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 you understand me all
along, as not meaning that such things are good, if they are
imaginary, but that they would be very good if we could be
satisfied by clear witness of their reality.
" Here then I should not have been displeased to find you
lay more stress upon those old stories of the Deity becoming
incarnate, which in some form or other have been prevalent in
India. For it is quite conceivable that by exhibiting the Divine
thus clothed in humanity the supreme Iswara might have given
us such an image of Himself, as would be a true medium of
conceiving Him, and a most blessed substitute for the idolatry
152
228 INCONSISTENCIES.
which degrades. Only I should not be quite satisfied, if such
incarnations were supposed to have taken place in the form of
a lion, or of a dwarf, or even of a great conqueror ; for neither
as bestial, nor as dwarfish, nor even as delighting in bloodshed,
can we holily conceive of God. It may indeed be said that
conquest becomes sometimes a removal of greater evils, as a
tempest may be of pestilence ; yet it is not as imaging his power
in the storm, nor yet as giving free range to the terrors of the
sword in necessary war, that we find the Deity most attractive
to our affections, or most powerful to touch the conscience of
man with that thrill of love which passes into meek obedience.
Unless therefore your Indian stories of incarnation are some
what better than the sort of things I have alluded to, they
ought hardly to satisfy us ; yet some idea of the kind, if it could
be substantiated by historical experience, might be full of com
fort and instruction.
" You have not however attempted to apply such an idea.
You have alluded to your own sacred books ; but it is evident
even from your indirect admissions, that there is a vast discre
pancy between divers portions of those books. Above all, it
is impossible to doubt that the worship described so far as it
is embodied in the hymns of the Vedas, which are the earliest
and most sacred of your books, was very different from the
metaphysical cosmogony which you have been good enough to
explain to-day. That point may seem rather one for discussion
between Sadananda and yourself; or at least is premature
for me here to dwell upon; but I cannot forbear saying, that
your subtle metaphysics have the air of subsequent explanations,
which pious learning appears to have devised in order to meet
the less spiritual, but more literal interpretation, which the
Sankhyasts and other philosophers gave to the Vedic hymns.
Then we have seen, that all your elaborate result does
not prevent either idolatry, or other degrading forms of worship.
May I not add, that it seems almost a suicidal admission, for
you to acknowledge that you despair of improving the vast
SOCIAL SHORTCOMINGS. 229
masses of your countrymen? For, just as you said, that the
Divine soul is in the Brahman and the Chandala, so have we
need of a religion which shall bring near to God not only the
priest, the king, and the noble, but which shall raise the humble,
enlighten the ignorant, and bind all mankind into one body
by intersecting veins of sympathy and intelligence under the
headship of a heavenly Father. Believe me, no religion can be
truly of God, which fears to speak good news to the poor, or
which has not a home for the outcast, and a possibility of
rising by renovation of the heart and spirit for even the most
abject of mankind. In that sense, but in no other, I accept
your doctrine of one soul-tree, whose branches embrace the
world.
" Least of all should I think that a true religion would leave
women comparatively little taught, and liable from ignorance
to become idle toys, or the mere victims of sensuality. If that
Divine soul which you speak of, either in your sense or in any
sense, animates alike with men the gentler partners of their
being, the religion which is to train them in the sight of God,
must begin early both by purifying the affections and also
by awakening and enlarging the intelligence. Those early
marriages which almost forerun the instincts of nature,
and at least obstruct education, would be somewhat checked.
It would become the duty of intelligent women to aid in making
the home of man a natural temple, from which the unbought
incense of piety and affection would ascend, and in which the
Eternal Spirit Himself would not disdain by His instinctive
teaching to dwell and be felt. Then, among other improve
ments, the conversation of common people would not be, (as
I have heard some of your countrymen* complain, for this is
their saying,) such as to repel women by indecency, or else to
vitiate their simple modesty. It is not by keeping the two
sexes apart, but by instructing both and purifying both in
* Strictures on Hindu Polytheism, in Bengalee, by Bruja Mohun. Essays on
the Hindus. London, 1823.
230 SINS OF INDIA.
the knowledge and fear of the true God, that all social virtues
are to be best preserved.
"But such a knowledge would indeed change many other
things in India for the better. It would above all teach and
induce men to speak the truth candidly one with another, both
as believers in a Judge who calls to account for the secrets of
the heart, and as members of one great spiritual brotherhood,
animated therefore by a common life, and each interested in
preserving the just rights of his neighbour. Nor do I suppose
that you would then see men irrationally praying against each
other for success when they go to law, and perhaps attempting
to ensure that success by false-swearing, instead of rather en
deavouring that each should be in the right, and praying for
their cause to be determined by justice. If they had even an
intelligent conception of God, they would not pray to a blind
idol ; and if they had a moral feeling at heart, that the true
God must decide things in truth and righteousness, they would
never try to bribe Him by unholy prayers to an unjust de
cision.
"I say nothing here of caste as a mere social distinction;
but so far as it implies spiritual pride, it would tend to fade, in
proportion as men felt themselves brothers from their common
bearing to one Divine Saviour, In the same manner also, I
conceive, sectarianism and all its marks, with vertical strokes or
horizontal strokes, and whatever rivalries may thus be cherished
among men, would die out before the light. Much more, all
barbarous practices, like the bloody sacrifices of the Khonds, the
child-murder of other tribes, and may I not add, any inclination
to restore the burning of widows, or encouragement for fanatics
to throw themselves under the car of Crishna, as Jagannatha,
would become as repulsive to people in this country, as they
now appear to more educated nations. All the abominations
sanctioned by the Tantras, the left-handed Sa"ctas, and the festival
of the Holij which I remember seeing celebrated last February,
with obscene verses and disgusting attitudes in the open streets,
NEED OF A TRUER RELIGION. 231
as well as the singing-girls, which are described as an unholy
appendage to some temples, would all go the same road. You,
my venerable friend, would rejoice at heart, I feel confident, to
see all such things utterly vanish. Yet you might still practise
the old Hindu virtues of gentleness and patience ; you might
respect life to whatever extent your conscience prompted you,
though I confess I don t see why the life of a cow is more sacred
than that of any other animal equally useful. You might also
train up families in virtue, and still build water-tanks, and plant
trees for the benefit of travellers, since these things are good and
profitable for men ; but you would find (I think) any true re
ligion quite in harmony with what you have distinctly laid
down, that mere human deeds* cannot in themselves merit, as
of right, either the forgiveness of sins, or everlasting life. I
could wish you would persuade all your countrymen to think
even on that last point, as you do yourself.
" But, in any case, we can entertain no sanguine hope of
improving the people of India, unless we are able by the bless
ing of the true God to become the means of imparting to them
that knowledge of Himself, which would alone go far to lift up
the lowly. Your system seems in every possible sense stricken
with the plague of despair ; and as it has on it the marks of
hopelessness, so I have shewn it to be contradictory to reason ;
and I doubt if even it is in harmony with the very scriptures
from which you profess to extract it. We seem then still to
have our faith to seek. For I fully acknowledge, it would be no
use teaching another system as more hopeful, unless we had
more grounds of either reason or experience for believing it to
be true. Yet, again, some would say, true fitness of a belief for
man s mental system might alone prove it to be true ; but I am
here rather arguing the converse, that what is truest is fittest ;
* The paramount efficacy of faith is a doctrine of the Bhagavad-gfta", and
of modern hymns : but not ancient in India, and thought to be borrowed from the
Persian Sufis. Colebrooke, Vol. i. p. 376 ; Wilson s Oxford Led. pp. 30, 31. But
it may be a native, though late, development.
232 WHETHER TRUER TO INTUITION, OR BY PROOF.
though probably the two will at last correspond. I allow in
deed for the evidence of the mind at least as much as for that of
the senses, and probably more. Hence it often occurs to me in
speaking, that instead of labouring to prove a proposition, as if
my side were the more doubtful of the two, I ought rather to
say in virtue of that which we feel and necessarily believe, O
come, let us fall down and kneel; and worship the Lord our
Maker."
OBSTACLES TO THE DISCUSSION. 233
CHAPTER VII.
Outline of Indian Chronology.
" The Hindu passes as it were a kind of spiritual existence in ages long since
gone by." Heeren, As. Res.
" Bei den Hindu hat die Religion alle Geschichte zerstort." Benfey, in Lassen.
WHEN Blancombe had got so far, there was a kind of half-
complimentary assent from the greater part of the company.
It seemed also to be agreed that farther inquiry should be
made about religious books, with a view of either seeing
whether they had valid claims on our acceptance, or how far
they warranted religions which professed to be extracted from
them. " But here," said Vidyacharya, " I can go no farther.
You are all going to discuss the claims of different religions,
and I am already fixed. Not that 1 should not be glad to
profit by your superior wisdom, and ready to learn anything
from you. But I foresee that you are going to overlook the
great source of our knowledge on the subject. Or, at least,
you are going to balance other books against the four Vedas,
which we know to have come from Brahma"; while it is not
possible that our earthly disputations should be able to teach
better than what he has inspired. If, then, you are willing
to take them as the foundation of your argument, good; but
otherwise, I may as well be silent." " Well, I too have a
difficulty in beginning this argument," said Blancombe, "and
it is of the same nature as yours, though not exactly the same
thing." "What is your difficulty?" asked Sadananda. "It
is a doubt," answered Blancombe, " whether we are going to
begin rightly." "How so?" asked the other. "Why," he
replied, " every place, and in the same way every truth, seems
to have a road leading to it, and many which lead away
from it. Just, then, as a man would not reach Benares by
234 MORAL PRELIMINARIES.
walking towards Seringapatam, so we are not likely to find
the true religion if we look for it in an irreligious manner."
iYou mean in an irreligious spirit?" again asked the other.
"Just so," he answered, "that is part of my meaning; for one
reason why mankind so often miss the truth seems to be
that they set out with some principle of falsehood in their
minds ; and when they have called their corrupt passion, what
ever it may be, by some holy name, they think it religion."
" Then you mean to say," asked Sadananda, " that we must
try to purify our minds of prejudice, and to come with a
sincere love of truth, though it may happen to contradict
whatever we have been accustomed to believe?" "I mean
that," replied Blancombe, "and something more. For even
our past belief, if it has led us in any way to worship God,
must have been to us, in some measure, a way of access to
Him. Supposing, then, we should lose such a belief without
opening up any better way in the course of our inquiry, there
may be danger of our becoming more remote from God than
before. Hence, I would hardly advise any man anywhere to
enter upon intellectual speculation as to the religion which
has hitherto controlled his thoughts, without earnest prayer
that the eternal and unseen Being, whom we confess to be
imaged by all sorts of worship, though in a distorted mirror
by most of them, would either enable him to hold fast what
ever is good in his present faith, or else lead him into some
thing far better. Let the Brahman, for example, use the text
of the Gayatri, praying for the most spiritual light of the Divine
Ruler to illuminate his mind; and do you in the same way
entreat the Preserver of the World to preserve you from mental
evil, and to purge the gaze of your soul ; and let the Saugata
also endeavour both to purify his intelligence, and to associate
it with deep feeling of that which is most Divine about us.
For not without such prayers and aspirations do I think it
either safe or holy to go about criticising the objects of our
faith, and comparing those of other men. But amidst all
USE OF EXTERNAL HISTOKY. 235
these, the more vividly we can fix our mind s gaze upon
the certainty of a supreme Iswara who will hear and guide
us, and the more clearly we can conceive of Him as the Spirit
of very truth, therefore as something disengaged from all
fictions, and idolatries, and compromises, the more likely we
are to obtain from Him availing help. Yet this is not all.
For supposing that He whom we seek should already have
given, in any region of the world, a true revelation of His
own being, we cannot well escape the blame of pride and
negligence, if we disdain examining all the credentials of
such a revelation; or if we suffer ourselves to be ignorant of
the history which records it. We could not consistently pray
for light, or expect to have such prayers favourably heard,
unless we avail ourselves of whatever light is already given.
Hence I do not see how we are to discuss the sacred records
of any religion, without first laying a sound historical foun
dation." "But why is that so important?" asked Sada"nanda;
" for if the books are good they will teach us of themselves."
" Perhaps they may," replied Blancombe, "if we give them
an opportunity of doing so by taking them fairly in our
hands. But if we set out with a prejudice that one set of
books is as good as another, and read false rather than true
ones, or if we accustom ourselves to say there is no more
confirmation in the outward world for a Koran than a Purana,
or for a Bible than a Koran, the best books in the world may
then have no chance of teaching us. Hence it may be very
important for us, and especially for learned inquirers, to have
some knowledge of history, and not to mix all nations and
generations into a confused mass, but to know what came
before, and what after, and who lived in countries where
sacred events are said to have happened, as well as who lived
in other countries at the same time. For thus we may acquire
tests of natural probability, and be able to say whether events
are in themselves credible, whether the persons recording them
were true witnesses, and whether any collateral testimony can
236 USE OF EXTEKNAL HISTORY.
be derived from other nations whose prepossessions may have
been of another kind. So important is all this kind of external
probability, that any books which do not answer such tests
may fairly be suspected, or, at least, cannot be put on the same
ground of credibility as books which do answer them. Espe
cially books may become very suspicious, which are of so
uncertain an origin that their date may be conjectured, without
violence, to have been a thousand years earlier or later. In
the same way, books in the hands of a whole people, and
especially of any community extending over many nations,
are, on the first look of things, less likely to have been altered,
either to insert prophecies, or for any other wrong motive,
than a volume in the hands of a mere priesthood ; and yet if
the priests were either obliged or accustomed to read and
expound their volume at short intervals to the people at large,
this distinction need not be so emphatic. Then, again, as to
the internal contents of religious books, we have to inquire
whether they agree in character with the manners of the times,
and especially in narrative with the accounts given more or
less by other nations as independent witnesses ; for the tes
timony of a stranger is one of double strength. But such an
inquiry can never be satisfactorily conducted, unless we have
first our groundwork of history laid out as a map before us.
Hence, I almost venture to say, that nations in whom the
historical instinct is not strong, or who have no conscientious
and clear record of facts in their own history, can never claim
to have been the depositories of a Divine revelation, at least
for mankind. You see yourself, such people furnish us with
no data by which we can test their books; or probably such
data as they give bear record against them. Indeed, the very
fact of not having been inspired with a conscientious regard
to truth in recording events, may be said to put men out of
the court of the nations as witnesses. Thus, if I read anywhere
that a prince had brought all the earth under one umbrella,
when other authorities informed me that many independent
NATIONAL ACCURACY. 237
kings lived even in the same country, I should be afraid that
the imagination of such a writer might carry its exaggerating
tendency into religion, and paint a common event as a miracle,
or any mendicant faquir as a great saint. Again, if I found the
ordinary teachers of any religion represented not merely as
earnest and conscientious, but as gifted with superhuman infalli
bility, and free from the common accidents of men, I should
regard any reality answering to this description as at least
sufficiently rare to be unlikely, and as requiring, therefore,
more than usual testimony. The same rule would apply to
events so strange as not to be traceable to the ordinary links,
of causation in nature. For although the Saugata justly argues
that the Divinity may teach men often, and I should add
always, yet, if we have discovered by large induction, that
the Divine method of teaching men is by providence and
blessing upon experience and aspiration, we may expect that
method to be maintained with some such regularity as other
great processes in nature and history, except where extraor
dinary results may seem called for by extraordinary need, and
again certified by no common witness. Moreover, such wonders,
as I have before hinted, will be less probable, in proportion
as they are less instructive. For instance, if a religious book
should tell us of an incarnate Divinity holding up a mountain
as a parasol, merely in order to protect certain Gopis* or shep
herdesses from a thunder-shower, we ought in all soberness
to ask whether such a story is credible ; what moral lesson
can it convey ; or with what sort of stories is it mingled, and
by what curious contemporaries attested, that we should believe
a thing so much at variance with the Divine government of
the world ? What, indeed, should we be better for believing it ?
" It is only in passing that I throw out the suggestion, if the
doctrines about the Deity recorded in sacred books are very
obvious, the fact of their being trivial will rather detract from
their value ; or, again, if they are quite contradictory to our
* This is told of Crishna in the Sri Bhdgavat Purdna.
238 WONDERS, AND GOODNESS.
reason, or if they tend to any impurity, such a character of in
struction is not likely to have proceeded from the Author of our
mind and soul, or of our intellectual and moral being; for I
suppose we are not seeking any other Deity than the One who
inspires us to conceive and feel our best thoughts or emotions.
Yet I have already admitted that religious doctrines may trans
cend, and even be expected to transcend, our comprehensions;
hence for religious books to contain things different from what
we should have expected, is not alone a just ground of objection
to them. But we may reasonably accept such statements in
-things beyond our judgments, if all that accompanies them in
things falling within the ken of our minds is both credible and
easily verified. That is to say, if the writers of the books lived
among a people accustomed to scrutinise facts ; if they never
disguise their own faults or ignorances ; if they give you place
and time and number, with evident desire to be accurate, and so
as to be consistent with what we know from other quarters, or
can reasonably conjecture, in such a case our general acceptance
of the history for sound reasons may extend to some things
which, if they had stood alone, or not in such good company,
might have startled us as extraordinary.
" You see by this time why we must require in a religious
discussion, which is carried on so systematically as the present
is, a firm ground- work of history. Will you then permit me to
ask you, since no persons are able to inform me better, what has
been the course of your stream of history in India, and what
are the great epochs which you set up in it as landmarks?"
" Do you mean," asked Yidyacharya here, " to inquire about
the Divine ages?" "Why no," answered Blancombe; "for
that might not only revive the difficult question, which we
before glanced at, how far the idea of Time can apply to the
eternal Spirit, but it would also provoke you to mention
periods, which can have little to do with the history of man,
being formed possibly upon observation of the stars, and which
moreover are so vast as utterly to bewilder me. I remember,
EARLY HINDU CHRONOLOGY EXTRAVAGANT. 239
for instance, reading in a quotation from one of your books * that
a human year is only a day with the gods, and that four thou
sand years of the gods, each (I suppose) consisting of about
three hundred and sixty such days, make up a Divine age, and
four Divine ages make an age of the gods, while it requires a
thousand such Divine ages to make a single day of Brahma , and
as many to make his night. Again, some have said that it re
quires a thousand of Brahma s days to make an hour of Vishnu,
and six hundred thousand such hours to make a period of Eudra.
Now, since you, my friend, have instructed me that Kudra
means Siva, whom you especially worship, it is clear that any
account you might give me of the Divine ages would be rather
alarming, even if after all we escaped the question about the
nature of Time itself. But such periods have evidently nothing
to do with human history, or at least nothing with history so
far back as it is likely to concern us, or we to remember it.
Hence, if you please, I had rather waive all discussion of those
Divine ages, in which some say that thousands of years are put
on or off at pleasure, while others again think that they trace
astronomical calculations in them ; and we will start more mo
destly with some striking event in the generations of men.
When, for example, would you place the events of the Maha-
bharata, or the great war between the sons of Pandu and Kuru?"
"It is generally agreed," answered the A charya, "that the great
war took place at the end of the Brazen (Dwdpara) age, or at the
beginning of the Kali age, which is now in progress. That would
be just four thousand nine hundred and fifty-five years ago, the
present year (i. e. 1854, A. D.) being the seventeen hundred and
* Compare Sir Win. Jones s Works, Vol. I. pp. 280 360. Colebrooke,
Vol. ii. pp. 474 5. H. H. Wilson, Vishnu Purdna, and Lectures. Lassen,
I. A. B. ii. p. 500.
The aggregate of the four ages would be, 4,320,000 years ; out of which the
Kali age has 432,000. The identity of the figures, excepting cyphers, is worth
noticing. But a Manwantara, (or a dispensation of humanity) is, according to
Wilson s Sanscrit Lexicon, 308,448,000 years, and the Calpa, or period of fourteen
such dispensations, would be 4,318,272,000 years, or nearly three cyphers more.
240 PERIOD OF ANCIENT DYNASTIES.
seventy-sixth of the Saca, or Salivahana s, era." " But you see,
I suppose," observed Blancombe, " that even this is a very long
time." "Perhaps so," answered the other. "When I say long,"
proceeded Blancombe, " I mean long as compared to any other
human history; for this great war is of course not the earliest
event in the annals of India." " Very far from it," answered
the other, " for Kama, the great king of Oude, who extended
his conquests to Ceylon, and was, indeed, an incarnation of
Vishnu, lived before the Brazen age, though after the Silver had
ended ; and from Rama up to Icshwaku, who is the first de
scendant of Vaivaswata, recorded as having reigned at Oude,
there are fifty-five according to the Ramayana, but according to
the Vishnu Purana more than sixty generations of princes. The
Vaivaswata, whom you mention, is also, if I mistake not, called
Manu?" here asked Blancombe. " He is," answered the other,
" the last of the Manus, to whom Brahma has committed the
peopling of the world, and therefore the father of the present
race of mankind." " He stands then, apparently for Adam,"
proceeded Blancombe, " or rather, perhaps, for mankind con
ceived generically, since I recollect that when the word enters
into compounds, it clearly means man. From Icshwaku then
to Rama you have about sixty generations of solar princes
reigning at Oude (Ayodhya), beside a parallel lunar dynasty
reigning at Vitdra (Pratishthana) . What then may we suppose
to have been the interval between Rama and Yudhishthira?"
" Clearly from what has been said," answered the other, "the
entire Brazen age appears to have intervened. For, the Brazen
age begins after Riima, and ends with Paricshit, the successor
of Yudhishthira. During that interval, there appear to have been
twenty-nine kings who were descendants of the Sun, whether
they reigned at Oude, or rather perhaps at Canouj, and their
reigns are said to have lasted about eight hundred and sixty-
four thousand years." "You mention the number with as
perfect tranquillity of mind," observed Blancombe, smiling,
" as if it was usual for men to live about thirty thousand years.
PERIOD OF ANCIENT DYNASTIES. 241
Suppose, however, we merely strike off the thousand, and con
jecture the number tentatively to have been eight hundred
and sixty-four years. We shall then have between twenty-
nine and thirty years for a generation, which is a sufficiently
common duration of life elsewhere, and quite as long, I
think, as the average of a generation at the present day in
India. By the aid of some such expedient your genealogical
table might hold its ground among possibilities ; otherwise, I
fear, it would be very difficult for either of us to persuade the
nations of the world in general, that your history is reconcil
able with what is believed of the progress of mankind from the
most authentic annals elsewhere." " But it seems to us only
natural," answered Vidyacharya, "that our history should in the
holy land go back farther than that of profane nations ; and the
earlier fathers of mankind may well have lived longer than
their degenerate descendants. You have, I think, in the books
which Christians acknowledge as sacred, the latter principle
fully admitted. But why should our accounts be tried by those
of other nations, and not rather theirs be tested by ours?"
"Well," resumed Blancombe, "if you will not bring your
Sastras to the test of comparative history in general, at least
you will admit that they ought to be consistent with themselves.
After, therefore, that very long interval between Rama and the
heroes of the great war, such as Arjuna and Yudhishthira, I
suppose these latter ought to be many generations lower down
in your lists of the Lunar dynasty, than Rama is in those of the
Solar kings. But pray, is it so?" "Not exactly," answered
the A chary a; " for it is believed that some of the Vitora kings
in the Chandra- Vansa (Moon-dynasty) had their lives super-
naturally prolonged." " Then your lists do, as I had been
told," asked Blancombe, " make Rama full sixty generations
from Manu in the Oude dynasty, while those heroes who lived
so many thousand years after him, according to your reckoning,
are placed even earlier, or barely fifty generations from Manu,
in the list of the kings of Vitora?" "What you have been
M. p. 16
242 ANCIENT DYNASTIES.
told of the lists is true," answered the Achdrya. "Well, yon
see," resumed Blancombe, " the more improbable a statement
is in itself, the more one is apt to cross-examine the witnesses ;
and if their story goes on becoming less probable, or less con
sistent apparently with itself, at each step, you know what con
clusion the lawyers draw. So, I confess, it appears to me the
mildest course we can take here is to conceive either that names
have dropt out of some of your lists, or else years been inserted
without sufficient warrant; and in either case the chronology
becomes so doubtful, that it can hardly stand alone, unless we
have some confirmatory accounts from other countries on which
it may lean. In fact, it is difficult to say, which out of incon
sistent accounts ought to be preferred ; only, if all men, as you
seem to say, sprang from Vaivaswata Manu, or from Adam, it is
probable that their history in one country would not go inde
finitely farther back than in countries of the world generally ;
and hence, if your chronology for the earliest period should be
brought, by leaving out the thousands, or by subdivision of
multiples, into a range of parallel with that of other nations, it
might be easier to believe. Or perhaps at a later date, we might
be able to fix some point of coincidence, on which we might
take our stand, and look about us. Have you not, for example,
in your lists, a king called diandrayuptaT" " Certainly,"
answered the A chary a, " there was among the kings of Magadha,
one of that name. He was first of the Maurya dynasty, which
succeeded to that of the Nandas." " Before we go farther,"
said Blancombe, " let it be made clear what places or lists of
kings we are taking into consideration. You have mentioned
the Sun-dynasty of Oude and Canouj, with its sixty generations
down to Kama, and about thirty more down to the Great War.
Then there is the Moon-dynasty of Vitora with barely fifty
generations, supposed to extend over the same time as the other
column of ninety. But who are these kings of Magadha?"
" They are the descendants," answered the other, " of Sahadeva,
who lived in the time of the Great War, and, going into the
ANCIENT DYNASTIES. 243
country now called Behar, founded there the city of Magadha*.
He was himself tenth from Kuril in the Moon-dynasty. From
him down to Ripunjaya, there reigned in Magadha about twenty
kings for a thousand years; then, after Ripunjaya, came five
of the Pradyota-dynasty ; and then Sisunaga, the first of a
dynasty of ten, who, I suppose, is the king you alluded to
as having a fabulous account given of his name in the Bauddha
chronicles. At least the fifth of his dynasty is Bimbisara,
in whose reign the great deluder, Gautama, or Sakya, was
born." " But Sakya was not of Magadha, I think, was he?"
asked Blancombe. " No," replied the other, " he was son of
Suddhodana, whom I, following the Vishnu Purana, call king
of Ayodhya, or of whatever city may then have been the capital
of that region, but whom the Bauddhas call king of Capila-
vastu." " This interests me exceedingly," said Blancombe,
" for now, by putting things together, I think I see a glimpse
of light. But first, please to finish with your list of kings."
" It is prophesied in the Vishnu Purana," proceeded the other,
" that after the Saisunagas will come Nanda, the son of a
Sudra mother ; he will bring all the earth under one umbrella.
Accordingly, the event happened so ; and then after nine Nandas
came the new dynasty of the Mori tribe, which the Brahman
Kautilya brought about, and of which Chandragupta was the
first king. His son was Vindusara, and his grandson, as pro
bably you are aware, was Asoca." " I am much obliged to you
for all this information," said Blancombe; "and I suppose this
Asoca is the king whose Bauddha inscriptions were so confidently
appealed to by our friend the Saugata Muni, who has now been
silent so long?" " He is so," answered the other. "And pray,
my friend," said Blancombe, now turning to the Saugata, " when
should you, according to the most moderate chronology in any
of your books, such as the Mahawansa, place either your first
Council, or the death of Sakya ? In what year, that is, of the
Saca era?" "Why," answered the other, " it was six hundred
and twenty-one years before the Saca era begins, or two
162
244 CHANDRAGUPTA.
thousand three hundred and ninety-seven years before the one
now current; (therefore it would be 543 B.C.). You agree also
in making the age of Chandragupta about five generations
lower." "Yes," answered the Saugata, we make him reign
from four hundred and fifty-nine to four hundred and twenty-
five years before the Saca era begins." " That is not exactly
what I hoped to hear," remarked Blancombe, "but it comes
within a very few years, at least within few, as compared to
the vast periods we have been discussing. For I no longer
doubt that this Chandragupta is the same as Sandracottus, who
is mentioned by more than one Greek writer as having made a
treaty with Seleucus Nicator. You have often heard of Alex
ander, the great Yavana conqueror, who established a king
dom in Bactria, of which we have still the coins remaining, and
did battle with the Indians of the Punjaub. You can readily
understand how in his age history had been well fixed among
the Greeks, by an inquisitive people, who learnt accuracy in the
course of political rivalries, and were obliged to study it in their
narratives. So we are able to fix precisely the date of Alex
ander s dying at Babylon as B.C. 322, and the reign of Seleucus,
one of the kings among whom his empire was divided, as com
ing down to B. c. 310 ; that is, three hundred and eighty-eight
years before the Saca era commences, or within thirty-seven
years of the date at which you fix Chandragupta. Again,
Megasthenes*, an ambassador and writer among the Yavanas,
actually visited the court of Asoca, Chandragupta s grandson,
and from him very many of the notions entertained in India by
the later Greeks were derived. His time also corresponds suf
ficiently with what, from the clue you have already given me,
you would naturally make the date of Asoca. This date, indeed,
is partly fixed even by the inscriptions already spoken of; for
they have the name of Ptolemy, and since they have also the
word Magas, it is probable they mean Ptolemy Philadelphus,
whose brother was so called, and his date is about three hundred
* Megasthenis Indica, ed. Schwanbeck. Bonn, 1846.
ASOCA VLCKAMA DITYA. 245
and forty-two before the Saca era commences. So that Asoca
thus becomes contemporary of Antioclms in Syria, and Ptolemy
Philadelphia in Egypt. Upon this firm basis, therefore, we can
proceed to argue. For the triple coincidence of the Greek ac
counts, which are both numerous and reputable, of the Cingalese
Bauddha books, and again, of the Rock inscriptions, which,
although also Bauddha, yet having been but recently decy-
pliered, came up with all the freshness of an independent witness,
is far too remarkable to have arisen, except upon the supposition
of the statements being, so far as they agree, correct.
" Now let us go back to the Vishnu Purana. When would
you, my friend " here Blancombe turned to the Acharya
" place the last king of Magadha who is eminent enough to be
clearly traced ?" " We place him," answered the other, " three
hundred and ninety-six years before Vicramaditya, the great king
of Malwa." " And Vicramaditya s era begins, I think," resumed
Blancombe, "one hundred and thirty-four years before the Saca
era, or fifty-six before the Christian?" "Exactly so," replied the
other. " Then here," said Blancombe, " we have standing-ground
again. You have several dynasties, I think, between the Maurya
and this last, which you call the Andhra, and the space of time
required for them is probably considerable? Is it not so?"
"Certainly," answered the other; "for there are ten of the Mori
family, who extend over one hundred and thirty-seven years,
ten of the Sunga dynasty, who reigned for one hundred and
twelve years, and four Kanwa kings, whom we affirm, if you have
no objection, to have reigned between them three hundred and
forty-five years. Then begins the Andhra dynasty, which ends
with its twenty-first king, Chandrabija, four hundred and fifty-
six years from its commencement." " And after him you make
three hundred and ninety-six years to Vicramaditya?" asked
Blancombe. "Exactly so," replied the other. "Well," said
Blancombe, " I have no objection to the kings being described
as reigning, whatever number of years may really have been the
fact; but these things cannot be altered at our pleasure; and
246 VICRAMA DITYA S ERA.
now we are landed in an inextricable difficulty. For, not to
mention that the Kanwa kings appear unusually long-lived, you
have given me as the entire interval "between Chandragupta and
Vicrama one thousand four hundred and forty-six years ; or, in
other words, you make the first Maurya king one thousand five
hundred and two years before the Christian era, whereas we
have already seen, from the irrefragable coincidence between
thoroughly independent accounts, that he really lived only three
hundred and ten years before it. Here then is an error in a
comparatively narrow portion of your annals, amounting to about
twelve centuries. How much greater then may be the errors in
those vast and indefinite periods which have been spoken of
above, if we only had similar means of testing them ! How do
you answer this, my friend?" "I don t deny," answered the
A charya, " that you understand these things better than I do ;
but we have received it as I stated it."
" I say not a word against receiving ancient accounts, either
upon sufficient authority, or when they are consistent with them
selves," said Blancombe; "but when chronological errors of so
large a range can be demonstrated in a system received as
historical, it becomes no longer what accurate people understand
by history. Moreover this difference of twelve centuries may
lead to some important questions. For either the number given
may be arbitrary, and possibly wrong, or else the last Andhra
king may have been long after Yicramaditya ; or again, he may
really have been before Yicrama, and still the numbers be right ;
only in this latter case we must bring down the famous era of
Vicramaditya some centuries later than you have supposed. Nor
should I wonder, myself, if in reality we ought to do so. But
now, just observe, what important consequences would follow.
For Vicrama is your great king, under the protection of whose
court at Malwa* Hindu literature attained its brightest acme,
and many famous scholars flourished. Supposing then it should
happen that they had appeared to invent any famous saying,
* With Malwa Gesenius connects /i6Xu/35os, the Greek for lead.
NANDAS. 247
such as Christians may, perhaps, claim for the Founder of their
religion, it makes a great difference whether these famous Hindiis
lived some half century before Christ, or an indefinite number
of centuries after him. Suppose even that he lived only a
century and a half later than you imagine, that difference alone
opens up a vista of many possibilities. Then again, so great
an error in so small a tract of time suggests the likelihood of
general error on a large scale, and, in fact, throws doubt over
the whole system. More particularly it should be observed, that
pretensions to anything like prophecy hence suffer exceedingly.
You have quoted a prophecy from the V. Purana that Nanda
should bring all the earth under one umbrella. But Megas-
thenes, the Yavana writer I have already quoted, relates that
India contained one hundred and eighteen nations, without at all
mentioning that Asoca was lord over them all ; yet Asoca was
probably more powerful than Nanda. Or, if we looked upward,
instead of downward, the Greeks who describe Alexander s
empire or that of his successors, represent the Prasii and their
king as eminent, but do not at all ascribe to them an universal
dominion. Hence it would seem that Nanda did not exactly
bring all the earth under one umbrella ; and if the passage
saying so in the Purana be a prophecy, it had the misfortune
not to be fulfilled ; or if it be a description, in case the Purana
should turn out to be of a later date, then it is not historically
accurate, but sins by exaggeration. Yet, if there were nothing
in Indian history more hyperbolical than this, it might be com
paratively trustworthy.
" Since, however, you have mentioned the Andhra dynasty,
let us attempt a kind of conjecture. We will assume that Chan-
dragupta must have lived until B. c. 305, and may have reigned
previously perhaps thirty years. We will then take all your
dynasties, only we must shorten hypothetically the reigns of the
four Kanwa princes." " I should have told you," VidyachaYva
here interposed, " that in the Vishnu Purana the time assigned
to these is only forty-five years, though in other books of ours it
248 ANDHRAS.
appears from a variety in the figures to be three hundred and
forty-five." " That will help us materially," said Blancombe,
" and with this deduction if we sum up the dates of your dynas
ties, and bring the Andlira kings forward accordingly, we shall
find their epoch extend down to four hundred and ten, or possibly
four hundred and forty, of the Christian era. This argument is
perhaps rather more plausible, since it makes their dynasty
comprehend the time during which the Eoman naturalist Pliny
the elder lived*, for he tells us, about A. D. 60, that in the
neighbourhood of the Ganges and it seems to be implied not
far in order from Palibothra there was a powerful tribe called
the Andaras ; and, without disputing that there was an Andhra
kingdom farther South on the Godaveri, I agree with those
learned men who think there is some reference here to the
Andhra kings of Magadha". But perhaps their capital may not
have been Palibothra itself, but some city in its neighbourhood,
and somewhat to the South. Still they would probably be rulers
of Magadha. Here then we seem to have something that looks
like corroborative testimony. Again, Chinese authors have been
reported to me as saying, that in the year A. D. 408, ambas
sadors arrived in their country from the Indian king Yuegnai.
If that name means Yajna, which seems likely enough, then it
will exactly correspond with the last but two of the Andhra
kings, whose dynasty we have been supposing to end somewhere
before A. D. 440. As this coincidence is not my own discovery f,
I may venture to praise and rejoice in it. Now, you see, we are
on tolerably steady ground."
" Then ought not you, even at the worst, to allow that at
this point our annals are strictly historical?" asked the Acharya.
"Why, my friend, it is very awkward," answered Blancombe,
order of the names implies anything, it points to the vicinity of the Ganges,
rather than of the Godaveri. But compare Lassen, Yol. n. pp. 271 345, and
Vol. i. p. 178, with Wilson in the Vishnu Purdna on the Magadha" dynasties,
t De Guignes, i. 45, quoted by Wilson in V. P. and Journal As. Soc. Bengal,
, 1837. So the Puloman of Magadha" becomes in Chinese, Ho-lo-mien.
BAUDDHA CHRONOLOGY. 249
41 that as yet we have not been able to fix any one chronological
point satisfactorily, without calling in the aid of other than
Brahmanical documents. However, we have some farther in
quiries to go through." "But you admit, that our Bauddha
documents have been of use?" asked the Saugata. " Certainly,"
answered Blancombe, " and to the Bauddhas, as far as I am
able to judge, belongs the praise of having first introduced
a properly historical element into Hindu literature*. Yet this
praise must be accompanied by the blame of having also intro
duced a great many childish legends, some of which I alluded
to a little time ago, and others I have reason to believe are
worse. There is also an error of about forty years in your
placing of Chandragupta, which Mr Tumour thought could
hardly have been accidental ; but, as compared to Hindu chro
nology in general, it appears to me accurate."
"Then what course would you now suggest to be taken,"
here asked Sadsinanda, "in order to extract something like
probability out of those earlier generations, over the history of
which a certain confusion seems to prevail ?" " Why, if one may
venture," replied Blancombe, "to employ a sort of conjecture,
I should go back to those twenty-nine kings of the Sun-dynasty,
whose reigns were reported by our venerable friend as extending
over eight hundred and sixty-four thousand years between Rama
and the Great War ; and just as with the four Kanwa kings of
Magadha, it turned out that we were right in striking off the
hundreds, so, in this case, I think we might easily dispense with
the thousands of years, and so reduce their period to eight
hundred and sixty-four years. Nor does this appear to me
altogether an arbitrary licence ; for thirty generations of men
might be expected on the average to extend over about nine
hundred years. It is true, indeed, that a reign is seldom so
long as a generation, and, if we were working without any clue
at all, I should not in conjecture allow it so long : yet some
* Lassen finds general causes in the state of India for the more accurate genius
of Bauddha history, B. n. pp. i 15.
250 DYNASTIES BEFORE CHANDRAGUPTA.
reigns may have been longer ; and since here the Hindu annalists
give us the number eight hundred and sixty-four, which may
possibly have been a statement for which they had traditional
reasons, I am inclined hypothetically to accept the number.
For at least it is within the range of possibility that thirty
kings, with, as we may conceive, some time lost in interreg
nums, may altogether have occupied that period. Let the
conjecture that they did so, therefore, stand for a few moments
as an hypothesis. Only it must be understood, that the true
time is likely to have been shorter, rather than longer ; for we
have lengthened the supposed time out of deference to the Hindu
annals.
" We shall then have to consider, in the next place, the
thirty-six kings of Magadha, exclusive of Nanda, between Saha-
deva and Chandragupta, or between the Great War, whenever
that may have been, and the period of Seleucus Nicator, which
is B. c. 310. Now a little lower down at Magadha* we find
thirty Andhra kings occupy only four hundred and fifty-six
years. This fact we are certain of, because it is not only stated
so in the Vishnu Purana, but it also coincides, as we have seen,
with notices of the Roman Pliny, and of the Chinese annalists.
Now you will please to observe, that the average of reigns, when
taken over this large number of kings, is only about fifteen
years. In other words, it is just half a generation ; and this is
very much what, on general grounds of probability, we should
expect to be the case. In peaceful countries, like Great Britain,
kings may reign longer ; but in troubled ones, as we see in the
case of the emperors of Home, they reign less ; and I would not
venture to affirm more than that, for such stages of society as we
find exemplified in the Indian Magadha, fifteen years is a fair
average duration for a king s reign. Is there, then, any reason
why the thirty-six kings between the Great War and Chandra
gupta should have reigned longer?" "We at least believe,"
here remarked Vidyacharya, "that the twenty kings who followed
Sahadeva reigned for a thousand years." " But, if they did,"
MAGADHA PRINCES. 251
replied Blancombe, "they must have lived very much longer
than men in general do; for even the reign of every one
must have extended over one whole generation, and two-thirds
of another. Now, if such a supposition is in itself improbable,
it does not become less so from our having already observed
what errors creep into your chronology. Moreover, you allow,
I think, only a like space of a thousand years to thirty kings
who follow Paricshit in the Sun-dynasty either at Oude, or
Canouj, or Capila-vastu, or whatever may have been the
capital of the Solar A ryans after the Great War. Why, then,
should twenty kings of Magadha be supposed to have reigned
as long as a parallel chain of thirty in the Sun-dynasty else
where? Such a contradiction is so improbable, that, in the
absence of proof, we may set it aside as impossible. You
must forgive me, then, if I say, that we have a right to ignore
your theory of a thousand years for the first twenty kings of
Magadha, especially as it seems to have been imagined only to
give the Tables a look of symmetry ; and we must group the
whole number of thirty-six kings in a mass, reckoning back
ward from Chandragupta, who is a certain point, to SahadeVa,
who is an uncertain one. We can then allot to the entire
thirty-six, by way of conjecture, whatever number of years it
is probable they might reign. I treat Nanda and his family
apart, thinking them approximately fixed."
" But may you not," here the Saugata asked, " throw light
upon at least the later of the Magadha kings, such as the Saisu-
nagas, from our Bauddha annals?" "You remind me," re
plied Blancombe, " of what had for the moment escaped my
memory. Only you must not ask me to take in the story of the
serpent, or others among your accounts which have a decidedly
legendary air." " But you admit," said the Saugata, " that
our chronology from the time of Sakya, or Bimbisara s reign, is
tolerably correct?" " Why we found there," said Blancombe,
" an error of nearly forty years ; and it does not follow that a
system tolerably correct for a contemporary period is equally so
252 SAHADtiVA TO RIPUNGAYA.
for an age more remote. But I am quite ready, since we are
treading after all upon conjectural ground, to accept your chro
nology of the Saisunaga princes, so far as it agrees with the
genealogies of the Vishnu Purana, because so far we appear to
have a concurrence of two independent witnesses. We will
therefore allow not only for Nanda, but for his sons, who must
be added to the thirty-six kings we had to consider, and we will
admit the round number of one hundred years which is claimed
for the Nanda family. There will then be no difficulty in re
cognising the place of Ajatasatru, in or near whose reign Sakya
died, as about 550 B. c. ; and we may admit, as not involving
any great extravagance, the three hundred and sixty-two years
claimed for the ten Saisunaga princes, and one hundred and
forty-five for Pradyota and the four other Saunakas. We have
gone back, therefore, without improbability, six hundred and
seven years from Chandragupta ; though part of the period,
especially about the Nandas, and any interregnum which may
then have been, is far from certain, and I suspect also that the
duration of the reigns of the earlier Saisunaga princes is esti
mated too highly. I accept, however, the figures. But now the
old question recurs, what average we are to assign the twenty
remaining kings from Eipunjaya up to Sahadeva? You will not
be angry, if I observe, that the ten Maurya kings, a little lower
down, reign only one hundred and thirty-seven years, as the
thirty Andhra lower still last only four hundred and fifty-six ;
and I can see no reason why the earlier kings of Magadha should
have been longer lived. Taking therefore the names, which are
probably a better clue than the round number of one thousand
years, which seems thrown in for the sake of symmetry, I
should assign them conjecturally three hundred years, thereby
allowing them to reign, on the average, as long as any Indian
dynasty which we can trace clearly in any age when the Indians
managed war and politics after their indigenous fashion. But
even if their reigns were full generations, they would require
only six hundred years.
DATE OF MAH^BH^RATA. 253
" We may now then come to a summary Chandragupta is
305 B. c. Nanda and his family extend over one hundred years.
Ten Saisunaga princes have three hundred and sixty-two allowed
them. For the five next princes of the Pradyota dynasty, what
number do the Puranas say?" The Acharya answered, "One
hundred and thirty-eight." " Be it so," proceeded Blancombe.
" Then for the twenty earlier kings up to Sahadeva, until better
data are supplied to us, we may allow as a conjecture three
hundred years, or not much more. This would make Sahadeva
about nine hundred years earlier than Chandragupta, and place
the Great War somewhere about twelve centuries before the
Christian era. The dynasties of Magadha, with some help from
the Bauddha chronology, and from impartial notices of India by
foreigners, will have supplied our clue to this probable result.
" Then, if we were right in our manner of treating the earlier
twenty-nine kings of Oude from Rama to the Mahabharata, to
whom, by striking off thousands, we allowed eight hundred and
sixty-four years, it will follow that the date of your great con
queror, Rama, and of the events imaginatively depictured in the
Epic of Valmiki, will be rather more than two thousand years
before the Christian era, or if you like, I will say, fully two
thousand before the date you assign to Vicramaditya, (which is
56 B. c.) If then one might venture to go farther, and treat the
sixty generations or reigns from your Adam or Mann to Rama,
in a similar spirit of conjecture, one might say that the earliest
gleams of Hindu history, as yet in its most legendary form, ap
pear to fall rather more than three thousand years before Christ.
If, however, you persist in saying, that men in those early ages
lived longer, or if you think that the reigns of kings, being free
from modern treacheries and disasters, should be calculated then
as fully equal to generations, I have no objection to throw you
in another thousand years for that dim patriarchal period which
preceded Rama. This is allowing each of those earliest reigns,
or rather generations, upwards of thirty years. Only it must be
remembered, that for those earlier stages, we do not profess to
254 TRADITIONAL DAWN OF HINDU HISTORY.
recognise a history, so much as an hypothesis, upon which
scanty and traditional notices may be tolerated. Nor would
I deny that the period beyond what we have clear historical
accounts of, may have been longer and more varied in its fea
tures than many persons would suppose. Perhaps some in
ferences respecting it may be drawn by ingenious men*, either
from Vedic or other earlier songs, or from traces of common
origin in languages which we know must have been long
separated. Let such questions be here left by me undefined.
I have only ventured to criticise such elements as you present
to me of your own earlier history and chronology. Whether
then I consider the vast vagueness of the numbers, or the lists
of names, not to mention here the poetical character of some of
the authorities, which must be touched on hereafter, I see no
reason, which will stand the daylight of criticism, for supposing
that any history of the Hindu race, or even any tradition be
longing to them in your written monuments with the nature
of history, need be placed farther back than about 4000 B. c.
" Kather, indeed, there are many stray features in the general
aspect of the comparative history of nations, which lead me to
think, the chronological sketch I have attempted is right so far
as it is positive, and not wrong so far as it hesitates. Not but
that I am aware, that the interpreters of the Hebrew records in
the Byzantine Church would put back the first dawn of the history
of mankind as far as 5502 B. c. ; and although British scholars
have, for the most part, considered this date too remote, I should
scarcely myself call it so; and again, I am aware, that those
who consider the dynasties recorded by the Egyptian priest
Manetho as having been chiefly consecutive, rather than con
temporary in different cities, would make the kingdom of Menes
in Egypt as early as 3626 B. c. ; moreover, I am bound to re
mark, by way of concession, that we can dimly trace the ex
istence of certain obscure empires in Central Asia during a
* Compare Max Miiiler, in the Oxford Essays for 1856, and in Bunsen s
Philosophy of History . London, 1854.
AGE OF OBSCURE EMPIRES. 255
period at least previous to 2000 B.C., and that some theories
would, partly from the analogy of Egypt, (supposing the date
of Menes proved,) and partly from the dubious fragments of
Assyrian and Chinese chronicles, make that period extend back
for fifteen hundred or possibly two thousand years farther. For
they say, that both the cities and the arts of the age we have
assigned to Rama, and such things as the use of fine linen,
with a trade in spices, such as appears to have existed between
Eastern and Western Asia, all require a long growth ; and they
conceive themselves to find, in the antiquities of various Asiatic
nations, stronger testimony to such a period than we in Britain
generally admit.
" But, on the other hand, I have to remark, that so far as we
can trace those early empires, previous to 2000 B. c., they seem
to have been for the most part of Semitic or Asiatic affinities,
or at least not of that Indo-European race, to which you in
common with ourselves belong. But since these words are used
in different senses by different people, let me briefly explain
what I mean. You remember that in the hymns of the Big-
Veda the Hindus are called Aryas, and as such, are opposed to
the Dasyus, who are enemies, or such as by Manu would be
classed under the head of Mlechchas, or barbarians. The first are
called performers of religious rites ; the latter, disturbers of them.
The first are lighter* of complexion,* and come from the North ;
the latter are dark, and indigenous to the South. So it is said,
that the thunderer divided the fields among his white-complex-
ioned friends, having slain the Dasyus, and the Simyus, with
his thunderbolt. (Sukta. 100.) Again, that the Aryas, your
ancestors, came from the North-west, and were invaders of India,
is clear from their sacred names ; since Saraswati, the name of
your goddess of eloquence, is also the name of a river in the
Punjaub ; and the holy land of the laws of Manu is also in the
same country. The same sort of testimony to the quarter
from whence you came, is also furnished by your language in
* Varna, caste, means properly colour.
256 FAMILIES OF NATIONS.
general; since its oldest form, I mean the Sanscrit, is most
clearly akin to the oldest form of the ancient Persian. You
might, therefore, be called a Medo-Persic race ; and the name
A ryas seems properly to comprehend the people of Iran, or of
central Asia, South and South-east of the Caspian sea, as well
as the Hindus. But this affinity of language also extends more
or less closely through various nations and tribes, radiating, as it
were, from Iran to the extreme West of Europe, on the one hand,
and to India on the other. All the people, then, falling under
that class, whether Persian, Pelasgic, Sclavonian, Gothic, Cim-
brie, or Gaelic, may be called Indo-European, or. from the ancestor
ascribed to them in the Hebrew records, lapetic. But, besides
these early European ramifications in Asia, there are also at least
two great Asiatic families of nations ; the one called Semitic
in modern times, under which are included all whose language
is akin to that of the Hebrews ; and another, which the great
Hebrew genealogist speaks but faintly of, as having had less to
do with it; I mean all the Mongolian and Chinese nations;
and if it were necessary to be complete, I should also have to
mention the mountain tribes to the North-west of Iran, who are
rightly termed Caucasian, and the place of whose languages is
not yet fixed. Certainly, however, they are not lapetic, in the
sense of Indo-European; but possibly of some older stock, or
perhaps a strongly localised offshoot of the Mongolian*.
" But it may suffice us at present to have distinguished the
two more important Asiatic families from those white-com-
plexioned A ryas of whom the Hig-Veda speaks, who, although
they have extended themselves over India, yet have on the
* The speaker could not have seen Bunsen s Philosophy of Universal History,
in which the term Turanian is proposed for the Allophyllic or Mongolian races ;
and which contains many weighty and novel illustrations of the ethnographical
subject here sketched independently on narrower data. Caucasian means, in com
parative philology, as in geography, the tribes of the Caucasus ; but in Eomance,
with some colour from physiology, it has been made a general term, compre
hending Shem and Japhet. Compare Latham s Varieties of Man, with Bunsen s
great work.
COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY. 257
whole their affinities rather towards Europe. Now, the earliest
kingdoms of which we have anything like distinct know
ledge, belonged to that Semitic race, which is of all Asiatic
stems the most nearly akin to the people of Africa. It is in
Egypt, the middle point, I may say, between the sons of Shem
and the descendants of Ham, that we first find a civilisation of
higher antiquity than any which can be shewn elsewhere. It
was from Sidon, a city which I will here call Semitic, on
account of its language, though without disputing whether it
might not be attributed more properly to the descendants of
Ham, whom I regard as philologically akin* but anyhow, it
was from Sidon that the most famous navigators went forth in
remote antiquity. So the earliest kingdoms of Assur, and Babel,
and Syria, if not Elam, are shewn by their names and their deities
to have been either Hamite or Semitic ; and, in either case, they
belonged to races which may be roughly compared with the
Dasyus of elder India, rather than closely akin to the white-
complexioned A ryas. We find no lapetic or as it were Aryan
kingdom in central Asia, until, at the very earliest, 2234 B. c.,
even if we accept a broken testimony of Berosus t to so early a
date for a Median dynasty in Babylon; while people more
sceptical than myself in early Gentile history, would recognise
no Median power until that of Deioces in the eighth century
before Christ.
" Since the Chinese also are said to have a dynasty begin
historically about 2205 B. c. we will suppose the earlier date for
the Medes to be not incredible, and allow Elam to have been a
kingdom of the same race. But, even thus, you see that a full
two thousand years before your era of Vicramaditya, is the
* Races seem to be classified in Genesis x. according to colour, rather than
language. Kenrick s Phoenicia, Ch. in.
t Lassen, Book II. pp. 751, 752, where the Babylonian and Chinese syn
chronism is suggested. Very recently, traces have been imagined or found by
Colonel Rawlinson of early Mongolian or Turanian dynasties in Babylon. But
such a discovery would be against general probabilities ; and if it were confirmed,
it would not weaken the argument as to the Arians.
M.P. 17
258 COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY.
earliest date at which any of your fraternity of nations can make
good a place on the stage of history.
" Can any reason be shewn why the history of the Aryan
race in India should be supposed to begin earlier? We have
seen that your received chronology is of too arbitrary and legen
dary a kind to be such a reason alone ; and such probabilities as
we could extract out of the number of generations, would lead
us to place the great conqueror Rama about the same time as
Chedorlaomer and Abraham in Syria, the shepherd kings in
Egypt, the supposed Medes in Babylon, and the Hia dynasty in
China.
" There would be at least a certain air of congruity in our
conjectures about your history with what we know elsewhere.
For if the Aryan race really radiated, as many learned men
believe, from the regions of Iran eastward and westward, there
is a general probability that the date of their Indian conquests
might be not very remote from that of their establishments else
where. The same sort of probability rather confirms our con
jecture that the Great War (Mahabharata) should be placed
about 1200 B. c. For there are many points of sympathy, if not i
of contact, between the histories of India and Greece, sufficient,
at least, to suggest the experiment of comparing their chrono- j
logics together tentatively, without confounding points essen- j
tially unlike. I need not repeat here, what Sir William Jones 3
and others have said, perhaps too sanguinely, on the resemblance j
between mythological stories in the two countries* ; but when I 1
read what is fabled about Piiriiravas, the son of Ila, having to I
choose between Wisdom, Wealth, and Desire, and being per- i
* Subsequent in time to this Dialogue is Professor Max Muller s Essay on
Indian and Hellenic Mythology. Wonderful as is the union in it of depth and j
beauty, does it not ignore too much the heroic element in legend ? Ought not I
too Sanscrit to be made so very much the elder sister, as to be almost a mother- j
tongue to Greek ? The immediate subject did not call for exposition of the radical j
affinity between the Semitic and A ryan languages, as shewn in words by Gese- J
nius, and in forms (truly, I believe,) by Ewald. But there is yet room for an -ii
analytical comparison of Hebrew with Sanscrit on the one side, and with some |
African tongues on the other.
GREEK ANALOGIES. 259
secuted by the two whom he rejected, I cannot help being re
minded of the fatal choice of Paris the Ilian shepherd. Then
I notice too, that Sakya in India precedes somewhat the move
ment of Pythagoras and the life of Socrates in Greece. Again,
the most brilliant period of Hindu literature is placed by your
selves as somewhat subsequent to the conquests of Alexander,
which must have given some kind of impulse; and perhaps
something might be said about the same Saracen power, which
in its inheritors overthrew the Byzantine empire, having ex
tended itself, with another wave of its tide, over India. It would
not, therefore, seem unnatural, if your Great War between the
sons of Pandu and Kuru should be connected with that which
the Yavana legends described as having been waged against
Troy ; whether the two events really happened in stages of society
nearly corresponding ; or whether one was moulded by poets out
of dim echoes which had reached them through traditions of the
other ; or whether both may have been once parables of some
thing different, but translated by legend into actual wars. In
any case, it is to me rather satisfactory than otherwise, that as
Greek chronologers placed the Trojan war about the twelfth
century before Christ, so we have been led by purely Hindu
authorities, though treating them in our own way, to place the
events of the Mahabharata about the same period.
" If now I were to make any use of that grand period of four
millions three hundred and twenty thousand years, which is
assigned to the aggregate of the Four Ages, it would be only to
ask, whether by striking off the last three cyphers, we might
not reduce it to a figure, which your earliest chronographers
may have intended to denote their conception of the utmost
duration of Hindu history down to the period at which they
first began systematically to review it, or perhaps to the era
of Vicramaditya. But the want of a fixed date as a terminus
at the lower end of such a speculation forbids me to dwell
on so mere a possibility. But I trust you will allow that
there is great reason for reducing Hindu chronology in general
172
260 HISTORICAL SCEPTICISM.
to narrower limits than those in which you have represented
it."
Here Wolff, at whose long silence I had begun to wonder,
interposed with some remarks. " It appears to me," he said,
" that you have been far too liberal in your concessions. For
when once you had shewn the unhistorical character of the
Hindu pretensions to records, you had no right afterwards to
build upon them, as if they contained something solid. The
demolition of part destroys the whole. Or, even if the later
genealogies, such as those of Magadha, should have some truth,
this proves nothing for the far earlier stages of tradition. We
may grant Queen Victoria s British pedigree as likely up to
Owen Tudor, without condescending to reason upon it farther
up to King Arthur, or to some remote Cadwaladr. Again, I
cannot help noticing, that this Vicramaditya, who is to pass for
the Augustus of India, is not even mentioned in the Vishnu
Purana. What becomes, then, of his brilliant court, and of the
antiquity of the Hindu drama? This is not a light question.
For in what language, or even with what alphabet, I beg to
ask, were either the dramatic plays, or much more those portions
of the literature, for which so far higher an antiquity is claimed,
originally written ? The common alphabet is the Devanagari.
Some say this is developed out of old Pali alphabets. It seems
to me a debased Greek*. But it is confessedly modern. I
should like to see copies of those which were before it, and to
know on what principle they were deciphered. It is only the
other day that the ingenious Prinsep deciphered certain inscrip
tions called ancient. They were as recent as Asoca s time, or
two hundred and fifty-nine years before the Christian era. Who
would answer for alphabets claiming to be fifteen centuries older.
The first thing certain in the history of India, even if I grant
the certainty of that, is the rise of Buddhism. What is the
language of this religion and its most characteristic literature ?
The fact of Sanscrit letters opening towards the, left, though read towards the
right, suggests the question of a possibly Semitic origin.
HISTORICAL SCEPTICISM. 261
Not Sanscrit, such as is called pure, but Pali ; and Pali calls
itself the root (mula), or the oldest Hindu tongue. I have yet
to see evidence proving that it is not so. All the earlier Brah-
manic period and literature may Ibe either imagination or im
posture. What external history attests any Brahmans earlier
than the sixth century before Christ? Even if Megasthenes,
from whom our best Greek accounts flow, were as early, his
descriptions of certain philosophers* appear to comprehend rival
ascetics, some Brahmanical, and some Jains or Bauddhas, whom
he calls by almost the Hindu word Sramanas ; but this does
not imply organised caste on the one side ; and therefore it need
not on the other. Was caste even in the time of Alexander
known? Arrian says that all Indians were free. Diodorus oi
Sicily thought the same. These are unbribed witnesses, living,
one in the first, the other in the second century of our era.
Could they have heard of Sudras and Chandalas ? Or, if I grant
that the division of classes, peprj, mentioned by Strabot, (pp. 703
708 C,) means castes, and not mere occupations, how little will
this go towards building up the vast antiquity of the Brahma
nical system ! If I maintain, as a probable hypothesis, that
Buddhism is the oldest religion, and that its books contain the
oldest religion of India, who can prove the contrary ? The Pali
language would be in my favour. For certainly it is ruder, and
more likely to have grown into the Sanscrit, than out of it.
Then what is the hair, or complexion, with which Buddha is
represented in his images ? Clearly dark, or negro ; and this is
more nearly the characteristic of the older races of India, than
of the immigrant Aryas. We know that afterwards, say about
A. D. 700, the poor Bauddhas were expelled. Nothing could be
easier than for Cumarila Bhatta and his associates then to get
up a representation of an earlier pras-Buddhist period. A large
part of Sanscrit literature falls in very well with such a supposi
tion. Its advocates boast of its many stages and periods, which
* Fray. 41, 42, 43, ed. Schw.
t Strabo, Lib. xv. pp. 703 708, o. Schwanbeck s Megasthenes, p. 41.
262 FOREIGN INFLUENCES.
they say require a development of centuries. But here are a
thousand years and upwards from the eighth century to our own
time. Considering the fervor of the Indian imagination, and
the rapid transitions which religions and politics have run through,
how many stages of letters does not this admit of? Many of the
Puranas are undoubtedly very modern. They mention not only
Mahometans, but other events or names within six or eight cen
turies from our own date. Even the Jesuit Missionary Kobertus
de Nobilibus*, in the sixteenth century, invented one which
passed current for a time. This shews the vagueness of tests of
Sanscrit antiquity. You have yourself shewn how variously the
date of Vicramaditya may be placed. Why should he not have
preceded Mahmud of Ghazni by a hundred years, instead of by a
thousand? If, again, we turn from literature, which may be
modern, to the more fixed testimonies of inscriptions and temples,
where is anything of this kind belonging to that supposed period
of early Brahmanism ? All the earliest instances I am aware of
are Buddhist f. Such a hard fact is worth a thousand theories,
not to say frauds. For if the literature and creed of the Brah-
mans had been as old as is pretended, we should have had
ancient inscriptions and temples belonging to them. Just as
very ignorant Europeans fancy the Taj Mahal at Agra is charac
teristic of the Hindu architecture, whereas it was built for the
Emperor Shah Jehan, by a Frenchman, about 1650, so may
others in a somewhat obscurer region trace to early Brahmans
what may really come of Greek or Roman influence. You must,
at least, allow it to be remarkable, that the Hindu drama, and
the supposed brilliancy of the court of Malwa, come out, on your
own shewing, almost contemporary with the Augustan age at
Rome, and considerably posterior to contact with the Greeks
under Alexander. The age of the Ptolemies was the most likely
* Asiatic Researches, Vol. xiv. Calcutta Review, Oct. 1844. Grant s Bampton
Lectures, Maurice s Preface to Lect. Ep. Hebrews. Dr Mill, Christa Sangita.
t Colonel Sykes, Journal R. As. S. No. XII. London, 1841. Foe Koue Ki, par
M. A. Re"musat, Paris, 1836. Ferguson on Indian Temples, in Journal R.A.S.
BKAHMANISM WHETHER ANCIENT. 263
ever known to be a hot-bed of foreign influences, and rapid lite
rary growth, with possibly spurious pretensions. How late even
may have been the immigration of the Aryan race into India,
it is difficult to say. We may admit them to have hovered about
the Punjaub for some generations before the time of Buddha,
and still contend that their Brahmanical religion did not de-
velope itself until after the Christian era. But it is significant
that Herodotus* makes the Indians all black. The negro re
presentations of Sakya may therefore be true. The reigns of
the Achasmenian princes, or from Cyrus to Darius Hystaspes,
supply as probable a date as any for an unfixed immigration
from the Persian provinces. Such names as Yadu, Puru, Madhu,
in the Vishnu Purana may denote a Medo-Persian connexion,
and might fall, as I rather fancy, not far from the time of Darius
Hystaspes. Again, India is called the land of Bharata, and the
genealogies make Bharata descend from Puru. Those who say
the Persian descent thus implied was prior to any aggrandise
ment of the Persian empire, or even to its existence, should shew
ground for their belief. But you see we have found nothing
Brahmanical which can be called clearly older than Buddha.
Buildings are against a higher antiquity; language and the
features of races are not for it ; literature is doubtful ; and who
ever considers how vague dates are, both in Sanscrit matters,
and in the kindred traditions of Persia, for which so high an
antiquity has been claimed, but which can be traced no higher
than Firdusif, the poet of Mahmud, A. D. 1000, will probably
agree with me in saying, that you have allowed Hindu chro
nology far too ample a range. If I had been arguing for you,
indeed, I should rather have asked whether Buddhism itself
be not a degenerate offshoot of a Nestorian form of Christianity.
Nor would Chinese travellers, such as Fa Hian, deter me from
this, because they say, as late as 412 A. D. that they found
* B. in. c. 101.
t That Firdusi gives traditions of Vedic deities, transformed into fanciful
history, is shewn by Mohl. See M. Miiller s Results of the Persian Researches,
in Bunsen, Phil. Un, Hist. Vol. T.
264 KEPLY TO EXTREME SCEPTICISM.
Buddhism prevalent in India. The testimony, however, of Fa
Hian, when he finds Buddhism everywhere, and calls the Brah-
mans strangers in India, becomes of weight against the claims
of the Brahmanical system to a remote antiquity. There is no
proof that we ought to place either the development of that
system earlier than Cumarila, (A. D. 700,) or the spread of the
Arian race in India earlier than the dynasty of Cyrus in Persia.
Nor would it surprise me, if their immigration about that period
should turn out to be the vague foundation of fact, for what was
afterwards expanded into the Great War of the sons of Pandu
and Kuru."
Thus far Wolff stated his objections in a peremptory sort of
manner, without noticing, perhaps, how much several of his
hearers seemed to be disturbed by his discourse. When he had
finished, however, Blancombe said, " It always appears to me,
that whoever rejects exaggerated claims, should be careful to
allow what is just in them ; otherwise, he only falls into an
opposite error. Thus, if we are bound to make large deductions
from the swollen chronology of the Hindus, we should not the
less admit their claims to a very early civilisation and a most
interesting literature. In the first place, the origin of Buddhism
can be fixed beyond reasonable doubt. Even the Christian
saint, Clement of Alexandria *, mentions the worship of Buddha
within the second century of our era. Legends respecting him
are appealed to as ancient by St Jerome f. The date of Asoca,
in whose reign the Bauddha faith prevailed greatly, is not
doubtful ; for we have seen it fixed by inscriptions, and by the
synchronism of Chandragupta. But when Buddhism began,
Brahmanism had been before it ; for the early Bauddha books
are full of terms, such as Brahmacharya (devotion), borrowed;}:
from the older ritual. Sakya himself had been the pupil of
Strom. I. If indeed he is not quoting the words of Megasthenes. Cf.
Frag. XLIII. Schwanb.
t Hieron. c. Jovin. I. 44.
I E. Burnouf, Buddhisme, where the question of priority is well argued.
SIGNS OF INDIAN ANTIQUITY. 265
Bralimans. One of his most characteristic doctrines was a
protest against the inexorable perpetuity of caste ; which must
therefore have been of far older date. This renders it unne
cessary to examine what is pretended about the Greek authors
not mentioning caste ; though I think it clear that they do, for
they speak of it as a thing of birth, or generation*. The negro
hair and features ascribed to Buddha seem to me most easily
explained by the circumstance that his doctrine of the equality
of souls tended to raise the earlier races, and hence he was con
sidered their patron. Thus it was in the reign of Asoca, the
grandson of a man of mixed blood, and who had been preceded
by a Sudra dynasty, that the Bauddha faith became established
at Palibothra. Thus too, the language f niay naturally have been
Pali; that is, not the language of a Brahmanical caste, though
akin to Sanscrit, and not of any necessity prior to it; for rudeness
is far from implying priority in linguistic development, but still
the language of the lower classes, or of the people. If, however,
as has been strangely suggested, Pali had been the language of
the older races only, (whether they are to be called Dasyus or
Nishadas^,) it would never have been so nearly akin through
Sanscrit to Persian and Zend, which are manifestly Arian tongues.
All that shew of philology, therefore, goes for nothing. As to
alphabets, I am willing to wait for more light on that difficulty :
but there is no reason why alphabets should not have changed
often, as we know they have in Europe, and even with the Jews,
a people not easily given to change. We may admit that an air
of uncertainty hangs over much of Sanscrit literature. Yet,
certainly, it implies vast periods, not only of literary develop-
* yevear Arrian, HiM. Ind. Sykes, p. 365. Schwanbeck, pp. 4149-
t But Tumour, on the Mahawansa, may be compared with Lassen, B. II.
PP- 49 493-
+ Dasyus seems to me the Vedic term. Nisha"das has been recently proposed
in Bunsen s Latest Researches, &c. It seems taken from the Kama yana. Lassen,
B. IT. pp. 534 797, but may be older in a different sense.
Le Pali est ddrive du Sanscrit il n est pas besoin d admettre 1 influ-
ence d aucun idiome Stranger. Burnouf and Lassen, Essai sur le Pali, pp. 138 9.
(Paris, 1826.)
266 SIGNS OF INDIAN ANTIQUITY,
ment, but of religious and social change. Things which are
late in its course, are yet early, if tried by the history of many
nations. The poets of the Augustan age in Latium mention
the burning of Hindu widows ; yet all this custom is a modern
innovation upon the Yedas. The Periplus of Nearchus mentions
the name of C. Comorin ; and this comes from Cumdri, a name
of Durga ; but her worship, (even if the Acharya will not let me
say the same of her consort Siva,) is, if compared to the Vedas,
quite modern. There has been an allusion to the expedition of
Alexander. The Greek writers who describe either that, or the
voyages subsequent to it, give glimpses of a picture of India,
such as one might conjecture to follow not very remotely upon
the laws of Maim. It is beyond fair doubt that they speak
of caste, though not perhaps* in its most rigid form. But over
how many a generation must have extended the growth of that
system, which Sakya, in the middle of the sixth century before
Christ, found overshadowing the energies of human life ! Then,
again, we saw that his system had been partly borrowed, though
with an infusion of a mystical glow of his own, from the Sa*nkhya
philosophy. But philosophy belongs not to the infancy of lite
rature. Both Capila and Patanjali must come long after the
Vya*sa of the Vedas. By reasoning of this kind we may cer
tainly shew that Sanscrit literature is not a thing of a day s
growth, whatever uncertainty may rest on portions of it. If our
tests cannot always be minute, they become more so in pro
portion as our materials increase. If the Jesuits forged a Purana,
which they called a Veda, the forgery was found out ; and if
a higher date than ought to be is claimed for some to which
we would not apply so harsh a name, the contents will often
enable us to bring them down. But that the Aryan race had
extended itself in India as early as a thousand years before
Christ, is clearly demonstrated by the Hebrew Scriptures. For
when we read of king Solomon s trade with Ophir (1st Kings
ix. 2628; x. 11, 12; 22, 23), we find the wares mentioned
* Compare Elphinstone, Appendix, Vol. I.
NOTWITHSTANDING OBSCURITIES. 267
are algumwi, and Jcophim, and tucMm; but these are in effect*
Sanscrit words for sandal-wood, and apes, and peacocks. There
fore the speakers of Sanscrit had been settled in India long
enough to organise a trade in the native wares of the country.
Here is a strong confirmation from independent witnesses of the
claims made by Hindus to at least a far older civilisation than
the extreme school of sceptics is willing to allow. How much
may be exaggerated in those claims, is a different question ; and
why the name of Yicramaditya is omitted in some genealogies,
is for our Hindu friends to explain. But whether he is suffi
ciently fixed by the chronicle of the kings of Cashmir, which he
is said to have conquered, or whether there is a possible con
fusion between him and the later Bhojaf king of the same name,
we may here accept the date usually current for his era. Nor
have I ventured to approach the earlier dynasties of kings other
wise than in a spirit of conjecture. But surely Rama lived and
conquered Ceylon, as even the great Epic of Yalmiki, after allow
ance for its poetical form, may convince us. If he did not, some
one did ; and that other one may as well be called Rama. There
is nothing gained for true philosophy by approaching even dim
traditions in a spirit of unreasonable scepticism. We have proved
at least a Brahmanical period long prior to Buddhism and both
its duration and its features may be understood better by who
ever will examine critically the various stages of Sanscrit lite
rature. Our own business is to proceed with such an outline
of chronology, as may serve for a scaffolding to the religious
edifice we have yet to raise."
Vidyacharya seemed to be rather re-assured by parts of
Blancombe s speech ; and Sadananda, as before, asked how he
proposed to proceed.
" I conceive," replied Blancombe, " we are sufficiently agreed
as to the great landmarks of the stream from about the Christian
* Lassen, /. A. R. n. p. 538.
t Compare Lassen, B. II. p. 409, and p. 760, with Weber, Vorlcaunyen,
pp. 1 88 206.
268 LEADING DATES.
era to our own time. We need not dispute nicely as to the date
at which Scythians or Parthians curtailed the Greek influence
in Bactria; nor does it concern us whether the pedigree of
certain Jats and others about the Indus* is to be traced to
such invaders, or whether they are indigenous. But we accept
the date 78 of the Christian era as famous from the overthrow
of certain Scythians by Salivahana. We are agreed that the
Mahometan arms under the Ommiyade caliph Walid in A. D.
707 approached India. Sultan Mahmud in 1000, Zingis Khan
in 1224, Timur-leng in 1398, Baber in 1526, Akbar in the same
century, Aurungzeb towards the end of the next, the rise of the
Sikhs about 1700, and Clive in 1757, are sufficiently known.
We may now therefore construct a rude table with great land
marks of events, and afterwards fill in the literary epochs, so far
as we are able to agree about them."
Here Blancombe took a piece of chalk and sketched out a
picture of this sort, putting only a few figures at first, and then
filling up the intervals with smaller ones. He began with the
events, and only after the next stage in the discussion added the
books ; though I have copied them all together.
* Elphinstone, Hist. Ind. Appendix, Vol. I.
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HINDU LITERATURE. 273
CHAPTER VIII.
Hindu Literature classified and found wanting.
"Die Indische Literatur gillt allgemein fur die alteste, von der wir schriftliche
Dokumente besitzen, und das mit recht ; die Griinde aber, die Man dafiir bisher
geltend gemacht hat, sind nicht die richtigen. * * *
" Sind wir aus ausseren, geographischen, und inneren, religionsgeshichtlichen,
Griinden berechtigt fiir die Indische Literatur ein hohes Alter anzunehmen, so
steht es auf der andern Seite schlimm genug, wenn man nach chronologischen
Daten fur dieselbe sucht." WEBEK, AJcademische Vorlesungen. Berlin, 1842.
" WHERE now," said Blancombe, turning to Vidyacharya, when
he had gone some way with his table, " shall I put in the
Vishnu Purana?" " The eighteen Puranas," answered Vidya
charya, " are traced to the Suta (bard) Romaharshana, who
received them from Vyasa. Their name means old, and they
are parts of our most ancient revelation." " Then where shall
I put the Vedas?" asked Blancombe. " They also," replied
Acharya, "were compiled by Vyasa." "Do you say the same of
the laws of Manu?" " They were given by Brahma to the first
Manu (Swayambhuvan), for the instruction of mankind; so that
they are of the most venerable antiquity." " But," asked Blan
combe, " does your account of the Puranas extend to such as the
Vayu, Vishnu, Bhagavat, and Matsya?" "Certainly," replied
the other, " for it includes the whole eighteen." " Then here is
an enormous difficulty," resumed Blancombe, " for let us look in
the first place at the Vishnu. It professes in the outset to be
taught by Parasara to Maitreya ; but Maitreya is mentioned in
the Mahabharata as contemporary with Duryodhana, who is
about the time of the Great War, therefore many centuries later
than the primeval date you have been suggesting. This, how
ever, is not all ; for the four Puranas I have just mentioned
give an account of Indian dynasties far down into the Christian
era, as we have seen in the case of the Andhras. Your theory
M. p. 18
274 LATENESS OF THE PURA NAS.
is, that such things are prophecies. Nor do I deny that the
Allwise God might, if he had so thought good, have inspired
Vyasa or Romaharshana* to utter such predictions. But this
minute sketching of history beforehand is not so ordinary in the
course of the Divine government, that we can assume it to have
taken place, unless the books which pretend it are remarkably
well attested before the events come to pass. Can you quote
any such testimonies to the Puranas, as they now stand?"
" The name," answered the Acharya, " is very ancient." " But
we should want," resumed the other, " some precise verification
of the identity of the books. Whereas, in fact, we have rather
the contrary. For the celebrated grammarian, Amara Sinha,
who was one of the nine gems in the court of Vicrama, defines
a Purana as a book of five topics, and then he mentions topics,
such as imperfectly correspond to what are found in the works
now called Puranas f. For they now consist of little beyond
religious instruction, with some names of dynasties. How can
we then assume them to have been written many centuries
earlier than the dynasties which they mention ? We are rather
compelled by historical criticism to bring down the date of their
composition. Nor is it necessarily wrong for us to do so, even
according to your own doctors. For your treatises, I think,
contain rules for discriminating between the sruti and the smriti,
or between the earlier Scriptures and later traditions. It seems
to be acknowledged in the Mima*nsa, that a mistake may be
made, and the work of a human author may be erroneously
received as part of a sacred book by those who are unacquainted
with its true origin |. As to the Sri Bhagavat Pur&na, the story
goes that Vyasa gave it not to Bomaharshana, but to Suka, his
son. Does not this imply a difference of origin ? Some Hindu
scholars have gone so far as to ascribe its composition to Vopa-
deva, who lived A. D. 1200 or 1300. This may seem to you
* A various writing of the same name is Lomaharshana.
t Colebrooke, Vol. I., and Wilson, Pref. V. P.
+ Colebrooke, Vol. I. pp. 306, 307.
GRADUAL GROWTH OF VEDAS. 275
a very modern date: but when I remember that the Brahma
Parana celebrates the temples of Orissa, which were not built
until 1300 A. D., while both this and the others which mention
comparatively modern dynasties have no appearance of being
the most recent in the body of the Puranas, I cannot help think
ing you should reconsider your whole theory. Judging partly
from what I have read, and still more from what is told me by
men who have made your sacred literature their life-study, it
seems to bear clear signs of falling into periods, divisible by
great epochs of time. Even the language of the Vedas is different
altogether from that of the Puranas. There are letters, words,
grammatical inflexions*, and idioms of speech in the one set of
books, which are not in the other. Good scholars call the
language of the Vedas prior to Sanscrit, rather than very Sanscrit.
Still more evidently, the forms of faith, the objects of worship,
and the range of ideas are different in the two. Nor is it only
your sacred books, but Hindu literature in general, which carries
marks on its face of having grown by steps, rather than sprung
with unnatural impulse into life. Even the Vedas themselves
have some variety. First, we have the Mantras, or hymns in
honour of certain deities, who have been mentioned, destined pro
bably to be sung at sacrifices. Then there are the Brdhmanas,
i. e. (what we might call rubrics, or at least) ritualistic comments
and directions. Probably the Upanishads, or episodical specu
lations, should be considered much later than the simpler hymns
of the old nature-worship. Much later down will come a stage,
(which must have been after a long interval) when all these
things will require grammatical explanation ; and, accordingly,
the grammatical systems, first of Yaska, and later of Panini, will
be developed. Again, some of your own traditions, and even
the laws of Manuf, speak of three Vedas, and the Atharvan is
not universally ranked so high as the other three. Scholars
* Wilson, Sanscrit Grammar and Lexicon; Lassen, /. A. B. n. pp. 734 86-2 ;
Weber, Indische Studien, and Vorlesungen, (quoted above) ; M. Miiller, in Bunsen s
Latest Researches.
t Manu, B. I. 23.
182
276 ATHARVA-VEDA.
who have compared it with the others critically*, notice that its
style is more formally liturgical. It no longer expresses the
fresh burst of devotion, as of poetry, poured forth on the feeling
into song ; but it mutters ritual as a sort of charm, or formal in
cantation. Depend upon it, the Vydsa (arranger) who arranged
all such diverse elements under the head of the four Vedas, must
have been not one man, but many ; or else must be of a date far
more recent than the hymns of the Big- Veda. Good scholars
think, they can even trace changes of place indicated in the
hymns, as the Aryan race pushed forward its conquests into
India. Hence they conclude, that the earlier kings of the solar
race did not reign in Oude, but more to the North-west. It is
sufficient for my purpose to make you notice, that the collection
of books, which you call the Yedas, is not the work of a day,
and not primeval. Nor do I ask you to believe this on my
authority, but on that of your sacred books, which proclaim this
of themselves. Ask the hymns of the Rig- Veda to tell you, if
their authors were not older than those who altered them some
what into the kindred hymns of the Yajur- Vedas, and then of
the Sama, and still later, of the Atharvan. Ask them especially,
whether they lived in the same land, or knew the same customs
and laws, as either the legislator Manu, or the bards of the
Mahabharata.
" If we continue this sort of investigation, the question arises,
where are we to place the great Epic poems ? The Mahabharata,
again, has its Vyasa ; but it must be written later than the war
it celebrates, and therefore much within twelve centuries of the
Christian era. Again, it bears traces of having been traditionally
recited. It has vast episodes of religious speculation and cos
mogony ; and it is exceedingly difficult to fancy that the Bhaga-
vadgita was explained by Crishna to Arjuna in the intervals of
a battle. This seems rather to be a highly imaginative mode of
introducing in poetry some religious speculation. Nor is it easy
to say, how far such introduction of matter comparatively modem
* Lassen and Weber, as before.
EPIC POEMS. 277
may have been carried. But the narrative, or heroic portion of
the poem, speaks a different spirit from that of the Yedas. It is
not shepherd or priest hymning the genial influences of nature,
but is the warrior caste putting forth their strength, and
disputing in its consciousness the palm of priority with the
intellect of the Brahman. Or rather, perhaps, we see the kings
unwillingly accepting a yoke their fathers had not known, but
which the Brahmans fastened first on their subjects, and then
on themselves. The struggle of Viswamitra, as the soldier king,
with Vasishtha, the ascetic Brahman, shews us Indian society
fermenting, and not yet settled in its sad immobility of form.
Yet, as a whole, the Mahabharata is thought by good judges*
to be a more rounded composition, and to betray a greater de
velopment of the Brahmanical system than the older Rama-
yana. The older poem is a simpler narrative of a legendary
conquest, and has more of popular life, with signs of having
been sung at feasts and sacrifices. You would tell me, it should
be traced up to Valmiki, who is called contemporary with Rama;
but the interval of time must have been pretty long, for imagi
nation to have magnified the heroes of the poem into a size
which betokens the dimness of distance. When men are de
scribed as of superhuman size and prowess, and their exploits
as the work of enchantment, and their enemies as now demons
and now monkeys, this does not mean that the things were
literally so, but that the describer sees them through a haze of
distance and imagination. Speaking generally, however, we
may say that the two great Epic Poems attest the growth of
the Hindu mind out of a state in which the forces of Nature
exercised a paramount influence over life, into one which had a
fuller consciousness of human activity, and a series of struggles
and developments, yet with the genius of the older time mould
ing the new.
* There is some discrepance between the judgments of Lassen and Weber as to
the two poems : but it is allowed that the Mahabharata contains materials of very
different ages, with more of formal speculation than the Ramayana and less of
popular legend.
278 CODE OF MANU.
" Something perhaps analogous may be said of the laws of
Manu. It is very difficult to believe as literally correct, what
you seemed to say of these laws having been given to the father
of the human race, (and that too in a former Manwantara,) unless
you meant it in a parable, that God wrote on the heart of man
kind principles which should work themselves out into such a
form. But as the book now stands, it bears clear marks of hav
ing been compiled much later than three out of the four Vedas.
Its scene is in proper India, yet in the Northern part, with little
knowledge of the Southern. The society which it sketches in
the form of precept is more formally developed than that of the
hymns. It shews more of king, and priest, and city, and fixed
occupation. The entire system of caste has taken absolute form.
You see also how this arose. Partly it depends on race ; for the
two higher castes, and in a less degree the third, are Aryas, as
having sprung chiefly from the dominant invaders of India.
The fourth consists of Siidras, their name being that of an in
digenous tribe, which is described in the Mahabharata as dark
and small, and clothed in cotton. Again, the men below the
four castes are Chandalas, and this seems the name of an in
digenous race, whom the Greek geographer Ptolemy * places near
the Bhils of modern times. Partly again, caste comes of religious
distinctions, for the upper castes are described as twice-lorn, or
as having been initiated in religious privileges, and the charac
teristic of Brahmans is, that they know the Vedas f. Perhaps
in the legislator s injunctions to marry only in certain families
there is, joined with moral precaution, something of antipathy
of race or sect. More distinctly, we see in the honours which
kings are directed to confer on the Brahmans, the full-grown
power of the religious caste. Whereas, an earlier stage in its
growth is rather indicated in the Ramayana by the bounty of
* 2%of Kcu/SaXor $>v\\iTai. Ptol. vii. i, 6 1 66 ; VI. 10 3 ; Manu, X. 15 ;
Lassen, B. n. pp. 799 820.
t The passages referred to are found in Manu, B. I. 23, 31, 88 ; n. 17, 38, 62,
249; in. 145; vii. 37 136; viii. no; ix. 87; x. i 16, 20, 45 108 ; xi.
51 60, 78, 85, 265, 266 ; v. 3039.
S^NKHYA SPECULATION. 279
Dasaratha to the same persons, and lay their mode of receiving
it. Again, the Deities of Manu are neither for the most part the
Vedic, nor yet those of the Pur a" n as. He speaks comparatively
little of all the elementary agencies, which make the bulk of the
elder divinities, but more of Narayana or of Brahma, who in the
later portions of the Vedas is by a personifying generalisation
made the Supreme Ruler ; nor does he mention Vishnu, either in
the subordinate sense of the Yedas, or in the magnified form of
later times ; nor yet Siva, who, at the time of the earlier
Bauddha Sutras, was held in honour ; still less the later deifica
tions or incarnations, such as those of Kama and Crishna, which
are the favourites of the Pur anas. If now you consider that such
change of language is the mirror of changes in society, which
must have been long in coming about, you will understand why
the laws of Manu belong to a period long after the earliest Vedic
hymns, though before the rise of Buddhism.
" Our friend Sadananda is so critical, that he will readily
enter into what I will offer conjecturally about Capila. There
is in the Sankhya philosophy an acknowledgment of the might
of Nature, which might well enough spring out of the Vedic
worship. But the abstract tone of the philosopher s speculation,
and his way of reducing the deities into natural forces, is unlike
the simple fervour of the old devotional song. We must blame
Capila for not having substituted any clear conception of an
overruling mind; but we must acknowledge he had reason for
taking away that worship of blind elements which the older
faith involved. Perhaps it was his mission, as a rationalist, to
work out freedom for the human mind from undue subjection
either to the material world, or to that elaborate system of the
religious caste, which had become a superstition to some, and a
policy to others. Thus he paved the way for Sakya, who added
devotion to speculation, and extended to masses of men that
freedom which Capila had given only to the few. Since how
ever the faith of Sakya must have been to many a painful
revolution, there would arise men desirous of a scientific freedom,
280 EARLIER AND LATER VEDA NTA.
yet anxious to reconcile it with the orthodox religion. This
seems to have been attempted by Patanjali the grammarian, who
lived some time after Panini, and therefore later than Sakya.
The interval then between the two stages of the Sankhya
philosophy comprises the rise of Buddhism. Later than these,
though I dare not fix a precise date for it, must have been that
orthodox wisdom, which the venerable Acharya represents. For
though attempts to explain the purpose of the Vedas may have
begun early, and some of them may have been called the earlier
Mimansa, yet they evidently received an impulse from the
opposition of less approved systems. The very phrase A-dwaita
(non-duality) implies that the distinction between spirit and
matter had been taught by others ; and some elements in the
A chary a s system are traced by himself to Sancara. Nor should
I wonder if some of them are even later. But Sancara lived not
earlier than 800 or 900 A. D. How different this newer Vedantine
system is from the older Vedic worship, we have partly seen,
and shall see farther. But all this stage of philosophical de
velopment occupies a middle ground of vast extent between the
old poetical faith, and the new burst which gives the religion of
India another form, as evident in the Puranas. It is in nearly
the same middle region that we are to place the rise and fall of
the Bauddha faith in India. Only there is this difference ; a reli
gious creed is so antagonistic to its rival creed, that we can fix defi
nitely its date ; whereas tendencies of thought may be at work when
unacknowledged, and stretch over into their opposites, so as to be
hardly disentangled. Thus the philosophical spirit may have
anticipated its fuller consciousness by certain portions of the Epic
poems, as well as interpolated episodes in the later of the two ;
and again it reaches on into the Pauranic stage, both giving a
meaning to the legends, and suffering itself to be fancifully trans
formed in them. Again, as the philosophical sects supply the
middle ground in speculation, so do the Epic Poems in both heroic
legend and physical parable, between the hymns of the old Vedic
ritual, and the modern mythology of the Puranas.
AGE OF THE VEDAS. 281
" But we must not let our collateral inquiry overshadow our
great object, which is now beginning to clear before me. I have
been trying to familiarize you with the notion that Hindu
literature has great epochs. If any portion of it is Divine, its
Divinity does not depend upon its having come bodily from the
mouth of Brahma, nor upon its having been given to Manu by
Brahma; nor must you fancy that books, removed from each
other by diverse customs and generations, were all arranged by
one Vyasa. This vast tree of Indian thought has put out a
succession of branches in many ages. Nor would I venture to
fix all the steps of its growth. But even in the sacred Vedas
we saw signs, that whatever power inspired them must have
extended its influence over no little time. And if some of the
hymns attest occupation of the valley of the Ganges, while
others go back to that of the Punjaub, and if Kama be the
great A ryan overrunner of India, then the age of Rama will be
a probable centre for the period over which we may suppose the
growth of the hymns to have ranged. As, then, we have already
placed Rama about 2000 years B.C., we may imagine the devo
tional feelings of the Aryas to have been taking shape in the
Vedic songs from about 2500 B.C. to about 1500. Some such
theory is also confirmed by the astronomical notices in the
collected books. For the Vedas contain a calendar, with the
old Indian circle of five years. In this the ratio of solar and
lunar time is given. The zodiac is divided into twenty-seven
asterisms, beginning with the Pleiades. The solstitial points are
reckoned to be at the beginning of the constellation Dhanisht ha,
and in the middle of Aslesha; and this, according to astronomers,
was the case in the fourteenth century before Christ*. The
three earlier Vedas therefore were arranged by some Vya"sa
about 1400 B.C., and although this date may be more recent
* Colebrooke, Vol. I. p. 106, states this argument on astronomical grounds :
and Lassen, B. n. Vol. I. pp. 739, 747, seems not altogether to reject it ; but
Weber (to whom the Indian astronomy appears borrowed from the Greeks) gives
it up, as based on calculations backward. I cannot judge of its value, but think
its correspondence with general data justifies its retention.
282 CHANGES OF INDIAN SOCIETY.
than you are prepared for, yet it falls in with the results of fair
criticism, whether you look at the probabilities of our historical
conjectures, or at the positive evidence of the stars, as implied in
the books themselves. There is an interval of perhaps 2800
years from the Vyasa of the Yedas to him of the Puranas. For
the latter can hardly, after what we have said of the Brahma
Purana, and of the Sri Bhagavat, be placed before 1400 A. D.
" If you are now prepared to entertain the idea of growth in
your literature, we may here consider two great results which
come out with a review of the whole subject. The first result
is, that Indian life has not, as is often thought, been fixed in
immutable form from the beginning. See, how this comes out
in a general review. The earliest hymns of the Rig- Veda shew
us the Hindu not yet having earned his name by long dwelling
on the Indus, but in the country of the Five Rivers, worshipping
all the skyey influences, hailing the dawn in song, and per
sonifying the dark cloud which withholds, as well as the blue
heaven whicli liberates, the rain. His deities are Devas, the
bright elements, which seem to bless him. He has not yet
built temples, nor bowed down to idols, nor become the instru
ment of priests, nor does he fancy anything of the transmigration
of souls, nor probably of the incarnation of deities, nor has he
yet suffered the brotherhood of mankind to be outraged by
division into castes. Nor again does he make the pitiless
demand for widows to be burned. It is very remarkable that
none of these things are originally Vedic. Whether the horse-
sacrifice (aswamedka) was merely symbolical, as your commen
tators say, or whether the later symbol represents an earlier
usage, of perhaps Persian or even Tartar origin, I will not
determine. But at least sacrifices were common enough, and
the flesh of them* might be eaten; so that the modern horror of
eating flesh can hardly have existed. So far the earliest Hindu
we read of had rather the advantage of his descendants. On the
other hand, his hymns shew no deep feeling of the moral evil of
* So, even mManu, sacrifices may be eaten, but meat otherwise not. V. 23 34.
DEVELOPMENTS OF SPECULATION. 283
sin, nor reverence for the deities as moral governors. Some
have fancied that they can trace in the Vedas vestiges of an
earlier belief in one supreme God*. But no texts have yet
been shewn me, belonging to the earliest stage, which bear
clearly such meaning. On the contrary, physical nature seems
to present the objects of worship, and animal nature to suggest
the prayers. Man seems as yet the first among animals wor
shipping the elements. By degrees, however, the shaping mind
modifies its impressions into an unity; and a deeper sense
appears of the mystery which underlies the agencies of nature,
with a feeling after some spirit which formed them. It is
chiefly in the Upanishads, so far as I have observed, that this
tendency develops itself; therefore not in the earliest time.
Thoughts, however, of Atman the great Soul, or Self, or Person,
without whom it is as unnatural to conceive the world, as a
human body without a mind, may have had many indistinct
utterances before they grew into such reasoned poems, as that
about Vdch which you quoted to me. There seems also to have
broken off from the A ryas, while yet in the country of the Five
Rivers, a section which carried westward some Yedic traditions,
and ripened them in Bactria, or Persia, into the Zoroastrian lore.
This remigration must not be confused with the original advent
of the A ryan race from Iran, still less must the ebb be made
to account for the earlier flow. In the mouth, however, of
Zarathastra, the mere nature-worship took a deeper tone, and
spoke of strife no longer between cloud and sky, but between
evil and good, or the malignant serpent and the Son of Heaven.
Thus he divorced, in a way, mankind from physical nature, and
brought out a deeper moral consciousness, with both its sense of
suffering, and its manlier struggle. Whereas with the true
Hindus remained longer, and almost remains still, something
of the old childhood, which felt itself cradled in the elements of
* Colebrooke, Essays, Vol. I. ; M.Neve, Essai surlemythedesRibhavas,~Pa,ris, 1847.
The striking hymn about Atman belongs to the roth book, "in einem der spatesten
i," says Lassen.
284 BRAHMANISM.
the world and only asked their bounty, looking on it almost as
a right. I need not stay to trace nicely how many hymns of
the Big- Veda reappear in both the Yajurs, and again in the
Sama, or how they are somewhat modified. But in the Brah-
manas we have the signs of a priesthood or caste arranging and
explaining the songs which were already ancient ; and this
tendency is said to reach a more elaborate formalism in the
Sutras. Before the Atharva or fourth Veda had been compiled,
the Aryas must have spread into India. It speaks more directly
of the aboriginal races, among whom it mentions the Siidras*
as hostile. It has words which are said to betray symptoms of
Prdcrit, or at least of the older language already assimilating
itself to indigenous idioms. It gives prayers, no longer as
natural eifusions of the religious feeling, but as formal charms
against sickness. It deals more, in its episodes, with meta
physical questions, as about death and the spiritual world. It
is the expression, in short, of a religious revolution, which
already the Brahmanical caste was conducting. We may esti
mate both its comparatively recent date, and yet the antiquity
of Manu, from remembering that the legislator recognises only
three Yedas, though it is possible the fourth may already have
been framed. Some also find in the Atharvan astronomical signs f
of B.C. 1100, rather than 1400, but these I will not venture to
argue from.
"When we pass on to the laws of Manu what a stride the
Brahmanical system has made! The purohita, who merely
presided on great occasions of sacrifice, is now an hereditary
priest. The families of singers, to whom early hymns were
ascribed, are now sacerdotal clans. The Brahmans, who are
not named as such in the earlier mantras, are now an exclusive
caste. The Siidras, who in the earliest Veda were not known,
and in the latest were enemies, are now the lowest class. The
Dasyus, once hostile, have become vassals. The term Vaisya,
* Roth, quoted in Weber, Vol. I. pp. 142, 143.
t Lassen, p. 745, but compare Weber, pp. 224 227.
PRIESTHOOD CASTE MANU. 285
which once meant earthly, or human, (so that Vispati might
mean king in general) is now applied to mere cultivators ; and
these are partly, no doubt, the indigenous possessors of the soil.
The mere tribes of A ryan shepherds are grown into organised
nations. The king must no longer sacrifice, but give presents
to the Brahmans. The character of Teacher is brought forward
as having especial claim to reverence. The religious bath and
the sacred cord are made important. Though sacrifices are
still eaten, the rules for general diet are more precise. Oblations
to the spirits of ancestors seem to be a new custom. The
military art has been developed, and the use of elephants,
chariots, cavalry, as well as archers and swordsmen, is described.
Cities, and the mode of besieging them, are alluded to. The
prices of markets are to be regulated. Many of the regulations
are good enough, but the punishments are not always in propor
tion to the true character of acts. There is an excessive stress
on the sanctity of the highest caste, and severe penalties for
whatever tends to lessen it. There is an attempt, in short,
to arrest society, and fix it in a mould, chiefly of priesthood
and partly of race; while such minuteness of regulation in
common actions may be natural for a speculator to devise, but
has never been found wholesome in practical life. Here and
there, too, appear allusions to Viswamitra, and, perhaps, others
who vindicated the kingly freedom for a time, though the fatal
victory, in the struggle, was, to their own cost, with the Brahmans.
" Yet, however different the polity sketched in the Mdnava-
dharma-sdstra may be from that of the earliest time, I would
not affirm that it has no prefigurement in the Sutras, which
have been mentioned as appended to the Vedic hymns. It has
been noticed, that the same names are given as authorities for
some of the Sutras, and of the Laws. The tendencies of the one
find their fulfilment in the other. But this only affects the
question, where the difference begins.
"What now must have happened between the two social
stages we have glanced at? We should guess at once some
286 STEPS OF DEVELOPMENT.
sucli course of event and imagination as is described or implied
in the two great Epics. We are, in fact, able to infer from
these poems a career of conquest on part of the Aryan race,
however far the Ramayana may be, as some conceive, from the
time of its hero, and however scanty a nucleus of history may be
involved in its fable. We see in them the clash of races, the
older of which are represented in fastastic forms *. We have the
hermit life of the Brahmans beginning in the wild forests, where
they must have been pioneers of civilisation. We have the
conflict of king and priest, already spoken of. We have the rise
of new heroes, whose memories are likely to be famous, though
we should hardly have foreseen how entirely some of their
names would take the place of the older divinities, as objects
of worship. Perhaps in the oldest, and truly heroic part of the
Mahabharata, Crishna is not yet represented as an incarnation
of Vishnu ; just as, when his name is mentioned in the Vedic
Brahmanas, it is only as that of a man who needed himself to be
instructed by Ghoraf, a descendant of Angiras. We have, how
ever, in the two great Epics, forecasts not merely of Manu, but
of the Puranas. Nor is it easy to say how much in the form of
episode and speculation is of later insertion. Nor, again, does
it follow, because the Epics portray that long ferment of the
Indian mind, which settled down in the polity of Manu, that
therefore the poems themselves were written before the laws. As
regards their fullest form, we must rather suppose the contrary.
In the episode of Nala, for example, we have four Vedas men
tioned, instead of three, as in Manu. But I have said enough to
shew the significance of the Epic poems for our present point of
vast developments in the Hindu mind, and must leave more
learned persons to fix dates in a region so uncertain, that while
your traditions make Valmiki a contemporary of Rama, 2000 B.C.,
* Eama s conflict is with Ka"cshasas, or demon people, whose king, Eavana,
has ten heads ; and with monkeys, whose king s name is Bali. He crosses to Ceylon
by a bridge. His earlier adventures have a tinge as if of the Odyssey.
t .Colebrooke, Vol. n. p, 197.
THE TWO EPICS, (iTIHA SAS), DRAMA. 287
some critics would bring down the authorship of his poem to
almost the Christian era. If one must offer a conjecture, there
is some reason for fancying that the Mahabharata in its shortest
form expresses the poetical youth of the people, soon after the
consolidation of their settlements in India, while the Ramayana
ought, from the date of its subject, to be older. As a special
argument that this is so, we have the fact that in the Bama*yana
widows not only survive, but reign as queens ; whereas in the
Mahabharata the fatal Satt, or immolation by fire, unknown in
earlier ages, has already begun. But again good critics have
ventured to bring down the Mahabharata to the first reaction of
the popular mind against Buddhism, such as we may suppose
to have existed partially just before the Christian era; and they
place the other poem even later, as fancying that the spread of
A ryan civilisation to the extreme South was later. If we knew
for certain, what the first Bauddha missionaries or princes found
in Ceylon, we could estimate this argument better.
" But if I can only give as doubtful the earlier date for the
Epic poems, still less would one fix the Drama in point of time.
We see clearly that it must have been subsequent to the Epics ;
for its subjects are sometimes taken from them, and its language
is more modern. But the mere question, whether the court at
which Kalidasa flourished is that of Vicramaditya at Malwa
56 B. c., or that of another prince at Ujjiyini, nearly a thou
sand years later, shews the uncertainty of most things in
Indian literature. Here also comes in the suspicion, which Dr
Wolif has suggested, of the Hindu Drama s having profited by
hearsay of Grecian models; and this is possible, whichever
chronology we prefer.
" The mere literary question has carried me for a moment
from what was more important. Just as in the Brahmanas, or
rubrics* of the Vedas, and in the Sutras, which are their sup
plement, we have the first footsteps of the later Brahmanism, so
* The Hebrew titles to the Psalms, and the early Rabbinical comments, might
serve as a rough parallel to the Brahmanas.
288 KNOWLEDGE AND WORSHIP ETHICS.
in these and in the Upanishads, we have the beginnings of
speculation. It is the office of reason in religion, to question
the religious instincts as to their meaning, and so to restrain
their wanderings, by directing them ever to the highest object.
Unhappily, it has often been more skilful in criticising the im
perfect, than in substituting a more excellent way. Yet we
must not deny its real services. At one time it disengages the
religious sentiment from irrelevant theories which, on the side of
intellect, encumbered it. For example, it does not allow men to
make their faith in God depend upon those conceptions of the
mode of His working, which may at any time have been imper
fect. Thus the views of earthly science, by which a sense of
heavenly things is accompanied, may at any time be disengaged
from what is more essential. Your great astronomer Bhascara
rightly teaches, that in mathematical science holy tradition is
authority so far only as it agrees with demonstration; and
accordingly this mathematical science has no end in eternal
time*. But still more important is the service to religion
which reason renders by bringing out its ethical element, or by
associating the glow of devotion with the sense of duty to man.
