and 
sensation, are all remarks which have often been made, yet 
which we need not be ashamed of repeating. So it is said that 
if the earth were all rock, it would not admit of vegetation, or 
much softer than it is, it would not admit of free movement; 
if the air had much more oxygen than it has on the whole, it 
would madden us ; or if much less, it would not animate us ; 
so if the water were not pretty much what it is, it would neither 
admit of inhabitation by the tribes of fish, nor of navigation by 
men; so that, in short, the whole world seems in the mass 
adapted for man, and such creatures as are the servants or com 
panions of man, to live in. But now in all such cases our favorite 
instances of design are drawn from the larger, at points where it 
comes into contact with the lesser; that is, with ourselves. I 
apprehend, moreover, such a practice is quite right ; for the great 
scheme of the heavenly bodies is far larger than we can com 
prehend in its ultimate design, though we may observe clearly 
enough that an order traceable by Mind, and therefore devised 
by Mind, is pursued in its conservation. Hence, as regards day 
and night, we might be puzzled by some laborious sophist, who 
should prove to us that these recurrences of light and darkness 
depend on causes very remote in space, and affect perhaps pri 
marily regions very much more important than our speck of 
earth. We might, it is true, answer that the largeness of a 
scheme does not destroy its particularity ; or that one who gives 
ourselves light is not less to be thanked by us, because he gives 
it simultaneously to a hundred others. Still this kind of ex 
planation would be rather less gratifying to our natural egotism ; 
our grasp of mind might be scarcely firm enough to take hold of 
the conception that we may be minute parts of a much larger 
plan, and yet abundantly cared for; and, in short, we might 
become bewildered. Whereas, that other class of things which 



208 GENERAL, MODIFIED PROVIDENTIALLY. 

falls within our own experience of daily movements, wants, 
satisfactions, and conveniences, with all that we see more or 
less corresponding to us in creatures of the same fleshly natures 
as ourselves, we cannot be well mistaken about. No man in his 
senses has any serious doubt that feet are intended to walk with, 
and hands to take hold of things. So it is with other parts of 
our frame. And so all our capacities mental, no less than bodily, 
persuade us that we are intended to be social beings, and duties 
and affections thrust themselves in, as being in practice even 
more necessary to our happiness than appetites, and hence, 
according to our instinctive logic, as parts of a plan which some 
higher Being intended us to fulfil. Is then this inference of 
design, I ask, vitiated, either as regards our bodies or our souls, 
by any discovery of our special powers being a deflexion from 
some general type. It appears to me, we have only discovered 
that ends are attained through means ; or that the Divine work 
ing is on a far larger scale than we had ignorantly supposed. 
Nothing is more common than to see all sorts of figures, cups, 
and jugs, made out of metal or clay. Some one may perhaps 
have fancied such things were fashioned by man s hand ; then 
he may have discovered that they are made in moulds, into 
which the fused metal or earth flows like liquid fire, and there 
takes whatever shape it was intended to take. Such a disco 
verer may thus find such things made with a far more wonderful 
freedom, and in larger abundance, than he had previously thought 
possible ; in fact, the operation may acquire in his eyes a look 
of comparative spontaneity ; but he does not therefore really 
doubt that it is under control ; nor is his perception of the 
uses to which the vessels may be applied, when made, for a 
single moment obscured. Whereas a philosopher of your stamp 
might here as well step in and say, the chances were equal 
whether these jugs should assume their present shape or any 
other ; if they were to hold water, they must be rounded rather 
than flat ; but I don t feel bound to account for their holding it, 
any more than I should for their not doing so; in short, he 



ANALOGY OF TOTTER. 209 

might finish, I can trace no marks of design, or of contrivance ap 
plied to an end, but only necessary accidents to the fact of there 
being jugs at all. Just of this kind is really the entire reason 
ing with which people deny the marks of design in the world. 
They begin, with saying, If a thing was to exist forgetting 
that the existence of a thing such as the world implies a Creator, 
as much as the jug implies a potter ; then they go on to observe 
the general modified into the special ; and they forget that this 
power of transforming one thing into another, or of adapting 
means to ends, is a proof of what devout persons all along con 
tend for, namely, of a Maker who works by wisdom and not at 
random ; and surely they must be cursed with a moral blindness 
not to see that existing diversities or species, however brought 
about, imply the pre-existence of Divine thoughts or creative 
foresights*, to which things severally correspond, as the statue 
.to the sculptor s conception ; or, again, if they do not under 
stand that all varieties of climate and place and circumstance 
are to the great Moulder of life, that which the moulds are to 
the earthly potter, that is, instruments of his process, but in 
struments which would not even exist, still less be arranged in 
order, if he had not first willed them. Just as the unity of the 
material in the metal or clay does not prevent the jugs and 
vessels from having different shapes and being intended for 
different uses, so the unity of life does not destroy the tokens of 
design in the various adaptations of species. Rather, indeed, I 
should say, that the doctrine of grand outlines or types in the 
animal world, not only consists very well with our humbler 
argument from design, but it gives a new phase of the same 
argument, and thereby transmutes rather than destroys it, by 
removing it into a higher region of generalisation. For such 
great types are even more manifestly the expression of thoughts ; 
and as plain people say, that a special provision implies con 
trivance, so the deepest observer, without denying this true 

* Something of this kind was meant by the truly philosophical Realists, from 
Plato to Abelard, though they were often misunderstood. 