It comes of human weakness, that because God controls our
destiny, we are tempted to make our service of him a flattery;
or, in milder cases we become so absorbed in the need of
faith and devotion, that we lay too little stress on moral right
eousness. Forgive me, if I say, that in the religious history of
India, as of other countries, we find too many instances of the
religious instincts thus absorbing the duty of right. But reason,
which cannot be sound, unless it comprehends in itself that
feeling of an eternal law which we term conscience, sees that
God is not so bribed, for that the highest might must be in
righteousness, and hence it purifies the impulses of religion, by
sifting whatever had been merely emotional in their operation,
and sets our duty to man ever by the side of our faith in the
unseen God. Take an instance of this from your own Mimansa.
* Colebrooke, Vol. II. pp. 380 381.
PURIFYING OF WORSHIP. 289
When its thoughtful framers reasoned of true righteousness,
they felt unable to approve of those incantations to hurt the
life of an enemy, which appear in your older religious books.
Hence, although such practices have what is deemed Yedic
authority, they are yet rightly forbidden by the Mimansa".
Perhaps another instance may be found even in the Purusha-
medha. For that this was not always symbolical, seems to
me proved by the hymn of Sunah-sephas * in the Eig-Veda, as
well as by the legend of his having been bound for sacrifice.
Probably there was a time when the dread of an overruling
Divinity made your ancestors shed even human blood ; but as
the conscience or reason of men under Divine guidance awoke to
its full function, such a misjudgment of the religious impulse
was set aside, and the rite turned into a symbol. Some such
purifying process was perhaps intended by Capila. But as
our weakness rarely attains in each man that great harmony
which perhaps the eternal Iswara rejoices in seeing maintained
on the whole by the partial jarrings of mankind, so Capila
obscured the Deity by Nature. His successor Patanjali at
tempted to restore the religious balance, but went so far on the
other side, that he obscured the reason, and fell into a devotional
mysticism, which is called the Y<5ga. In such cases Nature
revenges herself by suffering a quietude of the nerves, which is
animal rather than spiritual, to obscure the vision which boasts
of seeing direct into heaven. Nor under such a system can the
mind of man attain its full stature, however specious may be
its show of more rapt devotion. For our Maker has intended us
to strive and contrive, as well as to pray. Of the later philo
sophical schools of logic, or of physical atoms, I need only say,
that I should be glad to see you employ their processes in
education. For the more reason is trained by method and ob
servation, the better will she be able to judge, if her heart be
pure, of the more directly religious revelation which the supreme
Iswara gives us of Himself.
* See Vishnu Purdna, pp. 404, 405. It is also referred to in Manu.
M. P. 19
290 VED^NTA AND VEDAS.
" It might have been hoped that the Vedantists, either
earlier or later, would work out a better harmony of faith and
reason. But if your school did on the one hand the work of
the Yedas by maintaining their authority, you did on the other
that of the speculators by explaining the purpose of the Vedas
in such a way as to be hardly reconcilable with the original
text. Those psalms of a physical nature-worship were never
conceived upon a theory that nature is only the play of the
Universal Spirit manifesting its energies. What indeed can be
less likely to give men a spiritual faith, than the practice of
hymning Fire, and Sun, and the Winds ? There is something
pretty in making Agni, or Fire in its different forms, either as
Sun, or Heat, or Flame, a sort of Priest of the Gods in the
universal temple of Nature ; but then, who are the Gods to
whom he ministers? We want some clear spiritual Being,
such as the earlier hymns at least do not clearly shew, who
shall be superior to all these agencies; and these which are
properly ministering, should not be made themselves the supreme
objects of worship, as they apparently are in the hymns. Again,
when your theory has embodied the Spirit in Nature, so as to
take away the just contra-position of creature and Creator,
prayer and its Hearer, mankind and his Judge, there is no
more room for priest, as there is no worship except a Divine self-
contemplation. If men like Angiras and Sakalya had foreseen
your theory, they would not have sung or arranged hymns to
Ushas and Agni. What your school originally meant, I suppose,
was to dissociate the Deity from all fetters of time and place and
matter, until they got themselves confused, as I tried to shew above.
But here I want you to notice the greatness of their departure
from the Vedic text. This is so wide, that your relation to the
text is only in name rather than in effect, much more friendly
than that of Sakya. You have alike that profound sense of the
transitoriness of things earthly, which has come of later specu
lation, rather than of the Vedas. You believe alike in the
transmigration of souls, of which they say not a word; and
BUDDHA AND BKAHMANISM. 291
even if your return of the soul to ineffable union with the primal
Spirit can be speculatively distinguished from the Bauddha
nirvana which it resembles, at least neither of them is Vedic.
I say nothing yet of apotheosis, or incarnation, or of the names
of deities.
" If now we turn to Sakya, we see that he was willing to
proceed some way in the old path of the Brahmans. He was
evidently their pupil, and his early speculations have the
Hindu cast of gentleness, a vague vastness, and asceticism. But
he seems to have learnt that lesson, which has so often come to
religious men elsewhere, that external restraints are rather a
nursery for the soul, than the proper atmosphere for it to breathe ;
thus that asceticism beyond temperate limits is neither a virtue,
nor even wholesome ; while, if human life is bound in the fetters
of minute ordinances by a dominant caste, neither true religion
nor happiness flourish in such loss of freedom. Thus he be
came in the strongest sense a reformer, yet partly a mystic, as
well as democrat in religion. It is no wonder that masses of
men crowded eagerly to a teaching which had life and eman
cipation. Rather, I think, whenever Almighty God in any
country raises up such teachers by way of reaction against
spiritual bondage, he will always win them hearing in proportion
to the need of them. But it may be feared that Sakya, in refining
away (as the Sankhyasts had done before him) some popular
notions of Deity, did not hold fast enough his sense of the
everliving God as moral Judge of the world. He felt life and
spirit, but saw not clearly Him in whom they are, and by
whom they stand. There seems however some uncertainty about
Sakya s own faith in this respect. But it is very sad to observe,
how soon after his death his doctrine grew into a system as
elaborately formal as that which it had superseded. Many of
the priests, we are told, in king Asoca s time, came over to the
faith. They soon made it something of a priestcraft. Then
came the many legends, which probably are accretions upon a
simpler truth of the life of Sakya. Then relics were worshipped,
192
292 COURSE OF BUDDHISM.
and Buddhism grew into what it is. If you, my friend" here
Blancombe turned to the Saugata " wish to defend it, you can
best do so by starting it afresh after the rnind of its founder.
Its strength was then in that freedom, which is now what you
have least of. And as for your friends*, who are not firm, as
some think Sakya was not, in the belief of a God who governs
the world, their faith is not worth keeping, except as a partial
protest against something possibly distorted in a different di
rection. If Buddhism be really hollow on this point, we can
understand its fading out of India after about a thousand years
of establishment. We can also imagine that the zeal of the
Brahmans, represented perhaps by Cumarila Bhatta, may have
stimulated reaction; and the people themselves may have
wished for the old traditions which were more knit up with
Indian history. They may even have thought the new Bauddha
priesthood more exclusive than the old caste of the Brahmans.
"At any rate, Buddhism seems to have disappeared from the
greater part of India about the seventh century of the Christian
era. Then comes that new period of Hinduism which has as
its expression in literature the Puranas. This is the age of
Cumarila, of Sankara A charya, and somewhat later, of Madhwa,
and of Kamanuja. I have hitherto dwelt chiefly on those develop
ments which come of speculation modifying worship. But by
their side was also the popular feeling, which found voice in
legend and poetry, as in the Epics already glanced at. From
such sources will now come new objects of worship, and the old
Vedic deities will tend to disappear. Long ago their first stage
had been gone. Agni and Ushas and the Maruts had given
way to Brahma as the representative of a more intelligent con
ception of the creative power coming out of nothing less than
Spirit. Indra had been degraded from his apparent supremacy ;
and Vishnu, who in the Vedas is merely subordinate, had either
See above, p. 24, for the distinction of the Nepaulese and the Cingalese
Buddhists, the first being thought to have a firmer belief in the Divine self-con
sciousness and government.
THREE STAGES OF HINDUISM. 293
from admixture of races, or from the clinging of the popular
sentiment to his name understood in a higher relation, been
lifted into a place hardly second to the highest. By the time of
Buddhism also Siva had become recognised as one of the three
great Deities. Both Vishnu and Siva seem admitted to equal
rank with Brahma, from a sort of compromise on part of the
Brahmans with the popular feeling, which perhaps hardly rose
to the more abstract conception of the Creator, or refused to
abandon names more native. These three, however, with
their wives, Saraswati, Sri or Laksmi, and Durga or Kali,
stood long at the head of the Hindu Pantheon, and make
the second great stage in the development of your religion.
They compose, I presume, the Trimurti, which ill-instructed
persons have represented as if it were the Christian Trinity,
whereas the conceptions, beyond the coincidence of mere number,
are very different. How Siva can be termed the same as Kudra,
except in so far as conceptions of the god of the storm, with
those of Agni as the god of fire, may have been taken up into
the more metaphysical conception of the Destroyer and the
Restorer, I cannot understand. Nor is Vishnu the preserver the
same, except in name, as the sun-god of the older hymns. The
theory of his avatars, or incarnations, is as novel as his change
of rank, or more so. You allow this, do you not?" here he
asked Vidyacharya. " Why no," answered the other, "for the
strides of Vishnu across the earth are mentioned in the Rig-
Veda, and this must refer to the Avatar as a dwarf; and again
in the Yajur-Veda Vishnu is mentioned in the form of a boar,
which is the Vaiaha Avatar*." " But how far," resumed Blan-
combe, " do these things go towards establishing what you
suppose ? If we consider the Pauranic legend of Vishnu s step
ping, we find that he stepped only twice, there being no room
left for a third stride : whereas in the Veda it is said, Thrice
did Vishnu stride. The legend may have grown out of the
text, but it involves a different conception. The Veda probably
* See Vishnu Purdna, end of ch. i. ch. iv. and Preface, Colebrooke, Vol. I.
294 THREE STAGES OF HINDUISM.
refers to tlie three stages of the sun, as it rises, culminates, and
sets ; whereas the Pauranic story sets forth in a parable the
omnipresence of the Deity. So the Yajur-Veda text of Vishnu
as Viswa-karman appearing in the form of a boar, seems to
indicate the elevation of the earth physically out of water, or
into space, and may have been also applied to the extrication
of the world from evil ; but in neither case did the text mean a
gross incorporation of the Deity in a boar. There is a confusion
constantly recurrent in India between the meaning mystically
conveyed in certain stories, and the grossest acceptation of their
literal sense. So the enthronement of Indra in the Veda was
meant, I presume, as an allegory, though hard to explain ; but
many of your countrymen take such things in the grossness of
the letter. So the traditions of Vedic Deities which I mentioned
as carried westward in early times, were twisted in Bactria into
stories of earthly kings, and your Yama, the god of death,
appears in Firdusi as king Jemshid, and the serpent Ahi, once
the dark cloud, as the tyrant Zohak *. Thus in India, too, the
old physical parable was sometimes exalted into a more meta
physical conception, and sometimes literalised into a marvellous
story.
" On the whole, I think we are justified in saying that no
clear signs of incarnation (or of the avatars) had appeared in
the genuine Vedic hymns. This idea came in rather with the
Epic poems. When the great exploits of Rama and Crishna
were to be accounted for, it was natural to suppose that some
Divine force dwelt in them. Upon the question whether such
force was truly Divine, or was magnified by imagination, will
depend the farther question, whether such avatars are only a
deification of what was properly human, or whether there was a
real indwelling of Deity. With such questions is connected too
your theory which identifies the human soul and the Divine
Spirit, or blends God and mankind into one. Our own faith,
and I think also any true humility, would forbid accepting all
* Lassen, 7. A. p. 517. Weber, Vorlcs. p. 36.
THREE STAGES OF HINDUISM. 295
that you have said on that subject ; but 1 would willingly
explain it as obscurely meaning the great nearness of the
Father of our spirits to all those who approach him in prayer,
together with the true feeling, that every human excellence
comes in a way of the Spirit of God. But however your incar
nations are to be explained, their belief comes in with the
period of the Epic poems, and associates itself with Rama, and
with Crishna. These, you now hold, were manifestations of
Vishnu. Yet it was long before this theory made such way as
practically to encroach upon the honours of the three great
Deities.
" Perhaps in the reaction against Buddhism the more human
heroes, as taking hold of human passions, were brought more
vividly forward. Perhaps again the defenders of Brahmanism
felt the theory of incarnation necessary to present some con
tinuity in a system which had been so changed. In the time of
the Puranas, however, which may range from about A.D. 700 to
A. P. 1400, this new Hinduism develops itself. One of its
differences from the older religion is the stress it lays upon
Divine grace* and faith, and this may possibly come of in
directly Christian influence. Or again, it may be a native
growth in the progress of religious zeal, and have been some
what stimulated by the rivalries of sects. In either case, we
can only allow it to be wholesome in so far as it is joined with
purity of heart, and recognises the Almighty for a righteous
Governor, as well as for the Giver of all good gifts to body and
soul. Its working, as a doctrine, must be less pure from the
sectarian rivalry with which it is mixed. For amidst all the
emulation between the worshippers of Rama or Crishna, or
those who choose Vishnu or Siva by preference for honour, a
passionate devotion to either name seems exalted above that
upright life and clear conscience, which are chiefly acceptable to
* See the dose of Wilson on Hindu sects, and Colebrooke s account of the
later Ved;inta ; and for the possibility (hardly more) of Christian influence, Lassen,
Vol. II. p. 1099.
296 THREE STAGES OF HINDUISM.
God. This tendency appears even in the Vishnu Purana, and I
am told also in others. Much more, I suppose, it must come
out in the Tantras, or the devotional books of impure sects.
But of such facts you can judge better than I can. It is, how
ever, indisputably clear, that many features of the third period
of Hinduism are not at all to its advantage. You would hardly
defend idolatry, though your metaphysics have been abused to
palliate it. Yet it is now the common practice. Temples need
not in themselves be blamed ; yet they are probably an innova
tion upon earlier practice ; and as the earlier Brahmans did not use
them, no one need wonder that the Bauddha temples are amongst
the oldest we find. The worship of the Vedas was chiefly
domestic. The reverence for the Linga is also modern. Far
older, because it is mentioned in Manu, but probably not Vedic,
is the custom of sacrificing to the Pitris, the progenitors of the
human race. On the other hand, Brahma, once the great Deity
of the most educated caste, has receded into the background.
Whether Vishnu or Siva should take his place is so disputed
that six Puranas pronounce for the one, and six for the other.
But neither of them enjoy such popular acceptation as the
human heroes, who are termed manifestations of them. On the
whole, the modern worship is more sensual, more sectarian,
more idolatrous, and has a greater multitude of divinities, for
whose worship there seems little reason in your oldest books,
and which must turn men s minds away from the living Spirit.
Nor perhaps is it altogether accidental, that the Hindu Drama,
with its Pracrit speech and occasional licentiousness, has its
fullest growth in the time of this New Hinduism, just as the
Epics are nearer to the middle stage of the three great deities,
and the earliest Vedas represent the simple nature-worship of
old time. Yet by the side of the now popular idolatry, I readily
admit there has been a great development of metaphysical or
mystical speculation, and I only wish that it had been used by
Sancara to reform rather than palliate popular errors, or that it
might be so employed by yourself now. It is not wonderful
LITERAL IMMUTABILITY FAILS. 297
that such men as Kabir should subsequently have made attempts
at a spiritual reform, whether some of his ideas were borrowed
from Christian sources, or whether they were entirely native. The
sober distinctions of Madhwa between the Divine and the human
spirit are also in some respects worthy of being considered.
" But now, the great variety we have seen in the three
stages of Hinduism leads me to the second result, which I wish
to urge upon you. What has become of the positive communi
cation from Heaven, which you laid so much stress upon ? The
vast differences we have now seen, forbid us to believe that the
books which embody them came forth simultaneously from the
mouth of Brahma, or were arranged by one Yyasa. The entire
system, consisting of parts so different, and developed in suc
cessive ages, cannot all have a primeval authority, or one im
mediately Divine." When Blancombe had got thus far, the
A charya said nothing, but the Saugata threw in this kind of
speech. " You have proved thoroughly," he said, " that the
whole of the Hindu Sastras has not been from the beginning,
and thereby you have justified Buddha in rejecting them. But
you have not shewn, that the religion may not be Divine, or that
it had not a true germ in the earliest time, which may have
grown up into something more perfect, whether the perfection is
the doctrine of Buddha, or, as others would say, some modern
form of Hinduism. For, as you have allowed intelligence to
reside in man, and as you term the Deity intelligent, why should
not He, on your own theory, speak from time to time to that in
us which is most kindred to Himself, rather than to the outward
organs by speech ? Or, from our point of view, why should not
the human intelligence have grown up in expansion, and the
truth have been developed in mankind ? The term Revelation,
I suppose, will as properly apply to this latter process as to any
more external one. For this may, even better than any other,
be an uncovering of Divine truth to our minds."
"Your questions," replied Blancombe, "are very ingenious.
Nor would I deny that Divine Revelation may be by spiritual
298 THEORY OF DIVINE DEVELOPMENT.
development, rather than "by sensible signs. It might be a
teaching by experience, as well as by prediction ; and by steps
of growth, rather than by discontinuous leap. But if this is so,
there must be a connexion in the steps of growing, so that an
unity of idea may be discerned, at least afterwards, to have pre
sided over the process. Again, the changes forward must be for
the better, and not for the worse. As life has decay, so religion
may have degeneracy : or it may have wild and fantastic off
shoots. Your own worship seems to have degenerated from that
of Sakya, and that of the Hindus in general to have taken many
irregular shapes. These are wanderings, rather than develop
ments. However true, then, may possibly be your suggestion,
as applicable to what is really growth, it has no clear place in
apology for a scheme like that of Hinduism. For here, when
we reach the latest stage, we find the worship more idolatrous
than in the earlier, instead of more spiritual; and the speculation
more extravagant, instead of more defined. Or even if in some
things the Hindu intellect has outgrown signs of childhood,
yet on our friend the A chary a s own principles, I may ask him
whether his religion is in the Yedas or in the Puranas ? If it is
in both, how does he reconcile them ? If it is in the older, why
does he sanction the later? Or even amongst the later class,
how can he reconcile the books which exhort to worship Vishnu,
with those which prefer Siva?"
"But," said the Acharya, " I have already explained, after
Sancara, that it is of little importance which deity we prefer as
representative of the primal and ineffable Spirit, which is the
true object of worship. Again, as to supposed discrepancies
between the Puranas and the Vedas, we are enjoined by Sancara,
in such a case, to prefer the Yedas. They are our oldest, and
our emphatically sacred books." "My dear friend," here re
sumed Blancombe, " I wish you would then, so far as your own
intelligence permits, return in such things to the Yedas. For,
I suppose, after speaking of that clear Spirit, which foresees and
governs all things, you would hardly worship the winds and the
PEESENT INCONSISTENCIES. 299
flame, or the dawn. But will you persuade your countrymen to
rise above the use of idols? They are not authorised by the
Vedas. Are you prepared to give up caste ? That is not origi
nally Yedic. Still less is any such limitation of priesthood, as
would confine it to a clan. I will not ask as to the Sati, or
burning of widows by fire, for it is happily abolished ; but how
many lives might have been sooner saved, if your Pandits had
dealt frankly with our Government, and confessed that in the
Vedas no such thing is enjoined; and that even in Manu* the
only Sati spoken of is a widowhood spent in pious austerity.
Since also incarnation is not in the Yedas, will you reconsider
its principle so far as to beware of deifying any unworthy object?
The idea may somewhere have its fulfilment ; but yet your
reasoning presentiment of it should not be rashly applied to
inadequate representatives of the Divinest Thought. The
A charya will not readily allow that the distinctness of immortal
souls is taught in the Vedas, though some have thought so ;
but if it should be found there, will he accept it ? In short, will
you all start from the Vedas, so far as to discard any evil in
your later religion, which they are found not to sanction, and
yet superadd those deeper thoughts of eternal and spiritual
things, which peril aps by some inward development are being
revealed to you from time to time ? Then, I almost hope, you
would not be far from the kingdom of God.
" Now consider this. There are chiefly two kinds of proof
possible for a religion as Divine. One is external authority ; the
other, inward excellence. This latter may perhaps have a
spiritual authority of its own in the form of persuasion. But
the first, as regards Hinthiism, has been found utterly to break
down. For obviously it requires history as its vehicle ; but in
history, native India eminently fails. You can hardly fix any
early date or person, without help from more accurate observers.
But where there is no sure history, still less can there be argu
ment from prophecy, in the sense of prediction, which very
* Mann, v. 160.
300 INHERENT PERSUASIVENESS.
many persons consider also necessary to the external authority
of a religion, and which, I think, you seem rather to claim.
Just as little can miracles (or such wonderful displays of Divine
power as confer authority) be brought into argument, where
facts have not been carefully observed, and habitually recorded
without exaggeration. All ground therefore for that positive
belief of yours in the external authority of Hinduism, as being
revealed with sufficient sanctions to overbear all human reason
ing, has vanished from under your feet. Nor has it merely
vanished, but its very opposite has come up in our critical
proofs of Hinduism having gone through many stages, and been
subject to all the accidents of human development. If your re
ligion is to be defended, it must be on very different ground
from that of its external guarantees, or the immutable authority
of the Sastras.
" But there may remain the second possibility of inherent
goodness. Indeed, I think, God has made it so natural for men
to pray to Him, and the manifold pleadings of His Providence,
or of His Holy Spirit, so encompass us on every side, that any
mode of approaching Him must be better than none. But yet
He may in His unsearchable wisdom have taught mankind a
more excellent way. Suppose now, that I wished to become
a Hindu, or, which is more nearly the case, that I wish you
to help me in lifting up that mass of your simple countrymen,
whom we see whelmed in ignorance, what would you recom
mend out of your religion, as means of improvement ? We have
in England books of all sorts and sizes, which we give to the
children of all ranks, after teaching them to read. Which of
your Sastras should we distribute in that manner ? Would the
history of Kama be improving? Not, if my impression of it,
with its legends of monkeys and Racshasas be correct. Still
less would that of Crishna, with the stories of his playing with
the Gopis, and holding up the mountain as an umbrella. Nor
even out of the Yedas do I think that many hymns could be
extracted, which would awaken men s moral nature, and teach
INTERNAL FAILURE OF HINDUISM. 301
them to lead a righteous and sober life. There are certainly
pretty hymns enough about Uslias, and about the liberation of
the rain ; and I remember some to Brahmanaspati, whose title
as the hearer of prayer, pleases me. But how little a way would
these things go towards building up the inner stature of the
spiritual man ! As to the invocations of the natural elements in
general, I fear they would injure rather than improve. They
would increase that tendency to a sensuous worship, and that
forgetfulness of moral government, which some of your country
men are prone enough to. Nor probably, would you, more than
myself, wish to hear them invoking again Agni and the Maruts,
any more than to see them bowing down to idols. The most
hopeful part of your literature would be the laws of Mann. But
these are not the most directly religious books ; and although
wholesome precepts might be extracted from them, a very large
part of the code is now impracticable, and not even attempted.
Nor would such portions of it as we could use go far in the way
we wish for education. Again, in some of the Puranas, I grant
that very grand descriptions may be found of the spiritual nature
of the highest Deity, and that metaphysical thought may be
quickened by them. But all these are so mixed up with trans
parent fable, so confused in their own associations, if even they
have not the graver fault of a pantheistic mysticism which effects
the opposite of what it intended, that I fear little use could be
made of them. Nor should I know which of the rival Puranas
to recommend. Nor is it so little a thing as you suppose, for
contending deities to be thus brought forward. Surely, if the
true and only wise God has given us in any way a revelation of
Himself, He cannot have left it doubtful, whether the strange
legends of Siva, or Vishnu, or Crishna, give the truest picture
of Him. Bather, I think that when the holiest truth comes
forth among men, all imperfect forms of it will droop their
heads to our mind s eye by the Divine original, even as Nala in
the poem appeared faint and earthly by the side of the deities
uncovering themselves. If we saw God as most worthily He
302 SHORTCOMINGS.
might shew Himself, we should no longer think patiently of
Him as incarnate in boar or dwarf, nor readily involve doc
trines in such guise of parable, lest men be degraded by taking
it literally. Least of all can such strange passages as you
quoted me out of the Linga Pur ana be put forth wholesomely
as lessons for the young, or lights to the simple.
" Now if I am right in believing that Hindu literature has
a dearth of things we could use to improve men, and if this
literary dearth be but an index to a want in the religion ; and
if, as we have already seen, education, morality, and spiritual
religion require training throughout India, while your subtle
metaphysics are impotent as means of moral restoration, what
conclusion, my dear friend, must we arrive at? Surely this
religion of yours cannot, in its present form at least, be destined
to fulfil the prediction of the Sri Bh&gavat, which speaks of all
nations coming to one faith ; but there must remain something
better, which God has yet in store for you. The older way may
in His manifold providence have been permitted as a sort of
training ; it may have many fragments of truth ; it may have
disciplined your minds into that contemplative wisdom, which
should enable you to apprehend something at once higher and
simpler. Nor would I blame you for following such light as
you have been brought up in, until something kindred, but
better, shall have been given you. But yet I would willingly
shew you a more excellent way."
NOTE ON CHAPTER VIII.
Most of the data in this and the preceding Chapter are due to
Englishmen; but the application of philosophical criticism to them is,
I am sorry to say, chiefly German. Nothing can more shew the
strength of German scholarship, than that it should have beaten us
on what ought to be our own ground. The Anglo-Indian who came
nearest to it in his comprehensive genius, was Sir William Jones j but
CRITICAL AUTHORITIES. 303
in his time the facts were less known than now. In the great work
of Lassen the entire literature of the subject is surveyed in mass and
in detail. The more recent lectures of Weber (1852) have a clearness
hardly to be expected, and that scholar s instinct, which is in its kind
an inspiration. He brings down portions of Indian literature to a
lower date than Lassen, but leaves the earlier Yedic hymns a remote
antiquity. Nor is it likely that either the early hymns, when duly
discriminated, or the period of the first Aryan settlements, will in
that respect be ever much brought down. Portions of the Epic
poems, the laws of Manu, and the drama, are much less clearly fixed.
My citations fromColebrooke and Wilson shew that I am indebted
to them for substantial aid ; as in some degree to Tumour. My
obligations to the late very eminent scholar, E. Burnouf, have been
already mentioned. Some tracts by Roth reached me too late to be
of direct service.
The following is a fair specimen of the Rig- Veda, as translated by
H. H. Wilson :
I. May auspicious works, unmolested, unimpeded, and subversive of foes,
come to us from every quarter may the Gods, turning not away from us, but
protecting us day by day, be ever with us for our advancement.
2. May the benevolent favour of the gods be ours ; may the bounty of the
gods, ever approving of the upright, light upon us may we obtain the friendship
of the gods, and may the gods extend our days to longevity.
3. We invoke them with an ancient text, Bhaga, Mitra, Aditi, Daksha,
Asridh, Aryaman, Yaruna, Soma, the Aswins, and may the gracious Saraswati
grant us happiness.
4. May the wind waft to us grateful medicament ; may mother earth, may
father heaven, convey it to us ; may the stones, that press out the Soma juice, and
cause pleasure, bring it us ; Aswins, who are to be meditated upon, hear our
prayer,
5. We invoke that lord of living beings, that protector of things immovable,
Indra, who is to be propitiated by pious rites, for our protection ; as Pushan has
ever been our defender, so may he continue.
6. May Indra, who listens to much praise, guard our welfare ; may Pushan,
who knows all things, guard our welfare ; may the son of Priksha (morniny),
with irresistible weapons, guard our welfare
8. Let us hear, gods, with our ears, what is good ; objects of sacrifices, let us
see with our eyes what is good ; let us, engaged in your praise, enjoy with firm
limb and sound frame, the term of life granted by the gods.
9. Since one hundred years were appointed, interpose not, gods, in the midst
of our passing existence, by inflicting weakness, so that our sons become our sires.
Stikta, 89.
304 NATURE OF PEKSUASIVES.
CHAPTER IX.
Hebrew History and Christianity.
" Produce your cause, saith the Lord ; bring forth your strong reasons, saith
the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen:
let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and
know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come." ISAIAH xli. ci, 22.
" Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts ;
I am the first, and I am the last ; and beside me there is no God. And who, as I,
shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the
ancient people ? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto
them. Fear ye not, neither be afraid : have not I told thee from that time, and
have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there
is no God; I know not any." Id. xliv. 6 8.
" I form the light, and create darkness : I make peace, and create evil : I the
Lord do all these things." Id. xlv. 7.
" For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens ; God himself that formed
the earth and made it ; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed
it to be inhabited : I am the Lord ; and there is none else. I have not spoken in
secret, in a dark place of the earth : I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me
in vain : I the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. Assemble
yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that aro escaped of the nations: they
have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto
a god that cannot save. Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel
together : who hath declared this from ancient time ? who hath told it from that
time? have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a
Saviour ; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of
the earth : for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word
is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, arid shall not return, That unto me every
knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have
I righteousness and strength : even to him shall men come ; and all that are incensed
against him shall be ashamed." Id. xlv. 18 24.
" BUT what sort of persuasives to a religion would you give
us," here, after a little pause, Sadananda asked, " or what would
you require to be the substance of the thing itself?" "Why,
many things," answered Blancombe, "may appear persuasive
to each of us from early training, and from association of our
affections with things which might have been otherwise : but if
we are to find such an exemplification of Divine truth in history
SUPPOSED ANALOGY. 305
as may recommend it to the nations at large, or such a fulfil
ment of the best prophecies of our conscience as shall win the
willing allegiance of mankind, we must go farther to look for it.
Nor do I think it difficult to conceive something more manifestly
Divine in its fulness than anything yet spoken of.
" Suppose, that, before the Brahmanical tribes left the land of
the Five Rivers, there had been prophecies among them that it
was their mission to overrun India, and their duty to keep alive
certain truths in that country; but that, failing in this duty,
they would give place in time to more faithful teachers of the
highest Right, yet that God would still use them as witnesses
or instruments in His kingdom, suppose, I say, this, or, more
directly, imagine a Rishi of the Vedic age saying, You shall
inhabit Oude, and shall spread from the five rivers to the
isles of the southern sea; but you will change the glory of
the unseen God into images of things that perish ; so you will
forfeit in His counsels the rule of the country He is about to
give you ; there shall come a people whose wings shall spread
to the wind, and with the wheels of their chariots in the great
deep ; they shall crouch like a lion in the cities you will have
builded, and go forth like a young lion over the land you have
yet to win, imagine, I say, predictions of this kind handed
down in your most ancient books, and re-echoed or deepened by
great teachers of righteousness, who might arise from time to
time, and see more vividly the shadows of events to come, in
proportion as moral decay or religious hollowness both provoked
and caused evil result ; we should at least, I think, examine such
a history carefully. Then, if the principles involved in it ap
peared broadly true, not only for India, but for all lands, so that
by using them as a key we could better unlock the mystery
of the world s story, and awaken in ourselves thoughts which
should go forth into wholesome deeds for our own souls or for
our country, we should conclude, here is a divine lesson, worthy
of all study. Nor would the significance of such a lesson be
destroyed by particular questions about its mode or form. Some
M. p. 20
306 NATURE OF PROPHECY ESSENTIAL AND ACCIDENTAL.
might think that the predictions had been more external, and
direct, or by distinct foresight of particular events. Others might
conceive them to have arisen rather through the forces of expe
rience and conscience; say, to have been suggested in part by
observation of what the Almighty had done before, or to have
been foreboded by a feeling of the righteousness which must run
through the eternal counsels; and so to be bound up with a
faith in the unseen, with a moral instinct, and with a trust in
the Allholy ; yet by no means therefore to be dissociated from
earthly affections, or even from misconceptions as to the events
and persons through which the eternal truth should find its way
to fulfilment. Such differences of view as to the ancient predic
tions need not, I say, destroy their moral significance, which
might even come out more strongly with the second view than
with the first. Again, if a great lesson of Divine providence
were taught us in the way I have imagined, we should not be at
all disturbed by errors of human agency, or even by short
comings in the sacred records through which the lesson was
derived to us. We should not care whether India was rightly
described as having nine dwipas (circles) and seven chains of
mountains, or whether it had more or less. For we could con
ceive such things indifferent to goodness of life, and the know
ledge of them left to natural means ; while, again, the more
important truths of justice and mercy and soberness would find
an echo from that which is holiest within us ; and this internal
witness would not be easily persuaded that the things most vital
to itself depended on external accidents, or that the great Author
of our holiest thoughts could ever be found a liar. Such disso
ciation of the eternal truth from its temporal or written vehicle,
would be still more justified, in proportion as the sacred record
should all along put the Divine wisdom above its human dis
ciples, and make the diviner breathing of godliness a thing but
slightly connected with pride or even strengh of intellect. Only
of course there must be a ruling forethought in the history, and
a true or blessed result arrived at in its course ; otherwise there
PARSIS. GIPSIES. HEBREWS. 307
would be no lesson taught by it. Do you understand what I
have been saying?" " Certainly I do," answered Sadananda,
"You are familiar," resumed Blancombe, "with the Parsis
of Bombay. They are descended from the Persians who took
refuge in India when the first flood of Mahometanism swept
over their country. They retain their ancient faith and its
symbols, with books and rites, which however they hardly
understand. Again, you may have heard of the gipsies, a people
of Hindu affinity, who seem to have been displaced in some of
the commotions which attended the conquests of Zingis Khan,
or of Timur, and who, finding the nations of the West too
firmly settled to make room for them, have wandered through
Europe, with no fixed home. They are probably the latest in
stance of the old tendency of nations to migrate from the East ;
but time and place did not allow them to find room. But there
is another people, of whom specimens may be found in India,
though perhaps you know less of them. They have an ancient
faith, and books of their own, like the Parsis; and they are for
the most part wanderers, with no national home, like the gipsies:
I mean now the Jews, or descendants of the ancient Hebrews.
They often adopt customs either natural to the countries in
which they dwell, or forced upon them by the necessities of
trade, and its ingrained habits. In so far, however, as they
remain true to their ancient genius, they have a faith embodied
in sacred books, which they call the Law, the Prophets, and
the Scriptures, and which are grouped together as the Old
Testament. In these books is a history of this kind. About
nineteen centuries before Christ, there was a Hebrew, named
Abraham, who became divinely impressed with the evils of
idolatry, and of all impurity in worship or in life. The only
true and eternal God spake to him in whatever way God who
is Spirit can speak to man encompassed with flesh and blood,
and bade him leave a land of unholy rites, and go forth in
hope, though it were to dwell as a pilgrim among strangers,
promising to be with him and his seed. Fear not. Abraham,
202
308 ABRAHAM. ISRAEL.
said the Lord, I am thy shield, and exceeding great reward.
Accordingly Abraham obeyed, his heart and conscience, I sup
pose, witnessing to him that the pure service of God was better
than any earthly gain ; and this faith of his in shaking off lower
attractions, where the love of a holy God or any duty might be
against them, is a sort of model, after which true men in all
ages should shape themselves. By doing so they partake the
mind of Abraham, and may be called mentally his children,
whether they are of his blood or not. Nor need we doubt, that
since the true God is eternal, therefore such promises as He
made to Abraham must for ever come true in fit measure to
whoever in love of things unseen, or in faithfulness to the call
of duty, vanquishes any temptation to do wrong. First, how
ever, the promise was to be made good to the natural heirs of
Abraham s body, so far as they came within the mental con
dition of it. Therefore, according to the history, God by won
derful methods brought them out of bondage in Egypt, and
gave them the land of Canaan, just as He gave India to the
Aryan tribes. Out of the power of the tyrant Pharaoh, through
the sea and through the wilderness, across the river Jordan, and
through many enemies, God led the victorious ranks of the
people, who had been slaves, into cities which they had not
builded, and gave them the fields to till, over which their
ancestors had wandered as strangers with their tents. Such a
deliverance and triumph would naturally take strong hold of
the imagination of the people, and accordingly became the
theme of many famous songs, which were both expressions of
the feeling of the nation, and chants in honour of the God who
had preserved it. For to the Israelites* was given the true
feeling that nothing happened to them by chance, but that the
God who doeth wondrous things had in His eternal counsels
brought about what they seemed to win by sword or spear, and
that His name must be honoured among them in truth.
The name Hebrews seems to mark the race ; Israel the people in its religious
aspect, and Jacob nearly synonymous, but less usual. Jewish meant properly
belonging to the kingdom of Judah.
MOSAIC LAW. 309
" But the Giver of our lives is also their Master and their
Judge. So in raising up Moses as a deliverer of the Israelites,
God made him also their lawgiver. In the famous law of Moses
are some things taken from that wisdom of the Egyptians* in
which Moses was learned ; there are some merely temporary,
and regulations of ritual or convenience : but there are also
wrapt up in the precepts unchangeable truths, such as should
enter into the life of every man, and the law of every nation.
These main truths are chiefly in the Ten Commandments, of
which I shall speak hereafter. There are also appointed sacri
fices of animals, not as the most perfect or final mode of worship,
but partly as witnesses that all life is the gift of God, and that
its service is due to Him in whatever way He may please to
employ it ; partly as symbols of devout penitence, by which the
offerer should express his contrition for sin, and acknowledge
his own life to be forfeit, if God were severe to exact the utter
most ; and again, some sacrifices were mere expressions of joyful
thanksgiving, and might be eaten both in homage to the Giver
of all good things, and in participation both with the priests
as ministers of God, and with the poor who might have need.
There are also in the law of Moses many purifying rites, such as
Hindus should readily understand, intended to take away any
stain, or rather, as I should say, to express and keep alive a
mental carefulness both as to holiness and cleanliness. Through
out the law there runs a constant acknowledgment of the Eternal
God as the source of all right : and many duties to the poorf,
to the slave, to the vanquished, the stranger, and the fatherless,
and the widow, are taught in His Name. The neighbour s
beast must not be suffered to lie under his burthen without
helping him. The harvest is not to be reaped without some
sparing for the poor gleaner. No Israelite s land must be bought
away from him, still less must he remain a slave for ever. Even
* Acts vii. 22 : Josephus, Jewish Antiquities. Spenser, De Legibus ffebrceorum.
-f- Exodus xxiii. i 12: Leviticus xii. 12; xix. 9, 10: Deuteronomy xv. i 15;
xxii. i 7.
310 SPIRIT, LETTER, PRIESTHOOD.
the stranger must have no injustice done him. The land of the
enemy is not to have its fruit-trees wantonly injured. The bird,
sitting over its young, must be spared for its affection and for
its offspring s sake. Nor is any fear of man to make faint the
feeling of that Divine presence which mirrors itself to our
conscience as the Right, and which ever pervades with a kind
of awe any congregation of true men.
"You can readily understand how men who apprehended
vividly the principles involved in such regulations, would be
trained by them to a righteous life: whereas, if men neither
loved the thing intended, nor felt it strongly, they would take
refuge from it in a formal observance of the letter; and by
degrees might think there was no reason for the letter beyond
the mere will of an imposing power. Thus the true spirit of
the thing might fade away from among them. The law would
become an external restraint, dreaded for its penalties, or for the
power which imposed it, but no longer an expression of blessed
truths, nor an instrument of awakening the soul of man to a
true sight of things Divine. Especially this evil would grow,
if the priests or teachers of the law, who ought to have known
themselves its instruments, should become its masters, and lay
stress chiefly on whatever nourished their wealth or power,
while they neglected the weightier matters of justice and mercy.
Something of this kind happened among the ancient Hebrews ;
but you should read it described in the Bible. The people
yielded to all those temptations which surround men from flesh
and sense and ignorance ; and the priests, whose lip should
have kept knowledge for them, turned their eyes only to ritual
expiations, and taught a fierce zeal for the name*, or the
temple*, or the bookf of Jehovah, or even for the nominal
sanctity of the people of Israel f, while they did not awaken
them to do justly, and to love mercy.
* Jeremiah v. 30, 31 ; vii. 4 10: Hosea vi. 6 9.
t Jeremiah viii. 8: Psalm 1. 16: St John vii. 49: St Luke iv. 27, 28: Acts
xxii. 7i, 11.
HEBREW PROPHECY. 311
" But as in other nations we have already noticed that it is
the mission of conscientious reason to prevent worship from
losing morality, so especially in Israel we find great teachers of
righteousness raised up, whose work was kindred, but more
direct than that of such sages elsewhere. These are the Hebrew
prophets and sweet singers of the temple, who might be com
pared roughly to your Eishis, or partly to the authors of the
Vedic hymns, and partly to your religious reformers. It was
the mission of these men to rouse in their countrymen a deeper
sense of the eternal meaning of the law, or of that spirit which
the letter was intended to realise. Thus on the one hand, they
cry aloud against the sins of king and people, and on the other,
they bring deeper remedies than the selfish policy or stupid
formalism of the priests could devise. For these prophets are
themselves full of that eternal Spirit of God, which breathes in
some measure through every well-meant effort to realise right
eousness on earth. Thus while they refer men to a study of
the law, they express also its life in fresh forms of their own.
They lay less stress on its external ceremonies, but they cry
out for that which it expresses, even a conformity of mind, and
by consequence, of life, to the unwritten Word which stands fast
in the counsel of God. Thus temporary accidents fade from
their thought ; customs become changeable ; outward ceremonies
have their value only from the feeling which they embody,
though in this feeling may be comprehended obedience as well
as love ; and in short, the sacrifices of God become the contrite
spirit, the trustful heart, or the love going forth in righteousness
to man. Only, as all things durable must be by method and
order, so to the prophets the solemn services of the temple are
dear, and the ancient words of the law retain sacredness : but
the living mind of man is ever turned by them from resting in
such things to the unseen harmony which lies behind them, to
the shaping Will of God, and to the willing obedience of the
entire man as dwelling in that presence apprehended by the
mind.
312 PREDICATION AND PREDICTION.
"Certainly as events come not without Divine Providence,
so neither do utterances like those of the Hebrew prophets come
without the moving of the Divine Spirit, although its movement
may be grandly general, and through links of order in the
world of spirit, even as His visible works are regulated by law
throughout the world. You would not be able to read such
books as that of Isaiah, and of the Psalms, and then to consider
calmly over what a number of generations this solemn utterance
of prophecy extends, without concluding for yourselves that an
eternal Providence has thus given the world an evolution of
Truth. You would catch, as it were, a contagion of like spirit
from studying such words, and enter into an unity of fellowship
with the holy breathing which animates them.
" But, if lessons of the Judge of the whole earth are given
in vain, there comes thus an undesigned disorder into His
scheme of governing, and with disorder through human fault
comes suffering, such as we call punishment. For man being
once free to choose, if lie chooses wrongly, must take suffering.
Thus, as the prophets spoke mostly in vain, the predications ot
Truth became predictions of evil to men who rejected them.
From time to time therefore the earnest command, Do justly,
and love mercy, becomes joined with cries of mourning and
woe. Already in the law of Moses*, though I know not whether
in the earliest part of it, there had been a promise to the people,
that God would raise up prophets of truth among them ; and it
had been threatened, that, if they followed sensuous diviners,
or juggling teachers of evil, instead of the teacher of spiritual
truth, they should perish from off the good land given them.
There had also been solemn warningf, that if the iniquity of
the people became extreme, God would raise up conquerors
against them ; even nations from the end of the earth, swift
as the eagle flieth, and nations of fierce countenance, who should
besiege their cities, and make an end of their realm. These
sort of warnings reappear in the books of the prophets, and
Deuteronomy xviii. 151822. f Ibid, xxviii. 48-59.
ANTICIPATION OF BETTER KINGDOM. 313
become deeper from time to time. So that, on the whole, the
burthen of Hebrew prophecy is an utterance of profound spiritual
truth, a condemnation of the people to whom it is spoken, and
a prediction of their being scattered over the face of the earth.
" But this is not all. For, by the side of warnings of evil,
we find a clear foresight that the cause of good, which is that of
God, must triumph in the end. Though man is perverse, yet
his shortsightedness must not defeat an eternal predestination of
the good of his race. Although therefore individuals may cut
themselves out of the kingdom by unfitness for it, the Divine
kingdom of truth and holiness and right must go on fulfilling
itself in the earth. Even therefore if the Israelites by blood
should fall away, God will work out for himself an Israel* of
the mind, in whose heart the old sayings of His righteousness
shall find an echo, and bear fruit in their lives. It is true the
prophets speak mostly as Hebrews, and they naturally rejoice
in hoping the Divine kingdom may come out chiefly in con
nexion with their own race. Their tone is national as well as
religious. But they foresee clearly that no accidents of blood
or place will interfere with a perfect fulfilment of the thought
which the Divine Governor is bringing to pass in mankind.
Thus they foresee that many things will pass away. Their
kings then rejoiced in war : but the prophets look forward to a
triumph of peace. Their temple was, according to the Scrip
ture, a place of sacrificing beasts ; but they foresee a time when
the consecration of man s heart (which the other only sym
bolised) will be held far better. Nay, while they foretell that
their own people will be scattered f throughout the nations of
the world, yet the nations who afflict Israel will not them
selves escape, but in whatever degree they resemble her sin
they will partake her punishment J, with the aggravation of
* Isaiah xlix. 5, 6 : St Luke iii. 8: St John i. 12, 13 : Romans iii. 1218.
t Deuteronomy xxviii. 64: I Kings viii. 46 49 : Jeremiah v. 1519: Ezekiel
xxii. xxiii.
Ezekiel xxv xxxii.
314 THE KING TO COME.
having their haughtiness humbled. For all violence and wrong
doing must make way for a moral kingdom, which through the
lapse of generations shall go on perfecting itself. However
unlikely it may seem that all these nations of Ammon, Moab,
Assyria, Tyre, Elam, should fall, they will all be swept away
before a better order of things. However strange might seem
a king, without pomp of chariot or sword, there shall arise a
King, representing the majesty of God, but reigning in meek
ness, and swaying men purely by a dominion of holiness and
goodness. Strange things seem to be spoken of this King, who
appears as a servant of God, and even as a servant of men. He
is rejected, smitten, counted a sinner; all men turn their face
from Him; yet to Him all nations shall come; He shall mould a
new Israel, nay, a new heaven and earth ; for so different will
be the qualities He will require of His subjects from the warlike
pride now held in honour, that the world will renovate itself
under His sceptre. The change will be like that of all wild
and poisonous things becoming harmless; swords shall be
beaten into ploughshares; the dominion owned by men will be
not that of Force, but of Thought and Eight ; old things will
pass away alike as regards evil, and the external remedies
of law applied to it ; the meaning of the law must be appre
hended in men s consciences, or written on their hearts; the
sensuous visible kingdom and priesthood will give way to that
of the unseen King, the spiritual priest, and God will make all
things new*.
Such are the sayings of the Hebrew prophets, which are
collected in the Book I wish you to study for yourselves. Now
their descendants carry with them everywhere the Book, and
hold it in honour. They believe for the most part its history,
and acknowledge that their fathers sinned, and were cut off from
their land. So far there is no room for dispute. For these
Hebrew books have now been in the hands not only of the
Jews, but of their bitterest enemies, for more than 2000 years,
Psalms xlv. Ixxii. Ixxxix : Isaiah liii. xi. xxv. xxxiii. : Jeremiah xxiii. xxxi.
JEAVISH NATIONALITY. 315
and no one supposes that any part of them was written later
than a full century and a half before the Christian era, at latest.
The earlier parts can be traced up to a far more remote antiquity.
It is also agreed, that the Koman Titus utterly destroyed the
great city of the Jews, A.D. 70, and that the emperor Hadrian
extirpated them from Palestine in A. D. 135. And as the Jews
acknowledge what is written of their past history, even when it
tells against themselves, so they generally look forward to a
fulfilment of the happier promises in their prophecies. But, in
so far as they hold the stricter religious view of their race, they
connect this hope of fulfilment with much of that external and
formal view which belonged to their ancestors observance of the
law. There may, indeed, be differences among them. But the
Jewish view, to describe it generically, seems to be a notion that
Israel still means the descendants by blood of Abraham. If
then Israel is to enjoy the Divine favour, this means to them a
restoration of their race to their own land. If their law is to be
observed, this ought in consistency to mean that the temple
will be rebuilt, and the fat of rams smoke on its altars. The
King, too, ought to be of the race of David, and to have a tem
poral throne in Jerusalem. Now I dare not set bounds to the
counsels of the Almighty, or to the possibility of a national
instinct fulfilling itself by His permission. But, you see, all
this kind of expectation has a local and national air ; it dwells
on outward circumstances rather than on such deeper truths as
the Father of our spirits and the equal Judge of all may be
supposed to embody in his designs ; it belongs, in short, to that
cast of mind, which valued formal observance of the Mosaic
law, rather than penetrated the depth of the human conscience
and the truths of sanctity or righteousness which the Eternal
by His Holy Spirit writes within it. May I not say, such a
hope is of the earth, earthy? it does not pass within the veil of
forecasting thought and of sanctifying truth ; hence men who
so read their ancient scriptures with a dim feeling of the life
embodied in them, may be said to have a veil before their minds.
316 JEWISH LITERALISM.
At least, for eighteen centuries the Jews have more or less
cherished this local and national or sensuous hope, with no appa
rent sign of its coming to pass. And although God forbid we
should speak harshly of men who by suffering and by fidelity
to their own principles deserve our respect, while many noble
spirits* among them have risen above the faults of their race,
yet I may fairly argue that they carry in the Bible which they
value their own condemnation. For by restricting themselves
to the national and the literal, they do violence to the deeper
element which it contains. Hence their Rabbins have become
proverbial for playing formally with words and texts. Their
national exclusiveness also (not to speak here of the wrong
persecutions which have deepened it) would somewhat harden
them to the broader humanity, which considers all men the
children of God. But especially we may argue, if their narrow
and exclusive view of their ancient prophecies be right, then
their hope has failed. Here, however, is the wonderful spectacle
of a people homeless, yet boasting a land as the Divine gift;
and carrying with them everywhere a Book, the spirit of which
condemns them now, as they acknowledge that its history records
their punishment of old. I do not however wish to make you
blame the Jews, who have their own Master in Heaven, but to
study these ancient writings for which they are witnesses.
" But now notice this. By the side of the Jews has arisen
in the world a religion appealing to their books, but giving a
new interpretation of them. That ancient law of Moses must
be owned to have stood much in outward precept, and by the
very minuteness of its ordinances tended to fetter the human con
science, and so to overlay the perception of deeper truths, which
requires a certain freedom for its play. There is now a faith
* Many a Jew may be a truer follower of Christ than formal and literal
Christians; and whenever "the mind of Christ" is realised in them, there St Paul s
inversion of the old blessing of Jew and Gentile will apply now to Christian and
Jew: see Romans ii. 26 29. A little book called "A few Words to the Jews, by
one of themselves " (London, 1855), seems as if its author read the Old Testament
by the light of the New.
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM. 317
in the world, which acknowledges a holy meaning in the Mosaic
law, but lays its mental grasp upon the very principles of
righteousness, reverence, purity, and contrition, which were ex
pressed in that law in a form suited to the infancy of Man,
rather than upon the outward adaptation of these things in the
letter. It fully acknowledges the religion of the Israelites to have
been divine in its inner mind, yet affirms that the Jews are
wrong in now clinging to its outward letter. Incidentally,
indeed, we Christians who hold this newer faith, affirm the
Israelites of old to have fallen often from the mere letter ; as for
instance, they were guilty in some stages of their history of
idolatry, and in others were betrayed into the common sins of
men, which were aggravated by express command against them.