M. r. 14 



210 TYPICAL IDEAS UNITY OF LIFE. 

remark, will superadd the broader conclusion that the general 
types, from which the special is deflected, represent pervading 
ideas. Nor do I see that any obscurity is thereby introduced 
into the argument, except so far as I all along acknowledge that 
the Divine idea may in everything transcend that faint human 
apprehension of it which is as it were its earthly shadow. 
You recollect what I said about the doctrine of Madhwa, and 
how far the Deity is in respect of our apprehensions, Nirguna, 
which I touched on with reference to justice and moral attributes, 
the same thought being equally true of power and intelligence 
as Divine attributes. But we should have no thoughts of justice, 
if God were not first just ; nor of contrivance, if He had not first 
contrived ; nor of marrying and giving in marriage, if He had 
not first balanced the sexes, though individual marriages (we all 
know) may be unhappy ; nor, again, should we either have great 
outlines pervading the animal and vegetable kingdoms, if pre- 
formative thoughts had not first sprung from Creative Mind ; or 
special contrivances, for the bird to fly, and the fish to swim, 
and the camel to traverse the desert, if the Creator had not with 
more or less of pre-arrangement or supervision adapted the crea 
tures as He apportioned their abodes. 

" Need I now do more than add, that the primordial unity 
of life is only what might be expected by any one who started 
with the right conception of the unity of God? And again, 
it ought to serve as no inconsiderable argument in leading one 
who needs it up to that conception. If there were as many 
deities as are imagined popularly in the Hindu Pantheon, there 
might be many originations for life; but the true idea is, that 
the Will, the Wisdom, and the Omnipresent Life-giving which 
ever manifest themselves simultaneously and reciprocally in the 
world, are still of one Mind; for God is fundamentally One. 
The fact that life appears more mysterious, and becomes a less 
explicable riddle, the farther we trace it backward into its primal 
unity, should only teach us a wholesome modesty, as implying 
that we are not competent to judge of the scheme of God in its 



SPHERE OF FINAL CAUSES. 211 

large integrity, though we may observe sufficiently things with 
which we are ourselves conversant, to obtain practical principles 
for our guidance. Thus the special provisions of life remain for 
ever witnesses to mankind of a higher Being who cares for 
them ; and the force of such witnesses will be multiplied the 
more that any right-minded man considers them not merely as 
regards his animal wants, but in the deep things which belong 
to the soul, his affections, his prayers, his sins, his sufferings, and 
his better aspirations. But if out of a mere desire of knowledge, 
rather than of the wisdom which endeavours to serve God, we 
constantly push back our inquiries about life into its primal type, 
and the mysterious provisions for modifying it, or bewilder our 
selves over the design aimed at by our Maker for His creatures 
as a whole, instead of rather considering the part which falls 
within our own clear cognisance, we then involve the laws and 
processes of life in the same mystery which envelopes the being 
and design of all the worlds ; for we then thrust them into that 
larger field, in which our limited vision no longer grasps the 
circumference, and therefore cannot comprehend the design. Yet 
even as regards sea and land and heaven with its stars, you will 
clearly understand me to say that all we lose is comprehension 
of the design, and not in any degree the reasonableness of be 
lieving that God has still a wise and beneficent thought, though 
it may transcend all thinking of ours. For even in the obscurest 
regions, and the most magnificent expanse of nature, we still 
observe links of causation everywhere prevailing ; and causation 
is really the manifestation of a presiding thought. Nor ever 
can any one be justified in thinking that this causation is with 
out an end proposed by design, until he finds the argument 
from design fail him in that narrower field which concerns our 
own bodies and souls. But there it never does fail ; for every 
man, by accepting the evidence of his senses in things to which 
the senses properly apply, and his mental judgment in things 
which belong to it, and conscience in the things which it for 
bids, and advice in things where others have the duty or right of 

142 



212 EXCEPTIONS. 

informing him, and the moral instincts or sentences of his purer 
mind in aspiration and prayer for guidance, in short, I say, 
every man, by accepting the evidence of his body and soul that 
he is designed for certain ends, and by attempting in dutiful 
humility to carry out those ends, arrives at the highest happi 
ness of which man in this life is capable and probably enters 
into a new life with the firmest hope whereas, on the contrary, 
by refusing to perceive the Divine design in his own bodily and 
mental being, and therefore living a lawless life, he is very apt 
to bring down on himself tangible penalties, and certainly fails 
of attaining that peace which good men enjoy at heart. You 
see then, the argument from design does not fail us, so far as 
we can trace it, but turns out eminently true for ourselves ; we 
have therefore no reason to doubt that higher spirits behold it 
equally true for all creation. Possibly in some future existence 
it may please God to give us, as the reward or climax of our 
struggling here, a far clearer vision of all things which now 
perplex us, and so justify His own ways to us, by merely 
shewing them as they really are in all their largeness of 
extent. 

" Entertaining, as I humbly do, so great a hope on the 
witness of things open to me, I can afford to wait for the clear 
ing up of things too high for me. For the same reason I am 
not much perplexed by the number of apparent exceptions to 
the realisation of a beneficent design, which some persons per 
versely rather than wisely would throw in my way. It may 
appear strange, or to our thoughts undesirable, that many lives 
should be swept away in a pestilence; but I cannot tell how 
many of the number deserved death as a penalty, or to how 
many it came as a mercy, and how many were fully prepared 
for it. So a shipwreck may be in itself a deplorable event ; but 
the storm which causes it may have arrested pestilence else 
where, or the natural conditions of safety may have been neg 
lected by those who perished, or they may be taken away from 
some greater evil to come. At worst they only resign in one 



GENERAL PROVIDENCE. 213 

way a life which they had received on condition of resigning it 
at any time in some way. Again, earthquakes are terrible, but 
they may be in part wholesome outlets for those subterranean 
forces which were necessary to vivify and warm the earth ; and, 
in part, it may be observed, that when such things burst upon 
dissolute cities, the cry of whose vices, mingled perhaps with 
idolatry, had gone up to heaven, they do not negative, but 
rather confirm, that belief in a moral Governor of the world, 
which is the main point for which I all along contend. Again, 
it certainly has an uncomfortable sound, that our fellow men 
may die of famine, or suffer madness, and other terrible inflic 
tions, from the want of things requisite to satisfy the cravings 
of their nature. Yet, how comparatively rare, and therefore 
exceptional such cases are, is almost proved by the notice we 
take of them ; as we forget to give thanks for health, but com 
plain of sickness. One reason why such misfortunes disturb our 
general reasoning more than they ought, is, that we overlook the 
abundant affluence of the Divine scheme, in which even human 
beings are scattered almost like seeds floating from the thistle ; 
and, again, another reason is, that we expect the ideal or the 
best conceivable shape of things to be everywhere realised in 
performance ; whereas, the sculptor labours much with his mar 
ble, and makes many rude essays, before he accomplishes his 
highest work ; and so in the great striving of things upward, 
there must be many shortcomings before the whole body can be 
stamped with the glory which the Spirit would impress upon it. 
But in no case anywhere do we observe such a shortcoming of 
the Divine providence, as that anything of which we can posi 
tively say it is important, perishes out of the world without 
working some good, or leaving some seed of itself behind it. 
You may say that whole species of animals have perished ; but 
I answer, never any species which was largely useful to others, 
or which was capable of falling in with the new conditions which 
the great training of the world upward from time to time re 
quired. We see wild and savage races both of beasts and men 



214 GENERAL PROVIDENCE. 

daily tend to extinction. But why do they so? Clearly because 
they are either pernicious or useless, and unfit to be tamed; 
though, in earlier stages of the Divine plan, they may have been 
competent enough to enjoy a happiness after their kind, and to 
fill a place not yet prepared for better things. But, as a general 
rule, no noble or remarkable species perishes. Certainly, none 
fails, for want of the Divine bounty contributing largely to its 
sustentation. Suppose, for example, all males had been born in 
one part of the world, and all females in another, which is a 
result that on principles of chance might have come about. 
Then, indeed, we might have desiderated the Divine forethought. 
Whereas, in fact, like is born to suit like in all parts of the 
world. Nor is it less true of the nobler correspondencies of the 
mind, than of those of a more animal sort. When thoughts take 
so strongly hold of a man, that the expression of them becomes 
necessary to his mental peace, he generally finds, if he has 
courage by faith to make the experiment, that many other minds 
have been teeming with a growth sufficiently similar for him 
not to fail of finding sympathy. So ample is the embrace of 
the Divine forethought and instruction which encompasses us, 
although unseen. Or even if a man appear to speak so prema 
turely, that he suffers for it, yet, if his words are true, they do 
not die barren, but take root in corresponding minds and bear 
fruit abundantly. Thus the tears and blood of the witnesses for 
truth become the cement of a nobler society in the time to come. 
The man himself, if he is a teacher of truth, will be the last to 
regret his own sufferings, for they will be abundantly overpaid 
to him by the consciousness that he is a fellow-worker with God 
his Father in building up a better world. But again, are we 
not apt to overlook, how much of such shortcoming as seems to 
exist in the world arises from our neglect of the part allotted 
us in the drama? For we, my friend, may rightly be called 
fellow-workers with God; and this the more evidently in pro 
portion as any one believes us to be either akin to the Deity, or 
as the A charya says, ourselves emanations from Him. But if we 