But more especially, we say the Jews have never risen to a full
conception of the ultimate tendency of their system in the
Divine design. They think there was some especial favour in
tended to their race, either for the merit of their ancestor Abra
ham, or from Divine election. We say they were elected only
as instruments in carrying out a great drama for the good of all
nations, who are alike dear to the Father of all. This purpose
of God, we argue, was veiled from the elder Hebrews in the
natural course of things, but it came to light in the fuller un
veiling of His own love which the Eternal God has by spiritual
development or by fresh communication since given to us.
They dwell with natural fondness on visible displays of the
Divine power in leading them wonderfully out of bondage, and
through enemies, and rivers, and seas, into a promised land.
We think that wonderful as may be the Providence of God in
outward act, yet it is far more marvellous in things of the mind.
The inheritance for which we look to Him is rather the power
of coming mentally into His presence, and knowing the grace
and truth of things unseen with which He encompasses our
spirits. Our greatest enemies are not Ammonites and Moabites,
so much as evil passions, and all the forms of sin and of
suffering which come together. It is not what happens to the
318 BODY AND SOUL.
body which we dread so much as what hurts the soul. Our
warfare is not so much in time and in external act, as in the
presence of eternity, and in thought and intention of will. It is
not by change of place that we draw near, so much as by
opening the eyes of our understanding to that which is about
our path and about our bed, but which without holiness no
man sees. Instead of local temple, we put the power of lifting
up pure hands in prayer everywhere. Our sacrifice is not
bloodshedding, but consecrating ourselves and our lives to do
the will of God. And as His will may often be the subjugation
of something evil in us. so our victory must often be over
ourselves, or consist simply in yielding. Our most perfect
Priest will be He who most thoroughly makes this offering;
Not my will, but thine. Our Prophet will not be one who
predicts external events, except so far as these are bound up
in Divine righteousness, but rather one who utters truths to
which the heart makes answer. So our highest King will not
be one ruling by might, so much as some representative of a
dominion over mind ; one who rules by thought, or by truth,
or right. And although we believe that they who accept such
a spiritual rule, will by meekness give least offence to man, and
so inherit any land they are cast upon, yet our inheritance of
highest promise must be something which concerns the immortal
in us, whether a place of sight, or rather a state of mental
fellowship with One w r ho upholdeth our souls in life. All
earthly things become sacred to us, in proportion as they are
witness or symbols of that which is eternal. Thus, however
wonderful the history of the Jews was in itself, we find its
higher significance even for outward life in those truths which
lay behind its precepts, and for the inner life of the soul, by
translating its events into thought, or taking them as signs of
mental things, which more truly concern our peace. Not that
thus we undo the facts, but we enter into the meaning of the
great Spirit who permitted them, just as we learn a man s mind
by studying its expression in his conduct. We take the letter
HISTORICAL TENDENCY, DIVINE DESIGN. 319
as a comment on Divine Providence in outward act, and find in
the spirit an index to thoughts which concern the soul.
" The promises to Abraham, then, belong, as we think, to
whoever reproduces the type of Abraham s faith. The Israel
of the future is, in the Divine goodwill, all mankind ; and in
effect, that company of upright men which suffers itself to be
guided by the Divine Spirit. The Messiah, or truly anointed
in meaning, is not any one set apart by external ceremony, so
much as one consecrated by a gift of power from on high to
a holy mission, and fulfilling it with devoted mind. It may be
be argued against us, that the language of the Old Testament
was not intended by its writers in this largeness of meaning.
But we cannot help seeing that there would be a natural ten
dency for thoughts such as theirs to grow up and enlarge them
selves. They could not conceive deeply of goodness and equity
in God, but such conceptions, when once put forth, would become
extended to all objects capable of benefiting by these Divine
attributes, as well as to the persons whose consciousness of them
had embraced only a narrower circle of operation. It may be
that the human agents or speakers saw but a little way ; and
so the fullest sense entertained by them may be but human
imagery of the Divine plan, which yet extended itself by their
means. Their consciousness, however, does not limit the Divine
intention, which is not to be measured by what they said, so
much as what their sayings tended to, and by what has actu
ally come about in the world. For there is nothing done for
good on a large scale, but what the Governor of the world first
thought. Now it is manifest that the sayings of the Hebrew
prophets have had a large development in fact ; and it is upon
our spiritual extension of them that the widest belief of the
world is being fashioned. And as this actual result is to firm
believers in the foresight of the Almighty no slight indication
of what He must have designed, so, on finding it evidently
better for the welfare of mankind, we judge it most consonant
with His goodness ; and we assent from goodwill, as well as from
320 KING, PROPHET, PRIEST, IN LETTER AND SPIRIT.
necessity. For what if a powerful Hebrew nation were built
up in Palestine, and their king extended his sway over the
world? We should be none the better for another great con
queror, nor would an universal monarchy, which must produce
all the faults of prosperity in the dominant nation, be any bless
ing to others, even if it were to themselves. Or what if one or
more prophets should give minute pictures of earthly events to
come? This would at best gratify mere curiosity, and perhaps
impede exertion; thus complicating human affairs, while it would
turn our thoughts from things eternal. Or what if priests should
offer sacrifices of blood on altars at Jerusalem ? We see man
kind already grown, under Divine guidance, out of the thought
that such a slaying is the truest hallowing in the sight of God.
Your case of Sunah-sephas is not uninstructive here. I do not
doubt, on comparing the Rig- Veda with the Vishnu Purana,
that human sacrifices were practised by your very remote
ancestors, and that the story of Sunah-sephas points to a time
of their being abolished. Nor is it without meaning that the
hymn which promises the release of the human victim is said
to have been taught him by Viswamitra. For this is the name
of a king who opposed the Brahmanical caste ; and it is by a
kind of revolt of humanity, under the Spirit of God, against
the professional formalism of a priesthood, that steps in the
purifying of religion are gained. The Greeks have something
of the same kind implied in their story of the princess Iphi-
genia, who in the older accounts was said to be slain ; but as
growing humanity revolted at the thought, she was said to have
been snatched by Heaven from the altar. So when the Hebrew
Abraham was tempted to sacrifice his son, his willingness to
surrender to God his dearest was tested, but his fatherly instinct
was not shocked, because such offerings of human victims were
common in the land. But he was justified, that is, God was
well pleased with him, not because of finishing a bloody deed,
but because of his faith*, and by faith he knew the love of God,
* Romans iv. 318: Psalms xl. 6, 7 ; 1. 8 14; li. 16: Hebrews xiii. 15, 16.
SACRIFICE IN LETTER AND SPIRIT. 321
and that He is pleased with other sacrifices*. Thus, in many
countries we see manslaughter, which had been intended as the
offering of the best, giving way first before a higher conception
of God our Father ; and in most, as in India among yourselves,
this improvement continues, until no blood of any animal is
shed in worship, but the life of the worshipper is dedicated to
welldoing, and the incense of his heart goes up as prayer.
Only among barbarous Mlechchas, such as the Khonds, ruder
notions find still a more bloody expression.
" But now, how much better for mankind is the Christian
growth into that thought and feeling which suggested the
Hebrew prophecies, than the Jewish attempt to stand fast by
the written law ! All nations must be happier in proportion as
a dominion of the highest right and goodness extends itself over
their thoughts, thereby fulfilling on earth the kingdom of God.
All men must become wiser in proportion as a clear mental
sight of the Divine laws takes the place of anxiety about external
events, and as a speaker of truth in meekness awakening the
answer of conscience, and urging the heart to action, is allowed
to be emphatically a prophet or forth-teller of the mind of the
Heavenly Spirit. So in proportion as we come, with a feeling
of the sanctity of life, to do the Divine will in ourselves and to
others, we become a spiritual priesthood. These three fulfil
ments of the king, the prophet, and the priest, whom the old
prophets described as having an unction of office, are far better
than falling back upon force, or curiosity, or ritual. These also
are being fulfilled in event daily, and were therefore the things
essentially intended by the Divine author of the drama, however
imperfectly the human players understood it.
"What then is the substance of this Christian religion,
which we contend to be the natural fulfilment to which the
religion of the Jews had a tendency of old? Or, to speak
differently, what were the thoughts with which Judaism was
pregnant, and which have come to birth in Christianity ? We
* Hebrews x. 9 ; xiii. 16.
M. P. 21
322 CHRISTIAN PRAYER. HEBREW LAW.
cannot answer this better, than by taking the prayer which all
Christians everywhere use, and which expresses the thoughts
of the Founder of their faith in His own words. This prayer
Jesus Christ taught His followers :
Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name ;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven :
Give us this day our daily bread ;
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass
against us ;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil :
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever
and ever. Amen.
" The meaning of this prayer will come out more fully, if
we look at the principal commandments in which the will of
Jehovah was expressed by Moses. They are these :
1. Thou shalt have none other Gods but me.
2. Thou shalt not make images to worship.
3. Thou shalt not lift God s name over falsehood.
4. Keep holy the day of rest.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness.
10. Thou shalt not desire what is thy neighbour s.
" Like the wise Hindu, who told the Athenians that it was
not possible to know human duties without knowing Divine
things, you see, Moses begins with the fear of God. His God
is the Eternal Being, by whose will all things stand. And as
there is no greater sign or cause, than idolatry is, of men s
losing the conception of pure Spirit, so this is the first thing
jealously forbidden. For this entails a blindness from fathers
to children, which degrades nations both in worship and right
eousness. But where there is a pure mental conception of our
HEBREW LAW. 323
Divine Ruler, it begets a sense of responsibility fruitful in
virtues. So out of sanctity will come truthfulness ; and thus
the legislator goes on to forbid false-swearing as not only deceiv
ing man, but as mocking our invisible Judge. Again, a part
of religion is humanity ; and so a convenient day is appointed
for the labourer to rest, and for all men to reflect, and for earthly
anxiety to have intermission of thoughtfulness and prayer. Then,
as God has made our parents both the first ministers of His gifts
to us, and our first teachers in things wholesome, so that the
life of men, and consequently of nations, will take a tinge from
them at its commencement, so human duty is made to begin with
honouring them. Then come the great sanctities of our social
state ; the life which God gives us, the marriage which He blesses,
the property which He sanctions, the character which He bids
us respect both in ourselves and others, being all hedged round
with prohibitions of wrong. Certainly these simple command
ments are more striking to the general mind of a nation than
any wise speculations about morals ; and yet, though a little
child understands them, they imply principles which a philo
sopher might draw out, and acknowledge to be deep in the
nature of things. These principles were indeed the cement of
Hebrew society ; and in their strength the nation maintained its
unity, with partial interruption, for about fifteen centuries ; while
even now its descendants have a bond of coherence, and a
capacity of personal (or even of national) revival, in the re
membrance of these things, and in the moral strength which
comes of them. Nor is it a slight consideration, into how many
lands these precepts have been carried, and how many realms
have adopted them, not only into their laws, but among the first
principles to which the rest of the code must conform itself. So
that, though the Hebrew polity has passed away, that which its
framers felt of the eternal breathing of God lives on, and passes
into the intellectual being of nations yet to be. Now it is not
easy to suppose that words of such power did not come out
of something deeper ; or that the feelings which they tend to
212
324 HEBREW LAW.
awaken were not apprehended by whoever originally spoke
them. But yet, so long as you look at the words themselves,
they have something negative in their tone. They prohibit evil,
rather than express good. Thus they dwell in the sphere of
external law, which limits with threats, but does not implant
life by goodness. Even of the Eternal God, there is little
written, beyond His name, which should draw us to Him. Only
there is a warning not to stray from Him. The second and
third precepts have each a sanction of penalty, appealing to
fear; and though fear may be a necessary step among our
motives, yet it is a low one. The fourth precept speaks merely
of keeping the day holy, instead of pointing out the good uses
it may be turned to. We need not wonder, therefore, that to the
old Jews, who were worshippers of the letter, one day seemed
holier than another, though to Christians, whose law is the Holy
Spirit, it never can appear so. Even the fifth precept, though
expressing one of the deepest natural truths, has yet a mere
temporal reason attached to it. The four next are merely pro
hibitive, and it is only in the last that there is a dim prophecy
of the truth, how all our actions have root in thought, and how
out of an evil or good heart proceed the issues of death or life.
" Look now at the more hearty rendering of the above things
into prayer, which appears in the great devotional symbol of the
Church of Christ everywhere. Our Father, which art in heaven.
Who does not love his own father, of whom he comes, and of
whom he has everything, and by whom he is loved beyond
expression? But we have in the pure world of thought, One,
of whose counsel all earthly fathers come, and in whose un
searchable depth all the fountains of human compassion have
their rise. Nothing is greater than its only Source; nor can
the love or wisdom of Man be more loving or wise than God.
How then can we have any other gods but this One, who in
vites us by such a name ? Thus He persuades us more strongly
to abide by Him, than any penalty for leaving Him. There
could be no greater loss than to lose Him. We want no other
CHEISTiAN PRAYER TO ONE UOD. 325
God than one who both fills our affections, and enables us to
feel them. Thus the faith of Christ fulfils the spirit of the
commandment, and abolishes its letter. Again, no Christian
can well say, My Father, for He is to all of us Ours. Thus
we are assured, that He loves not only each of us, but all. So
long then as we remain His children in the cast of our minds,
we cannot wilfully injure those whom He joins with us in a
brotherhood, as saying alike, Our Father. Hence alone might
come every duty and love to man. This the Hebrew prophets
began to feel, when they said, l Have we not all one Lord and
Father? why deal we treacherously every man against his
neighbour*? But this doctrine of love was in the Divine
thought before the enactment of law, and goes beyond the
sphere of written law in development. Then, lest human
images should mislead us, and we should forget soberness in
prayer, we are reminded that God is our Father in heaven. Here
might come in all your reasonings about time and place and
limit, as inapplicable to that which is above, and beyond, and
before them. But in the Hebrew prophets it is also written,
Do not I Jill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord "f . Nor is any
doctrine more fundamental to Christians than that God is a
spirit : and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit
and in truth. "We therefore transplant the Divine presence
into thought, no less than yourselves ; but how could we convey
to others an impression of the ineffable majesty, except through
words which have images to the senses ? You have spoken of
Swarga, when you meant rather blessedness. So I suppose, our
own Master, in teaching us to say, Our Father, which art in
heaven, meant to invest the great God with every attribute of
tenderness and sublimity, bringing Him near to sustain us, but
leaving Him far off to understand. Thus if Christian faith has
confidence, it has also reverence.
"We see this more in the second petition: Hallowed he thy
name. The Law had forbidden to lift up the name of the Lord
* Mai. ii. 10. t Jer. xxiii. 24.
326 GOD S HOLINESS.
over falsehood. But the Christian prayer teaches more widely
that God is in Himself the Holy One, and that what belongs to
Him should be hallowed. With such a feeling we become fully
aware of His presence ; and since from this and from His govern
ment nothing is excluded, so all things assume in one sense a
consecration in so far as they do what He intended them for,
and in another sense are subordinated, so that we dare not give
them what belongs to Him. In His light we see light, and all
things put on their proper forms and bearings. This petition
then renders needless both the second commandment of the
Jews, and the two next which followed it : for we cannot while
we gaze mentally on the Eternal Spirit, and bear His image in
ourselves, bow down to idols of wood or stone, nor can we, even
though not uttering His name, speak falsely within the illimit
able range of His consciousness, seeing that He is the eternal
Truth ; nor can we either think one day in itself holier than
another, since all days are the Lord s ; nor yet can we forget
those blessed ends of quietness and thoughtfulness and prayer,
for which one day was of old consecrated, and for which it may
be convenient that pious consent should persuade us still to
make fit occasions. But we carry everywhere and always, with
the echo of this prayer in our heart, an aversion to whatever
worldly thing would blind us to the most Holy Spirit, and a rever
ence for truth, and a consecration of all our time and thought. And
as the Jew set some things apart to be called holy by outward
consecration, we make all things holy inwardly, and then leave
them to be naturally called so. Nor yet is this extension of
sanctity a thing of gloom ; for He who loves us, and calls Him
self our Father, and who gives even the kitten its play and the
bird its song, leaves to our manhood as well as to our childhood
whatever refreshment is innocently wholesome. Only, as inno
cence is but for a short time and imperfectly the lot of men, so
they learn to deepen it with watchfulness into holiness. So the
Christian prayer fulfils more widely the prophetic tendency of
the old Hebrew precept, both having come from one Holy
FAITH IN GOD S KINGDOM AND WILL. 327
Spirit, but the riper growth having a deeper drinking into His
meaning. Our life has become a sabbath, and our heart an
altar, and the whole world a temple, in which the living God
dwells.
" Our two next petitions are, Thy kingdom come; thy will be
done in earth, as it is in heaven. Here especially comes out that
great principle of faith, which is the mainspring of Christianity.
For here we are led beyond things visible which surround us
with imperfection, into the thought of things intended, and to
come. The first petition deals more with morality, or doing
right to man, and the second more with religion, or the love of
God. We cannot pray either of them rightly, so long as violence
and fraud and superstition and sin and pain seem to us truly
natural, or as having a divinely-appointed place in the world of
God. They both imply that the higher and more blessed
thought of our Maker is destined to overcome all hinderances,
or to vanquish every enemy, by shaping the course of things
seen more into the harmony of things eternal. The tyrant must
not always oppress ; the slave must one day go free ; the
worship of the Father of our spirits must not for ever be mingled
with lies ; ignorance must not cover the nations ; men must not
by sin entail suffering and shame, and charge their own short
comings on the design of Him that made them : but freedom
and truth and peace must go forth evolving themselves, and
conquering, with subordination only to the law of the Highest
Being ; and the knowledge of whatsoever things are pure and
amiable and of good report, must cover our earth, as the waters
cover the sea. Then truly God will reign, not in visible pomp
of earthly monarch, but by pervading men s thoughts with a
knowledge of truth, and a willing obedience to right. The
coming of such a kingdom we pray, and by praying bind our
selves to strive for. Thus by faith we vanquish the imperfec
tions of sight, and become fellow-workers with a most loving
Master in bringing about that good of men, which He desires,
and which will turn to His glory. In some such hope of faith
328 FAITH IN GOD S KINGDOM AND WILL.
the Apostles of old went forth preaching, the prophets spoke
truths which the world will not let die, .and all holy sufferers
for righteousness sake have fought a good fight. Thus they
have thrown a fire upon earth which has not been quenched,
and their winged thoughts have been seeds in the minds of men.
But it is especially in the second of these two petitions that we
rise by faith out of the region of sense, into that of pure mind.
We here see as it were, though we speak in simple words, those
heavenly shapes after which earthly beauty is moulded, of which
Plato in his parables spake ; for we conceive of the holiest will
of God as having thoughts creative of good, and as forecasting
happiness with right in His world ; and in whatever degree the
largeness of the scale, or the clash of relations, and impedi
ment of circumstance, or, not least, the perversity of evil spirits
working in men, may have prevented the good design from
coming to perfection like rugged marble which has not obeyed
the shaping hand of the sculptor we pray to God that all these
things may be overcome, and that He would not cease working,
until all His thought comes to light in act, and the trial of
truth ends in victory. Doubtless, by such prayer we help for
ward the design in at least ourselves ; for we become more con
scious of the fitness of obeying the holiest dominion, and the
madness of resisting it even in thought. Those who pray such
prayers so as to mould their own mind in like shape, have no
need of any of the remaining commandments of the Jews; for
they could neither dishonour parents, nor violate life, or marriage,
or property, or good name, without sinning against the manifest
design of our Maker, and tampering with the play of the better
motives, which He has appointed fruitful tendencies to good.
Their life has regard to all such sanctities, because it has at
heart a seed of living law which compels them by love.
" But until the kingdom fully come, since things which
oppose it are not evil in their own essence, but become so
by misapplication, or confusion of relation, so we trust that
God will overrule even the working of these to good. Thus
INDIAN ANALOGIES. 329
of pain, the capacity of winch must be coextensive with that
of pleasure, we trust that it is often a remedy, or at least a
warning. Perhaps even sin*, though it must have remorse
before it can be healed, yet is bound up with the knowledge of
good as well as of evil, the tree which bears two opposites
having one stem ; and at least of all other things, except sin,
we hope that their seeming clash will be harmonised, and the
play of opposites be a development of what is best. Thus, if
our prayer teaches striving for the will of God in action, it leads
also to submission in suffering; and our faith is in one sense
a lifelong stretching forward with earnest expectation to some
glory to be revealed, yet in another sense a bowing down in
meekness under the will which we desire done, not only around
us, and by us, but even in us.
" Such a faith as this has much in common with the best
wisdom of India, It owns with Capila, that the world which
now is, represents but imperfectly the goodness we would gladly
ascribe to the highest Iswara ; but then it refuses to conceive
of these things as the end. For it has unlimited trust in the
illimitable God ; and feeling that the past we see of His works
is but a speck in the contemplation of eternity, it finds the
highest reason in stretching itself forward beyond sight into
that holier kingdom which is yet coming, and which must come
more perfectly. It believes again with the Vedantists, that
even now nothing truly exists but what has a root in the
shaping thought of One Supreme Spirit ; but it refuses to think
that the clash of evil men s evil wills, and the madness of wrong
doing, and all ignorance or passion, can have had a place in the
eternal will of the most Eighteous, and contends rather that all
such evils come of rebellion or misplacement of that which is
for an hour, and which has no existence in eternity. For the
kingdom of God must come. The thought of His will must be
fulfilled in deed. Nor is such a faith altogether adverse to what
the Saugata believes of a certain development of intelligence.
* Sunt, quibus expeclit cadere. St Augustine.
330 FAITH. REVELATION.
For certainly God, who is a Spirit, works chiefly by spiritual
means, and His divine processes must be unsearchable to sense,
as the thoughts of a human thinker are to sight. Yet Reason
which infers the thoughts of man, has a kindred sort of logic,
when in its higher growth as a humble and a loving faith it traces
from His inworking in the world and in good men the will
of God. Such an unveiling as it thus obtains of the highest
mind, is not altogether foreign to its happiest inferences else
where in the region of thought. Only the knowledge which
comes in Divine revelation is something higher, and more deeply
inwoven with our best self, and yet more than any human
exertion could reach, and so more evidently a gift, or a grace.
It is an opening of the eyes of the mind, though not one un
connected with purity of heart, or conscience, and life. But our
faith chiefly differs from that of the Saugata, in that it would
feel cheated of its highest and dearest aim, or even of its own
being, if it could lose sight of that eternal wielder of our des
tinies, by whom it has life and hope and thought, and by
virtue of whose will only a better kingdom can come. Again,
it differs much from parts of the Hindu speculations, in the
strength of its conception both as to the existing conflict be
tween the Divine will and the human, and as to the harmony
which is natural*, and which is to come between them. Hence
this intense agony or struggle of prayer, of penitence, of action,
which is eminently the distinctive life of Christianity, though it
has analogies, and imperfect resemblances which may justify it,
in the noblest spirits of all nations.
" Give us this day our daily bread. If a man is so far the
servant of God, as to have prayed deeply the two former
petitions, he will include in this one the bread of the soul.
He will pray for holy thoughts, for humane affections, for the
sympathies of home and country, for wholesome food to his
* By natural is meant not any sinking of a higher being, as of a reasonable
agent, under the play of animal or physical impulses, but that which God intended
to be or grow after its kind in each part of his creation, whether inert or animal in
the lower, or thoughtful and affectionate in the higher.
NEEDS OF BODY AND SOUL. 331
intellect, and for happy memories to dwell upon. Also in
simpler meaning lie will own that good Providence which fills
all things living with plenteousness. He will learn from the
phrase daily bread how few are the wants which God has made
natural to us. Nor will he forget that in asking on account of
these he binds himself to such labour as may innocently satisfy
them. Thus by bidding us pray for simple things, the Allwise
teaches us to restrain that greediness which covets many, and
in one prayer suggests temperance, labour, and may I not add
charity? For as our prayer is all along in the name of many
children, we could not innocently ask the Father to help others,
if we were not willing to aid in such a design. The simplicity
of human life, its dependence on the Divine bounty, the beauty
of thankfulness, and the duty of sober honesty for ourselves,
and of beneficence to others, should come before our minds, that
we may present them to Heaven in these few words.
" And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us. If in one clause the Christian prayer has
looked around to our bodily wants, it soon returns to the deeper
things of the soul. It teaches us to feel that the greatest
hinderance to God s more perfect dominion, and to the coming
forth of His design in beauty, is not so much the constitution of
the world, as the working of an evil spirit in ourselves. It takes
hold of that sense of having fallen from our own better mind,
which deepens in men in proportion as they conceive worthily
of what goodness is. Thus here too our prayer implies faith in
the real difference between right and wrong, and faith in the
righteous attributes of the Almighty, as one who has established
an everlasting law. If men not hardened are ashamed of doing
wrong, and feel self-reproach at loss of purity, having an un
easy witness in conscience to what no human eye has seen,
these things are established by Him who writes His law in
our hearts. If the sins against which conscience protests,
disturb also the moral order of the world, they are rebel
lion against its Governor. If there is a perpetual contrast of
332 FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
opposites, in which imperfect good so ranges itself against the
higher good as to become evil, we cannot take part with the
enemy, and remain in heart at peace with God. How far have
you among Hindus a true sense of the evil of all sin, as both
a breaking of the world s law, and the bringing of discord
into your soul, and the building up a wall of uneasy mistrust
between your conscience and that Holy Spirit which the pure
in heart behold? I should have judged, from the extreme aus
terities and penance practised both now and of old among your
countrymen, that God had not spared you this sickness of the
mind, which He intends as a way of return to deeper health.
Certainly such a sickness is better than death of the soul to any
difference between good and evil. Some, however, have said,
that all your penances are done rather in the way of self-right
eousness than of contrition; for that you hope to gain reward
by them, rather than testify your sorrow. If this should be so,
your religion must have been worked into a worse formalism
than I am willing to believe. But at least in Christianity there
is revealed both what God blames and what He approves ; or,
as St Paul says*, both His wrath and His righteousness.
Whatever men may call righteous, this blessed sentence is not
pronounced by Him that searcheth our hearts, either upon
reckless sin, or upon formal penance, or upon any external rite,
but upon the entire turning of the heart to Himself, and to His
holy will. This looking up out of the depth to God is the be
ginning of being called righteous by Him. Then, as a sense of
our own unworthiness grows with our sense of His holiness, and
a sense of our weakness with that of His majesty, so we learn
that our acquittal before God must ever begin with forgiveness,
though by the Divine help it may go on to approval. Natural
then to all men in whom conscience is not quenched, but espe
cially necessary to the Christian, is this cry, Forgive us our
* See Romans i. 18; iii. 21, 2-2; which are explained by St Luke, xvi. 15.
Whoever finds the sayings of the Epistles hard, should compare them with the
plainer ones of the Gospels.
FOEGIVENESS OF SINS. 333
trespasses. We say this as little children at our mother s knee,
and we find no reason to cease saying it in our old age. But
the same unveiling of God to our mind s eye, which contrasts
His holiness with our sin, assures us also of our forgiveness in
His love. He is represented by our faith as one who frankly
forgives ; and we are assured that the only condition He re
quires for this is that fitness of heart on our part, without which
the other cannot be, but the beginning of which is attested even
by our prayer, and the perfecting of which will be our health
and our reconcilement to God. So great may seem the gulf to
cross, for those who have sinned deeply, or who repent deeply,
that I can never wonder at any awful austerities which in India
or elsewhere men may inflict upon themselves in seeking a
bridge of atonement. But now consider, how can such things
bring us nearer to God? Suppose, first, that they are done by
way of repairing any wrong to our fellow-men. In this case they
are morally right, and where feasible, are requisite. Suppose,
secondly, that they have the nature of prayers or sacrifices,
which both express and deepen our contrition or change of will
before God. In this case they are religiously right, and are the
appointed means of cleansing our conscience. Extend the same
idea a little farther, and suppose them, thirdly, to be dedication
of ourselves or our substance to some good work, as if, for
instance, a man should expose himself to contagion of small-pox
or the plague, for the sake of tending in charity the sick. Here
also they are very right, and so far as they come of a loving or
devoted spirit, are doubtless acceptable to God, as well as means
of improving ourselves. But no rightminded man will claim
payment for such works of love, which are their own exceeding
great reward, although God may sometimes honour them with
an overflow of happiness or accompaniment beyond their efficacy
as claims. Still less will any deep thinker imagine such works
which are done only through the Divine help, to be the causes
of that Divine love, which first gave us the preparation of
heart to do them. They are not grounds of a forgiveness
334 FORGIVENESS AND PENANCE.
which must have preceded them. Nor, as you have justly
observed, could works done in time merit an eternal reward.
How far He who is eternal, and to whom the future is as the
present, may in His wisdom lay a train of conditions, so that
what are with Him only links and processes may seem to us
for a moment superficially causes, inasmuch as they may be
indispensable, I will not too nicely argue. But certainly what
we feel to be Divine gifts to us are not grounds of meritorious
claim upon the Giver. They would lose even their animating
spirit, and the glory would perish from them, if they were done
mercenarily, or in proud self-esteem. Nor, as you will own,
could we ever do enough to be more than unprofitable servants
to Him whose right in us is as infinite as Himself. Such
things then may come after the forgiveness of sins as its fruits,
its witnesses, and I would not mind saying its indispensable
conditions ; but we must find in the very offering of them to God
our happiness, and bless Him for them, rather than make them
precedents to His forgiveness, or claims upon His favour.
" But I have been speaking of good works as the sacrifices
of a thankful heart, and even such I have denied to be properly
propitiatory, or independently meritorious. I wish you to con
sider hereafter, how far you go along with such an idea, as your
language might partly imply, or whether you have never risen
to the full Christian conception on this point. But now suppose,
fourthly, that the things pleaded as grounds of Divine favour
are not good works, so much as formal penances, and austerities
of self-inflicted pain. Such seems, to strangers at least, to be
too much the character of the Hindu asceticism and mortifica
tion. In so far as this is so, your own better wisdom should
teach you, that such miserable efforts of us worms of an hour
cannot merit eternal reward. But I go farther, and maintain,
they are not even pleasing to God, but injurious to His holy
name. For men who torture their bodies till they become use
less, unfit themselves for active good in the world, which is the
Lord s, and the fulness thereof. They increase pain, which is
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 335
against His "blessed design, and so they obstruct His kingdom,
and enlarge that of the enemy. They cannot even change the
Eternal Mind, which is without shadow of changing ; still less
increase His love to them, which was infinite from the begin
ning. Kather see if they do not run counter to His love, which
wills their good, and so dishonour Him by an unchildlike
mistrust of our Heavenly Father. If He sees pain necessary for
us, He can send it at His will, which in every way we pray may
be done. But if you introduce it in self-will, and beyond the
necessities of right nature, which is the embodiment of His law,
consider if you are not wandering greatly from His mind.
" I wish I could persuade you, my dear friends, how much
better than all this will-worship of self-inflicted torture, is that
clear unveiling of the Divine love, which shews God as the
Author and Giver of all good things to soul as well as body,
and as more ready to hear than we are to pray. In such a faith
the Christian is taught to say in simplicity, Forgive us our
trespasses. The heart which breathes this prayer in confidence
of its being after the Divine Will, and therefore granted, is, in
the language of technical theologians, justified by faith, and
by that better breathing of God which has guided it so far, is
led on into all holy impulses and deeds. That these things are
so, is to Christians who live by their Lord s prayer, guaranteed
in the following clause, as we forgive them that trespass against
us. Here the Divine Wisdom teaches us how simple is the
condition of our being forgiven in Heaven. Here also is revealed
enough for our practical guidance, of the causes of misery in the
world. Through pride we are angry and revengeful ; through
anger and revenge, all war and mischief from man to man come,
like evil Kakshasas, into the fair garden of delight which God
had planted. All things wild and tempestuous in nature are
more easily controlled by law, than the agitated heart of man,
whose immortal being makes his capacity for evil as boundless
as for good. Yet the strongest passions may be tamed by that
instinct of fear, which is a part of the law of self-preservation.
336 JUSTIFICATION. SANCTIFICATION.
Thus then God tames our wrath to our fellows, by revealing to
us the possibility of what may fall upon ourselves. If we forgive
not, neither are we truly praying to be forgiven. But if the sins
which so easily encompass us, and the adherent infirmities of
our life, are reckoned against us, and much more, if our pre
sumptuous violation of our better minds, and all the secrets of
our heart, are brought to inexorable account in the light before
which all thoughts are open, we may truly ask, who shall stand ?
Yet frank forgiveness of God will not save us from such a trial,
unless we forgive them that trespass against us. And as such
a terror may with even the hardest natures impose the necessity
of forgiving others, so to nobler spirits, and perhaps to all men
once softened by an unveiling of the infinite compassion of our
Heavenly Father, the sense of being forgiven is a more gracious
persuasion to forgive. Thus the milder virtues, such as in
India you seem to value, come out eminently in the religion of
Christ. For as no other faith has so full a persuasion of that
love of God which passeth knowledge, no other is so naturally
fruitful in thoughts of kindness and words of meekness, and in
well-doing to men. Such was the natural tendency, and such
is in experience the fruit of a faith which more than any other
in the world exalts both the dread holiness of God, and His
infinite tenderness ; which abases man by a sense of sin, and
exalts him by assurance of forgiveness and which, shrinking
from the pride of putting our creature frames on a level with the
very substance of the Creator, yet by participation of the holiest
breathing, and so by a fellowship of spirit, binds all men into a
brotherhood, as children of our Father which is in Heaven.
" And lead us not into temptation. If God justifies us freely
by His grace, not putting down our human infirmities in a
vindictive reckoning, but blotting them out with a frank for
giveness, we have need that by the same grace He should guide
us into holiness. As our technical theologians say, we must
not only be justified, but sanctified. Nor indeed would the
cleansing of our conscience be complete, unless our minds were
SANCTIFICATION GRACE. 337
hallowed by an implanting of that likeness to God, which He
intended them to bear. So long as our consciousness is darkened
by a sense of something in us, the knowledge of which it
shrinks from sharing with the Searcher of our spirits, so long
.we are neither at peace with ourselves, nor with that Highest
Being. The barrier thus raised between us and Him is but of
thought, and yet we shrink from passing it. Then a sort of
burthen bows us, so that we cannot lift our mental gaze into
the highest Heaven. It is this sense of separation at heart
from that which of all things we have the greatest need to turn
to, which has lain heavier on many men than the dread of
penalty, though that too might be felt. Whereas if any one
could raise our life into harmony with our thought, and make
our performance equal our aspiration, we should no longer shrink
from the eye which reads our thoughts, but the Divine presence
would be our infinite stay, instead of a thing to be at war with,
or to tremble at. But such is our weakness, that this seems
humanly not possible. Our very knowledge comes through
many steps of ignorance ; and thus conspires with impulses,
w T hich go wrong in striving to fulfil an instinct that yet ought
to find fulfilment. Things which, moderately enjoyed, should
have been for our health, become, when snatched at with
greediness, occasions of our falling. We avoid dangers, as of
society and lightness, and thereby run into greater, as of
solitude and moroseness. Our activity risks mischief, and our
quietude has the contempt of uselessness. What crimes do
not come of starvation, ignorance, and passions differing only
in name from insanity ! Thus blameable as men become, their
sins are so bound up in the mystery of a free agency limited
by forces far vaster than itself, that we feel the sentence of
God to be according to truth, when He compassionates us
rather than blames. Our faith then looks up to Him for alli
ance in the warfare in which we are engaged, and for safe
guard against temptation. Partly we ask Him to govern the
changes and chances of our outward life, and partly to mould
M. p. 22
338 GRACE.
the framework of our mind. Nor is it easy to define, how much
help comes to us in the way of providence, and how much
by more immediate gift, or by what Christians call grace. In
whatever way thoughts are suggested to us, as now by outward
event, or by teaching, or experience, and again by deeper im
pulse of the mind, which has laws and processes harder to trace,
lying as they do beneath our more distinct consciousness, yet
every good instance of such suggestion comes of the Divine gift.
Only as Christians conceive of the body as the soul s instrument
rather than its master, and of action as properly generated from
within rather than from without, so they magnify the Divine
guidance in its more secret workings (whatever method may
regulate them) upon the soul, rather than in its lessons from
outward events. The more, however, we know of the way in
which thought is generated within us, the more easily we con
ceive how the Spirit of God may guide us. Even the sense of
His favour is alone a kind of life. Like a man bound for death
among cruel enemies, if he hears words of hope from some
sudden ally, springs into a resistance which otherwise he had
not courage for, so the poor soul of man, bewildered by tempta
tions, and fettered by circumstance as if in a net, so soon as it
sees clearly that it has an everlasting Helper, shakes away all
bonds of evil habit, and starts on a fresh course of well-doing,
with faith as an invincible shield over its weakness. Again,
even in some worse moment of wandering, the remembrance of
a Heavenly Father, whom he had once known, may come upon
a man like a familiar eye in a strange place, and recall him by
a reproof without voice, the infinite pity of which is stronger
than blame. Nor is it the least preservative from evil, that
when our Divine Master employs all our powers in some good
work, we have less leisure to go astray, and that dangerous
faculty of imagination is shut up from the sallies into which it
is ever apt to tempt us forward. Again, to be watchful, as he who
prays for the Divine countenance should needs be, against little
sins, is to win half the battle against great ones. By holy
SALVATION. 339
prayers good impulses are fostered, and out of impulses are
moulded habits, which make strong. Thus in many ways,
which better people could describe better, we believe that God
leads us not into temptation. Such therefore is our daily
prayer for His grace.
" But deliver us from evil. You have been curious to know
whence comes evil ? I have answered, from the largeness of the
scale of creation and the confusion of relations in it, as when
things intended for one end turn to another; from the possi
bilities which must of eternal fitness be implied in the very
capacities of good, or, in short, from the conditions preliminary
even to the thought of a world s existence ; from the many ten
dencies frustrated, or shortcomings in the manifestation of an
idea which strives to realise itself; and especially from the
wrongdoing of agents, who cannot rise to their moral stature,
without freedom of choice, either for right or wrong. It is only
to be remembered farther, that such agents may choose evil,
not only amongst mankind, as we see, but amongst the unseen
beings, whom we may reasonably imagine God to have created
of every kind, and with powers more or less than our own, in
the spiritual world.
" But whatever are the forms of evil, we have an overruling
Deliverer from them all. First, He lays the axe at the root, by
persuading us that the greatest mischief is an evil spirit working
within ourselves. By casting out this from our souls, He takes
away the seed of many evil fruits. By taking away sin, He
dries up the source of many sharp pains and pinings. By chang
ing hatred into goodwill, He takes away envyings, backbitings,
wars, and murders. By bidding us not be over anxious about things
that perish, He both calms our own spirits, and cuts away covet-
ousness and all the fraud and tyranny which come of it. And
when He persuades us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and
to be ready to dedicate ourselves as instruments of the Divine
beneficence to man, He utterly abolishes the self-seeking, or
self-exaltation, which in one or other of its developments brings
99 9
i A4 &
340 EVIL.
out the many-headed growth of all human evils. In whatever
degree, then, we have entered His kingdom of thought and feel
ing with our minds, and bring out in our actions the design of
His Will, and ask our daily bread only as He would have us
seek it, and forgive offences to others because our own are
forgiven of Him, while by His grace we are led not into temp
tation, in the same degree we are making effectual our prayer,
that He would deliver us from evil. Again, as to outward acci
dents which must needs happen to us in this entangled world,
not always as we would choose, our Divine Master partly per
suades us that they are of little moment, as compared to the
inward peace which He suffers nothing to take from us ; partly
He even overrules them for good, and makes them instruments
of our growth ; and, again, He comforts us with a faith that
even things most adverse are bringing out strength by op
position, and all discords being blended into a harmony to be.
The higher, indeed, and the broader our view becomes, the more
we see already (what He who is without limit to thought is ever
conscious of) that these oppositions in the world carry on a
design, of which therefore in a way they are parts. We do not,
for instance, call matter, or nature, intrinsically evil, seeing that
it is moulded, however slowly, after a thought, which can only
be of the highest Being. Hence we so far agree with the
Acharya, that we have no duality in existence, in the sense of
two eternally opposing and equally originant Principles, such as
of good and of evil. For with us too, Good is alone eternal and
positive, and Evil is its instrument. The opposition therefore
is but temporary, or seeming ; so far as it is real, it must pass
away, and so far as it abides, it must effect good. Thus it is a
beginning of doctrine, with both Israelites and Christians, that
the eternal God made the worlds out of nothing : not out of evil
matter, but out of nothing ; for until you imagine goodness un
derneath as a cause, there is nothing but blank, and no reason
for anything, such as we find being, to be. How far, indeed,
the Eternal Spirit should be conceived of as limited by time
EVIL. 341
in the effects of His goodness, any more than in its being, or
whether the effect may for ever have partaken of the eternity of
its causer, is a question of metaphysics rather than of religion;
and I will not entangle myself in it. Since, however, that which
we call evil, comes of eternal possibilities, or of necessities con
ditional to creation, so it has, in one sense, its root nowhere else
than in the mind of the Creator. Thus the greatest of the
Hebrew prophets is not afraid to imagine the Lord God as
saying, / make peace, and I create evil / / the Lord do all
these tilings. But in so far as the possibility thus created, or
conceived, comes of God, it is also a capacity of a preponderat
ing weight of good ; and so far as it goes off in aberration or
overflow, its effect is but as a spray of the ocean, which is dried
up in the sun. Surely, to the eye of true faith the domain of good
is ever enlarging itself, and that of evil becoming only a field of
subordinate instrumentalities, and of conflicts which are capa
cities of something better. Of the physical world this is most
manifestly true. Thus, if in any ruder age, the storm or the
darkness should have been thought a messenger of some malig
nant demon, and nature have seemed as full of Racshasas as of
deities, even though such a conception should have tinged the
popular sayings of religious teachers whom we venerate, neither
our science nor our faith will suffer it to endure. For science
says, that all storms are parts of the great scheme of nature,
which its Author must have designed, and experience answers
that their operation is in many ways wholesome, and our faith
remembers how the Hebrew Psalmists of old represented storm
and lightning and earthquake as messengers of Jehovah, and
how the Hebrew prophet conceives of the same Jehovah as
saying, I form the light, and I create darkness. In short, the
earth is the Lord s, and the fulness thereof. Again, in human
nature, we can strike out* radically no appetite, passion, or
impulse, without destroying also a capacity for good, which our
* This topic is handled in the first sermon in a volume called "Rational God
liness;" London, 1854.
342 THE ENEMY.
Maker designed. Only the abuse or perversion of such things
is evil, and this neither our Maker designed, nor we can inno
cently fall into, but we avoid it in proportion as we enter His
kingdom and do His will. But if we, having reason and con
science and choice, hang back from fulfilling His will in our
selves, we can neither wonder at senseless elements coming short
of it, nor complain of hinderances from confusion in the vast
theatre of their play.
" Some of the wisest Christians, finding evil thus evanescent
rather than essential in the scheme of the world, and in human
nature, so far as its capacities are given by God, think that the
same vanishing extends into the region of spiritual beings, as
we learn more of it. Just as the rain-cloud of the Vedic hymns
was transformed into a giant, and the smallpox is thought by
some of your simpler people to be a goddess becoming incarnate,
so agencies which seemed hostile have everywhere been shaped
by rude imaginations into personalities reflecting that of the
observer ; and especially in the Zoroastrian lore, the play of
seeming opposites, such as light and darkness, in nature, sug
gested an eternal duality of the Good and Evil Spirits. Much
more in the region of mind, the quick play of thought, and the
oppositions of passion, conscience, and remorse, suggest a duality,
as of God and the great enemy. That which seduces, or irritates,
or alarms and drives to despair with accusations *, may well seem
a devil, that is, an accuser, or a satan, that is, an enemy. Yet
such things in the mind, no less than the tempests in nature,
* The word Devil means an accuser, and Satan an enemy. Both are applied in
Holy Scripture, often to men; as in Psalm cix. 6, i St Peter v. 8, where the hos.
tile informer is compared to a roaring lion. Satan also, or his messenger, seems a
term given to any obstacle in good, as a sickness, or a persecution : also to Death,
as the last enemy; but in the widest generalisation, to the spirit of all hostile agen
cies considered collectively ; yet most properly of an evil spirit working in disobedient
men. No scripture older than the Babylonian exile speaks of S atan as a personal
demon or fallen angel, unless it be the story of the serpent in Genesis, which the
Jews did not so interpret, though St Paul, in his manner, adapts it. The Satan to
Balaam is the angel of the Lord; and in Job is an accusing angel, conceived dif
ferently from the evil demon, bound in chains and darkness, of a later age.
j
THE ENEMY. 343
may be born out of capacities for good, or be remedies for the
evil we create to ourselves by sinning. Thus a man inflamed
with desire, or swollen with anger, or trembling at the dark
images which accusing conscience conjures up before him, is
possessed with a legion of evil impulses, which are evil breath
ings or spirits in him ; but if he could be turned truly to God,
and sobered by deep penitence, and cleansed by confession, the
mansions of his soul would be swept clean, and the perversion
of better things having vanished, the thought of God might
carry out its own design in the man, and he would be delivered
from evil.
" Perhaps the friends of this theory do not quite remember,
that we acknowledge human agents to have the power of creating
evil in themselves by the volition of their spirits ; and as this
does not hinder the design of our Maker from being good, neither
need it, if a like perversion is self-chosen by spiritual agents
whom we do not see. Again, as men use the instincts of lower
animals towards ends which the animals are not conscious of,
though their agency in the acting is spontaneous, so it is con
ceivable that malignant spirits might use for ends of their own
the spontaneous passions of sinful men. But I will not argue this
nicely; for, no doubt, the field open to such spirits would be
ever limited alike by the encompassing providence of God, and
by the determination of our own free will; and again, the
Christian faith is in God, rather than in any enemy, and not so
much in evil, as in God s delivering us from it. Some phrases
current among simpler Christians, may partly come of that per
sonifying power which must last as long as the human imagi
nation, and partly be echoes caught lightly from older faiths,
or times in which the same power was more vivid. Nor does it
much matter, whether with an eye of imagination tinged by
sense, we see the great enemy and his armed battalions quailing
before the host of Seraphim, as in Milton s great poem, or
whether impalpable evil fades like darkness before our fuller
consciousness of the outcoming of the goodness of God. In
344 THE KINGDOM ETERNAL.
either case, we say, Blessed be God, who putteth every enemy
under our feet. The last enemy that is overcome is death.
He who leadeth not into temptation, but delivereth from evil,
shews also His law pervading all that nature, over parts of
which a hostile prince was once thought to have power, and
brings daily more to light His thought evolving itself in man
kind, and turns hostile accidents to good, or at least makes
them tolerable by giving us an inward peace ; He also comforts
us through every bereavement and death, by a persuasion that
neither height, nor depth, nor life, nor death, nor time, nor eter
nity, can ever separate us from the embrace of that power which
made all things to be, and that love which brings all things to
good.
" For thine is the kingdom, &c. Here the Christian hope
of immortality falls in with the great instinct of mankind, and
the aspirations of most of the noblest reasoners everywhere. We
shrink from annihilation in death, not only from the animal
feeling of repugnance to cold obstruction or darkness, but
because we feel ourselves something more vital than the dust,
and we grudge to the realm of naught both ourselves and our
kindred sharers of thoughts which go beyond extinction, which
therefore we hope the Eternal One, to whom they aspire, has not
destined to fall from Himself into it. Yet we come in contact
with death by our bodies, which are made of things perish
able, and by the experience of bereavement and flux around us,
and by the consciousness of our depending on a Higher Will,
and of having fallen short of consonance with that Will in act.
The more then we escape from the dominion of these bodies, by
making them vehicles and instruments, rather than masters of
the higher being encased in them, and the more we are purified
from evil which is evanescent, and at the same time enter into the
kingdom of Him who is the Giver and sustainer of life, so much
the more our hope of some immortality is quickened. For we
thus bring ourselves within the range of that universal law, that
what is evil, perishes, and what is good, lives, according to the
THE KINGDOM ETERNAL. 345
mind of God which designed it. He that soweth to the flesh,
of the flesh reaps corruption, but he that soweth to the kingdom
of God, hath his seed in a soil whose leaves fade not. By par
taking of the Holy Spirit of God, we partake of those things
from which death and decay fall away, as having no power over
them. Our thoughts, we see, do not altogether depend upon
place, or time, or animal processes ; our feelings of Good and
Eight apprehend them as things not changeable by any outward
events ; our faith in Him, whose name is the Eternal, suffers us
only to conceive of Him as a God of the living, and not of the
hopelessly dead. Thus we overcome the enemy death. We
fear not them that hurt the body, but whatever defiles the soul,
and lessens its kindred to God. We know not indeed the
precise nature of the life to come. Most Christians think, in
harmony so far with the Sankhya philosophy, that spirit will only
have its full consciousness, as of humanity, when embodied in
some form of matter, however refined and subtle it may have
become. Others think that this conception of a spiritual body
is fashioned according to our earthly experience of minds ac
quiring impressions and developing powers in conjunction with
material embodiment, but that in the higher kingdom of thought,
which eye hath not seen the fashion, nor ear heard the sound of,
the Eternal Lord God, who is Himself a spirit, will waken us
up after His own likeness, and satisfy us with the pleasures of
His ineffable countenance. As then we ascribe not body, parts,
or passions, to the clear Spirit of the primeval Deity, so some
think these things will not belong hereafter to those who are
also His offspring, and who will see Him as He is, and be as
He is. Nor, again, dare I speak too presumptuously of the
enjoyment of the life to come. Perhaps work of honour and of
pleasant energy will be for those who have fulfilled the Divine
thought, and so become perfect in well doing. Perhaps, again,
as the operation of Deity is silent, and deep beyond sense,
though not beyond inference of faith, so the life to come of
spirits made perfect may be thought or contemplation. The
346 THE KINGDOM SPIKITUAL.
mere reminiscence of all that has been in our own lives and in
those of others, and an obligation to watch all the results which
may still be going on in the world from our own acts, and
a comparison of our opportunities, when fully explained, with
our actions, and again a review of the past history of all ages
laid open before us, and a survey of the daily evolving plan of
God, with awe- stricken curiosity as some new page of His
dealings opens before us, may be to good men delight, and to
those who have fallen into wilful rebellion against the spiritual
kingdom of God, an unutterable torture. We should have
fallen far from Christianity, in its better sense, if we were to
fancy, that the powers of the mind, such as joy, thankfulness,
love, sympathy, and holiness, were not enough to satisfy the
blessed, or that the contrary feelings of remorse, shame, self-
rebuke, and inward strife of surviving passions, could not fill
to the brim the red cup of misery of those who refused to be
saved. But, however these things may be, we do not doubt that
the Lord reigns ; that the kingdom of God is in His clear sight
for ever come, and, in that of all faithful men, for ever coming ;
and in whatever degree we may be enabled rightly to enter into
it, so far, and I suppose, so far only, shall we naturally partake
of its immortality. Therefore we strive to help forward that
kingdom of the mind, which, though it ever tends to mould the
fashion of the outward world after its inner mind, is yet empha
tically within us ; therefore, I would persuade you, my friends,
so far as God may permit, to learn what His most acceptable
and perfect will may be ; and so long as we become truly sub
ject to God, we are contented with whatever happens. For the
beginning and the end of our religion is, Not our will, but Thine;
and we cannot fail of our will being done, so long as it is in
harmony with the will of the Allrighteous and the Almighty.
He knows what is best, and chooses it, and is able to fulfil it,
even to the end. To Him then, even to the only wise God, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father, be the kingdom,
and the power j and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."