JOINT WORKING OF MAN. 215 

were intended both to take cognisance of each other s wants, and 
to relieve them, as being all children of one Father, it is very 
evident that a forgetfulness of this holy brotherhood of mankind, 
and an attempt to struggle on in selfish isolation, or in the pride 
of caste, must leave the wants of many without that aid which 
God intended for them, and in turn deprive us, who refuse the 
aid, of much sympathy and inward joy. I believe, indeed, it is 
a matter of world-long experience that whoever labours in the 
way I have suggested to aid his fellow-men, as trusting that it 
is part of the Divine plan for him to do so, becomes thereby less 
and less apt to complain of the world as being imperfect; for he 
finds such a satisfaction in doing good, that his eyes are opened 
thereby to behold more good existing than he would otherwise 
have thought probable. Indeed, I venture to say, the complaints 
of suffering in the world do not generally proceed from men 
who actively relieve what suffering there is, but from indolent 
dreamers. This is an assertion of sufficient importance for it to 
be well worth your while either to verify or refute it by close 
observation. For you see how much it involves. If the case be 
as I state it, then God is justified of His own ways to the good, 
though not to the evil. 

" By such thoughts, I conceive, we are led on more and more 
to a lively apprehension of the personality of God. However 
grand all that Vedanta speculation may sound, about abstract 
thought, and joy, we, being led on to a conception of the Deity 
as one who justifies Himself to the affections, are led to conceive 
of Him as one whom we can trust; and such a one is a living 
agent, or what is commonly termed a Being with personality. 
Observe then how far I am obliged to break away from my 
venerable friend the A charya. All that he has said about Vach, 
as the voice of God creating, and about Maya, as being the 
representation of the Divine thought by nature, appeared to me 
not only grand but credible, so far as it traces the visible world 
justly to creative Mind. But, when he speaks of Brahm becom 
ing Brahma, I don t understand how mere potentiality could 



216 DIVINE WILL SELF-CONSCIOUS. 

ever become person, except so far as his theogony is a lively picture 
of the progress of the human mind in speculation. We may, in 
our attempts to grope backwards towards a beginning, figure to 
ourselves a time when God had not yet created ; when, therefore, 
it may be said, the Creator was not ; and the relative conception 
our flesh-bound minds are apt to form of a Deity in such a pre 
dicament, is that of something potential, or capable of thereafter 
coming forth. But then to think for a moment that the Deity 
must have been in that way, because our conception may be so 
speculatively fashioned, is to me an astounding childishness, put 
out in a guise of wisdom. Even the representation of Brahm, or 
mere spirit, as the object of worship, does not appear to satisfy 
the conditions which our heart and mind require. For mere 
spirit, if you take away from it personality, or ruling unity of 
consciousness, becomes as truly a mere power or agency, as fire, 
or steam, or electricity, though it may be a more wonderful 
agency than any one of them. Yet still it is just as little a 
ruling agent as they are. How then can we pray to it? We 
have lost the Father, the Governor, and the Judge, all of which 
attributes characterised our God, and we have got instead a 
dumb abstraction, only better than an idol, so far as the pictures 
of the mind may be somewhat higher than those of the senses. 
Now if there remain any difficulties in the world, either from 
suffering, or from exceptional shortcoming of design, I can no 
longer trust in such an abstraction, that either there are good 
reasons for such difficulties, or that they will be cleared up here 
after. Whereas, if the Vedaiita philosophers had not, in their 
over-subtle fondness for abstraction, taken away the unity of 
consciousness and will, which denote personality, from the 
supreme Being, I should have been able to bring faith to the 
aid of my reasoning. Knowing some things, we can take some 
on trust, so long as there is a God to trust in ; but if you leave 
me only a mental abstraction, it becomes almost doubtful whether 
I shall oscillate in the direction of the Vedanta, which says that 
spirit is everything, or that of the Sankhya, which says that 



VED^NTINE SPIRIT AND LETTER. 217 

nature does everything, or in that of the Charvacas, who make 
man a vegetable. 