SCRIPTURES. 347
CHAPTER X.
Christ and His Apostles, and their Doctrine.
"Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth ;
I have put my spirit upon Him : He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A
bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench : He
shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till
He have set judgment in the earth : and the isles shall wait for His law. Thus
saith God the Lord, He that created the heavens, and stretched them out ; He
that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it ; He that giveth
breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein : I the Lord
have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee,
and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles ; to open
the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in
darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord : that is my name : and my
glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Behold, the
former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare : before they spring
forth I tell you of them. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the
end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein ; the isles, and
the inhabitants thereof." ISAIAH xlii. I 10.
"He is despised and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief : and we hid as it were our faces from Him ; He was despised, and we esteemed
Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows : yet we did
esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace
was upon Him ; and with His stripes we are healed." Id. liii. 3 5.
"It pleased the Lord to bruise Him ; He hath put Him to grief: when thou
shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong
His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of
the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied : by His knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many ; for He shall bear their iniquities." Id. liii. 10, n.
"One Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive." ACTS xxv. 19.
"When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall
have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is
thy victory ? The sting of death is sin ; and the strength of sin is the law. But
thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
I COBINTHIANS XV. 54 57.
" THUS we have seen," continued Blancombe, " that out of
the Hebrew history and literature the Christian religion has
348 PREGNANCY OF JUDAISM.
grown. Judaism ought to have died, in giving birtli to a child
thus nobler than itself. For the lesser light is swallowed up in
the greater. But the Jews in general reject Christianity ; for they
rightly argue, that it does not correspond with the letter of their
sacred books ; and they wrongly conclude, that therefore it can
not be what Almighty God was all along designing. Whereas,
we conceive, that our eternal Huler s forecasting thought, which
was implied in the law, and became more distinct in the con
sciousness of the great preachers of righteousness, came more
fully to light in the grace and truth which are manifested in
Jesus Christ. It could not be, that men should always believe
external rites to have a cleansing power, apart from the feeling
and life of which they were significant ; or that law, which in
its proper idea is restraint, and which is concerned generally
about prohibitions, and always about external acts, should for
ever seem to them the highest expression of the Will of Him
who is a searcher of the hearts, and who by His loving-kind
ness gives every motive of attraction to the will ; nor again, as
both the range of His providence and the spiritual manner of
His being became evident to them, could they any longer think,
that His sun shone only upon Palestine, and that His goodness
was restricted to one race, or that prayer and praise would not
be accepted by Him from men lifting up pure hands every
where. Yet that great Priesthood which so long worshipped
Jehovah on Mount Zion, was not to die barren ; the strong fore
bodings of the Prophets, of some glorified Israel to come, must
find one day a fulfilment; and when the letter of a law had
educated men (whether it were through observance, or through
recoil,) into a full intelligence of its meaning, they would both
know its value as an instrument, and disclaim its dominion as
an end, having a deeper allegiance to the thoughts which had
been before, and which would be after it. Again, the slaying
of animals would come to be felt a burdensome, or even a cruel,
kind of worship ; yet the contrition and the consecration of life,
implied in such acts, would come out in the same purer form, as
CHRISTIAN FULFILMENT. 349
in the resignation of men under severe pain, or their forbearance
under injury, and in their dedication of themselves to any good
work required of them, with such a feeling as is expressed in
the words, Not my ivill, but Thine.
"How far we could have anticipated beforehand such an
outgrowing of the Hebrew polity, is difficult to say. For we
might have dreaded instead a hardening into sacerdotal or
formal scripturalism ; and this fear would have been justified
by the later Rabbinism of the Jews. Still the event of Chris
tianity shews that the original framework contained, either in
itself or with the aid of collateral influences, the capacity of such
a growth ; and, as in human things we judge the author s design
by the best of which his work is capable, rather than by its
partial shortcoming, so much more we must ascribe the best
of worldly events to the counsel of the Almighty. Some of you
say that the very world is an embodiment of the Divine think
ing, and in a certain figurative sense I admit this to be so. But
then, neither can any dispensation of things on a large scale
have come about, save of that thinking, nor yet can it have
reached its destiny until it fulfil the highest good to which the
thinking tends ; still less is the best of its actual fulfilment to
be deemed no part of the original thought. Christianity then,
as we say, being the better result of Judaism, must have been
its destiny, and so is prophesied in a way by whatever pre-
figurements of it existed, either in germ, or under veil, in the
earlier dispensation. Nor does it fulfil only what is most signi
ficant in Judaism, but even in your own religion, and perhaps
in all. For it mediates between and harmonises them, adding
to the strong belief of the Hebrew, something of the largeness of
thought of the Hindu and of the heroic humanity of the Greek,
while it sobers these with the household virtues of the Roman,
and with the deeper sense of truth and right, which the Hebrew
had in his consciousness of having to answer before the Judge
of the whole earth. Something correspondent to each part of
its faith may be found in some one of the others, but none of
350 JESUS CHRIST.
them so harmonised these as to reach its distinctive character ;
for it brings God as near to man as is possible without con
founding the two : it fixes our gaze on immortality, yet so as
not to forget the world which now is, and it abases by a deep
sense of unworthiness, in order both to comfort with forgiveness,
and to exalt with hallowing power.
" These things may come out more clearly, if I now describe
the author and the origin of our faith, the doctrines of which I
have expounded from our Lord s prayer, and which you know,
as a fact, is established in the Christian Church throughout many
countries of the world. It was in Judaea, the land in which, of
all others, the fear of God had been inherited through many
generations, and where, in that fear, all the ties of human life
had been consecrated as Divine appointments, and where all the
fears of the conscience had been expressed in expiatory ritual,
and all the infinite hopes of the soul in prayer and praise, while
a wonderful display of providence in history had schooled the
nation through glory and downfall, there our Saviour, Jesus of
Nazareth, was born, as the Son of Man. He had in Him the
fulness of human nature, and inherited with it whatever might
mark the purest of His race. He was not, therefore, hostile to
nature, or to humanity. He looked admiringly on the lilies of
the field ; He entered into the festivities of marriage, and felt
pity by the bier of death ; He remembered fondly the old glory
of His country and of her kings ; He shed tears over the city,
upon which He foresaw that the same immoral fanaticism and
love of power, which had formerly slain righteous men, would
soon, in conjunction with narrow obstinacy, bring down a crush
ing doom ; He loved especially the youngest, and many think the
fairest, of His disciples ; and before He resigned His spirit into
the hands of His Heavenly Father, He commended His earthly
parent to affectionate care. It is clear that there can have been
no right belief amongst His countrymen, either as to the pro
vidence of God, or its manifestation in their history, which
Jesus would not inherit ; while even their temporal or local
PLACE AND TIME OF INCARNATION. 351
associations would be things among which He grew up. and
in accordance with which His hearers would understand His
language, so that we might expect Him to have employed such
things in speaking, no less than the native tongue of His country.
For language in its full extent comprehends popular associations
no less than words. But besides all this, there dwelt in Jesus
the fulness of the Divine Truth ; even as the image answers to
the seal, so was the Truth in Him the l express image* of the
very being of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity ;
and having without measure the indwelling of that Holy Spirit
which joins the Father and the Son, He felt, alike through
earthly life and in death, His perfect One-ness with the Supreme
Father. He and His Father were One.
" The time when Jesus appeared was when the Jews were
subject to Eome, under the empire of Augustus and Tiberius.
The loss of their independence galled them; the stricter sort
were daily more anxious for the continuance of their sacred law,
which was endangered by contact with foreign manners and
literature ; hence the zealots were tempted to draw, if possible,
a stricter f line than ever around the circle which they thought
holy in proportion as it was narrow, but which, in spite of them,
widened itself in many men s conceptions : the common people
were eager to hail any national deliverer who, according to the
literal hopes of the prophets after the Babylonian exile, should
build up the throne of David; while the more prudent, and
those who had rank or Eoman favour to lose, dreaded an out
break, which could only end in destruction. Those sects or
bodies of teachers, who adhered strictly to the law, and even
fenced it round with commentaries, as the Scribes and Phari
sees \ did, were more popular than the Herodians who courted
Eome, or the Sadducees whose worldly pride despised spiritual
* Hebrews i. 3.
t See the early part of Gfrorer s Urchristentkum, Stuttgardt, 1838.
+ The word Pharisee is derived from Pharask, to expound ; though from an
homonymous root it acquired the sense of separate.
352 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE.
things, and despaired of the nation s hope. Yet the zeal of the
common people did not save them from changes of thought, due
partly to contact with foreigners, and partly to the fermenting
of their own minds. The Essenes endeavoured to realise a
hermit sanctity which the law had not prescribed, and which
had only few models in their older history. It is probable, that
foreign (and even Bauddha) influence, caught through Alex
andria, may have conspired to stimulate this process in Judasa.
Again, the mutual instruction and free prayer of the synagogue
must have wrought in men s minds, and supplanted, except on
rare occasions, the sacerdotal worship of the Temple, though
they left it a recognised sanctity. On the whole, we see traces
of an uneasy ferment in the Jewish mind, a longing after the
Past, yet an awakening of thought which would hardly have wel
comed its literal resuscitation ; and an intense jealousy of Gentile
influence, with symptoms that the nation was being imbued by
it. When Jesus began to teach, (after being preceded by the
stern preacher John, who was to awaken men s minds to receive
a new order of things,) He addressed the two great anxieties of
His countrymen, as if He were about to fulfil their hope. Good
news, He said, the kingdom of God is coming : And as to the Law,
He said, I am not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfil. Hence
both the common people in their simple patriotism, and the
Scribes in their zeal for the Law, might be expected to welcome
the new Teacher.
" But it soon appeared that Jesus would fulfil such hopes,
not in their letter, but in some higher meaning. One of His first
sayings is, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven : and one of His last, My kingdom is not of this world,
which elsewhere He explains, by saying, The kingdom is within
you. All the blessings mentioned by Him in His first great
discourse, are ascribed to meekness, purity, hunger for spiritual
things, and, in short, to what is purest in heart and conscience,
rather than to kingly pomp and worldly success. Here is
the whole question raised, whether a kingdom of sword or of
LAW AND GOSPEL. 353
thought is the greatest, and whether happiness is most in gran
deur and animal gratification, or in the health of our better souls.
All that is best in your Indian wisdom should lead you here
to take part with Jesus against the worldly and the animal.
Again, Jesus was on the side of the law, so far as it condemned
all sin, and subjugated things to God. But so far as it consisted
of external prohibitions, and readied neither the root of things
nor their fulness, Jesus abolished it to make room for a higher.
Moses forbids murder, and adultery, and false swearing. Jesus
persuades us to put away the thought, the glance*, and the
profane lightness which grow into such deeds. Moses, who
deals with outward acts, rightly allows marriage to be dissolved,
when the love which should bind it is broken ; but Jesus, who
by His wisdom fashions the thoughts, says, they do wisely and
holily who love to the end as they began. The Law enjoined
almsgiving : Jesus persuades us to double our gifts, by hoping
for nothing again ; thus only can they give us joy in our own
mind. The Law could assemble men at prayers ; Jesus enables
us to pray, by putting before our minds a Father who is ready
to hear, and who giveth more than we desire or deserve. The
Law gives authority to priests and teachers according to their
descent or their office ; Jesus requires of them whom He sends,
the good works which shall shew their calling and sending to
be of God. The Law required many precepts, some wearisome,
and some imperfect, and all becoming a burden to the conscience,
if they even did not darken it by written formalism ; Jesus
opens a new and living way in our consciences, by summing up
all in two words, which every one that hears them can apply
fresh for himself: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;
and Love thy neighbour as thyself: and again, Whatsoever things
ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them ;
for this is the Law and the prophets. No wonder that such
teaching seemed different from that of the Scribes ; for they
could only say, it is written, and it is delivered, not seeing the
* As Cicero says, "ne imprudentiam quidem oculorum adjici fas? est."
M. p. 23
354 THE WOKDS OF CHRIST.
reason for the precept ; but Jesus draws water from the living-
fountain of truth ; and His words have a perpetual echo from the
conscience, which is God s witness in man.
" Thus Jesus abolished for ever for all believers in His
truth every law* of the letter; and put in its place a new and
a living law. But no words are so powerful as His own to
awaken in our hearts that sense of the unseen which we call
faith ; by which we see no longer mere precepts, but the reasons
for them ; thus passing from the letter to the spirit, and appre
hending the very truth. He spoke chiefly by parables, which
simple people might understand, and which had an especial
view to His own time ; but yet their meaning comes out true in
some sense for all time, even as His kingdom is for eternity.
The Jews are like an elder son who stayed at home with his
Father, while the younger one spent his goods in a far country ;
so many of the nations had wandered from the Father of their
spirits into worship of dumb idols and vile passions, but yet
God calls them from afar and has mercy on them, like the
Father in the parable falling on the neck of His prodigal son.
This, however, is spoken not only to Jew and Gentile, as it
might be now to the Hindus, but to whoever grudges the grace
of God, and to every sinner who turns his heart to God. Again,
the Expounders and the Scripturalists among the Jews are
taught by a parable of the shepherd seeking a lost sheep, that
God will have even extortioners and great sinners to repent, so
that His servants, who know His mind, must needs welcome
them into His kingdom. This also is perpetually true. Again,
the Jewish nation, having been freed from ignorance and taken to
fanatical pride, is likened to a man from whom one evil spirit has
been cast out, but who suffers him to return with seven others.
So is now every man, who begins to be good, putting away
some fault, if afterwards he turn back, and hardening himself in
hypocrisy, or in despair, suffer his evil habits to be increased.
But the kingdom of God is like leaven, which goes through all
See Luther, Galat. i. 14; and read the third chapter of 2nd Corinthians.
THE WORDS OF CHRIST. 355
the lump of the meal ; here you see, that the kingdom which
Jesus preached was one of thoughts and feelings, which should
work their way out of men s hearts into customs, and laws, and
states. Again, it is a little seed, and it "becomes a great tree. Here
we have its growth from a little seed in a corner of Palestine, till it
overshadows the earth ; and again, in man s heart, from a single
good thought, or prayer, till it fill him with good fruits. Again,
on stony ground it perishes, and so in hard hearts ; amidst
thorns it is smothered, and so among worldly anxieties ; by the
wayside fowls devour it, and so with careless seekers after truth,
the opponent easily takes away their good impressions ; but in
good ground it bears fruit ; and so does the infinite love of God
in every good and honest heart.
" Even the common sayings of Jesus have a manifold mean
ing. He speaks of the coming fall of Jerusalem ; but His words
hold true of every great judgment of God in the world. One
shall be taken, and the other left; so shall it be in the final
judgment between good and bad. Look not back, and return
not / so should no one look back to any place of sin, any more
than to a city of destruction. Where the carcase is, there laill
the eagles be Gathered; as Juda3a falls, she will be rent by
the Koman eagles ; but also, wherever sin is ripe, there the
ravening judgments will be gathered. Then shall they see the
Son of Man coming. They saw unwillingly, when Jerusalem
was fallen, Mankind taking the place of Jewry, and humanity
more esteemed than a narrow fanaticism ; but also they saw the
name and doctrine of Jesus whom they had crucified, taking the
upper place in the hearts of all nations. Destroy this temple,
and in three days I will raise it up : they thought it said of
a temple of stones, but He meant one which should be an
assembly of living minds, pervaded by the breath of God,
and so tenanted by the spirit of Christ, that to His mind it
would become an embodiment, and out of it should go sacrifices
of thanksgivings, and incense of prayer, to the great Father.
Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into
232
356 THE WORKS OP CHRIST.
the kingdom of God. Unless Nicodemus unlearned that mind of
prejudices which he had imbibed with his mother s milk, and
rose out of the waters of baptism into a new world of thought,
he could never know the power of that kingdom, after which
God was fashioning the world anew ; but again, unless we have
the holiness of which our baptismal water is a symbol, and run
counter to many humours that come of our natural birth, we
cannot be kings and priests in God s kingdom of the mind, or
have that peace which the world cannot give.
" As the words of Jesus teach, so do His deeds. As He is
the great teacher against sin, so is He the healer of pain*.
Thereby we learn, how these two things hang together ; the one
being contrary to the will of God in our mind, and the other in
our body ; both therefore being invaders of His kingdom. But
when the rightful Lord reigneth, all such enemies must be put
under our feet. Sin, being the greatest, must go first; and
suffering, so far as practicable, must decrease; and so far as
it remains, as being, for wisdom or necessity, the will of our
Heavenly Father, we shall not call it evil. Hence, when Jesus
takes away the sin of the world, He says to the cripple, Arise,
and walk ; and to the leper, / will, le thou dean. Thus Jesus
shews first the lovingkindness of the supreme Deity whose
1 express image is made manifest to our sight in Him ; then
He teaches the connexion of sin with suffering ; He again sets
to right the order of God s world, by taking away these tilings
which disordered it; and altogether He manifests in His own
person that image of divine power, healing, and blessing, and
comforting, which men instinctively fall down and worship, as
answering to the best prophecies of their conscience respecting
the nature of the Godhead. As by faith He opens the eyes of
our conscience, so He gave sight to the blind ; as He purifies
from sin, so He cleanses the leper; as He raises the palsied
It is worthy of note that nothing suffers but what fears, and so is capable of
ihending some degree of
generally sensibility to pain.
apprehending some degree of law ; and as responsibility ascends in the creation, so j
THE WOKKS OF CHRIST. 357
energies of our soul into better life, so He made the paralytic
bodies walk ; as He gives an utterance to our better thoughts
in prayer and praise and bold confession before any adversary,
so He made the dumb to speak ; as He casts out evil tempers,
so He healed men of disorders in mind or body, which seemed
the working of evil spirits ; as He lifts our humanity out of the
death of its nobler part, so He called forth Lazarus from the
grave ; and as He gives us a victory over death and extinction,
so He exhibited the same in His person and His cause, by dying
and rising again. Thus His works are not only wonderful, but
significant ; they are signs to us of might, and of right, and of
holiness, and of a love rejoicing to overtake evil and to change
it into a ministry of good. Yet, if some have dwelt too exclu
sively on the element of wonderful power in the works of Jesus,
we will not altogether overlook it. For certainly His works
transcend the skill or knowledge of man ; they run counter, not
indeed to the highest law, but to the ordinary processes of nature;
they introduce, as it were, a new cause into the order of effects,
so as to modify them, and this cause seems of a creativeness
equal or kindred to that which originally designed the whole.
They are works of healing greater than man s works, and
certainly no one would think of ascribing their goodness to
any malignant demon, or Rakshasa; it remains then, that
these apparent interpositions in nature come of a goodness
above nature, or of the Mind which disposed all things. It
is very wholesome to be reminded, on some signal occasions,
that all this visible order is under the rule of a higher mind ;
and we can more easily believe such mementos to come of
the highest, when their working is for health, and in harmony
with the will of goodness which is ever fulfilling itself by
a law of love. It is also to be noticed, that Jesus heals chiefly
those who have faith, or a certain concurrence of will ; and
we not only find it natural for the will when touched by faith
to brace the lower powers, but such a result is quite in
harmony with the entire genius of that realm of thought, which
358 THE WORKS OF CHRIST.
Jesus proclaims as the kingdom of God. Nor is the mere wonder
or awe in signal cures altogether useless. For out of awe comes
naturally worship ; and if ruder races most require to be so
awakened, yet the most disciplined thinkers will accept such
process as a step to something higher, if they are so led on to
find a higher order, and a display of the Divine wisdom in
things strange, as well as usual. Nor is it difficult to believe,
that the highest truth, or the highest wisdom, may work by
order even in things strange; for it partakes of, or coincides
with, that very wisdom which made the worlds, and knows all
the laws which itself, or its Author, fixed of old. Since then
Jesus spake as never man spake, and lived a life of God em
bodied in flesh, we think it but reasonable for Him to have
done the works of God. How different are His wonders from
those told in your Indian legends of mountains held over milk
maids, or of magicians riding through the air, or of demon-
dwellers in Ceylon shivering as they felt a new power near
them. Jesus does nothing for caprice, or for ostentation, or as it
were of mere human will ; but He works the will of the supreme
Father, in both manifesting His power over nature, and the
beneficent will which wields it. No one of His works, save
at most two, are not works of clear goodness; and those two
are striking lessons, as when He makes the stricken fig-tree
a parable to barren loiterers on the earth, or the drowning of
the swine an emblem of unclean creatures given up to evil
impulses.
" Thus the entire life of Jesus is that of perfect man, and
yet of the Son of God manifesting His grace and truth. His
truth comes out from no less than the highest Being, which it
visibly mirrors, and with which it ever remains One ; His love
is that of God calling through Him all His wandering children
to the Father ; His wisdom is that of Him who knows all the
secret springs of nature, and holds in His hand the hearts of j
men, and the fountain of events. Here is truly an Incarnation.
The thought of God here comes to fulfilment in man; the
INCARNATION. 359
likeness of God, in which man was destined according to his
Maker s will to live, is here shewn without blur or spot; the
Divine goodness and the human obedience are blended in one
great Harmoniser or Mediator ; and this outcoming or mani
festation of Deity in our nature may truly profess to have been
from the beginning, even from of old. For the Law did but
faintly express its will ; the prophets looked forward to a ful
filment in act of a thought which had been before them; the
sacrifices were but symbols of a self-dedication such as this ;
and when the Scribes say, this highest truth is contrary to
the letter of Moses, or trenches on the dignity of Abraham
or of his children, none but the very Truth of God embodied
can answer, Before Moses, and before Abraham was, I AM?
In a way, indeed, Man is before Israel, as Humanity before
Nations, and Justice before Law, and Faith before Kitual,
and Redemption before Punishment ; but He who embodies in
Himself all the eternal substance, says confidently, Before these
shadows were, I AM.
" Whatever then your poets have fabled of the Divine pre
server s becoming incarnate in Rama or Crishna, seem to me
shadows of the truth, that the thought of the eternal Spirit
must come to fulfilment in act, and His wisdom manifest itself
to our experience embodied in a living person, before we can
know the counsel of Him whose thoughts are not as our
thoughts, nor His ways as our ways. How easily we may
bewilder ourselves in speculations about that which is above
our senses, and beyond our experience, is but too clear from all
the former part of this dialogue, which I am almost ashamed
now of having borne a part in. And although the visible world
may be some shadow of the thought of the Almighty, yet how
unworthy are the things we tread and consume, and even blame
or abhor, to be taken as adequate images of Him who is above
and beyond and higher and deeper, and by His wisdom causes
these senseless things to be! But if you would know how
human life brings out our Maker s will, read that of Jesus. See
360 REJECTION OF CHRIST.
Him obedient, holy, harmless, doing good, reviled, and reviling
not again, caring for all save for Himself, resigning Himself to
the reproach of the cross, and after saving all who drew nigh
to Him, enduring to have it said, Himself He cannot save. If
you would know God s judgment of sin, see what Jesus suffered
to save men from it. If you would know that Divine love which
passeth knowledge, hear the call of Jesus to all who are weary
of the world, and laden with sin, to come unto Him and find
rest ; or see His deeds of mercy exemplifying His speech ; and
then be persuaded, that this should be the author and finisher of
our faith, the Son of the living God.
" You will ask, how came the Jews to reject Jesus ? This
may seem strange until you consider it thus. To all those who
could not pass from the world of the senses into that of thought,
and so accept the higher meaning which He gave to the two
principal hopes of His nation, He seemed to disappoint them in
both. The Scripturalists and Expounders, who wished Him to
support the time-hallowed system of Moses, were very jealous of
that leading into the deepest spirit, which even in fulfilling the
letter overthrew its authority; for thus the whole system of
their ancestral polity, and temple, and law, was swept away.
They then could hardly fail to call Jesus a Samaritan or an
infidel, and as such they thought it their duty to punish Him.
The common people again, who sighed to be delivered from the
Roman tax-gatherer, thought it not only a disappointment, but
a treason to their race, that one should place the kingdom of
God within the heart, and turn all minds from national glories,
to the palm won in a strife against evil passions and lusts.
They then, though their first hope might cry Hosanna, would
in the shock of disappointment say, Crucify Him. Again the
sacerdotal politicians, who ever feared some popular rising might
draw down Roman vengeance, thought it sound policy to rid
themselves of One whose doctrines, whether understood or mis
understood, might ruin the nation. Add to this confusion of
Jewish feeling that mixture of prejudice and carelessness in
CRUCIFIXION. 361
human nature, which is ever uneasy at the cry of reform, and
especially shrinks from a reformation of manners which may
involve trouble and sacrifice. You will then easily see how the
ancestral law of Moses, however burdensome it had become,
could not be abolished even for a higher law of the spirit and of
truth, unless He who wrought out such freedom purchased it
with His blood. So the Priests, and the Scripturalists, and the
Expounders, delivered Jesus into the hands of the Romans ; and
He was crucified under Pontius Pilate between two thieves ;
thus He, in whose mouth no guile had been found, was numbered
amongst the transgressors ; He who had wept over Jerusalem,
was counted a traitor ; He who had embodied the love of God
in His life, was put to death for infidelity and blasphemy ; and
He whose kingdom was to be in the hearts of men to the ends
of the earth, was rejected by those who might have chosen Him,
when they said, We will not have this Man to reign over us. This
seemed indeed a triumph of the great enemy. The mystery of
evil, and the confusion of relations in the world, and the neces
sity for even love to work out its purpose through suffering,
have had no hour in history so dark. The life had fulfilled all
that our imagination can paint as most Divine ; the death was
of the most utter humiliation, rejection, pain, and shame. My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? were the words of
Jesus from the Psalms; and the bystanders answered, He trusted
in God that He would deliver him; let Him deliver him if He
will have him.
" But rejoice not against me, mine enemy. The policy of
the priest, and the madness of the multitude, and the yielding
of the governor, wrought out of their unconscious freewill the
higher counsel of the Eternal. For thus, in the first place,
Jesus fulfilled the sacrifice of His life, even to the end. We
can all obey, when the will of God enables us to do good by
being exalted. But Jesus was obedient even to the death of
the cross. Nothing unforeseen had come upon Him. Nor yet
was His death self-chosen, but appointed to Him. His mere
362 SACRIFICE.
human will might have shrunk, but He said to His Father, Not
My will, but Thine. Thus He fulfilled in His own body on the
accursed tree that entire self-dedication which the old sacrifices
of the law had been intended to express ; and He made good
the prophecy of the psalmist, that the sacrifices of God are a
broken spirit. He had heard in spirit, what for each of us is
written. My son, give me thine heart.
" Secondly, Jesus thus shewed His loving patience towards
men. For in that hour, when God could refuse Him nothing,
He prayed not for ease, or for exaltation, but said, Father, forgive
them ; for they know not what they do. He remembered, as no
meaner sufferer would, what genuine zeal for their entire system
of temple and scripture animated many of His slayers, so that in
giving over into lawless hands Him by whom the whole Mosaic
polity was being abolished, they thought they did God service.
Nor is there anything in which Christians more require a return
to their Master s doctrine than in their tone of mind towards the
Jews. If we remembered how little the present generation can
help what their forefathers did, and how few even out of that
generation could have borne an active part, and what mistaken
zeal and fidelity to the God, as they thought, of their fathers,
and to His written revelation, was their working motive, we
should speak of them now more in compassion than in anger.
But Jesus Christ is above Christianity, and you see here His
very mind.
" Thirdly, Jesus fulfilled by dying, not only the thing
meant in ancient sacrifices, but the martyr-type, or the cha
racter of all godlike sufferers for the right and the good. It
is no strange thing for one who benefits others to do so at
his own cost. You cannot give and retain the gift. You cannot
warn without danger of dislike, nor teach higher truth without
irritating those bound to the lower. You could not have had
the old Jewish fidelity to Scripture, and temple, and race, without
obstinate prejudice, and exclusiveness as well. There is no
light without shadow, nor virtue without its kindred fault.
SUFFERING OF CHRIST. 363
But God, with whom is no variableness, does not lightly
change His laws, or suffer any principle to vary its operation,
because persons come within its range or stand aloof. He
blows with His wind, and the waters flow, either to bear
the skilful mariner, or to drown the heedless. If we will do
good, He gives us in doing it a reward above all we can ask
or think ; but He suffers us to pay the price of conflict with
evil. He who puts naked foot on the serpent s head* will be
stung in crushing the monster. There is even in soberest
martyrdom, (be it reverently spoken,) a kind of rashness for
the man s self; for his eye is on some holier and far-off object,
and he cares not what may happen to him by the way. Thus
he breaks the immutable law of self-preservation, though he
has the reward of keeping a higher law of self-sacrifice to the
Highest. If he would change the law of a nation, or the
thought of the world, he must pay the price of his good name
or his life; though if the idea with which his mindf labours
be a true one, God will give him a reward in fulfilling it ; for
he will be helping forward the kingdom. Thus Jeremiah | the
prophet had been among his countrymen t like a lamb or an ox
that is brought to the slaughter; and perhaps of him, or of
some kindred prophet, or his company, it was originally said
that he was a man of sorrows and afflicted, yet he opened
not his mouth ; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and
as a sheep before her shearers is dumb. So of many of the
prophets, and of the sweet singers in the courts of the Lord s
house, we find it written that their heart was broken with
heaviness, and the ploughers|| ploughed upon their back, as
they went on their way weeping, and bearing good seed, of
which the fruit could only come after many days. But by
faith they all endured, as seeing Him that is invisible; and
even the shape of things temporal became, through their words,
LJ-/ See the beautiful Sermons of the late Kev. Fred. Kobertson, of Brighton,
t Ev. St John, xvi. 21. + Jeremiah xi. 19.
Isaiah liii. 37. II Psalm cxxix. 3 ; Hebrews xi. 1337.
364 SUFFERING OF CHRIST.
moulded more after the beauty on which they had fixed their
gaze of things eternal.
" Thus Jesus, as the change which God gave Him to work
in the world was above all, must go beyond all in suffering.
Thus He becomes most eminently the l man of sorrows ; and
whatever things were written of old, of suffering saint, of
crucified prophet, of poor man trampled on, of Moses* rejected,
of Israel becoming a spoil, of Isaiah sawn asunder, and of Jere
miah lamenting over Jerusalem, find a new and a higher
fulfilment, for they come eminently to pass again in the person
of Jesus of Nazareth. He must die as a slave, and as one
whom the nation despiseth, before He reigns as King of kings
and Lord of lords. But all this is only in harmony with the
great mystery of the world s course, and because God hath
given it a law which cannot be broken.
" See now how this very humiliation brought about the
rising again. If we ask, how Christ comes to reign over our
thoughts, it is much by the words He spake, and much by the
works He did. If He had only uttered great swelling words,
and had lived at ease, or sat on the throne of Solomon, how
little would He have touched our hearts. Even now a stranger
to His mind is not readily followed by His sheep, for they do
not know such a one s voice. But when we see Him paying
out of His own life the price of delivering men from evil, going
about homeless, while He provides a shelter in which our souls
can rest, and suffering poverty and need, while He makes us
rich in holy thoughts and happy memories, we feel that this
is a true teacher, and we follow Him as a safe guide. When
He says, / am come to throw fire upon the, earth, w r e foresee it
will not be quenched. When in sadder tone He says, How I
would it were already kindled! and again, / have a baptism
(of suffering) to be baptised with / and how I am straitened until
it be accomplished, we enter into His foretaste of shame and
pain; we become convinced that He came into the world for
* Acts vii. 35 ; Hebrews xi, 26.
FULFILMENT THROUGH SUFFERING. 365
no other cause than to bear witness to the truth / then, when He
is rejected, scourged, crowned with thorns, and spit upon, we
shrink back astonished ; but our very indignation at the shame
turns into more awful wonder at Him who bears it ; and, in the
dark hour of the judgment-hall, or by the cross, even more
than in any triumph, our hearts answer with Peter, Lord, we
are ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death. Such
is the kingdom God gives to Jesus over our souls. It is
wrought out through suffering, and it belongs to the worthiest ;
so that our allegiance to it is like the sight of the eye to light,
and the assent of our reason to truth, or the springing of our
heart to what is lovely ; we can neither withhold it, nor desire
to do so, for nowhere else could we offer it so worthily.
" What I have said of Jesus as a king of thought, will apply
equally to Him as a prophet. For though His words have
strange power to touch our heart, they do so more from their
entire harmony with His life, and from the price which He paid
for uttering them. That Truth, which did not begin to be with
the Incarnation, but which we see mirroring itself with fulfil
ment for good or evil in every age of history, has more power
over us when we see it embodied in a life, and when this life is
evidently hallowed by its presence, and passed in obedience to
its law. We see how Truth can support its own messenger, and
give secret strength in all trouble, rising in thought above that
which rules the body, and though it animate many minds, yet
remaining ever One with the highest Being. This highest Truth
makes us free from prejudice, and hatred, and fear, and gives us
access in the spirit of our minds to that which was, and is, and
is to come. Yet it is only through a drama of suffering that it
shews its fulfilment among men.
" Again, if Jesus was to be a priest, He must have some
oblation to offer. So long as priesthood belonged to a caste,
such as Brahmans or Levites, no common man might present
his offering in the place where Divine presence might be more
immediately apprehended. But when the older ignorance passed,
366 SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES.
and the face of the unseen God was unveiled to faith as that of
a Father, His presence was no longer in any high and holy
place, but wherever men would feel after Him, as not being far
from every one of us. Then, not even the least of His children
would offer sigh, or prayer, or life, or good-work, or trust, or
love, without full confidence of being accepted, as might be fit.
Thus all mankind, so far as they knew the Father of Jesus,
and their Father, became a spiritual priesthood. But Jesus,
who brought to fuller light this freedom which the Patriarchs
and Melchisedec had enjoyed, but which caste-worship had
imperfectly expressed, became the head of the more spiritual
priesthood, and offered above all His brethren an oblation beyond
price, in His own life and death, and the anguish of His consent
ing will. In Him is the fulness, both of that which gave the
old sacrifices their meaning, and of what must be in every
offering of ours, if it is to avail in the sight of God. We all
who drink into His mind, associate our feebleness with His more
perfect self-devotion ; thus as we give ourselves to God in solemn
sacrament, or in action, or in suffering, we catch a virtue not
our own; our lives become penetrated with the spirit of His
death ; and whenever heartfelt prayers and thanksgivings, or
pure thoughts and deeds of patience, or goodness, or uprightness,
are offered up by us in His holy name and spirit,* He, being
dead, yet speaketh in us, and is doubtless accepted of the
Father.
" There can be no greater sacrifice to God, than for us so to
associate our will with His will, as to melt ourselves up in the
Divine purpose, and rejoice in its fulfilment, not asking what
comes of ourselves, as if that were our own. Not to every one
is such love given ; but perhaps one sees a perverted form of it
in that passion which has made some in past years throw them
selves under the car of Jagannatha. For thus they seemed to
* If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Romans viii. 9.
Compare v. 26, and chap. vii. 6, and xiii. 8 10; and Galatians iv. 6, 7 ; v. 13, 14,
-2225.
LOVE SEEKING NOT ITS OWN. 367
express a devotion without bounds, though He who gives and
preserves our life is not pleased with such a sacrifice. Perhaps
again in your doctrine of Nirvana is an overstrained and mystical
expression for the joy of union with God, by making His design
our will. But Jesus seems more perfectly to have fulfilled
whatever truth may be in your thoughts, in that He rushed not
on self-chosen death, yet most willingly gave His life, when the
great enemy of the Divine will could only so be vanquished.
Nor can we wonder, that out of a death so holy went forth
power for life, as when a seed is cast into the ground, and dies,
but there springs up four-fold. Thus by the death of Jesus,
even more than by His life, men were drawn to His faith, as if
their souls were purified in gazing with a tragical awe; and
when they considered how much they partook of that sinfulness
in the world which made the death of Jesus necessary to deliver
us from evil, they seemed almost to partake of that which slew
Him, and were pricked to the heart. You can imagine, what
would be the revulsion in men s conscience when thus awakened.
A sympathy with the holy sufferer would awaken attention to
His doctrine ; and its truth, when listened to, would prevail in
proportion as there was good ground to receive it. Even the
rude nations of the North (as the savage Clovis and h is people)
were awakened out of their native ferocity as they felt a better
indignation at the griefs of the Man of sorrows on the Cross.
Nor should I suppose that you in India would be deaf to
the witness which unparalleled suffering gives to the highest
Truth.
" He who is so identified with the holiest cause as to lose
himself in it, will think its triumph no mean reward. Nor is
this entire self-abnegation beyond the reach of that love which
seeketh not its own, of which God makes the soul capable. Yet
we have a presentiment stretching into a faith, that the very
mind thus devoted will find from the Divine equity an acknow
ledgment of its work, and have a reward in seeing it prosper,
and even an overflow of gift beyond recompense in everlasting
368 LOVE SEEKING NOT ITS OWN.
life from Him whose breath has come upon it, and dwelt in
it*. For certainly it will find in God no less love than its
own, and it is easy for Him to give out of that eternal life
of which He has the fountain, and which He causes to flow.
Thus he who seeks not his life shall find it, if he seeks first
God, who is life, and who gives over and above. Moreover the
man will be thus kindred to God, who is love; and if he is
a son, then is he heir of the Father, by whom every fatherhood
on earth is both willed and stands. Or again, as one partakes
of that thought and love which are beyond time and death, so
the bounds of these will not hold that in Him which is above
them.
" Thus, even if Jesus the Son of Man had not risen from the
grave, He would yet have rejoiced in His work of redeeming
His own people from the curse of the law, and of binding both
Jews and all nations in the fellowship of that truth which is
before the law and beyond it. He would still have lived by His
own spirit and the spirit of the Father in that temple which is
made of living minds, so that it would be to Him a body, and
His mind would animate it. This then would be the kingdom
of the Father, whose express image would be seen in it by faith
as the very truth, and His holy will would come out in it in act,
as through eternity it is conceived in thought without bound.
Such an eternal life, I say, would be a reward to Jesus ; and it
would fulfil many of His deepest sayings of what life isf, and
what death is, and what freedom and bondage are, and many
sayings of His Apostles as to what rising from the dead is, and
of heaven and earth passing away, and of the Lord God Omni
potent reigning, and of His dwelling in His people for ever.
Hence I do not wonder that some ultra-spiritualists, or mystics,
among Christians, have thought such was the only meaning of
the words of Jesus, and is their fulfilment. They think, as I
* I Corinthians ii. 10 16.
f* Ev. St John, xvii. 3; xii. 50, 25; vi. 50, 51, 63; v. 25; viii. 34: Ephe-
sians ii. 5, 6: Romans vi. i \, 11.
RESURRECTION SPIRITUAL AND BODILY. 369
suppose, (though their thoughts are not always spoken clearly,)
that we could not doubt the life of Jesus after bodily death in
that realm of thought which He has unveiled as encompassing
and coming forth in the visible world, but that His own strong
contrast between body and soul, and the spirit of His words and
their letter, points to a spiritual rather than a bodily rising
again ; and as they find His words fulfilled in this spiritual
sense, they think the literal may have been but a parable ; but
yet as the parables of the wise have analytical self-consciousness,
while those of the sensuous Many are less conscious of their
own meaning, and come forth in the form of poetry, thus trans
lating truth into figure and thought into story, so our ultra-
spiritualists conceive, that the victory of the mind and faith of
Jesus over death and extinction took its popular expression in
the form of a story of His bodily outstanding before the senses
of His disciples, and of His visibly ascending into the heavens,
and sitting, as in royalty, at the right hand of the Supreme
King upon a throne of brightness.
" Possibly such views may not be without use in turning
inward our thoughts and deepening our sense of moral good and
evil, and so quickening our conceptions of the mental nature of
the kingdom of God. But yet the overwhelming majority of
Christian men believe, what the Apostles plainly teach, that
Jesus rose bodily from the grave on the third day, and com
muned with His disciples for forty days, and after explaining to
them the kingdom of God, was taken up from this earth into
that higher realm which we call heaven, in which the Divine
glory is more manifestly displayed. Nor yet, in saying this, do
they mean to rest merely on visible things. They gladly own
that there is something spiritual in the resurrection of Christ.
Its evidence to them is not merely the number of witnesses say
ing that they saw, but the great likelihood that He who had
lived a life of God, would come out of death with the clear
power of God. We cannot crush the air nor quench the great
breath of life by merely changing its form ; still less can we
M. p. 24
870 RESURRECTION SPIRITUAL AND BODILY.
slay any thought of the mind which goes beyond death ; and
less still any truth which takes hold of mind after mind, and
comes immortal out of every persecution. So the holiest Truth
which dwelt in Jesus, and above all the Divinity which upholds
it, and of whose very being it is the outshining, must come forth
in calm victory out of trial, and be only glorified by the opposi
tion of every enemy. But if it was necessary (because our
sensuous conceptions do not easily rise to spiritual things) that
this Divine Truth should be embodied in the life and death of
Jesus, there would be the same necessity for its embodiment in
His resurrection. Our faith is not triumphant until it has seen
the victory as well as the suffering. If the Divine thought for
this world comes to fulfilment in the flesh, so must it for the
world to come. Thus He who shewed, as the Son of Man, our
true life on earth, being lifted from the grave as the Son* of
God, shews our entrance into life eternal. Thus our Eevelation
becomes complete : and as you hold that the visible world em
bodies the Divine thinking, so Christians believe that the far
higher world, or rather the mind of God which upholds it, is
unveiled by being embodied to historical experience in the life,
the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus the
Mediator between God and man. Thus Spirit manifests itself
in matter, both lying beyond, and upholding, and coming out in
it ; sin, or rebellion against the will of the forecasting Spirit, is
taken away ; death is triumphed over ; and the kingdom of His
thought, which it is the will of God should come, is not only
seen afar by pure faith, but is brought nearer in light. Thus
our eyes behold the King in His beauty.
" That these things were so, not in parables with a meaning f
but in outward act, seems taught by the Apostles of Christ in all
their writings. It was in the power of the resurrection of their
Lord that they took courage to preach the forgiveness of sins
against that external law which lay heavy on men s consciences;
but they put instead of it a better law, the love of God per-
* Romans i. 3, 4; and viii. 1923. t i Pet. i. 16
JESUS THE CHRIST. CHRIST S COMING. 371
vading the heart, and the deeper mind which comes as a gift of
the Holy Spirit ; and thus bringing men to the Father, through
the Son who died and rose again, and through the Holy Spirit
who joins together Father and Son, they turned Jewry into
Christendom, and a world of sin, and shadows, and perplexities,
into a realm in which the eternal Author of good daily more
reigns, through the revelation of His mind in His well-beloved
Son.
" When the Apostles reasoned how their Master had fulfilled
in His own life the deepest substance of all that the law and the
prophets meant or were intended for, they could not doubt that
the mission He had received was the highest ; so that whatever
unction or consecration belonged to the office of king, or priest,
or prophet, had a higher reality in the spiritual office of the
Saviour. Thus Jesus was most eminently the Christ; hence
we are called Christians : and the things spoken of men once
anointed for office might be transferred, so far as they were
good, to Him. But His anointing was one of the Holy Spirit*,
and of marvellous power over men s hearts. For a time it might
be that some of the Apostles expected a visible reign of their
Lord on earth; but such thoughts would fade in the deeper
views of His kingdom of thought, which the Holy Spirit taught
them with experience ; and when Jerusalem was razed, and its
temple swept away, the simplest must have seen that the coming
of the Son of man, which was to be in that generation, meant
His coming in spirit and in power. When the old world of
Jewry, with its sensuous heavens, and its earth at a distance
from Grod, had passed into a kingdom of the Eternal encom
passing us, the spirit of Christ made all things f new in the
Church at large, as from the beginning He had wrought a new
and deeper mind in the hearts of those who received Him.
" Time would fail us to tell of all the deeds of the Apostles
and martyrs who went forth transforming the world in the spirit
of Jesus, as the Christ of God. It is far better you should read
* Acts x. 38. t Revelations xxi. i 5.
242
372 THE APOSTLES. ST PETER.
them in their writings, which yet breathe of the Holy Spirit, by
which they spake and lived. Unlearned, and ignorant, arid of
like passions with ourselves, they wrought by that love of God
which breathed through them such a victory for His truth over
violence and evil, as never men did before. The first in this
noble army of the Prince of Peace is Peter, who in the weakness
of man denied his master, and then repented, so that he received
strength to live and die for Him. He takes up the great lesson
of Christ, that God is a Spirit; that our sacrifices* must be
spiritual ; that all who come to God in spirit and in truth, are
now a royal priesthood, and, no less than the Jews once thought
themselves, a chosen race, and a people separate for good. Thus
men are delivered from evil, he says, not by any external rite of
purifying, but by the answer of a good conscience which should
go with our acceptance of the grace of God as members of His
Church. Nor was it an outward price, as of silver and gold,
which bought men their freedom of knowing God as He is, and
coining to Him as the Father, but the gift of His own life and
precious life s blood by our great Deliverer. St Peter, indeed,
for a time hesitated between a clear sight of the kingdom of
God thus unveiled, and some natural feelings as a Jew. He
hardly knew whether the old law had not still force, just as
some Brahman, become a Christian, might have scruples about
food, or caste ; so he hesitated about receiving Gentiles, and
eating with them before his countrymen, just as you might in
reference to some Pariah, if high -caste men were looking on.
But as God taught him more of the mind of Christ in prayer
and tranquillity of slumber, he put away such relics of the old
man, and rose to a fuller sense of our freedom before Him who
readeth the heart, and of mankind s brotherhood before our
Father in heaven. Thus he became the first to give Gentiles
every Christian symbol of their entering into the kingdom ; and
so Christ fulfilled His promise, that he should have its keys,
and open its gates, both persuading men s hearts to desire to
* f St Pet. ii. 9.
ST PETER. PROMISES TO HIM. 373
come in, and giving them the appointed emblem of allegiance
with a blessing.
" Thus upon Peter, as upon a living stone, very near to the
corner stone, which is Christ, who binds Jews and Gentiles into
one, was built the temple of living minds. Thus he too, and
the other Apostles, bound and loosed ; for such was their sim
plicity of heart, and innocence of faith, that what their good
instinct shrank from, we see still to be wrong, and what they
praised, we still find right. Such is the power of an honest
and good heart, that without learning it discerns things that
are excellent ; for it does not quench the Spirit of God, and so is
sensitive to evil and good. But what such men speak so as to
find answer in pure consciences for ever, is doubly an echo of
the law of heaven. Their freedom from rules is no rebellion
against the inner law of truth. Consider now these precepts of
St Peter, and if you find fault with them, say so ; but if they
seem to express binding truths, help me to teach them to your
children, as the religion of Christ.
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through
the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one
another with a pure heart fervently : being born again, not of cor
ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory
of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower
thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.
And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness,
but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood.
Fear God. Honour the king. Servants, be subject to your masters
with all fear ; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the fro ward.
For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure
grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buf
feted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do
well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with
God. For even hereunto were ye called : because Christ also suffered
for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps : who
did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth : who, when He was
374 ST JAMES. JEWISH CHRISTIANITY.
reviled, reviled not again j when He suffered, He threatened not ; but
committed Himself to Him that judge th righteously : who His own self
bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins,
should live unto righteousness : by whose stripes ye were healed. For
ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shep
herd and Bishop of your souls.
" Something of a Jewish mind, as once in St Peter, appears
in St James. The Gospel wears in him a half unveiled aspect.
Its good news is chiefly to the poor, that the Lord* of hosts is
their ally against wealthy oppressors. Its righteousness is alms
giving. Its foundation of the Church is the equal value of
souls in sight of one Judge. Its motive is fear of judgment,
and its tone has an echo of the Law of Sinai. Yet the law
which St James teaches is not that of the letter, but of a free
and earnest conscience. His governing principle is, to love our
neighbour as ourself. Thus he is a true disciple of Christ, of
whom by birth lie was a kinsman ; and yet he shews that he
has received the Spirit only by measure. Here is some of his
wholesome doctrine :
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning. Of His own will begat He us with the word of
truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. Where
fore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath : for the wrath of man worketh not the righte
ousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and greediness
of vice, and receive with meekness the ingrowing word, which is
able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers
only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word,
and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a
glass : for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway
forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the
perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his
tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man s religion is vain. Pure
Compare Neander s Planting of Christianity, or the Kev. A. P. Stanley s
SenttOtt* and Essays on the Apostolic Age,
ST PAUL S CONVERSION. 375
worship and undefiled before our God and Father is this, To visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world.
" There might have seemed danger of the faith of Christ
becoming a zeal for the law, or a mere reform in the religion of
the Jews. But God by His Holy Spirit sent the Apostle Paul,
whose turning with all his heart is a great sign of the power of
the Gospel, as his life became an instrument in spreading it.
His Hebrew name was Saul. He had been brought up in the
strictest form of Scriptural Pharisaism*, and was zealous for
the Mosaic Law, which he had received by tradition from his
fathers. How could he then tolerate the new way, which
degraded all that he valued into instruments of something
higher? He looked on Christians as infidels, and thought it
a duty to assail them. If it ever struck him that the old ritual
was burdensome, and not even fulfilled by himself, while the
life of Christ and of believers in Him shewed a higher right
eousness, he kicked against such goads of conscience, and turned
more fiercely to persecute. For this purpose he was on his
way to Damascus. But then God gave him a true vision of
the risen Saviour, harmless, undefiled, and blessing, and he
became a new man. The scales fell from his eyes, and his old
thoughts passed away. So he washed away his sins in the bath
of new birth, and proclaimed good news of a wider deliverance
than that of the Jews, in the name of that Master of the heart,
against whom he had striven. He still needed instruction from
human instruments, and may have gone through internal con
flicts in his three years of retirement. But he came forth the
greatest preacher of such a doctrine as I have expounded from
our Lord s Prayer. He found that not by the written law, with
out something deeper, could man become righteous with God.
For even if he fulfilled all its rites, they did not cleanse the
conscience. And who could fulfil them? It rather taught a
sense of sin, by standing with its threats over against the human
* Philippians iii. 4 6; Acts xxii. 3; Gal. 3. 14.
376 THE LAW. FREEDOM. SACRIFICE.
soul, not entering into it as a strengthener, but shewing an im
possible standard. So it became an enemy, slaying the mind
with a consciousness of discrepance between desire and perform
ance, and giving even to physical death another terror. But if
it could be shewn that this hostile law came out of love, and
that underneath it was an eternal purpose to educate in the
nature of evil, and to deliver from it, then it might become a
schoolmaster to something better. But this Christ had done,
having a mission from the Father, as an unction of the mind, to
unveil this purpose. He had proclaimed the infinite love of
God which gives strength to man, and unveiled the better
meaning of the sacrifices, and given to faith a higher righteous
ness in reconciliation of our spirits with the Father, who may
have ordered for His children precepts and terrors like stewards
and governors, but who has loved them all along, and only
educated them to do His will, which is their deliverance from
evil. Thus the Law became no more a master, but an instru
ment ; its letter was seen to be only the expression of a better
spirit ; its water was changed to wine ; it was taken away as a
terror, and only its instruction remained. It had been as a
grammar which taught our souls the language of righteousness ;
and when this became instinctive to our thoughts, the letter of
rules might be put aside. What if Christ could not reveal such
a will of God without stepping Himself into the place of the
old sacrifices, and buying our freedom with the price of His
blood ? His dedication of Himself then was that which should
give the law of things to come, as well as the interpretation of
things old. By remembering it in solemn sacrament, and re
newing it, though imperfectly, in our lives, we should have the
same pledge of God s frank forgiveness* of sin, as the Israelite
when he made his sin-offering at the altar. For by lifting up
the crucified Saviour from the grave, the Father shewed that
His offering was accepted, and that His prayer for the deliver
ance of His people could never fail. Our righteousness then
* St Luke vii. 42.
JUSTIFICATION. GENTILE CHRISTIANITY. 377
comes not of legal ritual, or of human strength, but of the love
of God which forgives us, and of His grace which gives life to
our soul, and through a faith which makes us partakers of the
mind of Christ, and enables us to look up through the Son to
the Father. But as love answers to love, so this free gift will
awaken gratitude; the unveiling of what God calls righteous
ness, as something not external but converting the heart and
reins, will both attract us with its goodness, and give us strength
for a higher life, by writing a law in our hearts, and making it
part of our spiritual being. As the Jew must not call his written
law righteousness, neither must the Gentile anything of the
same kind. We shall make no claim for almsgiving, though
willing to remember the poor. We shall not think that any
outward communion saves us, though desirous to keep the unity
of the spirit in the bond of peace. Our new law will come of
faith in the All-holy, the All-merciful, and the Spiritual Teacher.
It would be written in the unseen world, and our faith would
apprehend it. The grandest instance of its fulfilment would be the
suffering upon the cross, which the Son of God paid as a price for
the abolition of the old law of the letter. This, therefore, would
be the type after which the new life we received from Him would
fashion itself. We should offer ourselves willingly, as He was
an offering. We should die at last to all stain of evil, as He
died on the shameful tree ; we should love, as He loved us, and
rise out of the death of the soul into a life which His Spirit can
sustain in us, and which will grow up into life eternal.
" But where then were the exclusive rights of the Jew, or
as I might say to you, of any caste ? Such a faith as Christ
revealed, must be open to whoever would come thereby to the
Father. As no claim, so no acceptance of persons. Not Abra
ham s blood, but Abraham s faith. They who thought them
selves a chosen people, had to learn, that such choice was no
merit of theirs, but a gift which in the fulness of time, or as
men became fitted for it, would extend itself to true hearts
everywhere. Nor was this such a new doctrine. The old
378 THE GOSPEL PKEDESTINATED.
Prophets had spoken of all nations serving the Lord. However
much it may have been veiled, yet what the eternal God is
doing now, He had intended from of old. As thought in man
runs before action, so the predestination of the Almighty had
gone before Christianity. We could not know if we had not
first been known by Him. His grace to Israel was only a local
expression of a wider design. We see in all nature an instinctive
stretching forward to something which each of its parts is
destined to become. So among the Gentiles* there had been
a feeling after God, who was not without witness. Amongst all
men there had been a shrinking from death, and an earnest
expectation f of some higher destiny of the soul, with a groaning
to be delivered from things which came short of it. These
prophecies of what is immortal in us God had fulfilled for all
men in the person of his Son. He has given our dim faith an
assurance of hope. He comforts us in every sorrow by the
persuasion that we are treading only in the steps of His most Be
loved One, and so are having perfected in us that patience which
led to His resurrection. For this is our highest destiny, to have
that thought of God, which came forth in Him, fulfilled in us ;
then as sin is vanquished, sorrow is comforted, the will of God
is fulfilled in us, and Death, having lost the sting of a hostile
law, is no more an enemy ; but we pass through its gates after
Him who has gone before, to partake of His immortality.
" St Paul s doctrine is not a narrowing one, but as wide as
mankind |. As in Adam, if we follow lawless humours of
animal birth, all suffer a deatli of the soul ; so in Christ, if we
partake of His Spirit which does the will of the Father, all are
made alive. Nor does he rest in the letter. Though sometimes
after the manner of his age, he turns against his countrymen
their own weapons, and plays with texts ; yet his law of God
has been written in the hearts of all nations ; his fulfilment of it
* Acts xiv. 17; xvii. 27, 28; Romans ii. 14, 15.
t Romans viii. 14 19, 22 39.
+ Romans viii. 6; i Corinthians xv. 22.
ST PAUL S CHRISTIANITY SPIRITUAL AND HISTORICAL. 379
is by Love ; and the prophecies he most dwells on, are not of
genealogies, or of birthplace, or of anything earthly and visible ;
but they turn on deep correspondence of feeling, and on the
running through ancient books by the breathing of the Holy
Spirit, something of that Grace and Truth, which was fully
manifested in Christ our Lord. Nor does he care so much for
Jesus known after the flesh ; perhaps he knew more than all
our Lord s kinsmen ; but it is the eternal truth of the glorified
Christ, as taught him by the Holy Spirit, which gives him
power to persuade. Yet the epistles of St Paul only bring
out in fulness, what the discourses of Christ had implied in
simple words. You will understand them best by comparing
them together. Again, St Paul thinks the power of the re
surrection is in its lifting our inner humanity out of the death
of sin and worldliness which, shut out heaven from our gaze.
Yet he does not therefore doubt that the Divine gift of eternal
life has been exhibited bodily in Christ ; and as the Truth was
shewn to men in His incarnation, so was it in His resurrection.
For in that wonderful history it pleased God to sum up all
things heavenly in the compass of an earthly life ; that we might
hear once for all His Truth speaking, and see His Love over
flowing, and His Patience suffering, yet His Law exemplifying
itself, and then His Life coming forth from death, and His
spiritual Offspring entering into glory. For by no less a drama
could our souls, under these veils of sense, have their eyes opened
to all the mystery of the counsel, which God is working of
old and for ever. But those will be most confirmed by this
fulfilment, who have most of the faith which prophesies it
throughout mankind. Therefore to you I speak the more
hopefully. ,
"If St Paul could speak to you now, he would say much
of putting away your idols. He would speak of all caste and
sect, as he spoke of the separate sanctity of the Jews. He
would say of all austere penances, that they profit little, com
pared to that change of mind which gives peace in the love of
380 HINDUISM IN THE LIGHT OF ST PAUL.
God. He would compare all your ancestral traditions to those
of Moses, and deny that they give you a true righteousness of
God ; thus he would turn you to a more living way of faith in
our Heavenly Father, who also reads the heart, and requires
sincerity in it. Yet he would find many things in your re
ligion leading up to a higher faith, or containing germs of it.
Thus he would allow the eternal God to have trained by such
means the growing conscience of your race ; but he would
shew you a more entire harmony of Heaven and Earth in that
likeness of Himself which God has given us in the faith of
His dear Son. Both your sacrifices, and your putting away of
them, your stories of incarnation, and your theories of spiritual
growth, would have something answering to them in the faith
of Christ ; all your gentle virtues of meekness, and forgiveness,
as well as holiness, are eminently taught by Him ; and in the
glimpse He has opened of a world beyond the grave, your
imagination would find an infinity answering to the vastness of
its own dreams, but with an actual fulfilment, which they un
fortunately want.
" If you would read St Paul, comparing things that cor
respond among the Hindus and Hebrews, as for instance the
old Brahmanical caste with the Levites, and the overgrown Law
of Moses with your traditional system, and the new spiritual
life which Christ breathed into the world with the attempts
of reformers in India, you would find St Paul s reasonings
with the Jews apply often to yourselves ; and conclude, I trust,
that Christianity is more likely than any Indian creed to fulfil
the Sri Bhagavat s prophecy by bringing all men to the
knowledge of God. But here is some of the practical advice
which St Paul wrote from prison to his friends :
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on
things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your
life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Mortify there-
ST PAUL S COUNSELS. 381
fore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, unclean-
ness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and viciousness, which
is idolatry : for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the
children of disobedience : in the which ye also walked sometime, when
ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these ; anger, wrath,
malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not
one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his
deeds ; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of Him that created him : where there is neither Greek
nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond
nor free : but Christ is all, and in all. Put on therefore, as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of
mind, meekness, long-suffering ; forbearing one another, and forgiving
one another, if any man have a quarrel against any : even as Christ
forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity,
which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in
your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be
ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wis
dom ; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing with thanks heartily to the Lord. And
svhatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God our Father by Him. Wives, submit
yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Hus
bands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children,
obey your parents in all things: for this is wellpleasing unto the
Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be dis
couraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the
flesh ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers ; but in singleness of
heart, fearing God : and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the
Lord, and not unto men ; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
the reward of the inheritance : for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he
that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done : and
there is no respect of persons. Masters, give unto your servants that
which is just and equal ; knowing that ye also have a Master in
heaven. Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanks
giving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us
a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am
also in bonds.
" You will not wonder that a religion which bore fruits like
these in act spread rapidly in the world. For all men desire
382 ST JOHN. THE APOCALYPSE.
happiness; and to follow counsels such as these is to become
happy in this life, and to enter with a good conscience on a
better. Nor is there a higher witness to God than goodness ;
and men found in the deeds of Christians who thus lived, the
will of our Father who is in heaven. Thus, before St John, the
youngest of Christ s disciples died, about a century from his
Master s birth, the Church had leavened the world. This
John in his youth had the fervent zeal of Elijah. In his
first book, which is the Eevelations, he records the visions
in which God shewed him judgment about to fall on Jeru
salem*. Thus he is carried in spirit to the great Day of the
Lordf. He sees the Son of God, who had suffered as a lamb
sacrificed on earth, standing with all His company in heaven.
The beast of worldly pride and idolatrous power makes war on
the saints. The Church, or new society of believers, is as a
woman giving birth to a man-child, who is caught up into
heaven, but she is driven into the wilderness. God, however,
avenges her by sending woes on the guilty City and land. His
martyrs, slain in the body, live in the spirit. The imperial
City, which sat on seven hills, is to be judged as well as the
earthly Jerusalem. Therein we have a type of every worldly
Babylon which opposes its pride to the spiritual kingdom of
God. As Titus destroyed what was once the Holy City, so the
Goths and the Vandals destroyed Eome. The Pagan emperors
and nations made war against the Truth of God, but were over
thrown in mutual strife, and with the sword of the Spirit. But
the Truth went forth prevailing; and the spiritual Jerusalem,
or the church and kingdom to which Christians say that the
old promises of the Jewish Sion are now extended according to
the divine design, came forth in majesty out of the counsel
of God. Even during the siege of Jerusalem, those believers
who fled, in faith of Christ s warning, to Pella, had been sealed,
* Revelations i. i; xxii. 7; xi. 8; xvi. 19. The expositions of Michaelis, of
Moses Stuart, and of the Rev. P. S. Pesprez, B.D., may be compared.
t Revelations i. ro. A day of the Lord is a signal judgment, or manifestation
of His power. Revelations vi. 17; xvi. 14.
ST JOHN S GOSPEL. 383
as it were, in their foreheads. In the subsequent confusions
their faith and patience made them inherit the earth. Then the
old enemy of lawless might and idolatrous tyranny was bound
as it were in chains, for all the ages during which the Church
shall evolve herself in the world. The kingdoms, once thought
to depend on earthly might, acknowledge the rule of our Lord
and of His Christ. So Christ came quickly, even according to
His promise, before the generation which heard Him had passed
away. But the new kingdom of God has gone on growing, and
though, when the Spirit of her Lord has grown faint in her, she
has become part of the world, and partaken of its judgments ;
yet in proportion as He lives within her members, she has
become a tree of healing to the nations, and a gate through
which men pass into life eternal.
" These things John, the son of thunder, saw in vision of the
Lord s day of wrath. But in his old age he wrote his more
perfect Gospel, in which he sets forth the words which the
Wisdom of God spake to men. It was now clearer than ever
that Jesus had been the messenger of God ; so He was the
Christ, and His followers Christians ; the entire thought of the
Eternal had found fulfilment in Him, and the likeness of God
was shewn in Man. In proportion as the Apostles learnt Him
to be the Deliverer not only of Jews, but of all nations, the
more strongly they felt His kingdom to be not of this world,
nor His words to be of man s speaking, but to come of His
oneness with the Father. Thus Christ is set forth by St Paul
and St John more clearly than by others, as the Son of God.
To His perfect wisdom all the prophets give partial witness ;
and the better thoughts of great teachers everywhere are joined
in His perfect truth. Thus the desire of all nations, the longing
faith of men of old, even as the eternal will of the Father, is
fulfilled in Christ. We have in Him the same Word which
made the heavens of old, and which dwelt as Wisdom for ever
in the bosom of the Eternal. From Him comes forth that
Breath of the Lord s mouth which makes all the invisible hosts.
384 ST JOHN S GOSPEL.
He has emptied Himself of His own, by compressing infinity in
the life of a man, thereby opening our eyes to the eternal
world. If such a helper seem taken from us, it will be only to
dwell among us unseen, or to give us His Spirit, as a Pleader
on part of God with us, and on our part with God. Hence
come our holiest thoughts, our secret prayers, and our quickened
faith, which is no longer an obscure groaning, but yet one that
cannot be uttered in words, for the manifestation of the glory of
the sons of God. This is the water of eternal life, which alone
slakes our soul s thirst. This truth makes us free from bondage
of caste, and worldliness, and sin, and fear, and is the beginning
of our eternal life.
" Thus John writes of Christ :
In the beginning was the Word*, and the Word* was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were born through Him ; and without Him was not any
thing born, that is born. In Him was life ; and the life was the light
of men. And the light shineth in darkness : and the darkness compre
hended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light,
that all men through Him might believe. He was not that Light,
but was sent to bear witness of that Light, that the true Light,
which lighteth every man, was coming into the world. He was
in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him
not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name :
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and
dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only-begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
" These also he gives among the latest words of Christ
before He suffered upon the cross :
1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and
said, Father, the hour is come ; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also
may glorify thee : as thou hast given Him po vver over all flesh, that
Loyos, the Word, means also Reason.
RECAPITULATION. 385
He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. And
this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and
Jesus, whom thou hast sent to be the Anointed. I have glorified thee
on the earth : I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the
glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world:
thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept
thy word Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them
into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through
their word ; that they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the
world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which
thou gavest me I have given them j that they may be one, even as
we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made
perfect in one j and that the world may know that thou hast sent
me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will thab
they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am j that
they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me : for thou
lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
"I trust I have now said enough to give a fair idea of the
faith of Christ. You have heard the preparation for it in
Hebrew history, and of the change from letter to spirit, and
from a nation into humanity, and from law into a message of
grace and truth. You have also heard how the Son of God was
the Author and Finisher of this blessed change, and how His
principal Apostles taught after His death. There are many
things, such as the great day of the coming of the Holy Spirit
upon the Apostles, and the later growth of the Church, which
require yet to be treated. But I trust you see that we have
a wonderful history, ending in a perfect religion, and a very
wholesome literature recording both. These things should make
you search for yourselves our sacred books, with prayer for
that Holy Spirit, the teaching of which we declare our faith to
be; and I hope, if you compare these things fairly with the
M.P. 25
386
SEAECH WITH PRAYEE.
entangled system of Hinduism, and with the better voices of your
own conscience and experience, you will find the highest of
teachers, the Father of our spirits, from whom every good gift
comes, leading you into all truth. But remember, that, as water
takes colour from its vessel, so you must come with pure heart
and life, or at least with earnest crying to God for them, to
drink of these fountains of immortality."
HARMONY IX DIVERSITY. #87
CHAPTER XI.
Scripture Criticism, Miracles, Church History.
"I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures ; and that He was buried, and that He
rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that He was seen of
Cephas, then of the twelve : after that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren
at once ; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen
asleep. After that, He was seen of James ; then of all the apostles. And last of all
He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." i COR. xv. 3 8.
"The fearful strains of the Law are repeated, the grace of the Prophets recog
nised, the faith of the Gospels established, the tradition of the Apostles kept, and
the grace of the Church triumphant." Letter to Diognetus [by an early ecclesiastical
writer ; not impossibly, as Bunsen thinks, Marcion (?)]
WHETHER Blancombe had intended stopping here I hardly
know, but Sadananda interposed some remarks. " Your ex
position," he said, " has been very interesting, and the practical
part at least of your religion agrees so well with what we con
sider most reasonable and holy, that I see no objection to it.
You have also shewn that Christianity is a legitimate growth
from some germs in Judaism ; so that any one, admitting the
Divine authority of the older dispensation, might in spiritual
freedom be led on to accept the newer. The question to me is,
whether I might not be equally led into a right path by Indian
history, as containing also an exemplification of Divine truths
within a human theatre, or whether the Hebrew history contains
so much clearer marks of Divine government, that I must
change my native point of view, and adopt that of a foreign
nation. For you know that men may be educated under dif
ferent music masters into one essential law of harmony ; and so
men may find in different countries different instances of one
governing law of justice and truth. Nor is love, I suppose, a
different feeling, because it is expressed in a variety of lan
guages. Why should not devotion then be one and the same
252
388 S^NKHYA SHORTCOMING.
thing, though connected with different words, and exemplified
as to its blessings in a variety of persons and countries ? Hence
I could wish you would do fairly for the literature of the
Hebrews what you have done for that of the Hindus, applying
the same tests to each." "What do you mean?" asked Blan-
combe. " Why," replied the other, " you have shewn that
critical men can apply certain tests to decide the age in which
books, claiming a high antiquity, may really have been written;
and thus light has been thrown upon the claims of various books
to an immutable authority. I find no fault with such a process,
for the Sankhya philosophy admits that sacred books may con
tain errors, or at least only a temporary kind of knowledge,
which will admit of improvement from reasoning. But I should
like to hear what the most critical inquirers, and not merely
religious teachers, say of all the Hebrew literature."
"In the first place," remarked Blancombe, "I could wish
that you had been led by your own sacred books, or in any way,
to acknowledge a supreme Iswara, who governs nature, instead
of certain subordinate divinities issuing from it. For then we
should have more ground in common, and you would have a
great truth, upon which you are now weak. Perhaps it is just
in this point that your Indian history has failed to lead you
aright. In that case the difference is so essential, that it is
alone a reason for your endeavouring to start from the Hebrew
point of view; which I have tried to represent as the most
reasonable a priori, and which has borne the positive fruit of
Christianity; while your native views have not issued in the
general adoption by your countrymen of any faith so wholesome.
Our better fruit is a proof that our tree was better.
" But, in the second place, the mere criticism of the Hebrew
literature is by no means so essential to Christianity, as that of
the Vedas and Purdnas is to the religion of the Hindus. For
the othodox view of these latter, as represented by our venerable
friend here, is that they came from the mouth of Brahma, and
partake of his substance. They ought therefore to be infallible ;
CHRISTIANITY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 389
and even unimportant errors in science become fatal to such a
claim for them. Again, the Hindi! system is represented as
immutably sacred, and as having been fixed from the beginning.
Every change, therefore, in Hindu thought or society, as repre
sented in the many stages of your Sastras, becomes fatal to the
first idea of the whole system ; and the great number of such
changes cuts the whole ground of authority from under your
feet. Whereas the faith of Hebrews and of Christians is emi
nently in the living God. The distinctive characteristic of
Christianity is to assert an immense change, which has been in
the direction of progress, and that chiefly by one great step,
though also by smaller ones, in the Revelation of the same
Eternal Being. Any discrepancy therefore between our earlier
books and our later ones, so long as one great idea has gone on
unfolding itself, is not at all a detriment to our faith, but an
illustration of its very substance. As to changes of manners,
and widening of the intellectual horizon from time to time, and
all kinds of personal peculiarities which appear, these are, and
ought to be, in such books as we profess to hand down. We
say the earliest part was written by Moses, another part by
David, and others by prophets in various ages. These works
of many authors ought to wear every variety of feature, in
manner, temper, and knowledge. To shew that they are so
varied, is to confirm the account which we give of them, and
they of themselves. For we have never said that our Bible
sprung to light in a single hour, or dropt from heaven, as by
magic. We think it rather a collection of the sacred records of
a religious society, and an embodiment of that society s expe
riences, regarding as well the body as the soul. Nor do the
accidents of human shortcoming, in any of our books, and least
of all in the earlier, tell against our religion. For we do not
worship relics of any kind, the authenticity of which would
need to be guaranteed. Our worship is one of the mind, and is
directed to the Father of our spirits. We heartily thank Him
for having exemplified His grace and truth in many instances
390 CHRISTIANITY ACCEPTS CRITICAL RESULTS.
of men who have gone before us ; but, while we cherish sacred
records of such instances, our essential trust is in the Lord
God Omnipotent, who doeth wondrous things, rather than in
the human writings in which His works are recorded. We do
indeed believe, that the same Holy Spirit, by which Christians
are moved now, moved holy men of old ; and the experience of
the past is an instrument which helps to awaken the conscious
ness of the present, as well as to give us the confirmation of
many witnesses. Still the Christian has emphatically a dispen
sation of the spirit * rather than of the letter ; and my com
parison of the Jewish doctrine with the Christian must have
shewn how much I mean by these words. Not only is Christ
ianity Truth, but Truth is Christianity; which some may not
enough remember; and while we love the truth as a thing of
God, no discovery of what is true can hurt us. Hence it stands
in the essence of a Christian s faith, that he should be less
moved by human accidents in the historical records or written
expressions of his religion, than Hindus should be, who claim
an immutable infallibility for the entire system of their Sastras.
Again, so far as we appeal to any books as authorities in our reli
gion, we do so chiefly to those comprehended in our Bible. What
these books say of themselves is to be believed by us, rather
than what others say of them. But there is no better evidence
for their age or meaning than what is written in themselves.
In believing, then, as most probable what they thus tell us, we
hold also the most religious belief; and that to which our own
principles lead us. For although learned commentators or Jewish
traditions may have taught differently, yet we never ascribe to
them the same authority as to holy Scripture; so that their
comments, either of conjecture or tradition, both may and ought
to be set aside, whenever they contradict the internal witness of
Scripture, either to reason, or to other sound tests. Whatever,
then, critics may truly discover out of Scripture to be the age
or meaning of certain books, as soon as their discovery is esta-
* i Corinthians ii. : 2 Corinthians iii.
ESTIMATE OF JEWISH JUDGMENTS. 391
Wished, it is the Scriptural doctrine, and as such, our religion
accepts it. How can followers of the Scripture be frightened
by what it says of itself? Still less can those whose mental
allegiance is to the very truth, and whose Master came into the
world to bear witness to the truth, shrink back from anything
true. The truer anything seems, the more Christ bids us to
receive it."
"All that maybe as you say," replied Sadananda; "but
still it would be agreeable to me to know, how far there is any
discrepancy among Christians in such matters, and how far a
criticism, like that you have given specimens of, could be borne
by your sacred books." "Well," replied Blancombe, "I feel
no objection to any fair criticism. But here is Dr Wolff, whose
turn of mind as to our sacred books you may infer from his pre
vious discourses. He will perhaps give you the advantage of
whatever difficulties the critics have raised."
" I am afraid," began Wolff, " you are laying on me an
invidious task. But I believe that many critics would place
the contents of the Bible in a different order of time from that
which most religious teachers prefer." " Do you mean," here
asked Blancombe, " that they would do so upon the internal
evidence?" " Yes, I conceive so," answered the other. " Then
so far," resumed Blancombe, " as any critical view answers to
the internal evidence, it becomes the Scriptural one; and no
well-instructed Christian should object to it." "Very well,"
said Wolff; " but these sort of things are to be considered. It
is not to be denied, that before the Christian era began the
Hebrew canon was closed ; nor are any of its contents later than
the date you have assigned to the latest, or about 150 B. c. But
most Christians claim a very much higher antiquity for the Old
Testament. When we ask for proofs of it, we find that the
Jews had very slender knowledge of such points, and no trust
worthy tradition of theirs, external to the Bible, goes farther
back than the Babylonian captivity. It is admitted that many
books, such as Haggai, and Zechariah, and Ezra, and Chronicles,
392 GROWTH OF LEVITICAL SYSTEM.
are written after the return from Babylon. Now why are we
to put the five books of Moses a thousand years earlier, or
1500 B. c. instead of 500 ? The reasons for doing so must be
found, if anywhere, in the books themselves. Whereas the
fifth book, or Deuteronomy, is according to its Greek name
a new edition, or a recast of the Mosaic law; and possibly
its date may be much more recent. We read* in the reign of
Josiah, 610 B. c., that Hilkiah the priest gave Shaphan a book,
which he gave the king; and the whole kingdom seems to
have been re-formed on the model of "this book. We are told
that Hilkiah found this book in the house of the Lord, but
there is nothing to shew that he did not write it. Again, the
age of Solomon, when the temple was built, was evidently one
in which the Levitical priesthood was developing itself, and may
have given birth to such books. Half a century earlier the in
fluence of Samuel was in the ascendant, and perhaps a contest,
such as you have noticed signs of elsewhere, may be traced in
the reluctance of the prophet to consecrate a king, and in his
subsequent quarrels with the chosen Saul. There are many
points of resemblance, as seems even admitted, between the
Brahmanical caste, and the Levitical tribe. The Magians among
the Medes and the Chaldseans at Babylon might furnish a similar
parallel. If any such officers were authors or guardians of the
literature, they might edit it in the long period between Samuel
and Ezra according to their own views. Yet they might act,
not only as a priesthood, but as part of the nation whose tra
ditions they shared; and hence popular as well as sacerdotal
elements would find an expression, as we have found to be the
case in India. But we must not point to Viswamitra and
Sunahsephas, without remembering that Solomon f sacrificed,
though a king, and that Abraham was tempted to slay his son.
The Levitical system therefore must have grown, no less than the
Brahmanical, and admitted equally of improvement in worship
* 2 Kings xxii. 10, n; 2 Chronicles xxxiv. 14, 15, 18, 19.
t i Kings viii. 62 65.
GROWTH OF THE BIBLE BY STEPS. 393
from a clearing of its faith by humanity. Why should not
Deuteronomy express the fuller form of the Levitical system ?
Certainly its style has a more redundant flow than the earlier
books. Again, the book of Numbers tells us in chapter xxi, that
it contains quotations from earlier records, such as the book of
the wars of the Lord. Such a record eould not be older than
Moses, and if it were contemporary, would hardly have been
quoted by him ; so that the book quoting it must be of a later
age. But often in the Pentateuch, and especially in Genesis,
there are citations from older documents, especially genealogical
tables ; and this accounts for the same things being mentioned
in one set of narratives with the name Jehovah, and in another
with that of Elohim. I am very far from saying that such com
pilation from authorities implies even a shade of ill faith; but
it points to more than one author, and more ages than one. But
if the Pentateuch has portions later than Moses, still more evi
dently has the book you call after Joshua signs of a later date.
For it mentions the name of Jerusalem, which was not borne by
the city of Jebus until king David had captured it, and even
expressly the partial occupation of the same city by the tribe
of Judah, which was subsequent at least to Joshua s death. It
mentions even the mountains of Israel and of Judah, and thereby
implies knowledge of the political division not known before
Saul s time. It quotes again the book of Jashar, or of sacred
songs, which no contemporary would quote as evidence for what
he had seen, and which may not have existed so early, certainly
was not completed until the death of Saul. But the whole
narrative is without disguise the work of a date later than the
events ; for the author speaks of posterity, and of certain things
continuing to this day, that is, to a later date. But if the book
of Joshua was compiled not earlier than the time of Samuel,
other historical books may require to be similarly brought down.
" Consider now the remarkable case of the Psalms, which
are called after David. Some of them may have preceded the
building of the temple ; as for instance those which lay especial
394 THE PSALMS. DANIEL. ZECHARIAH.
stress upon the ark of the tabernacle. But others refer to
many disasters or deliverances of most different ages, such as
the siege of Sennacherib, the exile in Babylon, and, if the best
critics are not mistaken, even the desolation of the holy places
under Antiochus Epiphanes. Over what a lapse of centuries,
then, do not these sacred songs extend! As to the titles
prefixed to them, they may, as a bare possibility, have had some
ground of tradition; but they so often contradict the internal
evidence, that we may more reasonably ascribe them to the
glossings of early Rabbins. They stand therefore on no better
ground than the Vedic Brahmanas and Sutras.
" But what will be the bearing of this sort of inquiry upon
the prophecies ? As to the book of Daniel, no canons of pure
criticism will allow us to place it earlier than the time of An
tiochus, or 170 160 B. c. For in the first place the external
evidence brings it low ; since the Jews arranged it not among
their ancient prophets, but among the later miscellaneous writ
ings, which are called the Hagiographa. Secondly, it has not
only Greek, but Macedonian words ; and these would be very
improbable in a Jewish writing before the age of Alexander.
Thirdly, it has plain and minute history, though in a prophetic
form, down to the age of Antiochus. Now I assent to the
canon, justly laid down, that any minute descriptions of external
events must be considered historical rather than predictive,
unless clear testimony is shewn to the existence of the book
containing them at a date prior to the events ; whereas with
the book of Daniel the external evidence is for the lower date.
In the same manner it may be remarked, that the book ascribed
to Zechariah has about eight chapters which seem contempora
neous with the return from Babylon, and bear due marks of that
time. But it has about six others, which are in an entirely
different style, implying not the joy of return, but the agitation
of alarm or struggle, while they mention a conflict with the
sons of Greece*, No fair criticism would allow us to place
* Zechaviah ix. 13.
ISAIAH. 395
these latter chapters before the age of Alexander; though they
may be somewhat later.
" As to portions of other prophets, I need only observe that
they are arranged piecemeal, and in no consecutive order*, as
in the case of Jeremiah is allowed. There are critics, and not
the worst, who think that the last twenty-seven chapters of
Isaiah are of a later date than the first thirty-nine. Without
speaking too positively on an unsettled point, I think that both
the contents and the change of style render this conjecture pro
bable ; nor is there even a shadow of external evidence to turn
the scale against whatever may be the internal probability.
Finding then, as we do, that the first thirty-nine chapters speak
of various events in succession, but chiefly in a tone of rebuke
and threatening, with some interspersion of promises to repent
ance ; while all the later chapters are in a sustained tone of
exultation and a breaking out into joy for the glad tidings on
the mountains of the decree of return from captivity, I assent to
the chronological distinction which good critics have drawn.
Even verbal arguments f to the same effect are brought, though
not without dispute, among philologers.
"Now comes an important question, whether the results of
chronological and other criticism affect the sacred character of
the Bible, as a collection of religious books. It has been argued,
that the religion itself is independent of such inquiries, and only
bids us accept calmly whatever the Scriptures may say or imply
of themselves or of the secular circumstances in which they had
their origin. Nor can I deny, that such independence agrees
very well with the spiritual view of Christianity as a kingdom
not of this world, but as one taking possession of the thoughts
which wander through eternity, and of souls destined to enjoy
it. I should be constrained to admit, that a knowledge and a
peace which the world cannot give, can neither be taken away
* Bishop Watson s Apology for the Bible.
t Compare Jahn, Introductio in libros Vet. Fold., and Dr Samuel Lee s Dis
courses on Prophecy, containing a reply to Gesenius.
396 HOW CRITICISM AFFECTS PROPHECY.
by worldly accidents, affecting either ourselves or our sacred
books and tlieir authorship. But on the other hand, to those
who hug the Jewish views of external prophecy and of ari
earthly kingdom, great difficulties appear to arise from a critical
investigation of the Bible. For in the first place, the prediction
of external events is rendered doubtful by any uncertainty as to
the date of books. If the latter part of Isaiah is rather contem
poraneous with Cyrus than prior to him by a century, it may
remain a glorious outburst of national thanksgiving and recog
nition of Jehovah, who, although he had suffered his priests
and prophets to be slain, was now bringing about their pious
anticipations ; but it will not have the positive air of a descrip
tion of events beforehand, which some would find in it.
" We may now ask as to the Hebrew predictions in general,
if they are of events nearly contemporary, by how long did the
sayings come first? Was the interval ever too great for his
torical sagacity and human presentiment to overleap ? Or if, as
some tell us, there are predictions referring to a future still
remote, how do we know these will be fulfilled? Some expect
the Jews to occupy Palestine again. I have not found for my
self any predictions of a restoration, which may not have had an
adequate fulfilment in the six hundred years of nationality
between Cyrus and Titus. But as the canon was closed long
before that period ended, it is a gratuitous assumption that any
additional period was ever contemplated. Again, if the pre
dictions refer to a coming Messiah, were they fulfilled literally
in Jesus? If we make some allowance for the inflation of
Eastern style, tlieir text applies better to ancient kings and
prophets, such as Solomon or Jeremiah, and others of the class
of persons of whom I think it demonstrable that the old pro
phets conceived themselves to be speaking.
" But if we leave prophecy, a farther consequence arises. If
we ask what is the range of knowledge in the books of the Old
Testament, we find it answer in each case to the horizon of the
age, in which a fair criticism places the books. Moses knows
SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE AND SPHERE OF SCRIBE COINCIDE. 397
Egypt, and Solomon whatever Tyre or Tarshish could teach.
Daniel exhibits a wider acquaintance with the activity of the
Greeks. In the books after the captivity, we find the Zoroas-
trian personification of evil first tinging the language of the
Jews ; as in Kings, it is the Lord who tempts David, but in
Chronicles Satan stands up. So the names and distinctions of
the angels are reported by the Jews themselves to have been
brought from Babylon. But, if we find the system to have
thus grown as an organisation ; if human knowledge accumulates
upon it, according to natural opportunity, while even its sacred
ideas are tinged by contact with foreigners ; if prophecy becomes
less demonstrably predictive of events in proportion as the books
containing it are rightly placed, may not the Hindus retort your
question, What becomes of any supernatural communication ?
I have not dwelt upon miracles, for our friends here would pro
bably allow them to any extent*, and only relate to you greater
marvels in return ; but the farther any books are removed from
the events mentioned in them, the wider becomes the room for
magnifying whatever happened. Those who know the force of
imagination, and how easily poetry takes the place of history,
while popular traditions may receive from a learned caste a
written form, will easily apprehend what I mean. However I
have said enough, in deference to your wishes, to enable Sada-
nanda to judge, how far the rationale of explanation which
criticism applies to things wonderful in Scripture, has a de
structive effect or not."
Here Wolff paused ; and Blancombe, turning to Mountain,
said smiling, "Perhaps it is time to bring up heavier metal."
Accordingly his elder friend, with a reverend sort of gravity,
began.
" We should be careful to state facts rightly, and then draw
inferences. The external evidence for the Pentateuch goes up
much higher than the Babylonian exile, or the reign of Josiah,
when Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law. For the five
* See the Abbe Dubois on Hindu miracles.
398 EXTERNAL MENTION OF THE LAW.
books of the Pentateuch are received as sacred by the Samaritans ;
and it is impossible to conceive the,y would adopt anything from
the Jews later than the eighth century before Christ, in which
the mutual enmity of the two nations became intense. Nor is it
likely that the ten tribes would have done so later than the
disruption under B/ehoboam, which was early in the tenth
century before our era. Here is, therefore, nearly a thousand
years before Josephus, with hostile evidence concurring for the
genuineness of the Pentateuch as a whole. But again, although
the Jews have little high tradition external to the Bible, yet
the different books of the Bible, being written in different ages,
are so far external to each other, that they supply a balance of
mutual testimonies. All the historical books, and also that of
the Psalms, refer back to the law or the commandments of the
Lord*, as to a thing well known in the times of their authors.
No one can pretend that these books are not of a strictly his
torical kind, for they have a careful order of persons and events,
with references to documents from which they are drawn. Under
the entire period of the kings it is clear that there were scribes
and recorders f, whose business it was to keep a chronicle of
events. Even if we suppose them not to have been free from
natural prepossessions, they still set down events with an ap
pearance of general fidelity. They shew no sign of flattering
kings, and often blame even the priestly order. Nor is there
reason to doubt, that in the time of the judges similar records
must have been kept, though perhaps in a less formal manner.
When then all these historical books refer back to the law, as
to something known, they prove the great antiquity of that law
by an evidence external to it. Nor is the farther evidence of
customs and rites to be overlooked. For certainly the building
of the temple, and the still earlier reverence for the ark, point
back to an ancient Mosaic law, and to a Levitical system,
* Judges iii. 4, 5 ; 2 Kings xviii. 12, xxi. 7, 8 ; Psalm xl. 8 ; Joshua viii. 34 ;
Jahn, Introductio, &c.
t 2 Sam. xx. 24, 25.
PENTATEUCH. 399
whether this was so strictly observed as in later times, or pos
sibly not. It is by no means necessary to deny a play of human
struggle between the elements of the state, or the occasional
neglect of the law, which yet may have been handed down.
For the conduct of nations never reaches their professed
standard. We are told expressly, that the law of Moses was
neglected by king and people ; but if we believe that Hilkiah
gave a book to Shaphan, we should believe also that he found
it, as is said ; especially since the Samaritans admit the whole
Pentateuch to be older than that time.
"If we look at the Pentateuch itself, the difference of
style in Deuteronomy is fairly ascribed by scholars to the old
age of Moses*, going over with the confidence of a great leader
all the deliverance he had wrought for his people, and the
precepts of which he had a right to demand their observance.
But even if every part of the Pentateuch should not be from the
hand of Moses, it all expresses one law, and so far one mind.
If only half the five books had been written by Moses, and as
much as half by later captains or high priests, no important
consequence to our religion would ensue. The history, the
ritual, the framework of the Hebrew polity, would be sub
stantially the same.
" As to the quotations from popular poetry in the book of
Numbers, there is no reason why Moses should not have em
bodied the sayings of his contemporaries, which would give
them an interest in his more formal record; or, even if these
should betoken some later compilation, they would still be frag
ments of very venerable tradition. Again, the book of Genesis
is remarkable for its Egyptian words, which are just what might
be expected from the contact of Moses with Egypt. If a later
writer had written this book, and inserted such things, he would
have inserted them also in the later books, where they do not
appear. All the description of Egyptian society is just what all
ancient accounts of Egypt, and the monumental stones, would
* Jahn, <is before.
400 PENTATEUCH, COMPILATION OF DOCUMENTS.
lead us to expect. Do ancient writers speak of sacred caste in
Egypt ? So does Moses. Do they speak of shepherd conquerors
from Syria and Arabia? In harmony with this Moses tells us
every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians. Do the
Egyptian dynasties mount up to a high antiquity ? So Moses tells
us of kings, priests, soldiers, body-guards, the use of fine linen,
and a settled trade with other countries, from 2000 to 1500 B.C.
As to the ancient genealogies in Genesis, there is no attempt
to conceal them. How- can they then be made a fault ? Such
ancient records give a value to the book. They both attest the
good faith of the writer, and enable him to extend his range of
credibility backward. It is not only Moses we are reading, but
some of the most venerable and trustworthy records of that early
age of the human race. Nor is the historical chronology of
Moses necessarily shorter than it ought to be. We may make
it so, if we draw inferences from men s lives. But Moses has
only in few places given a number of years ; and he gives no
intimation that the aggregate of such years comprehended all
the world s history. In the tenth chapter of Genesis the most
learned critics think that we were intended to understand races
or nations rather than individuals, and the plural terminations
of the names put this beyond fair doubt. As to the genea
logies of men, Moses is only answerable for inserting them as he
found them ; and we have no reason to doubt that he did so.
Any difficulty which arises from comparing such tables should
be ascribed, either to our want of data for solving it, or to the
variety of tradition in the families whose documents he transmits
to us. He does not represent it as part of the Hebrew faith,
much less of the Christian, that we should have a certainty of
the genealogy in every patriarchal tent having been kept scien
tifically. The duty of the Jew was to keep the statutes and
judgments of the Lord; that of the Christian is to walk after
the mind of Christ; any historical information may be useful
for our instruction ; but the force of ancient traditions is not to
be strained beyond the intention or the means of information of
SPIRIT OF HEBREW HISTORY. 401
the writers who hand them down. The period of the history most
important to the Hebrew commonwealth begins with Abraham.
From his time to that of Joshua, there may be room for grave
consideration, how far the human element, within which in a
way the Divine wisdom manifests itself, is also reflected in the
sacred narrative ; for we expect the thoughts of men to appear
in their words, and the imagination even of a nation under
Divine guidance, to be mirrored in its writings ; but certainty
we see a great Providence working, and the Divine promise to
the patriarch s faith coming wonderfully to fulfilment. It is
hardly too much to say, that the subsequent history of the
Israelites is a proof of the general authenticity of the Penta
teuch. For no one doubts their living in Canaan, their belief
in Jehovah, their festivals and ritual, or their ark and temple.
These things arose in some way ; and no account of their origin
can be given more probable than that recorded in these five
books, which we have seen to be of such high antiquity. This
argument is both true generally, and will bear special appli
cation to the more wonderful events of the earlier history. For
there runs through the Hebrew mind in many generations a
belief in supernatural interposition on a national scale, or in the
special manifestation to Hebrews of the Divine government of
the world. I would lay less stress on this, if it belonged only
to some dim traditional age, or came out only in poetry (though
poetry too has a truth of its own) ; but it is very striking in
conjunction with that prosaic habit of chronicling things year
by year, which we find among the Jews, as well as with the
literal veneration for documents, which they carried afterwards
to excess. Considered in this conjunction with historical accu
racy, the unshakeable belief among the Jews of wonderful
displays of Divine Providence becomes more significant*. It
seems to shew that the Almighty had given them a special
lesson, which they were to exemplify before the nations. Again,
every argument for the antiquity of the Pentateuch renders the
* See the XlXth Sermon in a volume called " Rational Godliness."
M. P. 26
402 PENTATEUCH. JOSHUA.
more wonderful portions of the narrative more credible, since
it leaves less room for the shaping power of the imagination.
Here also come in the striking prophecies of the Hebrew destiny,
which the same books contain; for if these precede the first
occupation of Canaan, they give a wonderful forecast of the
future in its more general features down to the siege of the city
by Titus. Yet they have not that specification of names and
persons which has appeared questionable elsewhere.
" The genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch being
allowed, I do not see that any earlier date for the book of Joshua
need be asserted, than what the book itself points to. It is
evidently compiled from documents older than itself; and these
may have been contemporary with the conquest*. It shews the
good faith of the writer, that he enables you to fix his date,
without the remotest insinuation to the contrary. The received
title may refer to the subject, and is not affixed to the author.
Our Master Christ has nowhere said, that we should place the
books of the Old Testament otherwise than they place them
selves. Nor has He determined how far they are affected by the
more general laws of Divine Providence in history. Thus, if in
Joshua we find tables of the division of the land among the
tribes, and also quotations from a book of songs, we may leave
every man to determine, whether the nature of prose and poetry
should alter his way of understanding either ; but whatever way
is the truest is the scriptural one ; and freedom, with sincerity,
in adopting either way, is most agreeable to our Christian
faith. Only we should not doubt the Israelite conquest of
Canaan, for there is no reason to doubt it.
"What you have said of the Psalms only fills me with
amazement, that you should conceive such criticism to be an
objection. True, David, as the most illustrious of the psalmists,
has precedence of the others in name. But how many of the
psalms are expressly ascribed in our Bibles to Asaph, Heman,
the sons of Korah, and others? Yet more weighty than any
* This is argued well and minutely by Jahn, in his Introduction, &c.
BOOK OF PSALMS. 403
titles are the contents of the Psalms themselves. If they allude
to events extending from the age of the Judges, or earlier, to that
of Antiochus Epiphanes, they give thereby an echo and a wit
ness to the living Providence which so long wielded the national
destiny. If they cling with especial fondness to the temple-
service, this is what might be expected from the existence of a
worship divinely appointed. If they enter into the deepest
recesses of the heart, by expressing thoughts common to true
penitents both then and now, this shews the truth of their
breathing the influence of One Eternal Spirit. If in some of
them are harsher sayings pointed against personal or national
enemies, this both answers to what we are told of the people
among whom they arose being a rugged one, and justifies the
Christian in his preference of the general spirit to the particular
letter; and again, is a sign of God having brought us into
something better, according to His ancient promise. Yet if
things spoken of worldly enemies can, with slight change, be
applied by us to the enemies of our soul s peace, this shews the
same Jehovah to have governed the Jewish kingdom of the
body, and the Christian kingdom of the soul. Hence too those
who might be in danger of gazing only into heaven, and be
coming dreamy spiritualists, are wholesomely reminded of the
life in which Divine Providence fixes us, and add a cheerful*
and practical tone to the deeper piety of the Gospel. Neither
the many ages, then, over which the composition of the Psalms
extends, should be any argument against their sacred character,
nor vestiges of things temporal in them any sign that they do
not partake of that Eternal Spirit, into whose kingdom we have
entered.
" What has been said of the book of Daniel is a little more
difficult. But scholars are not all agreed that this may not
have been written under Cyrus in Babylon, as the contents
* Some excellent remarks on the use of the Psalms in Christian worship may be
found in Alexander Knox s Remains. As early as St Augustine the Psalms were
used by the Church, and hymns, in preference, by the sects.
262
404 DANIEL. ZECHARIAH. DEUTERONOMY.
seem to imply. But if the later date under Antiochus should
turn out correct, the book will still express, though in a less
historical form, the strong faith of the Hebrew in the God of
his fathers, and a confidence that out of the lowest distress He
would yet fulfil His kingdom. This expression of faith will
still precede the Christian era by a full century and a half; and
what is more remarkable, it will equally have been fulfilled.
For it was in the low estate of Jewry that God set up a king
dom not to be moved, which prevailed over the kingdoms of the
earth. The mental nature of this had been denoted by calling
it a stone cut without hands*; as St Paul also calls the
Church a temple not built with hands, thereby repeating the
very words of Christ. Even the prohibition of the Law by
Antiochus increased the study of the Prophets, which con
tributed (with the help perhaps of this very book) to awaken
men s minds for a spiritual resurrection. The book then will
still have been a part of the Divine education of the Hebrews
for a better kingdom.
" But while I am willing that, as to Daniel and part of
Zechariah, you should assign them whatever date is most pro
bable, it must be questioned if some prepossession as to prophecy
does not here influence theory. For in Zechariah, you say,
Greece is mentioned. But if every uncertain book is brought
as low as possible, there will remain the very ancient book of
Deuteronomy, which foretells the nation swift as the eagle
flieth, and the delicate woman eating her own child in the
distress of the siege. The wildest scepticism would not deny
these sayings to be very many centuries before the Christian
era ; yet they came to pass in the siege by Titus, A. D. 70.
Since then you find some literal prophecies fulfilled in Jewish
history, you gain little by diminishing their number. For even
a few would shew the book to have an unique character, and
from a few, certain, you may infer more as probable. Yet you
seem to admit, that such a spiritual view of prophecy as my
* Daniel ii. 34 ; 2 Corinthians v. i ; Hebrews ix. 1 1 ; St Mark xiv. 58.
NATURE OF PROPHECY. ISAIAH. 405
friend Blancombe has propounded, cannot suffer from any such
inquiries. Nor again are you able to take away that inherent
tendency of the Hebrew polity to develop itself into something
nobler, which we contend to be the reflexion of a Divine idea
presiding over it through every age. So that the only risk
dependent on such questions as you raise about Daniel is this
question, Are we to take as a key to prophecy on the largest
scale, the external view which makes it descriptive of coming
events, or the more profound one, that it is perceptive of great
truths, and so pregnant with hopes and fears, yet also with
unforeseen applications? In either case the common teaching
of Providence by sagacity and presentiment will have its limited
field. But beyond such limits, we admit the possibility that
prophecy means spiritual predication rather than literal predic
tion. This is the utmost question really dependent on such
criticisms as we have heard, and this does not either way affect
the truth of Divine Revelation. Many indeed would think the
more spiritual view to be the more Christian, both in itself and
in its consequences.
"The above principles will govern all that need be said
about Isaiah. It is not yet agreed that any wide chasm inter
venes between the earlier portion and the later. But if such
should turn out to be the case, it will only extend the domain
of those interpretations which according to the text are the most
literal, for they apply its utterance to contemporary events, yet
according to the ultimate design are the more spiritual, for they
extend its application to that kingdom of thought which God
brings to pass out of the ancient history. This view is both
rational, in that it interprets men s words according to the
limits of man s intelligence ; yet pious, in that it does not shut
out the Eternal from foresight of that which He brings about in
act, and shews Himself to have designed by tendency. For, just
as if the waters of the ocean were poured into vessels, so
I suppose the manifestation of the Infinite must be limited by
the compass of the intelligences within which He shews His
406 REVELATION IS AN UNVEILING.
thought. The prophets then will have spoken of things present
which they saw, but with faith in the unseen God who governs
them, and He through their words will have shadowed forth the
truth of things to come. Nor is it from mere a priori con
siderations, but from the difficulty which inquirers find in proving
in the Bible or elsewhere minute predictions of remote events,
that I am inclined to allow, some view of this kind will be
hereafter universal. Let such things, however, be as experience
may render probable. But if we find a people wonderfully
trained by events into a Diviner faith, and that faith exemplified
in their history, and in its ultimate growth a blessing to all
nations, we can neither go back from the last act to the first,
nor refuse to place the whole drama at the feet of the Governor
of the world, acknowledging that His providence has been in it
all along. The thing communicated is that sight which we
have now of His grace and truth : and as a man whose eyes are
suddenly opened to the heavens does not ask his physician foi
a vehicle of sight, so we are not troubled about an intermediate
body of revelation, when the eyes of our mind have a true un
veiling of God. Yet in purging as it were our mental eyesight
or in awakening our heart, and so in taking away the veil of sense
or hardness, it pleases God to use an instrumentality of events
and of doctrines, giving each man an experience of his own, anc
accumulating it by growth on the great scale of nations. He
does not so much give proofs of truth, as instances of it. Nor
are -we surprised, since to Him all kingdoms belong, that out o:
His providence in history should be unfolded His more secret
grace. Thus there is hardly a great nation with which His Church
the heavenly commonwealth and social embodiment of truth
has not at some time come in contact. She saw all those
giant empires, which in turn overshadowed the world, but which
now loom through a dim haze of memory. Perhaps even th(
lore of no ancient priesthood may have been quite strange to
her. She went down into Egypt, and spoiled the ancient
priesthoods of their wisdom, while yet she hallowed it by the
PEOVIDENCES OF THE CHURCH. INCARNATION. 407
simplicity of faith. She learnt patience in the wilderness, and
meekness with the poor and needy men of the Psalms. Yet
she taught kings to rule in the fear of the Lord, and neither the
wealth nor wisdom of Solomon misbecame her. Again, she talked
with the Chaldseans in Babylon, and whatever good they had,
capable of combining, she took as illustration or help to her
faith. Even the persecutions of Antiochus only deepened her
yearning for an unseen kingdom, wherein righteousness should
dwell. She then widened her sympathies by that humanity of
the Greek, which yet she aspired to purge of its sensualism,
and learnt discipline of the Roman, while she taught him to
soften the rigour of his iron law. Nor should I wonder, if
through Alexandria she borrowed something of your Indian
asceticism, which hardly agrees with her cheerful faith in the
God of heaven and earth and of life and death, but which yet
may have helped to wean her from sense, and deepened that
unworldliness which passed harmless through persecutions, and
smote savage nations with awe.
" Christ appeared, as the Apostles tell us, in the fulness of
time. For then all the elements of humanity had converged,
and needed only the touch of the Son of God to heal them.
The wood was all gathered round the altar, before the fire fell.