" Again, there is something curious in what was said about 
Vach passing into Maya, or about the world being made out of 
the thought of Brahma. If, indeed, this were only a parable, 
(as perhaps it may have been,) to represent that thought must 
underlie nature, or that the world must have been created by 
wisdom, then I should perfectly agree ; but then true doctrine 
might as well be stated in plainer terms. But there is a certain 
sound about the statement, as if it materialised the Divine 
thought into a sort of clay, out of which the world might be 
fashioned ; and I can quite understand how this apparently 
subtle conception of the Vedantists may in some hands have 
become a materialism almost as gross as that of the Charvacas. 
Indeed it is certain that some texts of the Vedas do apparently 
speak of the Deity as being the clay no less than the potter ; 
but whether those are right who take such language more 
literally, or whether the A charya here is right in spiritualising, 
it may be difficult to decide. Judging, however, from the text 
itself, I should say the materialistic interpretation was the more 
obviously literal, and the one which any plain reader would 
affix to the text. You know, for example, it is said, This 
whole is Brahm, from Brahma to a clod of earth. Brahm is 
both the efficient and the material cause of the world. He is 
the potter by whom the fictile vase is formed ; he is the clay 
out of which it is made. Everything proceeds from him, with 
out waste or diminution of the source, as light proceeds from the 
sun. Everything merges into him again, as bubbles bursting 
mingle with the air, as rivers fall into the ocean; everything 
proceeds from him, as the web of the spider is thrown out from, 
and drawn back into itself. So far the Veda, which is still 
more explained by the Vishnu* Purana, This world was pro 
duced from Vishnu ; he is the cause of it ; it exists in him ; he 
is the world. Such words appear, at first sight at least, clear 

* These passages are quoted by Wi]son in his Oxford Lectures on the Hindus. 



218 WHETHER MATERIAL OR SPIRITUAL. 

enough." " Those words," here interposed the A charya, " cer 
tainly occur, but why should you give the least favourable in 
terpretation of them, rather than the one we assert to be correct ? 
I have told you that what seems the world is the thought of 
God, and so is God." "Well," answered Blancombe, " there 
are the words; let any one judge of them; but I was chiefly 
pointing out to you now, how this Maya theory of yours, though 
apparently at the opposite pole from a pantheistic materialism, 
had nevertheless something akin in its language. It seems also 
worth noticing, that your theory of creation, on the most favour 
able interpretation of it, is very difficult to understand. For we 
certainly do not think out our own bodies ; we rather, if any 
thing, think them to pieces. Nor, seriously, can we take a 
thought and make it palpable to the senses in the way that 
nature is palpable. There seems to be such a process as crea 
tion, which is unique in its kind, and the attribute of God alone ; 
nor do I quite see why you should deny it to have intervened 
between the creative thought of Brahma, and the outshining of 
Maya ; unless, perhaps, it be that the Vedic texts already 
mentioned compel you to have only one substance, and that 
a Divine one ; and then, starting from this premise, you see no 
other mode of avoiding materialism as applicable to the Deity 
for your conclusion, except by saying that the visible world 
exists only as the embodied thought of the Deity. I should 
like if you would shew me the Maya passage in the Vedas, 
for there I have never seen it." " The account of Vach 
there," said Vidyacharya, "comes from the Veda." "Or rather," 
answered Blancombe, "is it not from the Chandogya Upa- 
nishad?" " Yes, that is a correct distinction," said the other. 
"Perhaps also it is a very important distinction," resumed 
Blancombe ; " for I confess myself quite unable to see, how the 
mere nature-worship* psalms of the Eig-Veda harmonise with 
all that metaphysical theogony which you enlarge upon, and 
which does appear in the Upanishads. But if the Upanishads 
* Compare North British Review, No. XL1X. p. 218. 



WEAKENING OF INDIVIDUALITY. 219 

are a few centuries later than the Yedic songs, then I can 
understand how one arose after the other. Perhaps also those 
of your countrymen, my friend, who consider the Vedic Deity 
as making the world literally out of his own body, may be able 
to shew that their interpretation is the one agreeing best with 
the general tenor of the Yedic Worship. But, however that 
may be, I must confess that even the improved sketch, (or, if you 
prefer my saying so, the more primitive portrait) which you have 
given me of your religion, does not satisfy those anticipations 
or wants of the human mind which, on the side of natural 
reason, most crave a religion, or stand most opposed to either 
atheistic impiety or sensual indifference. For although your 
system appears more reasonable than the Sankhya, in that it 
makes Divine Spirit precede nature, yet its mode of doing so is 
either embarrassingly mystical, if it means to assert a Creator, or 
else, if it does not, it seems liable to subside into a materialising 
notion of a flux; and then it would let us drop into all the 
dreary hopelessness of those who make life a seething cauldron, 
and mankind mere bubbles blown upon it for a moment. Then 
as regards the individuality of each man s soul, it is certainly 
harder to agree with you than with Sada"nanda: for so far as 
we can trust our own mental experience at all, we are conscious 
of a certain unity in ourselves ; and though all humanity may 
be called one kind, that sort of aggregate oneness is very different 
from the clear self-consciousness by which every man knows him 
self to have a unity of being of his own. I grant you an aggregative 
unity for all life : and this too as an unity of type which be 
tokens an unity of idea in the Divine foresight : but you must 
grant me in turn a multiplicity of individualities for all sorts of 
living things. This multiplicity seems proved both by what we 
are conscious of in ourselves, and also by our observation of the 
different experiences of men, such as life or joy to one, and death 
or suffering to another ; and again it is no less proved by the 
type in plants and animals. You may say anything you like of 
the same earth and air contributing to the growth of trees : yet 