Then the Divine Thought came to pass in humanity, and the
Son of God was born. Then the Greek language was spread
over Asia, as a vehicle for both the ancient Scriptures, and for
the new preaching of the Holy Spirit. Then the Eoman power
compressed in some cases the madness of a persecuting multitude,
and when it set itself in deliberate strength against the new
kingdom over men s hearts, it was broken without hand. No
earthly might withstands long a faith in the unseen and ever
lasting God. Yet before it fell, the Eoman empire gave a
splendid theatre for the first witnesses of Christ to shew them
selves upon. It brought the sword, the flame, and the wild
beast, to try their faith and patience. It gave all the processes
of regular law to take cognisance of their conduct, and the rigid
408 INCARNATION HISTORICALLY ATTESTED.
genius of history to record it. Not Christians, but Heathens,
such as Pliny in his letter to the Emperor Trajan, tell us of
a community of men meeting at early dawn, and singing hymns
to Christ as their God, and binding themselves only by a pledge
of faith and of harmlessness. The same writer, and other
Heathens like him, speak of the tenacity of the Christians in
that shrinking from idol-worship, which was their only crime.
Thus above all, the Founder of our faith lived, and died, and
rose again, not in any obscure land, among a savage or imagina
tive race, with prepossessions in His favour ; but amongst Jews,
very jealous of His pretensions, with rival sects agreeing only to
accuse Him, and intelligent strangers looking on, before the eye
of Greece, and under the power of Eome. Who can say, the
Augustan age was a credulous one? or that the fulfilment
which Christ brought to the Prophets was such as the expect
ation of the Jews would predispose them to receive? or that
every act of His life was not jealously watched? Again, though
I have alluded to Heathen witnesses, yet the records of the
Apostles themselves have every claim it is possible for books
to have upon our credence.
" We did not dig these, which are our Christian Scrip
tures, out of the ground, or find them unaccompanied in
some dead museum; but they are handed down to us by
a long train of witnesses. They could not have been forged
since the Eeformation, for such a circumstance would have
been prevented by the mutual jealousy of the Church of Eome
and reformed Churches ; nor since the division of the East and
West, twelve centuries ago, for the jealousies of the Greek
and Latin Churches would have prevented it; nor since the
Council of Nice, fifteen centuries ago, for we find them then
appealed to by the adverse parties of Arius and the maintainers
of catholic truth. Neither could they have been forged earlier ;
since we find from Eusebius, from Cyprian, from Origen, and
from Melito, that formal catalogues of them were critically made,
and their genuineness the subject of fresh tradition and careful
NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 409
examination. We may extend this historical proof of their
genuineness into the first century, or within seventy years of
the commencement of that new dispensation whose history they
record ; for we find them quoted by Justin Martyr, by Papias,
and by Polycarp, the very hearers and companions of the first
messengers of the new dispensation.
"Again, it may be shewn historically, that not only were
these books received in the very age of their authors as the
genuine works of the persons to whom they are ascribed, but
that it was morally impossible for any important change or
corruption in their contents to be subsequently introduced. They
were both enumerated in catalogues, and collected into a distinct
volume*; they were described by peculiar titles of respect; they
were publicly read and expounded to large assemblies of men,
and their text rendered generally familiar by commentaries ;
they are quoted by many authors, appealed to by jarring and
jealous sects, and scrutinized as the depositories of the new
doctrines by enemies to the progress of the new dispensation.
" Thus our books have been preserved by the Church from
the beginning, as embodiments or expressions of her first faith.
On the one hand she may say, as Blancombe has argued, Here
is a religion commending itself to you by its inherent goodness,
or by the answer of the faithful witness within us, as well as by
its fulfilment of those better anticipations which God breathed as
signs of His purpose among a remarkable people of old; and this
argument would hold good for spiritual men, if we had even much
scantier record of the first establishment of Christianity in the
world, or if any one imbued with an infection of Hindu thought,
should extend the region of Maya, by supposing ever so much
play of imagination in the outset, and fancying humanity to have
divined the thought of God in a great poem, rather than to have
seen it embodied in deed and man ; for still our conscience, af
fections, and our faith would conspire to lay hold on this as the
truth of things unseen, which are eternal. Blessed would be
* Paley s Evidences.
410 POSITIVE AUTHORITY OF CHRISTIANITY.
those who believed, though not seeing. But on the other hand,
the Church may now point bodily to the Son of God blessing,
and healing, and bearing our sins on the shameful tree. She
has the witness, not only of the Spirit, but of water and of
blood. She believes, both because she sees in spirit, and be
cause faithful men have seen in the flesh. Hence she may say,
Even if this faith of Christ were less manifestly Divine than it
appears to us by experience, yet it comes to us on that highest
authority, which we dare not gainsay. It may call for obedience
and trust, as well as for compliance and assent. For whatever
is extraordinary in its facts, has the guarantee of no less extra
ordinary witness. Twelve men suffice the English law for any
verdict ; and twelve men have set to their seals, that they and
many others saw wonders done by Jesus in the flesh such as no
man without God can do. These wonders were works of good
ness, but also of supernatural power. Nor was there any room
for mistake; since multitudes looked on, and the men healed
and raised from the dead, were seen surviving long afterwards *.
Christ Himself was seen often, and by manyf, after His resur
rection from the dead. Nor is there power in the ordinary laws
of nature, which without any physical antecedent could work
such cures and restorations as Christ wrought. He revived, for
instance, the corpse already decaying in the grave. It remains,
then, that some new or extraordinary cause, and that no less
than the wisdom or power which orders and wields nature, must
in such cases have interposed. For the Sankhyasts rightly infer
that every effect must have adequate cause. Nor is it a little :
gain to have our minds thus disentangled from the chain of
sensuous effects by striking indications of that mental power, \
which is both in nature and over it, and without whose present |
will no material forces could flow. For we are thus saved from \
the Sankhyasts error of fancying nature self-dependent ; and in
acknowledging soul, as they do, we also ascribe to the highest
soul that superiority of which it gives signs by thus working.
* Quadratus, Apology, ap. Bouth. t i Corinthians xv.
.
OLD TESTAMENT TYPES. 411
But moreover, when the Almighty thus does things extra
ordinary, it is to excite our attention, and to give us reason for
believing, or motive to obey. Christ s religion therefore comes
into the world with a Divine attestation, adequate to the vast
effects which flow from it, which are again a secondary con
firmation of its first evidence, and worthy of the long train of
providences which paved the way for it.
" But when we take the Gospels of the four Evangelists as
giving a literal account of Christ s life on earth, and the Acts
as describing the progress of the Apostles, and their Epistles as
preserving their words, then not only the works of Christ are
more manifest, but the prophetic parallel of the Old Testament
becomes more wonderfully complete, than when we considered
only the main design of the Hebrew polity, and its general
fulfilment in our faith. It seems now probable to us, that a
divine design of such magnitude should have many correspon
dencies in all its parts ; and such we find to be the case in fact.
The Paschal Lamb, eaten in Eucharist for the redemption of
Israel from Egypt, now signifies the better offering of Christ, on
which His upright ones feed in spirit, when delivered from the
worse bondage of evil habits. The sin-offering, burnt without
the camp, implies that Christ should suffer outside of the local
city, and an outcast from the ancient polity of the Jews, and
that His followers must often bear reproach in being cast out of
societies of men. The passing through the Bed Sea becomes
an emblem of baptism, and the stricken rock of Christ stricken
for our healing. If we wander, with hearts half satisfied, and
an earnest expectation of tilings better to come, yet sustained by
signs of our heavenly Father s love, in this world, so did the
Israelites for forty years in the wilderness. If they must pass a
river, so must we a river of death, into a better land. If the
high priest entered once a year into a holy place, bearing blood
in sign of the people s contrition, so is our spiritual Intercessor
gone within the holiest veil of the unseen world, carrying in
thought the memory of all He did and suffered in unveiling the
412 TYPES PROPHETICAL. (THE GOSPEL.)
love of God, and prevailing for us with a prayer which the
Father cannot refuse. If great deliverers were of old born in
Bethlehem, the house of bread, so was Christ. If they were
despised by their people, Christ dwelt in Nazareth, out of which
no good was thought to come. If they were set apart as Naza-
rites, Christ was separate from every evil of thought and deed.
If the ancient judges affected not pomp of warhorse and chariot,
but administered law as they journeyed in simple estate, so Christ
shewed the nature of His kingdom, when He entered Jerusalem
lowly, and riding on an ass. If old deliverances of the nation,
or decrees of return from exile, had been glad tidings which
made the feet of their heralds beautiful upon the mountains, the
message which Christ preaches of deliverance for all men from
evil, is more especially a Gospel or good news. If the poor
need sympathy, He brings it them ; if the weary long for rest,
He invites them to it ; if sinners are bound with a burthen of
shame, He takes it away in the unveiling of a love which has
outrun and exceeded all our eagerness to destroy our better
souls ; if the simple need instruction, He gives them in purity
of heart a direct sight of truths which no learning can teach ; if
to some men poverty, and to some wealth, and to others temp
tation, and to many an entanglement of all things in life as if by
misplacement of the great enemy, brings a snare, and to all men
death brings fear, Christ sweeps away all these things, by open
ing around us and within us a kingdom, in which the Lord God
reigneth, and His will is done, both in earth and heaven. So,
whatever is the plague of any man s heart, Christ takes it
away. Thus His Gospel is not a fixed or a hard thing, but good
news to each man according to his need. Again, if the old
prophets brought their messages through suffering, see if there
was ever any sorrow like unto Christ s sorrow. My soul is
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," 1 He savs. And He went
-/ e/ /
a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, my Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me : nevertheless, not as I
will, but as thou wilt. Well might angels appear from heaven
TYPES PROPHETICAL. 413
comforting so Divine a sufferer. Again, if, as they looked on
the brazen serpent, the Israelites were healed of the serpents
stings, so by faith gazing on the fulfilment of what is meant in
all offerings, and on the perfect self-consecration of Jesus on the
cross, we become healed of those wounds which the old serpent,
the author or type of all evil, has wrought in our better souls.
Once more, if God called of old Israel out of Egypt to be His son,
and made him a firstborn among the nations, and lifted him in a
little time, as on the third day*, from under the yoke of bondage,
so having through the suffering of Christ fulfilled all His will in
Him, He lifted Him from the grave on the third day, and made
Him a king for ever. Again, the hope of the Psalmist f that
his soul would not be given over to the place of the dead, had
not only a temporary fulfilment for himself in long life, but a
visible and permanent one in the taking again of life by Christ,
the Holy One, when He saw not corruption. Here also notice,
that things spoken in hyperbole, or with eastern inflation of
words, to earthly kings in Zion, become literally true when
applied to Christ. So that, if in some respects we translate the
letter into spirit, yet in others we make it more literally true. For,
if any one addressed Solomon, calling him, as some think, in the
45th Psalm, fairer than the children of men, and a god, and
one whose * sceptre is a right sceptre, and one whose arrows
are sharp in the heart of enemies ; these things would have
something of figure when so applied : but when we turn them to
Christ, they require no shading away; for in Him is that unearthly
fairness which men s deepest desires have cried out for, and a
rule which sways our love because it is right, and arrows of
truth which pierce to the dividing asunder of the thoughts.
" So much greater becomes the fulfilment of prophecy, when
we read Christ s life in the four Gospels. And if we glance at
the effects of His resurrection, the same fulfilment continues.
* Hosea xi. i ; v. 15 ; and vi. i, 2 ; Exodus iv. 22; Jeremiah xxxi. 9; Psalm
Ixxxix. 27.
t Psalm xvi. 10; Acts ii. 25.
414 INSPIRATION FORETOLD. HARMONY OF EVIDENCES.
For the prophets of old had spoken* of an outpouring* of the
Spirit upon all flesh. They meant, that when God was truly
known to His people, no caste or priesthood should come ex
clusively near Him ; but wise and simple, old men and maidens,
should alike know, and love, even as they are known of Him.
We need not deny that, even in the greatest dulness of the
Jewish people, the Divine Spirit strove with them; for just
before Christ we read of men, such as Simeon, inspired, or full
of the Holy Ghost ; but it was only when Christ s disciples
came together, thinking of all His life, and awaiting His pro
mise, that the fulness of the Divine Spirit took possession of
them. From that day of Pentecost, though they still learnt
earthly things by means, the irresolute became bold, and the
simple clear in wisdom. Then by their preaching, suffering,
and living, they built up the kingdom, in which the Holy Spirit
dwells for ever. From henceforth God and man cannot be put
asunder.
" Here then is that joining of the hands together, which
different parts of a proof require, to be complete. First, you
have the stretching forward of the Hebrew nation and prophets
under the impulse of some idea, which their mind could not be
easy without fulfilling ; and if even the instincts of lower animals
and plants reach some fruitful end to which they are destined,
we can hardly think the spiritual forebodings of man s better
nature, especially on so large a scale, and in so growing a system,
would be given to mock him. Then comes out in the body of
Christendom that temple of living minds, to which the fabric
for prayer and offering at Jerusalem, however unconsciously,
pointed ; and thus the holiest instinct of what is immortal in a
nation has found a fulfilment for mankind. But thirdly, you
have intervening between this germ and flower, a history of no
less than Divine interposition, by which the change is both
brought about and ratified. In this intervening stage we find
an interpretation of what might be doubtful in the older, an
* Joel ii. 28 32 ; Hosea i. 10, ii. 19 23.
HARMONY OF EVIDENCES. 415
authority abolishing the old, no less than that which imposed
it, and justifying its own wisdom in giving, by its very method
of taking away. For the law, you see, is not abolished without
having been fulfilled ; it is not transgressed without finding a
victim ; it does not die in the letter without being glorified in
the spirit.
"If the Old Testament is wonderful, the New is divine.
The first has law and history, with providence and prophecy;
the second has grace and a power of life, with fulfilment and
truth. The second is implied in the first, and the first unveiled
in the second. Nor is it easy to see how Almighty God Him
self could more strongly persuade us to embrace a religion, than
by thus giving proof to all readers of history, that it has come
of the Governor of the world, and by making its experience
satisfy the best conscience of every one who tries it. - Surely the
human shortcomings of men who have taught or professed it,
are no sound argument against the divinity of the truth itself.
For how much worse would they have been without it ? Earthly
acts never fully bring out the heavenly thoughts ; and the very
fact of a divine healing presupposes that human souls are
diseased. The question of experience turns on whether the
fruits of Christianity have been good, according to the soil it
was planted in, or the materials it worked with. It finds igno
rance, passion, sin, suffering, and strife. It brings enlighten
ment, peace, and with holiness either comfort or patience ; and
all these strangely combined in the power of the one cross of
Christ, whose figure gleams through the world, standing above
our highest pomp, and going down into the depth of sorrow.
See briefly how our faith is justified in its history. Before the
Apostles passed away, Jerusalem fell, but the city of the mind
rose in its place, and the believers in Christ began building a
new kingdom. Ignatius, the companion of the Apostles, desired
the wreath of martyrdom, and was torn by wild beasts. Poly-
carp, the disciple of St John, gave his body to the flames rather
than deny the Saviour who had carried him to grey hairs.
416 CHURCH HISTORY.
Justin Martyr, after in vain seeking peace among the specula
tions of men, joined his wisdom, like Moses, to a better faith,
and after proclaiming the one God who by all-embracing wis
dom had taught Jews and Gentiles, sealed his faith with his
blood. The great fathers of the Alexandrine school followed in
a like track. Irenseus exhorted men to be at peace, and shews
the rightful unity of the Creed throughout the world. The
martyrs of Lyons suffered without boasting, and disclaimed in
humility the eminence which they won ; for they had read how
Christ was not greedy of that which was His right. St Cyprian,
without pride for himself, strengthened the order of the Church,
yet opened the gates of forgiveness to the fallen who repented.
All these, and many men like them, built up in the Church a
home of severe holiness of thought and act, with tenderness to
want and sorrow. They shut out the profligate, but received the
slave. They restored to marriage that sanctity which it had
once in the better days of Rome, and made life more precious,
as a trust from God. As their numbers extended, their princi
ples passed into the laws of the world. But they received such
power of moulding things seen, only from their faith in things i
eternal. Origen and Jerome with patient learning collected the I
Holy Scriptures, and distinguishing the Hebrew from later
additions, gave versions in Greek and Latin. The spread of i
like versions in many languages is one of our great securities :
for the integrity of our text. In the fourth and fifth centuries j
the great architects of the larger fabric of the Church lengthened :
her cords, and strengthened her stakes, that she might be a tent .
holding many nations. Athanasius and others in the great ;
councils contended earnestly for what seemed the truest state
ment of the faith felt of old. Some of their debates may have |
been carried with human passion ; yet we see in them men not
bent on selfish or earthly victory. We do not therefore blame \
the later councils, any more than the first at Jerusalem, for say-
ing that what seemed good to them, seemed also good to the
Holy Spirit. For God who gives treasure in earthly vessel
CHURCH HISTORY. 417
can breathe the unity of His truth through many sore conten
tions and prophesyings in part. In about the same age the
Liturgies of the Church grew up, partly out of an old Jewish
inheritance, partly out of the fresh accents of the Spirit in
dwelling in the whole Church, and partly out of a combination
of things sacred among the Gentiles, which the large wisdom of
our fathers in the faith was not afraid to adopt, having that
freedom wherewith Christ has made us free.
" Thus when Rome fell, the Church had been divinely pre
pared to take her place ; and the dream of Plato, that governors
should be teachers of wisdom, seemed near to fulfilment. The
genius of the new polity is to be judged, not by the faults of
particular men, but by the cast of virtues which it exemplified
as a whole, and by its softening influence over the manners of
savage nations. If the bishops of Home * and of other cities set
up a power savouring too much of this world, they did so in an
age of iron and of blood, and gained something for humanity
by setting the simple cross against the sword, vanquishing king
doms by faith, and brute force by mind. When Home was
sacked by the Goth and the Hun, and Carthage by the Vandal,
the bishops f of both cities were the great relievers of all suffer
ing by their alms and prayers. Often, in such cases, Christians
shewed that they knew what sacrifice to God means, by selling-
even the holy vessels of their churches, that the price might
relieve men suffering from war or famine. Even the emperor
Julian, who loved them not, had with true ingenuousness con
fessed their zeal in such works, and had desired heathens to
learn from it. /See, how these Christians love one another^ was one
of their early marks ; for they could not fail to do so, if they knew
truly the love of God, which yet passes knowledge. In a like
spirit they built hospitals for the sick, whereas the empire before
them had built amphitheatres for men to fight with beasts. It
* See Milmari s History of Christianity, both the earlier and the Latin ; or
Neander and Chateaubriand.
t Milman and Chateaubriand. + Tertullian.
M. P. 27
,
418 CHURCH HISTORY.
was a Christian monk (St Telemachus) who, in the truest mar
tyrdom, put an end to such spectacles at the cost of his life. But
when the Northern nations had spread night over Europe, the
faith of Christ, though mixed with legends and ancient customs,
was still a light in a dark place. In its power, the bishops* of
Spain forbade the Gothic chieftains to estimate any humble life
as worth less than their own, and affixed the same penalty to
any murder of man. In the same spirit, it was reckoned an
acceptable sacrifice to God for serfs to be emancipated by their
rude lords. Even the right of asylum in churches, (though it
became abused f, as it had been among the Hebrews, from whose
precedent it seems taken,) was useful in so fierce an age, as
enabling passion to cool, and equity to obtain a hearing. Again,
in the monasteries were preserved the relics of learning. Around
them, or in episcopal cities, survived an image of the old
Eoman tribunate, with its veto in favour of humanity upon
illegal tyranny; and so the germs of our municipal:); freedom
were cherished. The schools of Charlemagne in France, the
patronage of learned men by Alfred, and the foundation of many
colleges throughout Europe, are all connected in some measure
with the influence of the Church in the dark ages. They are
akin to that spirit which sent missionaries into the most savage
nations, like the Briton Winifrid (or Boniface) into Germany,
softening everywhere wild man, by shewing him something of
the truth of God. Even where such missions, or the Churches
which sent them forth, were in collision with one another, as the
Churches of lona and Western Britain were with the growing
centralisation of Rome, the spirit which animated them all was
the same, and the truth which lay at the bottom of their zeal
was essentially one.
" Of religious wars, such as the Crusades, we may say that,
if Christianity had never existed, they would not the less have
* Guizot.
t Hosea vi. 8, 9, where harbouring of homicides in the Levitical cities seems
implied.
Guizot, and Sir James Stephen s Lectures on French History.
CHURCH HISTORY. PRIMITIVE REVIVAL. 419
been fought. For their real causes were generally passion or
policy. Yet the religion, which was made a pretext for them,
threw an elevating influence among the mixed motives of the
combatants, and often ennobled ferocity into courage, while
sometimes it even mitigated victory. Nor need we doubt that,
in this tangled world, such contests are often means of working
out a Divine design, which is neither to be measured by the
consciousness of its instruments, nor yet to be charged with the
acts of their free will. We see all things not as yet put under
the feet of the most perfect wisdom.
" But a great sign of the goodness of Christianity is, that
when the ages of twilight were to brighten into noonday, they
did so chiefly by returning to the first principles of our faith.
By reviving the good news of God s frank forgiveness of sins,
such men as Wyclif and Luther rolled away the burden that lay
heavy on the human breast. By putting us, in the Spirit of
Christ, face to face with God, they put away all false subterfuges
of the conscience, and all vain gloryings, and at the same time
all fears, awakening in men both a deeper humility, and a con
sciousness of strength not their own. Again, leading us to the
foot of Christ s cross, they shewed us the evil of wilful sin, and
by what a sacrifice of self-dedication our health is wrought, and
persuades us to sin no more, lest a worse thing befal us. They
did not thus bring a new Christianity, but they renewed the
power of the old. Then by putting in every man s hands the
sacred writings of the prophets and apostles, they not only
enable us to judge of the truth of things, but give us a won
derful instrument for awakening in ourselves the same spirit as
dwelt in the writers. For though faith is in one sense the gift
of God, yet in another sense it comes by reading and by hearing.
Hence I wish you also to study our scriptures, especially the
book of Isaiah, and the Psalms, and St Paul, and St John, with
perhaps also Genesis. These five books, postponing at first
those which concern, you less, I should like to see spread and
read in India. They would teach you what our faith is, better
272
420 POWER OF CHRISTIANITY, AND ITS INSTRUMENTS.
than my account can ; and might, if it be the Divine will, have
the same power to awaken in you a hunger and thirst after
righteousness, as they have often shewn in Europe and in Asia.
Nor is it a slight sign of our religion having come from God,
that its earliest writings yet breathe such power. We have
learnt since many arts and sciences, and have adapted our
phrase and usage, as we have a right, to the aspects of various
nations. But the first life which dwelt fresh in the apostles and
prophets, upon whom the temple of men s minds is built, yet
speaks in their writings ; and when we have most caught a
contagion from thence, we most partake of their spirit, and enter
into the mind of Christ, and do, as Christ did, the works of God
who sends us. You should read, then, Hebrew history ; nor is
there any harm in comparing it with your own, since there is
one God of Jew and Gentile ; you should compare the doctrine
and faith of Christ with both that .of the Jews, and with any
thing analogous to it among yourselves, or answering to it in
your own spirits ; you should study the life, and death, and all
the history of Christ Himself, and the results of His appearing
in the world ; you should kneel down for a little, and pray as it
were at the foot of the cross in thought, asking the Divine
Enlightener for His light ; you may consider also whether such
a deliverer as Christ from both the penalty and stain of evil,
and such a revealer of immortality, is not what you need for
your own peace ; and then I hope, alike the substance of our
faith, and the attestation which accompanied it, and the history
which prepared for it, and the results which have followed it,
which we both see in the history of nations, and can try for
ourselves, will all together convince you that it is taught us by
God, the Father of all. But I agree with Blancombe, that the
love of Divine things must go before their knowledge, and if
you would know whether the doctrine is of God, you must be
endeavouring to do His will."
DIFFICULTY OF ORIGINAL SIN. 421
CHAPTER XII.
Doctrinal Difficulties and Explanations.
" Consider the work of God : for who can make that straight which He hath
made crooked ? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity
consider : God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man
should find nothing after him." ECCLESIASTES vil. 13, 14.
" That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out ?" Id. v. 24.
" Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." i THESS. v. ci.
" For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is
perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a
child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child : but when I
became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass,
darkly ; but then face to face : now I know in part ; but then shall I know even
as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the
greatest of these is love." i CORINTH, xiii. 9 13.
" THE more you explain all the circumstances and accom
paniments of Christianity," remarked the Saugata, " the more
wonderful it appears to be. But when you urge the excellence
of the Doctrine itself, as a thing that should awaken an echo of
faith from the heart of man, you seem not to be aware, that the
entire Christian scheme appears to us to contain very great
difficulties, if not to be quite incredible." "In what respect is
this so?" asked Mountain. " If you have no objection, I will
explain to you," replied the other.
(1) " In the first place," he continued, " you have spoken of
human nature as diseased, or as having the Divine likeness in
it marred, and requiring a certain health to be wrought in it.
In the mouths of many of your teachers, this statement takes
even a harsher form than in your own. For they speak of man s
nature as utterly abominable, so that for God even to com
passionate it seems almost at variance with His truth. They say
it deserves infinite torments, which are accordingly to be suffered
by the mass of mankind. Then if we ask whether human sin
does not come much of weakness and ignorance, and even of
422 DIFFICULTY OF ORIGINAL SIN.
circumstances in which our Maker has placed us, they answer,
No ; for that it comes of our first mother s disobedience in eating
the fruit of a forbidden tree; and this act of hers, several
thousand years before our birth, is, they say, put down to our
account ; so that, even if we never sinned for ourselves, as dying
perhaps in infancy, we should still be justly liable to punish
ment, for that act in which we had no share or consciousness,
but which they say was prompted by a Spiritual Enemy, or
Devil, who again preceded our birth by I know not how many
more ages. We were present in some mysterious way, they tell
us, in the loins of Adam or the womb of Eve ; and such a doc
trine, they say, is the best account of the origin of evil, and
explains the world s history ; whereas to us it appears to involve
all visible acts and all voices of our conscience in inextricable
confusion. But if we remonstrate, and say that such a doctrine
neither gives a pleasant image of a heavenly Father, nor answers
to our notions of justice, still less of equity, they reply, that our
whole nature is too corrupt for us to have any notion of what
is just or right; and perhaps even, that the more a doctrine con
tradicts our conscience, the more likely it is to be true ; but that
the infallibility of your sacred books, as proved by miracles,
(which we never ourselves saw,) should compel us to abase our
proud reason, and accept thankfully the Divine Revelation. But
at least we know not how such a doctrine is good news, or a
Gospel; for it seems to us so injurious to our Maker, and so
hateful to man, that we must at least pray it may not be true.
Then, as to the evidence of it, we have not seen the miracles
alleged to prove it; and it is hardly pious to put the senses so
far above the soul, as to make mere stories of what men have
seen, overbear our holiest conceptions of Right. But, if we
cannot conceive either Truth or Right, then our souls contain
nothing for any Divine Revelation to obtain an answer from.
Again, if God implants in some of us such a special organ of
sacred perception, there is left no fitness in His doing so by men,
rather than by tigers or dogs ; and all your arguments for the
DIFFICULTY OF THE ATONEMENT. 423
immortality of man from his reason, and conscience, and holier
aspirations, become utterly naught, and we are driven down to
the sensualism of the Charvacas. Nor then would any response
in us to what seemed good in a doctrine be at all trustworthy.
So unholy are the consequences which seem to us to flow from
the doctrine of the fall of man, and especially of the entailment of
Original Sin, through Eve s eating the apple. It can only be
proved to be revealed by arguments which make a truly Divine
Revelation impossible.
(2) " Akin to our first objection is a second, which we feel,
to what is said of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. It seems
taught, either by Paul, or by those who profess his doctrine,
that the highest God was too angry with men, ever to forgive
them without exacting a certain suffering from some one in
their stead. His justice, as they say, or as it seems to us, His
vindictiveness, required a payment or satisfaction which was
made by Christ. Upon receiving this payment, God changed
His mind, and counted innocent those guilty persons who take
advantage of this dying of the innocent Christ in their stead.
Thus His righteousness is, by a transfer, imputed to them ; and
their guiltiness, by a fiction, to Him. The Innocent suffers as
guilty, and the guilty are pardoned, as innocent ; the places of
both being changed by imputation, or their merit and demerit
inverted. This doctrine seems made by some so essential, that
all Christianity turns upon it, and faith in it stands instead of
all virtues, or at least is the paramount requisite, and only plea
availing, for acceptance. Whereas to us the whole doctrine
seems unholy. For, in the first place, it makes the Eternal
God change His mind, whereas we think, and Christians some
times acknowledge, Him to be unchangeable. Secondly it makes
Him vindictive, in that He would not forgive mere penitence ;
whereas we count it a hardness of heart even in men to be un
forgiving. It makes Him also mercenary, in that He does, on
receiving a price, what He would not do out of pure goodness.
In the same way it makes Him selfish, in that He is said to
424 DIFFICULTY OF ELECTION.
4 consider only His own glory*; whereas it would be more for
His true glory to consider in love the good of others. Again,
it contradicts the truth of God, that He should call innocent
those who are really guilty, and by a fiction lay guilt on the
innocent; especially if He does this out of an arbitrary choice f,
and not out of inherent fitness. Nor can it be said, that Justice
is thus satisfied, for such conduct is not truly just. Nothing
which is untrue, can be just. Nor again, is it easy to see, how
the life and death of Jesus, which took place in flesh and time,
could satisfy a debt which you say was infinite, for it involved
no less than eternal torments. But if you reply, that Jesus
was also Christ the Son of God, and that His Divinity made
His sufferings of infinite value, then it would suffice for all,
and it would be cruel of God not to extend it to all.
(3) " This brings me to my third objection. Most Christians
teach, that only the chosen few, or the elect, are really saved.
Then this infinite salvation of yours becomes finite; and the
Gospel is no longer good news to all men, but to a few. Thus
God is no longer the Father of all, but of the elect. Some of
your teachers even connect such an election exclusively with the
profession of Christianity, and say, that many Christians will
suffer everlasting torment, but that all who are not Christians
must do so. To me that is not good news. Others, who are
more moderate, allow that Divine election may be amongst
persons, who without fault on their own part, are ignorant of
Christianity. But even these leave an arbitrariness in the
selection of a few to be saved. Others, they say, will have
rejected in free will an offer made them ; but they add, that
whoever accepts, does so because he is irresistibly induced by
Divine grace. Why then does not this grace induce more?
You blame us for taking away, as you fancy, the Divine self-
consciousness ; but what can be worse than taking away the
* Calvin s Institutes.
t Hooker argues that the Divine Will is not without reason, but chooses the
good.
PREDESTINATION. THE TRINITY. 425
Eternal love, and putting mutability, vindictiveness, arbitrari
ness, untruth, and elective caprice, in its place?
(4) " Fourthly, the explanation which some give of your Chris
tian election only makes the doctrine worse. For they resolve it,
not merely into the mystery of things, but into a wilful decree,
conceived by God from eternity, which they call predestination.
We are not, they say, to murmur against God, nor reply against
His Will. I do not murmur against what comes of God, but
does this come of Him ? I accept His Will, but has He shewn
us this to be His Will ? If He has revealed Himself, as you
say, through all history and conscience, and especially through
the long line of the Hebrew Scriptures, as the very fountain of
justice, mercy, and truth, these principles, once laying hold of
any mind, are a better clue to His holy will, than a few texts
in which the contrary seems spoken. That is not just, because
of infinite power, which we should call horrible from man to
man. I say nothing, of such a doctrine s making human agency
a mockery, and throwing a more than Brahmanical Maya over
the moral world, because that would lead us into a wider
mystery. But at least this doctrine of election of a few by
predestination is not good news to me ; nor can I reconcile it
with Divine justice, even if with human morality.
(5) " But fifthly, all the above doctrines are bound up with
the Divinity of Christ. He is, you say, very God of veiy
God, and you speak of His appearance as a Divine Incarnation.
Those who teach your religion in a system, go on to explain
that you have three Persons in one Divine and Infinite Being.
A missionary once, shewing me a creed, threatened me with
endless perdition, if I did not fully believe what perhaps I did
not understand, and what so far as I did understand it, con
tradicted itself. Each of the Three Persons, he said, was by
Himself, God and Lord ; yet there were not three gods, but one
God. Now, if I could understand how three may be one by
difference of relation or aspect, yet at least it is difficult to
imagine Three Persons in One Being, of whom the first shall
426 QUESTIONS AS TO FAITH.
have a vindictive will to punish all mankind, but the second
have a benevolent will to save them ; so that the first shall
only change His mind upon receiving a price from the
second. Then, if the wills of the first and second Persons are
at any time different, how can they be one? For if by sub
stance you mean spirit, and not matter, there is nothing more
essential to unity of spiritual being, than unity of self-conscious
will? Again, if the will and self-consciousness are one, how
are there three ? Much more, if each is by Himself God, and
God is both infinite and One, how is there room for another
to be by His side? All this doctrine of Three and One is
difficult ; and it becomes more so, when you connect with it
anger, and punishing, and propitiation, and intercession, as if
from one self-consciousness to another.
(6) " But sixthly, you say this doctrine is a mystery, and
must be received by faith. But I thought that in Christianity
you had a revelation, and that what was once a mystery had be
come unveiled. I do not deny, that reason goes beyond sense,
and perhaps faith reasonably beyond the full company of reason ;
yet neither should contradict the other. But what do Christians
mean by faith ? If they mean belief, then it is an intellectual
quality, and requires some ground, if not naked evidence. Then
if it has good ground to assent upon, it is mechanical, and has no
merit. But you have rather implied, that it is that mental ap
prehension which gives body to unseen things : as such, I see
no objection to it, but it is not peculiar to Christians ; perhaps
even it is stronger among Hindus. Some again, make faith
consist in trust, or confidence. If they mean trust in things
holy and right, such as our conscience answers to, and the most
Divine Intelligence supports, then it might be a moral quality ;
but this very faith, as I apprehend it, forbids me to receive
immoral or arbitrary doctrines of God, as if He were Might and
Self-will, instead of being also Eight and Love. If, again,
Christians by faith mean confidence, or assurance of our own sal
vation, this may come of selfishness, as well as of righteousness.
CHARGE OF EXCLUSIVENESS. 427
And what right has a man to be so sanguine ? He can only be
rightly assured of what is first true ; and if he is saved by con
fiding that he is so, does this make our salvation a process of
our own minds ? Or, if it is by confiding that he is one of the
elect, does not this make God partial, and an accepter of per
sons ? Still more, does not the stress thus laid on faith, in the
sense of confidence, either make men presumptuous ; or, if it
consists in intense abnegation of merit, then make Christ jealous,
and His religion a thing of name ? What is the essential dif
ference between those degenerate forms of Hinduism, which set
the name of a favourite deity above all moral distinctions, and
such a doctrine of faith as makes mere self-negation, and ac
knowledgment of Christ as a Saviour, avail more with heaven,
than pure heart, or upright life? You have yourself," (here he
turned to Blancombe) " touched on the danger of religion s
losing morality: and I think the Christian stress on faith in
Christ as opposed to good deeds, shews such a tendency in
doctrine, which I should not wonder if bad men carried out in
act. Especially all that is said of there being none other name
given, seems at variance with the equity and goodness of God.
Through such a faith, and not from want of faith, I feel unable
to receive your doctrine.
(7) " Here comes in, seventhly, all the exclusiveness of your
religion. It is acknowledged, that such was a fault in part of
the Jews. But yet it was a natural fruit of their Mosaic system :
how then can that system have been Divine? You say, it
was temporary. Be it so ; but it obscured truths, which had
been known before, as the case of Melchisedec in Canaan proves,
no less than that of Viswamitra in India. Why then obscure
things, only in order to uncover them ? Or why construct an
elaborate polity, which freedom and truth would require to be
one day broken down? How does the long usurpation of the
Levitical tribe in Jerusalem differ from that of the Brahmanical
caste in India ? Let your great Teacher and Deliverer have the
merit of breaking down the one ; but why may I not claim an
428 OBJECTION OF MATERIALISM AND LOCALISATION.
equally unfading crown for our master Sakya ? His faith stands
in the same relation to the Brahmans, as Christianity does to
the priesthood of Aaron and Hilkiah. It should also be noticed,
that Sakya was in age far prior of the two. But have not you
Christians inherited too much of that exclusiveness, which you
blame in the Jews of old? I should not wonder, if all that
doctrine of election had something to do with old Jewish feel
ings. Still more it strikes me that the narrowness of mind,
with which Christians speak of themselves as especial favourites
of heaven, and of all other nations as wandering in darkness, is
either Jewish, or at least wrong. To us it seems that every
man everywhere is accepted, in proportion as he grows in intel
ligence, and does the thing that is right.
(8) " You are perhaps not accustomed to such freedom of
speech from us. But you were, though in all friendliness, our as
sailants on this question, and you invited me to speak. I will now,
however, try you with only one more objection. If Judaism,
and in a less degree Christianity, seem to be narrow in their
sympathies, or unfair in their way of regarding other modes of
worship, still more we think both one and the other have too
local and material a view of all that concerns mental things, and
especially the Divine intelligence. You speak of God, as of a
king sitting upon a visible throne in the sky, with His eldest Son
at His right hand, and one receiving petitions from the other.
Then you make men, like mere animals, creeping upon this
earth, at a great distance from God, and hardly daring to think
any thought of immortality but what is written down for them
in a book. If ever we are to see God, you think we must be
transferred bodily through the air into this palace of the great
King, taking with us flesh and bones, and I suppose, fleshly ap
petites. For though you speak of a spiritual body, I cannot
understand an union of contradictories ; and a bodiless body, or
a material spirit, has for me no meaning. Nor do I know what
matter is, except body. Thus you make Heaven a mere place,
and our souls bodies, and the Infinite God a powerful man.
HINDU SPIRITUALISM. CHRISTIAN REPLY. 429
All tins lias a poor sound to us when we compare it with those
infinite worlds through which our own thoughts expatiate, and
with the entire freedom from every shackle of sense, which we
think belongs to perfect spirit, and with the kindred of that
which is immortal in us to the Highest and all-embracing
Intelligence. Every argument which you used for the immor
tality of man s soul seems to be on the side of such a faith as
ours, rather than of this confined doctrine, with which Chris
tians either express a higher truth in Jewish parables, or, as
I should say, lose it in them. You have spoken, as if you
were not incapable of apprehending our grander views of in
finity ; but the Christian doctrine, as I have generally under
stood it, of a Heaven and an earth, and a great king, and
a lifting of our bodies out of the grave, and an opening or
shutting the gates of Heaven with keys, seems a falling back
from the full growth of the soul into childhood. So that, while
you seemed to be right in taking the spirit against the letter
of the Jews, when I compare your faith with ours, you seem
to be Jews yourselves. For I suppose names make little differ
ence, unless thoughts are changed. But I shall be glad to hear
from you any explanation of the difficulties which I have
ventured to suggest."
(1) " It would have been a bad return for your patience with
us, if I had interrupted you," here observed Mountain; " other
wise your misconception of the aspect of Christian doctrines
would have inclined me to do so. In the first place, you will
nowhere find it written in the Scriptures of the Old Testament
or the New, that the disobedience of Eve is put down, as an
act, to our account. But have we no principle in us partaking
of that which made her disobey ? What have you acknowledged
yourself of sin, and of the need of penitence and forgiveness ?
But whenever we sin, as the conscience of better men owns that
we do, so often we fall from our better mind, and so from the
likeness of God. We disobey the law to which conscience
testifies. Nor does our disobedience come of accident, but of
430 FALLING OF MAN A REALITY,
a division in ourselves, which we lament and yet are guilty of,
and so which attests an evil principle in us, warring with the
good. But if any creature sins, of that which is in itself, or of
a tendency which it inherits, then it so far has an evil nature, or
a sinfulness bound up in its very origin. But such tendency
goes on to act, and may suffer before act. We put our foot on
the head of a young viper, without waiting till its fangs grow.
But if one could change the nature of the viper, so that it should
become harmless, or its poison prove medicine, we should save
it for its better nature s sake. Thus Mankind have evil in
them ; but in so far as any one is cured of this evil, and fulfils
the design of God which is our truer nature and His likeness,
so far the man is healed, and delivered from evil.
" But it makes a great difference, under what aspect such
a doctrine is presented to the mind. If it is exaggerated, so as
to deny our better conscience, and destroy that witness to the
holier law of God, which he makes an instrument to heal us,
then it becomes evil. But no such statement is taught as our
doctrine in the Bible. On the contrary, some of the stronger
sayings, which might seem to support so harsh an exaggeration,
are expressly condemned. Some of them come from the mouths
of those three illnatured friends of Job *, on whom Divine dis
approval is pronounced. It is neither wise of friend, nor fair
of foe, to make those wrong sayings a specimen of Christian
doctrine. Again, some similar sayings are used only in reproof
of a particularly evil generation f, as of that which sinned
before the flood ; or of strangers who oppressed the Israelites J ;
or of tyrants and spoilers , who got riches not by right. Words
spoken in such a relation would naturally be strong, as there
was great occasion for them. But the only passages in the
Bible, which really express the general sinfulness of our race,
are outpourings of penitence, or else of rebuke to men who
* Job iv. 17 20; xi. 3, \i, 20; xxv. 4 6; xxxii. 121.
t Genesis vi. i. + Psalms xiv. 53.
Jeremiah xvii. 9 u ; xxii. 3
BUT NOT TO BE EXAGGERATED. 431
pretended especial righteousness, and needed strong recall to
humility. But penitence of heart is, like love or grief, a passion
which does not weigh words nicely, but pours forth a feeling
it cannot contain. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, might well
be said by David, when fresh from the sin of adultery, into
which fierce passion had carried him ; and every man, in so far
as he approaches a like sin, may use words of like fervour.
But even the purest may in a way adopt them ; for he who
conceives most highly of holiness, will have deepest contrition
for even a slight fall from it. Hence it is that Christianity,
having the strongest sense of the evil of sin, breathes such
fervour of repentance. Our faith in that Holiest One, whom we
cry out for, makes us feel most our falling from His Will. Nor
do we doubt, that such life-long falling from man s better nature
is also falling from what God intended him to be, and so from
the Divine likeness ; for our conscience witnesses by faith to no
imaginary law. And as God is perfect in right, and infinite
in goodness, so we ever fall short, but reach onward to attain
that for which His better Spirit attains us. But neither Scrip
ture of old nor the Church now, teaches, that God punishes us
for any act, save our own. It may be, that when deep feelings
come to be expressed in the uncongenial shape of forms, they
become in danger of losing their truest aspect. Thus some
would say, that Eve s sin is imputed to us, because we partake
of its evil ; but the same persons would add, that the imputation
is taken away, when we become partakers of Christ, and are
baptized into His fold. Some lay more stress on the moral
disease, and on the health of soul by which we spiritually re
vive ; others lay more on our visible birth in a nature partaking
that disease, and on the sacred rite visibly sealing our admission
into* a covenant of the forgiveness of sins. But all agree, in
what Scripture is express upon, that man is smitten of God for
his own sinsf, and not for those of his fathers. They agree also,
that in so far as we partake of Adam, or fallen man, we die ;
* ets, into. Nicene Creed. t Ezekiel xviii.
432 RELATION, ASPECT, FEELING, SACRAMENT.
but in so far as of Christ, or perfect man and Image of God*,
we live. As we partake of flesh, we have natural death. As
we partake of sinfulness, we are in danger of the death of the
soul. As we partake of Christ s sacrifice, we have forgiveness ;
and as of His Holy Spirit, we have eternal life. Even those
Christians who lay most stress on visible baptism, as admission
into the covenant of forgiveness, do so not from ascribing arbi
trariness to God, but out of reverent thankfulness for His health,
and unwillingness to forget the disease which needs it. Nor
would it be reasonable, or humble, to neglect the rite by which
His gift is sealed to the soul. But yet our wisest teachers
make the rite not a charm, but rather a moral instrument to
man, as well as an ordinance of God. For by baptism, they
say, we are consigned humanly to holy teaching, and prayers,
and all instruments of training the soul ; while they doubt not
the Divine blessing will, according to fit time and capacity,
run along with these things, which have a promise to faith, and
which express faith.
" Unless then you say that there is no sin in human nature,
or that it needs no recovery, I do not see how you can object to
the Christian doctrine that man is fallen, and needs to be raised
on his feet. Your own confessions come too near our doctrine
for you altogether to reject it. We are not the first among
mankind to call mortals sick, or weary, or pining. Even Sakya,
with his groaning over earthly things, acknowledged something
wrong in the world. Our difference is, that we trace it far back,
and refuse to stop short of its deepest root ; and having learnt
the greatness of man s sickness, we more thankfully proclaim
the goodness of God who has sent the great Physician of souls
into the world. Here is no cruel doctrine, but one of healing ;
and in so far as any one receives the gift, we rejoice, and would
gladly extend it farther. Only our piety forbids us to find the
origin of sin, as sin, properly in the mind of God, or anywhere
but in an evil spirit in ourselves. But as to the great entangle-
i Corinthians xi. 7 ; 2 Corinthians iv. 4 ; Romans viii. 29 ; Genesis i. 26, 27.
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 433
ment, out of which evil comes and appears as an enemy, so that
the good will is not fulfilled, Blancombe has said enough.
(2) " I have said the goodness of God. For secondly, I must
not allow you to think that our heavenly Father was either
vindictive, or mercenary, or even changeable. He does not
change ; for it is written, that His counsel stands fast, and He
does all His pleasure* . Whatever is being done for the salvation
of mankind now, has been predestined from before the creation ;
and by the term predestination we express this fixity of the
Divine counsel. Thus Christ, as the Lamb of God, is said to
have been slain before the foundation of the world~\. With the
Eternal, then, according to our doctrine, is no variableness.
Neither, again, is there mercenariness. For though the life of
Christ is the most precious of all ransoms, yet it is paid not to
the Father, whose will was always to deliver us, but to the
great enemy, whether death, or the devil, or the law, considered
as an accuser. Surely you know that it is to an enemy ransom
is paid, and not to a father. Thus the apostles with one voice
teach in all their writings, that we are bought out of the hand
of death |, or sin, and out of this present evil world, but never
out of the hands of our heavenly Father. So the primitive
doctors , who came next after the apostles, taught that the
price of Christ s sufferings was paid to the great enemy; only
they knew not how He had a right to exact it. More modern
doctors have explained the price paid as a satisfaction to the
law ; and there is no harm in this view, if we understand it of
the law in its accusing aspect, when it becomes an enemy ; for
then it is the strength of sin ; and we do read that Christ has
blotted out the handwriting which was against us. But we must
* Isaiah xlvi. 10. Ephesians i. n.
t Revelations xiii. 8. I Peter i. 10.
+ Colossiansi. 13 : Actsxxvi. 18 : Galat. i. 4 : 2 Tim. i. g, 10: Titus ii. u 14.
So Irenaeus, Origen, the two Gregories, and even St Augustine. The theory
of a price paid to the Father, or to change His will, is as contrary to Ecclesiastical
Antiquity as it is to our purest conscience, and to Scripture when caught from the
point of view of the sacred writers.
M. P. 28
434 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.
greatly beware of understanding this of that innermost law,
which is the will of the Father, and which, when it comes forth,
gives light to the simple. For in that innermost law, which is
love, there is no darkness at all. Neither does pain come of it ;
for no evil, as evil, is of God."
" But why," here interposed the Saugata, " did not the
Father save the world, since He loved it, without such suffering
by His Son?" "Why," replied Mountain, "do you hurt your
child, when you wish only to correct him? Or why alarm,
when you desire to warn ? No earthly father rejoices in his
child s crying, and yet he suffers it ; nor surgeon in the sharp
pain of the knife, and yet he uses it. So God is not angered
as if out of infirmity; but if men break the order of His
creation, they disturb forces which crush them. As they sow,
He lets them reap. He could not put forth law in fixity, unless
it had penalty possible. All that Blancombe said of evil, as
coming of God only in possibility, but of lower agents in fulfil
ment, should be here remembered by you. He also explained
sufficiently for humility the suffering of Christ. The old written
law could not be broken as a civil institution, unless He who
broke it suffered. Nor could it be abolished in its hold over
men s consciences, unless He who suffered from it had also
triumph. But if even that written law pointed to an eternal
right above us, and its sacrifices to a dread of conscience within
us, these deeper things are for mankind what the writing was
for the Hebrews. These things then require of all men a suffer- 1
ing, which we must partake by sympathy, or otherwise, so as to!
be purged, and an assurance that our sacrifice, or that of which j
we partake in spirit, can be accepted. Again, it has been shewn, i
how Christ s dying and rising again brings about our death tol
sin, and our moral resurrection. But this visible effect (as inj
what I said before) points to a deeper something, or a writing
in heaven, which answers to what is written in earth. Chrisl
then died, even as the victims of the Mosaic law died ; and
men offering those both expressed contrition, and were forgiven,
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 435
so we, associating ourselves with Christ s death in sympathy
and sacrament, make as it were a spiritual sacrifice, and receive
the forgiveness of our heavenly Father, which comes frankly of
His infinite love.
" I need not prove farther that God is not vindictive. How
ever imperfectly we may understand that mystery of evil, which
Christ triumphed over on the cross, we find there the cause of
His pain, rather than in the will of the Father. The limit set
to everything human, the possibilities which accompany good,
the threatening nature of all law, and the necessity of law not
being broken with impunity, give us something like a clue.
They teach us to find the necessity for Christ s death, as a
death, in some necessity external to the innermost will of God,
rather than within it ; though yet without Him, by whom all
things are, neither the necessity, nor the law introducing it,
could be even in thought. They suggest also how that suffering,
which to the eternal love was no motive*, may yet have been
an indispensably foreseen condition; and hence to our finite
thoughts, not grasping an omnipresent unity, it may seem pre
sented as a cause. Moreover, when we see how all great
martyrs suffer, how out of their death goes forth power, and how
death itself by the greater mystery of Christ s bringing immor
tality within its range, had its bonds for ever loosed, we can
feel better than understand, that love here wrought with wisdom
in delivering us from evil. Nor are our Scriptures doubtful on
this point ; for they ever teach that God loved the world, and
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish. Only I must own that our doctrine of
Christ s suffering for our sins, and taking away the sins of the
world by His death, is by some modern teachers put in a
different light from that of the apostles. For the moderns some
times make belief in it a kind of legal requirement, and use it
so as to discourage man, and to narrow the mercies of God.
Whereas with the apostles of Christ it was ever a doctrine of
* See above, page 334.
282
436 DOCTRINE OF ELECTION.
freedom. It was a message of good news that all legal sacrifices
were put away, and that God freely forgives sins, and calls back
all His wanderers through the spirit of the beloved Son to the
Father. Such freedom then gave power to men s souls ; and
the loss of it now in the language of some blind leaders of the
blind is the reason why our truth has less power to heal. But
the very apostles of Christ are our higher authority; and as
their doctrine is most wholesome, so from their writings I would
have you take it.
(3) " As God, by delivering us through His Son from that
evil which was in the world, shews His love to man, neither does
He narrow it by rejecting any willing to be saved. You have
rightly guessed that our doctrine of election has something to
do with Jewish feelings. Only, instead of being the same as
their narrowness, it is built upon St Paul s express teaching to
the contrary. He saw the Jews priding themselves upon being
a chosen people. Already John the Baptist had warned them,
that if they did not Abraham s works, God could raise up other
children to Abraham. So St Paul tells them the chosen position
of light which they had enjoyed had been the gift of God.