220 



WEAKENING OF INDIVIDUALITY. 



indubitably there is a peculiar form, and so a oneness of life, 
according to which each tree shapes itself. Whatever that 
secret germ or type of life may be, which makes the fig-tree grow 
differently from the cedar, it sufficiently isolates each kind from 
other kinds, and again individualises each specimen. For if 
that mysterious germ dies, the whole tree dies. So in man, we 
are separated by the law of our kind from all other species ; and 
yet each man is driven into himself to find that mysterious 
dweller of our flesh*, which is born alone, and dies alone, and 
which in most of the experiences of life has no partaker of its 
bitterness, or intermeddler in its secret joy. This mysterious 
power of self-consciousness, which we call each man s soul, is 
that for which you allow immortality, and for which we also 
claim an individual unity. Nor, indeed, will any doctrine which 
denies that unity, satisfy the better hope of man ; for the strong 
desire of doing something worthy to be remembered, and the 
expectation of looking back with great gratitude on our own 
experience, and with adoration on the unfolding work of God, 
must all be lost when the individual man merges in a kind of 
spiritual ocean ; and though this Ocean of yours is better than 
the Bauddha one of physical life ; yet, in that it has no unity 
of consciousness on which we can rest as on that of a doer 
capable of caring for us, it is still vague and appalling in its 
unsatisfactoriness. For your spirit is not truly a God, but a 
kind of stream of potentiality. Indeed, my friend, it is no 
wonder to me that nations among whom so dreamy a belief is 
dominant, should neither have the wholesome energy, nor the 
indomitable tenacity of purpose, which belongs to men conscious 
of their own identity, and holding fast a faith in the living God. 
For mankind, not having some one above them to obey and 
trust in, seem naturally to deteriorate, like a hound who has 
lost the master who encouraged him, or the plant which dwindles 
for want of wholesome light. Yet better still, I might say they 
are like children, who having lost kingly parents, go and gather 

* So Manu. Institutes, iv. 240. (Sir W. Jones s Works.) 



VEDANTINE COERESPONDENCIES. 221 

their impressions of tli ought and manners from the wild 
creatures of the forest, which are naturally of a lower kind. 
Then, again, the hopelessness of your scheme strikes me more 
strongly, when I consider the grounds you give of your pre 
ferential worship for Siva. For when you relapse as it were 
from trust in the creative or preserving God into adoration of 
the destroyer and renewer, you seem to fall from a clear con 
ception of directing providence into some such sense of the vast 
revolution of life and death, as the Saugata has explained to us 
on the part of the Bauddhas. He also believes in a kind of 
Divine intelligence, but he has not made up his mind whether 
that intelligence directs the world. Hence the belief in it 
becomes, except so far as his better conscience may bias his 
theory, an inoperative opinion. When indeed you refused to 
call the soul mere intelligence, I understood you to mean that 
it was something more Divine than any apprehensive perception, 
which some might make the result of our bodily organisation. 
So far I had no objection to go with you ; but when you ex 
plained the soul to be a very portion of the Divinity, I rather 
trembled at your boldness ; but when you went farther, and 
resolved your deity into mere spirit without clear self-conscious 
ness or dominant will, I no longer saw in what respect either 
the soul or the deity is practically better with you, than when 
the Bauddhas make them mere intelligence. The more now, 
indeed, that I consider your Saiva doctrine of revolution, as 
one s thoughts grow with speaking, the more I doubt whether 
practically, and to any real end, you do put thought under 
nature ; or at least, whether you are sufficiently careful to believe 
that the world is working out the design of a Divine thinker. 
For your Siva does not appear properly an Iswara, or a lord of 
life and death, so much as a vast circle comprehending meta 
physically all revolutions and contingencies that either have 
been, or may come about, or can be conceived. He seems 
changeful eternity, rather than the eternal ; and in such a cyclical 
recurrence it is difficult to say what comes before, and what 



222 A GEOLOGICAL PROBABILITY. 

comes after. It is a perpetually mutual following. You seem 
then dangerously to re-approacli the error of the Bauddhas. 

"With respect to both you and them, on this point, an 
argument of some probability might be drawn from the gene 
rations of former living things, which have left vestiges in the 
structure of the earth. You are aware, that our mountains and 
plains are found not only to contain, but in parts to consist of, 
the bones of animals long dead, and the changed elements of 
plants decayed. We do not know how long ago such and such 
a species of animals lived; but we know whether each came 
before or after, or at the same time with, another unlike it, 
since the oldest for the most part lie lowest in the earth. I do 
not mean that violent convulsions may not often have disturbed 
the order, but for the most part we trace an order. Now it has 
been observed, that we find, from the vestiges of human bones, 
man must have existed in the more recent stages of the earth s 
development ; but at a period anterior to man s existence there 
were creatures which do not now exist, yet which so far re 
sembled him as to have backbones, and other similarities of 
structure ; whereas in other successions of periods, farther and 
farther back, there were different kinds of creatures, until at last 
you come to a stage, in which there does not appear to us any 
vestige of animal life at all. In all this succession there is 
manifest arrangement; since many of the successive races of 
animals lived in places where the climate was adapted to them, 
though now it would not be so, for the placing of sea and land 
and climate appears to have undergone many changes in the 
course of countless ages. Nor yet do we trace only arrange 
ment, but to a considerable degree progress. Higher races of 
animals for the most part come after lower ones, and last of all 
man the noblest of all. So far then as this progress is made 
out, it marks not only design, which would sufficiently appear 
from arrangement of any kind; but it also marks something 
opposite to that hopeless revolution of life and death which 
belongs to the Saiva no less than to the Bauddha doctrine. It 



CLEARER TRACES OF DESIGN. 223 

conveys to us an impression of something which we may compare 
in a way to a line, as being an onward course in something 
like a career of the world under the guidance of its Divine 
ruler. Nor here need I stay to refute at length Sadananda s 
ingenious attempt to wrest this idea of progress onward into 
a theory of the blind striving of nature. For that is both 
negatived clearly by whatever appears of arrangement ; and also 
by what most of us admit about the necessity of thought 
underlying nature ; as well as by my own argument for the 
personal consciousness of the first Cause, which although used 
against the Cha*rvacas, will apply equally to the followers of the 
Sankhya. I do not even build upon this idea of progress as de- 
ducible from geology, anything more than an argument applica 
ble to our present state of knowledge. It is conceivable that here 
after life may turn out to have extended deeper below the earth s 
crust, or farther into the abyss of ages, than we now consider pro 
bable ; for even a small part of the Divine doings, if they happen 
to be disclosed to a greater extent than is generally apprehended, 
might well appear to us endless ; but yet very much larger parts 
beyond those, and even the entire whole, cannot be without clear 
end and pervading design, (whether a growing and unfolding 
design, or a fixed one,) to that eternal Mind which arranges all. 
But of this I have already spoken in discoursing about Infinity, 
which I only admit as an expression of an Infinite Mind. 

" Leaving then that argument from geology , I take refuge rather 
in the reasonings already urged ; for if it was difficult for me to 
refute the Charvacas, without using thoughts which are equally 
adverse to this vague and potential Deity of yours, it is clear that 
you too fall short of satisfying me. The world only becomes intelli 
gible when we consider it as coming from the providence of a crea 
tive Iswara, and going on under his guidance to fulfil his design. 
We, my friends, are happy in proportion as we concur in work 
ing out that design, for ourselves or others ; but since we cannot 
do so without the courage which comes of faith, unhappy is the 
man or the nation, whose Deity has melted away from their 



224 SHADOWINESS OF PANTHEISM. 

gaze into the shadowy abstraction of a spirit^ or the dim clouds 
of scepticism. It would not surprise me, if men, finding 
themselves in a world thus become orphan, should suffer any 
strange kind of phantom to assume the likeness of their heavenly 
Father. If the more speculative class of men, in endeavouring 
to fill an unnatural void, should become bewildered with throw 
ing their inquisitive thoughts into all possible regions of meta 
physics, that would be only such a result as I should expect. 
Nor will you take it ill, I hope, if I say that all the systems 
which have been explained to us here, have something of so 
cloudy a character, that we seem transported by them out of the 
region of realities into dreamland, and not only our sensations 
and their results are made uncertain, but all our mental per 
ceptions become confused, and the laws of our being and think 
ing fall into a kind of anarchy. It is no wonder that many sects, 
and many modes of apprehending the Deity, which differ from 
each other so much as to be in effect different religions, should 
hence arise ; and if they appeal to the same books, they must 
have very discordant interpretations ; or if each successive line 
of thought has in its day left the record of its expression in 
writings deemed sacred, there must result inextricable confusion 
in the attempt to reduce the whole mass of such writings to one 
system. Then again, persons who cannot speculate profoundly, 
but who feel the instinctive necessity of worshipping some Divine 
Being, will be too apt to seize on the nearest emblem, however 
unworthy an emblem it may be, of that Ineffable One whom 
they know not otherwise how to bring near them. On this 
point, my venerable friend, let me earnestly beg your attention. 
It is very sad to see throughout India men and women bowing 
down to idols, or setting up dumb stones as objects of worship. 
But what is still more sad is, to find learned Brahmans often en 
courage, or at least palliate it, by arguments drawn from this 
very theory of yours about the Universal Spirit. Thus they 
carry out your doctrine to the worst side of its results. The 
world and all its parts, they say, are only the embodiment of 



TEMPTATIONS OF PANTHEISM. 225 

Brahma s thought; nay, they are his body; therefore, why not 
worship him in that stone, where he is present, as well as 
anywhere else ? But what an infatuated materialism is this ! I 
feel confident, you did not resolve everything into spirit, for 
the sake of having God thus resolved into "brute matter. I do 
not myself even think that the omnipresence of God should "be 
understood to imply local ubiquity, in such a sense that the 
very Being of the most High can be said to reside in stones. 
For omnipresence, as we ascribe it to the Deity, seems to 
mean the embrace of all things within the providential will of 
an overruling and clear intelligence ; whereas, ubiquity, such 
as the defence of idol-worshippers implies, would make the 
Deity dwell in everything senseless, unhappy, and unclean. But 
at all events I am certain that the making of a thing by our 
thought does not convert that thing into our body ; or else you 
might as well pray to the ragged coat of a soldier in a dust- 
closet, as present a petition to the Governor General of India, 
by whose orders probably the soldier s uniform was made some 
years before. But in fact, when you called the world the body 
of Brahma, you could only mean it properly as a metaphor; 
it was a figurative way of saying, that the world shews us in a 
visible shape the Divine design. Yet the application of your 
doctrine by those who encourage idol-worship, may shew that 
I was not without reason in noticing the materialistic tinge in 
your language ; nor perhaps even they who impute such mate 
rialism to the old Vedic text." 

" But we are not justly responsible," here interposed Vidy- 
acharya, " for the way in which ignorance perverts our doctrine." 
"That depends partly," answered Blancombe, "upon how far 
the practice blamed flows naturally out of your language, and 
partly upon the pains you may take to prevent the practice, 
whether it be a perversion or a natural consequence. You re 
member what your doctor Sancara said about the necessity of 
suffering people to worship all kinds of deities, whether truly 
conceived, or wrongly. Even you have yourself spoken with 
M, p. 15 



226 MORAL WEAKNESS OF HINDUISM. 

some indifference on that point; although you have said no 
thing in praise of idolatry. But I could wish you not to "be 
indifferent about who is the true God, and by what name He is 
most rightly called ; for then perhaps you would be better able 
to aid me in rooting up all perversions of His truth. The plan 
of Sancara appears from experience to be so far from wise, that 
it suffers many thousands of human beings to make their very 
religion a mean of moral debasement ; while it often repels the 
more intelligent by a sort of recoil into utter disbelief of all 
religion. This is the penalty of teaching men falsely with good 
intentions ; they reject the falsehood, and then cast away the 
truth with it. Thus, in fact, the common sort of people give 
practically the lie to whoever says that wisdom could not be 
imparted to them ; and some such result for evil might have 
been predicted from any plan which began with doubting 
either the truth or charity of God, or the great brotherhood 
of mankind. How far what I am saying has actually taken 
place in India, you all are better judges than I am. But at 
least it seems as if there was great difficulty in reconciling 
the higher education which your countrymen are in many 
places receiving, with any real respect for the popular wor 
ship, either of idols, or other things of the kind. Nor does 
it seem as if there would be any remedy in such a metaphysical 
spiritualising of the common worship as learned Hindus are 
apt to substitute; for, in fact, the esoteric pantheism and the 
common polytheism fall in together like two sides of one system. 
They are as two faces of one wandering from the living God. 
Thus on the whole, while simple piety of the more intelligent 
kind is repelled, the metaphysical searchers entangle themselves 
in a system so shadowy that it is apt to end in the very opposite 
of what they intended ; and again, with bad men, who rather 
seek encouragement for their vices, the end of attempting to 
behold God in every part of nature is, that they obey and fear 
Him nowhere. The endeavour to deify the world ends rather 
with sensualising the Deity as Ma"ya, 



DOCTRINAL WANTS. 227 

" Whereas, on the contrary, I think happier results might 
have been predicted, if instead of letting men set up idols, you 
had been able to persuade them to set ever before their minds 
the image of a spiritual Father. Not that I mean this, as if the 
mental picture of a God could, as some of your books seem to teach, 
save us, unless the true God in Himself correspond. But if we 
had any knowledge from without, such as is properly termed 
revelation, of the Supreme Ruler of the world being one to 
whom we are personally responsible, then we should seem to have 
a great safeguard over our secret actions ; or if we were to con 
ceive of Him as a friend, that might be a great encouragement 
in our distress ; or again, if He could be known to have exhi 
bited any lively likeness of Himself, as for instance, if the 
Divine wisdom had taken body and dwelt among us, giving us 
thereby an example of life, and a. personal assurance of the 
Divine sympathy with all our struggles and experiences ; or 
even if we had any certain hope of an appointed mode in which 
we might lay down our sins mentally, and be cleansed from the 
penal memory of the past, as well as strengthened with exceed 
ing might against temptations for the future, such a religion 
would supply some deep wants which your subtle theories 
leave in the heart, and would correspond to those yearning 
anticipations in the better instinct of humanity, which I have 
insisted upon in arguing with Dr Wolff, as a kind of pro 
phecies of some faith to be. But y