Since they turned to the darkness of the letter instead of taking
the light of the spirit in Christ, this better light would be for
the nations at large. Whoever embraced this better gift would
be a part henceforth of the chosen people. Thus mankind steps
into the place of Israel. You see, the apostle s doctrine is not a
narrowing, but a widening. It is a protest against national or
sacerdotal exclusiveness. There may be something of human
metaphor in ascribing such choice to God ; but do we not feel
that we could have no gift without an adequate Giver ? What
ever light, then, we enjoy, or whatever calling comes to us
through teaching, we ascribe it to a forethought of God, as any
human act to a man s thought. If some have larger gifts than
others, they are in a way more chosen. Thus St Paul, having
power to turn many hearts to God, was a chosen vessel. So all
the apostles of Christ were chosen, though one of them turned
NATURAL DIFFICULTIES OF FREEWILL. 437
out an enemy. But if even bodily gifts are of God, much more
those of the soul. The more, then, any man has right faith, and
truth of heart, and goodness, the more he will ascribe such de
liverance to God. But this ascription is in looking back with
thankfulness, when we have received, not in presuming before
hand that we shall. We see the side of human performance,
and our faith infers the inner side of Divine grace. Perhaps our
language on such points may be innocently tinged by those
difficulties which are felt throughout the world in all attempts
to reconcile Fate and Freewill, or Divine purpose and human
agency. For as our freedom is both limited by vaster forces,
and prompted by natural motives, we seem at once agents, and
yet instruments. We are conscious of choice ; yet we choose
not without reason. We will; but our will had antecedents.
Our will goes forth, but yet in act it falls short of its object.
Again, it is biassed by inclinations hardly its own. Circum
stances again give us power, or fetter us. We say for ourselves,
we are free ; yet the bystander foresees what we will do. Per
haps every individual man is in his own will properly free, and
manifests his character by spontaneous choice; yet the conduct
of a mass of men in given circumstances of mind and body is
not doubtful; and we do not doubt that a higher and spiritual
Governor wields the whole at His will. Such difficulties, how
ever, whether they come of two truths which seem to contradict
each other, or rather, as I should say, of limitation to our free
dom, are at least not peculiar to Christianity. They were felt
in Greece and India before the Gospel was preached in the
world. Their connexion with our faith is quite accidental.
Only, as we do magnify soul above body, and motives above
circumstance, and will above deed, or character above results, so
we magnify the secret teaching which comes of the grace of God.
Whoever has this so as to use it, is so far chosen as to have
cause of thanksgiving. But such a gift is no proof that the like
was not offered to others : for we teach favour, but not favorit
ism. Take the doctrine of election as a way of ascribing all we
438 PREDESTINATION.
have received in humility to God, and it is wholesome. Turn
it into an argument for presumption, or exclusiveness, and it is
no longer Christian. It is tire aspect of the speaker, and the
feeling of the words, which makes the difference. We are saved
by grace ; but the grace of God appears, says St Paul, bringing
salvation to all men*. And again, God commands all men
everywhere to have a new mindf. Not few, but all, you hear.
Nor do we fetter human action : for the more we know our
power of action is a gift, the more earnestly we use for fear of
forfeiting it. Work out, the Apostle saysj, your salvation; for it
is God that worketh in you.
(4) " What you object to Predestination has been now anti
cipated. For by this word we mean only that, whatever the
eternal God is doing now, He intended to do. Christianity is
not a new idea in His counsels, but one entertained from of old,
and pervading the Old Testament, though unveiled in the
New. How human action is compatible with Divine fore
knowledge is, as you justly observed, only part of a wider
mystery. Some may think that the Divine foreknowledge has
reason and method, being by prevision of circumstance and
motive rather than by vague omnipotence ; but this we need not
discuss. For whatever may be the rationale of such things, and
whether few are saved, or many, Christ offers His salvation to
every man; and whoever rejects it does so of free will. The
metaphysics of such rejection, in respect of spontaneity or neces
sity, concern Christianity no more than any scheme of human
life ; and they may be settled, as metaphysicians think best, or
unsettled. For the Gospel, like human life, stands on one side
of them. What God offers in Christ is life and health ; and
what we assert eternity of, is His purpose to offer them.
(5) " More important than metaphysical questions, which
only affect the Gospel as they do everything else, is your fifth
objection. For certainly we read, that Jesus spake as never man
* Titus ii. ii. f Acts xvii. 30. J Pliilippians ii. 12, 13.
Ephesians i. ; i Corinthians ii. 10, where read "revealed IT," i. e. the purpose.
DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 439
spake. He wrought works such as never man wrought. He
rose from the grave as never man rose. He lives by His spirit,
in a temple of breathing minds, with such a life as never man
has been able to infuse for generations into a community of all
nations and tongues. He makes holy and humble men of heart,
even now, one in spirit with Himself, and through Himself with
the Father. He renews our humanity after the Divine likeness,
and the world after the Divine thought. We cannot think that
this life comes of less than God ; or that through any less than
heavenly Truth we are thus led to the highest Being. We think,
then, that it has pleased God, who as the Father is invisible, to
shew Himself, by giving His lively image, in Christ, who is
Son of God, and Son of Man. Thus, not like those systems,
which deny Man s Fall, and leave him to fall lower, our faith
takes away sin which separated, by bringing near God who
heals. Nor is such only our inference; but Jesus declared
Himself one with the Father*. His Apostles teach that the
Wisdom (or Word) of the Father dwelt in Himf, and speak of
His emptying Himself of a greater glory by being born Man,
instead of retaining equality with GodJ. Here we find a true
Incarnation, better than your poets have fancied ; and it is by
this outshining of Deity embodied in Man, that Humanity has
fulfilled in it the thought of God. Thus all our life is hallowed,
as its true pattern is shewn, and a power given to fulfil it.
Thus, as members of Christ, we become in spirit children of
God, and are baptised into the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost. Then, when the Church in later times con
sidered how the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit could
be One, and the Word manifest in flesh, yet not the Father, and
the Spirit distinct from both, and dwelling in men, yet one with
God, she found no statement more probable than that of the
Trinity, or the doctrine of Three and One. But she gives this
fuller statement as correct reasoning from the elements of our.
faith, rather than as the very faith. What the missionary meant,
* Ev. St John x. 30. t Ev. St John i. J Philippians ii. 6.
440 THE TRINITY.
was to tell you, that, if you reasoned correctly, such conclusions
would follow from what we read of the Father, the Word, and
the Holy Spirit, in that scheme "by which the grace of God
offers to deliver us from evil. How far you would so conclude,
we are willing you should consider hereafter. What is first
important, is, that you should come through the Spirit of the
Son to the Father. But when I remember what you said of
Dharma, and Sanga*, your law and congregation, I think it
should not seem strange to you, for Christians joined in one
body of Christ, to become partakers of the Word, and have
fellowship through one Holy Spirit with each other, and with
Christ, and with God. Again, though by the word persons we
do not mean to divide from each other those three t, who are
ever the blessed and undivided One Eternal, and One Infinite,
and One Spirit, yet you who join many persons (and even per
sons once human) in One Divine Intelligence, should not stumble
at whatever may be difficult in our human words when applied
to things Divine. Nor should the Hindus, who believe in many
Incarnations, blame us if we say that truth, and love, and
wisdom, embodied in Jesus, was the express image of the
Divine Being made flesh. For the coming forth of spirit from
spirit, though undivided, like the radiance of light from light J,
is not like a coarse division of material persons. It is rather
like Wisdom out of Majesty, or Eeason from Will, or Truth
from Being. But in whatever way you think Deity can have
become Incarnate, suffer us to say that it was so in Christ the
Son of God and Man, until coming to His Truth, and drinking
into His spirit, and partaking of His life, you learn better than
I can explain, how He is the true Offspring of the Father. He
then will raise you into a better knowledge, and into a spiritual
sonship, not foreign to His own.
(6) " Again, if I remember rightly the place in both the
* See above, p. 23.
Tres nescio quid. St Anselm. uTroarcio-ets might be rendered subsistencies.
+ aTravya<T(j,a, St Athanasius and St Paul.
CHRISTIAN FAITH. 441
Bauddha and Vedantine systems assigned to faith, I do not see
how you can blame Christianity for consisting mainly of faith. It
is this which gives body to things hoped for, and is the sight of
things unseen. Upon faith even our earthly knowledge is most
fundamentally built, and by it especially things holiest to our
better souls are apprehended. By faith we believe in Right,
and Mercy, and Truth, and Goodness, and God ; and in Immor
tality, and even in our own Souls. We surely need some deep
principle to withdraw us from the splendour of things that glitter
and pass away, reminding us in temptation of a law, and in
sorrow of a comforter, and in all life of some truer home of our
souls. The martyr in the flame, and the fallen patriot in the
dungeon, or in sight of death, have ever by such power turned
endurance into joy. Nor was Sakya, whom you extol, without
some such feeling, either when he turned from the stir of earth
to a deeper tranquillity, or again when he found bodily penances
less help than the strength born of the mind. But if you claim
such a feeling yourselves, you should not blame Christianity for
endeavouring to purify and guide it. But you ask, is our faith
intellectual belief? I answer that it is not without belief, as
instrumentally necessary ; but in so far as it is itself intellectual,
it neither goes without ground, nor claims merit. He, however,
who trusts in any one, must first believe that he is. You ask,
again, is it confidence ? I answer, that it grows into hope ; for
so the trustworthiness of the object leads it; and our hope
maketh not ashamed ; but yet the essence of faith is not con
fidence for ourselves, except so far as we are confident of God s
truth. With more reason, you ask, if faith is trust. If you
mean trust in all that God is, and all that He does, and com
mands, and promises, I answer, Yes. For thus it means con
fidence in one holier than ourselves. It leads us beyond our
own weakness. It persuades us that God is the Father of our
spirits, that He is our Guide and Judge and Saviour. So, when
He commands, it persuades us to obey ; and when He promises,
to hope ; and when He trusts us, to be faithful ; and when He
442 CHRISTIAN FAITH.
speaks by His inspired servants, or by their records, to believe
what they have spoken of His indwelling thought. Faith,
therefore, is belief, and a taking hold of the unseen, and trust,
and confidence, and obedience, and faithfulness. For it puts on
a dress and aspect according to the object it lays hold of. Here
then is the peculiar character of Christian faith, that it has the
most glorious object in God unveiling Himself in Christ. This
it is which kindles it into hope and love and faithfulness ; for
by this it becomes truly alive to sin, and puts it away, and is
encouraged, and goes on in a life of joy, in which its Saviour
never forsakes it. You may now understand how our faith has
something of its nature in common with what good men feel
among yourselves, but yet is transformed into a more glorious
shape, when it comes through Christ to our God and Father;
nor will you see unreasonableness in our saying, that by such a
faith our souls are saved. For certainly thus we grow better ; nor
do we say that pure heart and upright life are ever of no avail with
God ; but without a right faith a man is less likely to be either
pure or upright. But it is the greatest of errors for you to speak
of our putting faith in a name, above true righteousness. For
since He whom we trust is the very Truth, and Holiness, and
Love, and since the salvation He gives us consists in delivering
us from evil, and making us like Himself, it is not possible to
have faith in Him, without growing into a like nature. But
having His hope, we purify ourselves, even as He is pure. This
is even our deliverance : and to this we are called.
(7) " You are prepared now to anticipate all that I need say
about exclusiveness. It is no part of Christianity to believe that
God acts unjustly by any man. But if He deals better by
Christians, it is because He makes them better in themselves;
and His gifts are according to fitness. You trust your best
servants with your highest offices. So the Euler of the world
gives great things to those who have been faithful in little ; and
may often make rulers of human things those who will rule
them in his faith and fear. But in general, earthly virtues have
HIGHEST GOODNESS EXCLUSIVE OF LOWER. 443
from Him an earthly reward ; while the meek or pure in heart
are great in the kingdom of heaven. Not that their greatness
is, as many think, in the mere inversion of a temporal scale, as
if we could abase ourselves on a calculation of being exalted.
Bather the reward is the excellence of that which God works
in us. For there is no higher happiness than to partake of His
Holy Spirit, and to be like Him. Hence it is more blessed
with us to give, than to have given to us.
"How then can you call Christianity exclusive? Its only
exclusiveness consists in its higher goodness. It is not reason
able to sit down with the lowest knowledge, when we can
reach a higher. So, if God gives men in His gospel more light,
and with light the means of growth in godliness, they condemn
themselves, if they turn back to darkness ; and by doing so,
throw away a gift of life. You ask, why Sakya may not be
ranked so high as Jesus, whom we call Christ and Deliverer.
I answer, because his faith is inferior, both as regards God and
man. On the one side, he brings us to no clear sight of the Father
as our judge and our friend ; on the other, he gives the con
science no true sacrifice, by which sin shall be at once acknow
ledged and put away. Here also we see why Brahmanism, as
compared to the religion of the Hebrews, greatly fails ; for it
leads to nothing. It was, as you have said, an usurpation ; and
one not without good in its time, but with a yoke, which
humanity required broken. But it left little inheritance by which
a deeper faith could profit. It would have been useless for
Buddha to preach the Vedic Deities, and very difficult for him
to trace in the whole Brahmanical system a leading idea, as of
a heavenly guide, leading forward mankind ; whereas Christ
speaks all along to his disciples in the name of the eternal Lord
God who had led their fathers of old, and had brought up their
nation from a child. He takes hold of the ritual, and shews its
Divine institution, by fulfilling it in himself. In the same spirit
St Paul compares the Law to teachers and nursery-masters*
* Galatians, ch. iii. iv.
444 MOSAIC IDEAS PREGNANT BEAHMANISM BARREN.
who have charge of a youthful heir. They are not given for
nothing, but to teach him. So the old Hebrew belief in a Judge
of the whole earth has not passed from Christians. The old
sacrifices have not lost their significance ; but that out of which
they came, and to which they tended, is fulfilled in us, if we
walk after this spirit of Christ. So the offices of king, and
teacher, and religious minister, have not even forfeited their
earthly range of usefulness : but yet their highest origin is un
veiled by their embodiment more ideally in Christ. Mankind
then are better for the Mosaic training of Israel ; and hence we
can infer a Divine design. So the Church still lives by the
life of Christ, and humanity is brought nearer to God by that
He fulfilled in Himself. He then is still the Mediator between
God and man. It is for the holier truth and the higher bless
ing that we are anxious, rather than for the name. It may be
that the word Moloch means only king, and Baal lord, and
Jupiter (or Diespiter) the bright father, or in its later use, God
the father yet if the rites connected with one of such names
were bloody, and with another, licentious, and with a third,
clouded by superstitious fable, our consciences stand aloof from
what does not suit the holiness of the true God. So, if the
Vedic Deities were natural objects, and the triad of the second
stage of Hinduism were sacerdotal generalisations, and the
Pauranic mythology full of confused fables, and if Sakya, or
his followers, can put in the place of such things no clear sight
of the Governor of the world, and no fulfilment of what sacrifice
means from a true heart to God, it is not for names we contend
when we shew you the more excellent way of Christ. We
rather offer you truth here, and immortality hereafter. We
address you with some hope of finding an answer in your own
consciences, that what Christ commands is right, and what He
promises, desirable ; but also with a clear history, shewing in
stances of our promises for this life having been fulfilled in
many, and for the life to come, in Christ s own rising from the
grave. The books of our Christian history are not written after
HISTORICAL WITNESS TO CHRIST. DEFENCE OF IMAGERY. 445
a long period of tradition, such as you say was inspired, but
such as leaves scholars to doubt * whether anything certain is
known of Sakya s life ; but our books come fresh from the com
panions of Christ, and the witnesses of His resurrection. That
wonderful event is a proof that the highest God and Governor
of all things must have given a mission to the Son whose
faith He thus sanctions, while the effects of the faith in the world
are a perpetual witness worthy of its beginning. If then you
take our history, it is a proof; if our religion, it should be of
itself a persuasive; and if its ultimate hope, nothing can be
more encouraging. Do not therefore call us exclusive, but
rather friendly, for offering you a better boon.
(8) " But you have been pleased to say, that our views of
Deity and of a Resurrection are too narrow and local. You com
plain of the doors of Heaven being opened as if with keysf. But
to bear a key was a common sign of office among the Jews ; so
Christ in giving to His apostles an office of teaching, by which
men should be persuaded to enter into life, says with an ex
pressive image, that He gives them the keys of heaven. Again,
in speaking of the doors being shut, Christ expresses the fixed
destiny of a man s lot, when he has thrown away all his
opportunities, and wasted his time or capacity of working out
his desire, or of even feeling what is true and good. But
such sayings, and others, of the throne, and the twelve thrones
of the apostles, and the sitting down to a feast, are spoken in
parables which may awaken faith to an apprehension of higher
things, such as truth, and peace, and holiness. Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God, says Christ, thereby
teaching clearly, that the sight is one of faith, or of the
mind.
" Now the habit of using such parables can only be a re
proach to Christianity, if there is some better way of teaching
* See a paper by Professor Wilson in one of the latest numbers of the Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society, April, 1856.
f Isaiah xxii. 22; St Matthew xvi. 19; xxv. 10, n.
446 IMAGERY A SAFEGUARD AGAINST ERRORS.
men; whereas in reality no faith has ever found its disciples
able to dispense with such images. All the local paradises, and
hells, of the Hindus, shew how necessary are such helps to our
sensuous apprehensions. Hence even in the most direct com
munication from the Almighty to his creatures I do not see
why we should expect such pictures not to be employed. They
may not answer to the highest realities of spirit in themselves,
but may lead us up to them by regulating our thoughts. Hence
they may be parables, but yet sacred ones. How well suited
the Christian pictures are to raise in us thoughts of a higher
being to come, appears from the tone of mind of even our
simplest Christians. If they think of God somewhat after the
manner of a man, yet they never forget Him as a Judge, or
make Him accomplice in sensual sin, still less worship Him as
a stone. Compare even their greatest simplicity in taking
literally things meant as parables, with the idolatry of most
of your people, with the lefthanded Sakta worship of others,
and with the vagaries of those who, like the Thugs, make a
religion of crime. Such extravagances shew that men require
something to regulate and elevate their thoughts. We believe
that the Almighty has given us such a standard in those
spiritual experiences of His Church of old which are collected
in our Bible. We find no dangerous error come from the most
literal reading of it ; while the wise may, if they keep humility,
be led on into higher views of things eternal.
" I do not know what justifies you in speaking positively
against a resurrection of the body. It certainly is easier to
conceive of our souls as immortal. But then would souls dis
embodied have a complete humanity ? We have no experience
of their acquiring impressions, or developing powers, except in
connexion with matter. We do not know what process of refine
ment the body may be capable of. Perhaps a more subtle
texture, or delicate organism, such as the subtle person some
of your sects imagine, may be the instrument of our soul s
activity hereafter. Such a glorified companion might be less
RESURRECTIONIMMORTALITY TRANSMIGRATION " AGES." 447
open to injury or pain, yet capable of affection, and of a higher
interest in the works of the Creator. But, if you say that any
possible body, being organised, must admit of decay, and so our
life would not be eternal, this objection comes ill from men
who put before us a series of many transmigrations. Again,
even a bodily life in some higher form, may yet have more con
sciousness, and pleasure, than the final apathy, little better than
extinction, which is the highest bliss you aspire to. We look
by faith, as Christians, for a rest more blessed than a fresh birth
in this earthly world, yet for a life more active than your breath
less absorption. The earliest Christians believed that the
resurrection would not be until God had made new heavens
and a new earth, fit for spirits made perfect. Our faith is still
in its substance the same ; though, as the mystery of the subject
tempts conjecture, some fancy that the spirits of the departed
enter at once into joy ; and these would not dispute with you
about a bodily resurrection. Others think, more agreeably to
the letter of the scripture, that our bodies are raised and glori
fied, or else that a new organisation, perhaps in some distant
world, is given to the soul. Nor should I wonder if some of
them would reconcile a part of your doctrine with their own, by
thinking that a succession of lives may be a succession of steps
of glory, as star differs from star. They might think that men
are born again in some higher world, as in a resurrection, with
organs fitted for a higher life ; yet such a life, though having
the seed of immortality, might yet be finite, so far as to admit
of a higher one beyond it. Thus souls might migrate, and men
rise again in successive ages, as the Divine Wisdom might de
termine. Only from this present life we must ever hold that
the great impulse is given, by which God, revealing himself as
our Father, delivers us from evil, and takes us into his spiritual
kingdom. Nor could we think patiently of any dream of our
falling from such consciousness into a lower estate of animals :
still less could we bear to imagine, that souls, once made in
the image of the Eternal, can ever lose the individuality He
448 DAY OF JUDGMENT. RETRIBUTION.
stamped on them, or cease to be self-conscious ever for good or
for evil. This life of ours now, then, seems to us the crisis of
our everlasting destiny. We have before us life and death ;
and while God ever invites every man to choose the good, the
immutability of his counsel (which you justly assert) forbids
Him to change the laws against which we may dash ourselves
into every wreck of self-conscious misery, if we determine to
create for ourselves evil. Truly with Him is no variableness.
For my .own part, seeing that the issue is so tremendous, and
that it turns upon a heart and life cleansed by faith*, rather
than upon doubtful knowledge, I had rather take hold of the
inheritance which God has promised, than speculate about the
manner of its coming about. You may enlarge the Christian
parables, of the Judgment, and the Thrones, and the Books,
and the instruments of music, and the palm-branches, into
whatever vision you think more spiritual, of retribution, and of
memory, and of remorse or good conscience, and of communion
with the Father of our spirits, and of triumph among all who
have lived purely and acted nobly in every age and country.
Still you must leave in reality of meaning that God has ap
pointed to all men once to die, and after death the judgment.
The more sober this truth sounds, or the more nearly your faith
approximates to it, so much the more gladly you should welcome
the good news of Christ, who though conscious of that in
dwelling in Him which was before Moses or Abraham, and
beyond space or time, yet emptied Himself of that illimitable
consciousness, and took on Him the form of a servant"]", becoming
subject to legal and local limits, that He might embody before
us a picture of God s true being, and of his design for man ;
and so by living and dying, He brought home to us the holiest
truth in a form suited to our human conceptions, and by
entering visibly into his kingdom threw light on life and im
mortality. If Sakya had in like manner risen from the grave,
we should have more reason for examining his doctrine reve-
* Acts xv. 9 ; xxvi. 1 8. f Philippians ii. 7.
S^KYA S SHORTCOMING. SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. 449
rently : or, if we had found his doctrine a sufficient mediation
between God and man, we should not have been surprised at
God having in like manner raised him. But no such rising
from the dead is even pretended for him. Nor do we find in
his doctrine, as it now is, the power of regenerating men and
bringing them to God, which we find in that of Christ. We
take hold then of that which has the higher attestation in
history, and the purest persuasion in living experience, while
it gives us also the clearest hope for the life to come. It may
be that in this faith of ours, even because it is a faith, we
know but in part. Yet the time will come for us to know, even
as we are known. Any immortality which we could understand
while in the flesh would fall short of our hope. But though
things to come belong to the Eternal, we thank Him that the
things He has revealed belong to us and to our children ; and
these are enough to shew us the way of peace now, with that of
an endless hope hereafter. Jesus Christ therefore remains to
us the author and finisher of our faith ; and we are not ashamed
of following Him as little children, if only we may so grow to
the fulness of His spiritual stature, and be at length in the
Holy Spirit One with Him, even as He is One with the Father.
M. P.
450 HINDU CONCESSIONS.
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.
" The Lord is my shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing. He shall feed me in
a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort. He shall convert
my soul, and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness, for his Name s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil :
for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff comfort me. Thou shalt prepare a
table before me against them that trouble me : thou hast anointed my head with
oil, and my cup shall be full. But thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."
PSALM xxiii.
"There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek : for the same Lord
over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Even our ancient writings say, Who
soever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But then you ask, How
can Greeks or Indians have called on Jehovah, if they did not believe in Him? And
how, you continue, could they have believed in Him, if they never knew Him by
His name Jehovah ? And how can they have known Him, unless He were revealed
to them ; and how can they have had a revelation, without a ministry, as we had,
of prophets or heralds ; as, for instance, it was written on the return from Babylon,
How beautiful are the feet of them that proclaim good news of peace, and glad
tidings of weal ! Or even if the Lord makes known his grace to Greeks and
Indians, yet you object that they do not believe the good news; just as Isaiah said,
Lord, who hath believed our report of thy deliverance ? So then you argue, the
Gentiles have not faith ; for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by an express mes
sage, such as the Lord has not sent to them. But I answer, Oh ! thou that restest
upon scripture and boastest of revelation, have not all nations heard something of
the goodness of God ? Yes, verily ; as we read in the Psalms, of his starry wit
nesses, that their sound has gone into all the earth, and their ivords unto the ends of
the world. And again I ask, Had not Israel reason to know that God loves every
human being in the wild isles of the sea ? Certainly ; for even Moses says, I will
provoke you my elect people to jealousy by those whom you count no people, and
to zeal by those whom you call foolish. But Isaiah is very bold in proclaiming the
same truth, that God is the Father of all, and not of the elect nation only ; for He
says, I was found of them that sought me not; 1 was revealed to them that inquired
not of me. But to the elect nation He says, All day long have I stretched forth my
hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people. Paraphrase of St Paul, Romans x,
12 "* Compare ch. ii. 17 20 ; i. 19, 20 ; and Psalms xix. 4, and viii. 3, 4.
1 MANY of the objections raised," here remarked Sadananda,
" have received from the stranger answers, which seem to me
HINDU CONCESSIONS. 451
satisfactory. For it makes a great difference, from what point of
view doctrines are regarded, or who, and in what frame of mind,
is the speaker of words conceived to embody them. Thus, if the
doctrine of a Fall of Man is made to destroy our perceptions of
right and wrong, it may become an instrument of moral degra
dation to the entire conscience ; or if it forbids us, any more than
brute creatures, to strive after immortality, it is injurious to the
better soul within us ; or, if it makes a single act of the first
woman the alone cause of a change in the world s course, it
derogates from the wisdom of whatever supreme Lord any of us
are able to believe in ; and if it transfers the guilt of that single
act, with eternal penalties for it, to millions of men unborn, it
shocks both justice and humanity. But if the same doctrine
expresses rather mankind s keen sense of the difference between
good and evil, with their earnest aspiration after the better part,
and their generous shame at falling short of it, then it may
become a wholesome instrument of contrition. So again, if it
expresses our confidence in the Divine compassion as ever ready
to rescue us from the evil we have brought upon ourselves, it
may waken our courage and our thankfulness. Especially if the
words thought to teach such a doctrine, are in the sacred
writings either an outpouring of passionate penitence, or a fervid
denunciation of sin, we may see them to be relatively true and
wholesome, though they might ill bear cold inferences from
logical bystanders, as if they were dispassionate descriptions ;
still less might they be useful to force with iteration upon all
persons in all moods. For deep feeling, whether penitence or
love, expresses a truth, but with a colouring of its own. So
again, if there is a shortcoming, such as we admit, in the world
either from misplacement or sinfulness in nature, the first instance
of such a fall on part of a human being may well be recorded
as critical, without being thereby made a cause. Nor do I
know that the difference would be important if such an instance
were symbolical, and were so to express the tendency which we
find, for passion and darkness in man to warp goodness. But,
292
452 HINDU CONCESSIONS.
as the losing of a child in the first act of a play does not pre
vent it from being found with good fortune before the end of the
last act, so the drama of the world may have always been har
moniously evolving, in spite of internal contradictions.
" The Christian doctrine of the Atonement too may vary
much according to its aspect. For, if it is presented to us as a
doctrine of ritual bondage, and of external compensation or vin-
dictiveness, or if it makes an honest and good heart of less worth
than mere confidence in the name and merit of another, then we
could hardly call it wholesome. But, if the doctrine is rather
one of freedom to the soul, by putting the love of a supreme
Lord in strong contrast to a dreary round of sacrificial penances,
and by shewing His compassionate desire to deliver men from
all evil, and especially from the scourge of a law which He
willed should exist as inherently good, though yet He did not
will the penal effect which was through our acts an accompa
niment of it, then I can understand how the soul is reconciled
by such a doctrine to whatever is holiest above her, and does
good, being delivered from evil. Nor do I see much difficulty
in the clash of feeling, or of personality, which such a doctrine
as that of the Atonement has been said to involve in the Divine
Being. For though to myself all pure soul appears necessarily
tranquil, yet whoever attributes agency either literally or meta
phorically to a supreme Lord, must ascribe also volition analo
gous to that of man. But we find in ourselves an apparent
clash of motives, and painful means to desirable ends. Thus
the Will must work by reason, or with consideration, and these
may unite in one consciousness. So the Divine Unity, if it
correspond at all to our complex being, might have without
offence to reason a triplicity of its own. Even the Sankhya
admits a triple divinity or manifestation of one principle. The
Vedanta, with still greater conformity to the Christian Trinity,
teaches a certain divine outcoming of the eternal Spirit; and
most of all, the Bauddhas, who worship a man as partaker of
the highest intelligence, and join many agents in a sort of
HINDU CONCESSIONS. 453
spiritual unity, have no room for consistent objection to the
Christian doctrine. If Christ has adequately manifested the
Divine Being incarnate, any speculative difficulty in reconciling
such a manifestation with fundamental unity, belongs equally to
many of our Indian systems. So again, whatever difficulty is
found in predestination, cannot be charged exclusively on
Christians, for it appears analogously in every attempt our own
philosophers have made to reconcile freewill with fate, or human
agency with divine forethought. The only question really is,
whether Christians have introduced any fresh confusion in such
speculations ; and upon the stranger s shewing, they have not
done so. Eather, I should say, from their stress upon conscience,
that they magnify human responsibility to the utmost; though
their doctrine of grace, or encouragement from the Holy Spirit,
and their strong colouring of the perplexities of human nature,
may be taken also as expressing the vast forces which surround
(and, as we say, absorb,) the personality of man. Perhaps, then,
if the entire scheme of Christian doctrine be wisely taught, it
maybe the absolute truth, as the expression of the human soul in
its most devout attitude towards a higher power ; and yet such
doctrine may have come about by development and confluence,
such as the Bauddhas and I myself should contend for. From
such a point of view at least I am willing to consider the whole
question ; and I think the objections have been fairly answered.
But very much depends upon the aspect and limits with which
the doctrines objected to are taught. If the Fall of Man is made
to cloud our conscience, it must be evil ; if it expresses intensity
of remorse, it may be relatively true. If the Atonement be made
an external substitution, or a venal compensation, it is bad ; but
if it expresses the fixity of law, and teaches men through sym
pathy to consecrate themselves in self-dedication, it is very good.
So, if by election is encouraged either pride, or a feeling of the
Divine arbitrariness, it contradicts the conscience ; but if we are
thus taught only to ascribe whatever gift or capacity we have to
the Divine goodness, it is then a wholesome lesson of humility.
454 DIFFICULTY AS TO THE JEWS.
On the same principle, faith may either be a substitute of passion
ate egotism for moral sincerity, or it may be an earnest laying
hold of things eternal, and an instrument of growth by trust in
One who is able to deliver from evil to the uttermost. Faith, it
seems truly said, must take its character from its object ; and it
is easy to conceive, that faith in God as He is declared to have
revealed Himself in Christ, may be a most animating impulse to
all holiness.
" Once more, the objection made to a certain narrowness of
view in Christianity, as if it dwelt too much on persons and
places, or on material and local imagery, instead of rising into a
truly spiritual faith, seems to me fairly answered. For our
wisest doctors have admitted, that the religious books, which we
ourselves receive as sacred, contain many signs of partial and
temporary knowledge. Probably spiritual things could never
be expressed to any class of human beings, without something
of imagery and parable drawn from the senses. Most certainly
they cannot be so to the great mass of mankind. Nor is it any
detriment to the truly religious knowledge, that it has an earthly
accompaniment, which we may be trained to discriminate, and
often go beyond. It is quite consistent with our own views, that
the religion of the New Testament should, either by a fresh
revelation, as the strangers think, or by steps of development,
as we should imagine, go greatly beyond the more limited know
ledge of the Old, and even discard the imperfect religious rites of
early time. So far I feel compelled to assent to some such plea
as the elder stranger has put forward.
" But yet there seems to me a great difficulty for Christians,
involved in the fate of the Jews. It seems to be often said, that
the Jews had their sacred city destroyed, and were scattered
through many countries, as a punishment for infidelity. Whereas,
it is clear, that if they had not clung faithfully to their ancient
law, and trusted in their God that He would deliver them, they
would have been spared by the Romans. So that in fact they
suffered for their fidelity. No one can with any fairness say,
CHRISTIAN INJUSTICE TO JEWS. 455
that the system which the Jews uphold, is not literally truer
to the Old Testament, than that which Christians force upon
them. Only the younger stranger has attempted to obviate the
difficulty thus arising, by his distinction between the letter and
the spirit. Still, ought he not to acknowledge, that the Jewish
view is not only most literally correct, but such as conscientious
fidelity to the Mosaic law would naturally engender ? How then
can they be justly punished for cherishing a Divine law, or for a
pertinacity of temper which that law was humanly certain to
produce in any nation. A local temple, a written Bible, a round
of sabbaths, and feasts, and slaughters of animals, and in short
a rigid sacerdotalism, may be termed the characteristics of the
Mosaic system. Grant that the Gospel of Christ does better in
teaching a consecration of the world and of man s life and heart,
a perception of holy truths by the conscience, and offering of
ourselves heartily to the Divine service, with great freedom in
drawing nigh to God, as Christ drew nigh, being a son ; yet the
Jewish fault seems a failure in rising with the development of
their system, rather than a positive fall from it. They suffer by
fidelity, not by infidelity. When then we add, that they have
been cruelly persecuted, for what was the most natural, if not
the most enlightened, course, and when the obvious sense of
their Scriptures is often wrested (though it has not been so to
day,) by narrowminded bigots who want an excuse for heaping
up accusations, what conclusion must we draw ? Is not the fate
of the poor Jews, not so much a standing argument for Chris
tianity, as a very great difficulty in its way? That predesti
nation of Christianity which has been spoken of, as involved in
Judaism, at least does not lie upon the surface. I should be
glad to hear the younger stranger endeavour to explain this
difficulty. Nor can he well do so, without entering somewhat
upon the question of letter and spirit, and explaining how far
the Bible is the fixed rule of Christians in its letter, or how far
there dwells in the Church or in mankind, a living spirit, and a
power of discerning principles and modifying applications, by
456 FAITH S FOUNDATION IN GOD.
reason, or by religious instinct. He also promised in the outset
to say something about Inspiration. Nor did I quite understand
what his elder friend said about a Sacrament, and its connexion
with the general sinfulness of mankind. I should be glad to
hear these questions, and any closely bound up with them, more
fully handled. Nor would it be amiss, if he would discuss some
book of the Old Testament, so as to exemplify the real connexion
of the Old with the New."
Thus far Sadananda ; and Blancombe responded thus to his
invitation: "I should have begun," he said, "with asking,
whether you believe Divine Providence to proceed most by
general laws, or by special interference in minute instances.
For such a question might lead up to an explanation of your
difficulty. But unfortunately your whole system seems to deny
any truly ruling Providence, since you ascribe such a thing only
to the Divine agencies which flow forth from nature for a tran
sitory reign. Here then is a great gulf between us, which I
know not how to bridge, unless it please the great Searcher of
hearts Himself to give you such a conviction of His being and
of His goodness as you seem to need. For it is by steadfast
belief in Him as an Almighty Governor, that we on our own
part hold more firmly the hope of a life to come. We think
that He has not made us for naught, nor suffers the whole
universe to be an ocean of transitoriness, and void of beings with
His likeness, who may know both themselves and Him. By
belief also in Him we interpret the world s course, and see in it
a good design. Thus our belief in God gives substance to our
belief in the evil of sin, and to our consciousness of falling into
it, yet also to our persuasion of its not being intended for us, but
being an evil from which we must pray to be delivered. Still
more, when our conception of the Almighty Governor is raised
and purified by what we see of His likeness in Christ, our moral
instincts as it were are deepened, and we feel more strongly how
far mankind are fallen, and our need of forgiveness, and of rising
again into that which God intended us to be. Hence while I
FAITH S FOUNDATION IN GOD. 457
thank you for the fairness with which you have considered our
answers to some objections, I am not sure that you feel the full
force of our doctrines, unless you are able to see light thrown
upon them in the light of God. You have rightly conceived,
that our doctrines take their shape from the aspect and mood of
men uttering the fervid accents in which they are embodied;
but you must not forget, that these moods reflect a deeper law,
and the accents are eloquent of a perpetual truth. Whatever
is now doctrine, was once feeling, and the intellectual form may
too often have warped the affectionate life. But it must not
therefore be thought that the feeling was not a true one. Nay,
it may even have been swollen to passion, and may have run
coloured by imagination, but it does not follow that its source
was not in a true perception of an eternal law, and in a con
sciousness of having wandered from it, and of needing return.
For it is through our feelings and thoughts, as well as through
our experiences of life, that our Maker seems to teach us. We
become each a mirror to some portion of His law, and perhaps
mankind to the whole of it. Our faith in Him also leads us to
believe, that whatever special guidance He has given was for
those to whom He gave it the best. If then He has put plain
words or homely images in the mouths of His servants, we do
not doubt that such conveyed the truth as men were able to
receive it. Nor is our faith in this respect without warrant from
the shortcoming of those amongst whom the imagery of Chris
tian truth is not known or received. If any of you object to the
parables of our Gospels, you have no way so efficient of com
municating their truths ; or if you blame our associations with
names, and persons, and places, you yet justify the wisdom of
God in so teaching us, by the far greater darkness into which
your countrymen, without such helps, have fallen. But perhaps
I have said enough to shew, how even your fair appreciation of
some Christian doctrines must fall short of apprehending them
fully, if you are yourself not convinced of the being of that God,
who is their beginning and their end.
458 GENERAL OR SPECIAL PROVIDENCE.
" But even amongst those who have the fullest trust in the
Giver of every good gift, there is some difference as to whether
they should look upon His Providence as general or particular ;
that is to say, whether it deals chiefly with the whole or with its
parts, and whether it embraces all in a large design, or whether
it interposes often with change and interference. We shall un
derstand the nature of their question better, if we distribute it
in some instances. We see life both springing everywhere from
the earth, and pervading the waters and the heavens. Does the
unseen power of Deity which supplies the secret seed or prin
ciple of such life, and arranges its types by combining fore
thought, care also for each weed in our garden, and for every
egg in the wild bird s nest? It is easy to say, that whoever
cares for the world must care for all that is within it ; since we
could not embrace a class without including its members, any
more than have a body healthy, if its limbs were diseased. Yet
this seems partly answered, by noticing how many things perish,
both of seeds, and plants, and living things, yet the class to
which they belonged lives on, and is perhaps better for their
extinction. The gardener will pluck half a tree s fruit, that the
remainder may have room. Even of our bodies we seem to spare
something, having often to choose between beauty and strength,
or between labour with health, and ease with sickness. More
manifestly in nature at large we see a lavishness of beauty,
which seems as if the Deity were prodigal of life, as knowing
that He can bring it again out of every seeming extinction. We
see also poisonous creatures, and many instruments of ruin. But
look more at human affairs. A fisherman is starving in his
cottage, because wind and sea are adverse. He prays to the
Divine wielder of the elements, and has perhaps a prosperous
time. But the same gale which wafts his little bark, sweeps
also the entire ocean, and carries fleets from one continent to
another, not without inconveniences possibly, and casualities of
shipwreck. Was the gale sent for the fisherman, or did it come
of wider causation ? Again, in passion a man mingles falsehood
GENERAL OR SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 459
with blasphemy, and imprecates sudden death on himself if he be
not speaking truth. At the moment, perhaps, his passion causes
some internal rupture, and he incurs, as he deserved, the death,
which he invoked. But does he die from his imprecations being
heard, or from the general laws of health and disease ? So great
criminals may be men of cleverness, though more commonly of
brutish stupidity ; and nothing seems to escape the sagacity or
cunning with which they provide against detection. Yet in the
midst of their provisions some fatuity seizes them, and by a
blunder so gross that it seems intentional, they drop a clue which
leads justice on their track. Does such infatuation come of the
general law, which makes all anxiety embarrassing, and guilt
especially blinding; or does it signify the special care of an
Almighty Governor that this or that man should be punished ?
We see the links of general causation more clearly in cases
where our actions or prayers tend to realise themselves. Thus
even small armies, when fervently devout as well as patriotic,
have often vanquished disproportionate numbers ; and it is difficult
for even any human force to conquer them. But does this in-
domitableness come of a special blessing of Heaven upon the
cause, or is it the offspring of men s minds, kindled by common
prayer and exhortation, and having confidence in their cause
and in each other ? We seem at least in such cases to trace a
general instrumentality by which faith removes mountains, or
turns to flight the armies of aliens*. Yet I know not if we do
not more readily conceive of the Divine forethought as guiding
events, when they involve the destiny of nations. Thus when
Spain, in her time of greatness, would have crushed the free
faith of England, and the threatening Armada was shattered by
storms, our own nation was not afraid to say, that God had
breathed, and His enemies had been scattered ; for the occasion
seemed worthy of a Divine interposition. So, if in a shipwreck
* Hebrews xi. 32 34, where the sacred writer speaks of Faith in its most
general or ideal sense. We destroy all his argument if we suppose him thinking of
doctrinal details, or the particulars of Christianity.
460 GENERAL OR SPECIAL PROVIDENCE.
is an Apostle*, who has yet to carry the news of spiritual free
dom to many nations, we more easily believe that his life and
that of his companions may be given him by the Ruler of sea
and land. Yet it is difficult to say that anything human could
be great in the sight of the Infinite God, if His goodwill did not
make it so ; and the same goodwill might magnify what concerns
the least of us. It seems fanciful when we are told, in confla
grations, that the flames have halted at the sacred threshold of
some church ; for if such respect for local sanctity came of law
and thought, it would be regular ; but since it is exceptional, it
seems to be fortuitous. Yet if a life, as of a child, is spared by
some strange concurrence of things, as in sheltering for instance
under two transverse beams in the downfall of a house, we hesitate
to ascribe the escape to chance, for it seems not without thought
and goodness. But again, if we say, everything good in the
world comes of special arrangement by a supreme Governor,
there are many terrible casualties of fire, and shipwreck, and
pestilence, in which prayer goes up from hopeless agony, and
which neither wit of man nor malice of devil can have devised,
yet which we shrink from ascribing in each instance to the
special fiat of a Divine Will. It seems to us more pious to
believe, that such sorrows could not consistently with the large
extent of our Maker s dealings and the fixity of His laws be
prevented, and that while they themselves may be rendered
tolerable by patience, the capacities which make them possible
will be greatly overruled for good. There is a shortcoming, or
a sinfulness, on part of all creatures, which leaves them no right
of complaining that they are placed generally in a scheme ad
mitting of drawbacks ; yet there is a complicated fortuitousness
in the happening of evils, which warns us not to think them
indexes to any; sentence of God.
" Thus there seems to be a certain margin of chance, or of
what comes to the same result, a complication which is the in
evitable accompaniment of fixed law ; and we seem intended to
GENERAL OR SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 461
bring ourselves by free agency within the range of the currents
and the sweep of the tides of Divine Providence, rather than to
expect their course will be divested for our convenience. Many
accidents of life and death happen, which men dispute whether
they shall explain by the general operation of law, or trace in
them a special design. All intellectual reasoning leads them to
magnify general law ; and they find laws in operation, which
seem to embrace all things. But the feelings again, and the
devouter instincts are thought to lead us back to a more special
view, as if the Deity must regard each person and thing. The
first view seems the wiser, the second the more devout. The
first enlarges the domain of human action, and awakens the
sense of duty ; the second speaks more of resignation, and of
gratitude for gifts. The first may go so far as to be in danger
of forgetting God ; the second may pay Him unwise honour by
neglecting our part in His scheme. That unblest activity which
might seem akin to an atheistic philosophy, is the extreme ex
pression of one ; and the apathetic torpor which aims at no good,
and remedies no evil, is the exaggeration of the other. Thus
wholesome inventions in common life have often been frowned
upon, and faquirs or saints both in the East and the West have
thought it wrong to remove vermin from their bodies ; for do not
such things, they say, and all mischievous agencies, as well as
calamitous events, come of the Divine Will? These, however,
are wild extremes. But, amongst sober persons, there is an apt
ness to look more, either on the idea of general law in the world,
or on the possibility of special commands. Whichever is the
inclination of a man s rnind as he notices the signs of Providence
in common things, will probably re-appear in his judgment of
sacred revelation. If he finds the religion in some respects tem
porary, or the knowledge which accompanied it imperfect, he may
ascribe this shortcoming to a general law, which made a certain
view natural in given circumstances, or he may believe it to have
been positively imposed for a time by some Divine utterance,
and again as positively revoked. In the one case, Kevelation
462 ANALOGY OF REVELATION.
will seem a growth and an unveiling, in proportion as men
could attain or see with fitness ; in the other case, it will be a
succession of external oracles, with no steps of inherent con
nexion, and perhaps with no harmony, except from without.
Thus, if we have rightly supposed that the religion of India has
varied in different ages, and if such steps as polytheism, slaughter
of men or horses, and then a higher conception of the Divine
unity, with bloodless sacrifices, are found to have followed on
each other, one interpretation of such changes would be, that an
overruling Providence had thus trained men through rude awe,
and thought, and thankfulness, into truer perceptions of religion ;
while another view would be, that the Deity had by oracle re
vealed each of these stages, and then again annulled it. So
again, if the white-complexioned Aryas overran India, their
conquest of the aboriginal Dasyus will by some be thought a
natural result of their higher intelligence, yet not therefore a
thing without mission or duty ; while to others it may seem a
direct response to the prayers for victory, which are recorded in
the Rig- Veda. So that our answer to many questions about
the theory of religion will depend somewhat on our conception
of Divine Providence in the world at large. Are we, for ex
ample, to say that it proceeds by general law, or by frequent
and special interferences ?
" I will try to answer this question, by asking if the two
views may not be in a way reconciled? The more we know of
nature, the more undeniable it becomes, that the forethought of
the Deity proceeds by law on the grandest scale ; and that need
of frequent meddling (or revocation as it were of orders), which
we think a sign of infirmity in man, is least of all traceable in
any work of the Highest Wisdom. Known unto God, says an
Apostle, are all His works from the beginning of the world. But
this extension of the sphere of order in no way tells against the
fullest consciousness in our Creator s mind of the operation of
His own laws as regards the minutest thing. We have argued
sufficiently, above, that the law in the creation is the thought of
GENERAL LAW AND SPECIAL REGARD. 463
the Creator. But it would be strange, if by extending the sphere
of thought we were to narrow the consciousness of the thinker.
Without our heavenly Father, said our Master Christ, not a
sparrow falls to the ground. Now we feel reluctant to ascribe
directly to the Divine Will the gasping of the dove under the
talons of the hawk, which seized her, as she was carrying food
to her young ; we had rather say, it came of the contingencies
in a large scheme, which make death at some time certain, and
possible there and then. But whatever contingencies or reasons
operate in a scheme of law, may equally be present to any mind
superintending the whole, and acting upon each part. It is only
from narrowness of mind that we suppose any higher guardian
of each separate object would not take account of fitness, and of
other objects around. Even mankind, in superintending things,
do so, as far as they can, by method. The more perfect our
method, the more minute our supervision ; so the more vast and
regular the Divine laws appear, the more easily we should
believe each want is, as far as fitness permits, provided for by
the Author of all. Thus our Master Christ went on to assure
His disciples, they were of more value than many sparrows* ;
here He shews us Divine Providence taking account of things,
and proceeding by reason; and again, elsewhere f, He teaches
that men who die under cruel tyranny, or by accident, are not
therefore guiltier than others, as if their misfortune might be
called a judgment. So the book of Job seems a lesson, that
Divine favour is not to be measured by outward prosperity, but
that there is a crookedness in things, which the enemy may
take advantage of to hurt us, though such machinations will be
overruled for good. Hence it is implied, that the Euler of the
world permits things to go otherwise than we might expect, for
some reasons which He considers sufficient, and which we most
easily explain as belonging to the nature of general law.
" The truest wisdom as to these things is shewn in the simple
prayer, that God would give or take away, according to His will.
* St Luke xii. 7 24. t St Luke xiii. 15.
464 THE HEARING OF PRAYER.
Thus we acknowledge that there may be reasons against our
prayer, yet trust that they are under control of Him to whose
fashioning thoughts they may be traced. The same conscious
ness appears dimly in our feeling that prayers for the soul s
health are more certain of being granted than prayers for bodily
gifts. For the first come within Christ s promise, that our
heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
Him; so that to pray for the Holy Spirit* is to pray in Christ s
name ; and by the same Spirit we are shewn the things to
comef, or the spiritual powers of the coming age J, that is, of the
kingdom of God, and all the force of pure truth, in distinction
from the earlier dispensations of the temple and the letter. We
find also that prayers for spiritual gifts, such as holiness, and
calmness of mind, and insight into truth, are in a way fulfilled
by being offered; so that the allwise God answers them by
method and law. Whereas, in praying for bodily gifts, we may
ask what counter-claims oppose, or what fitness, or even possi
bility, prevents. Yet even here we see some tendency of the
prayers to fulfilment, as when they act on our own minds, and
suggest means; or when they stir sympathy, and bring about
co-operation. Beyond such a range, which may be called the
sphere of instrumentality, many, even pious persons, feel less
confident of being heard for temporal things, and think that,
after securing right action, our next prayer should be for resig
nation, or acknowledgement of gifts, rather than petition for
them. For they find nothing in which the Divine Will has
not, as far as is fit, anticipated us for good, and they would not
have us dictate to the best wisdom. But most men have an
instinct, that where the sphere of our action ends, that of petition
more emphatically begins ; for it is when we have done all in
our power, that we properly ask for a blessing; as men must
sow their corn before they pray for rain. Such an instinct
implies that human agency is an instrument which Divine
* St Luke xi. 13; St John vii. 39. t St John xvi. 13 ; xiv. 1720.
J Hebrews vi. 5 ; xii. 28.
SUGGESTIVENESS OF PRAYER. 465
Providence takes into account in its plan of the world. We
can understand, how defects in such agency make the plan turn
out worse, in some aspects or relations, than it otherwise would
have done. Nor do I know that any topic is so pregnant as this
of prayer is (if considered in all its aspects and experiences),
with suggestions which throw light on the Divine government
of the world. It is itself an action in time, having temporal
results. But it is also a voiceless colloquy of that which is
immortal in us, with that which is eternal above, and so it opens
the doors of the kingdom of heaven. It shews us in this world
a scheme of vast largeness and variety, with order wrought out of
freedom. The laws, we find, invite us by persuasion rather than
compel, yet are terrible in punishing disobedience. Not the
least spring can anywhere be touched, without affecting we
know not how much of the whole machine ; yet He who governs
the whole, seems not unmindful of the least part. When we
pray to Him, our very prayer becomes a remedy or a fulfilment ;
yet it loses this healing power, the moment we rest in itself as
a process, or direct it to any less than Him whom we conceive
as its living object. Thus He teaches us, that His government
is by all-embracing method and law, yet forbids us to stop short
of Himself as the true Governor. He gives no warrant for ex
pecting fresh interference to cancel His own work (as if He
were a clumsy artificer) at every step ; but still less does He
reveal Himself as inert, or as withdrawn from the world, when
we should rather conceive of Him as upholding by His bene
ficence every life, and rejoicing in the operation of His thought
as eternal law. All wills minister to His Will, and though
each of them were perverse, it might still express a portion of
that which is perfect.
" He who thus conceives of the Providence of God as general,
may judge Jewish history differently from those who dream of
perpetual interferences. He may call a sacred instinct, in
breathed, and a feeling taught of God, rather than find a form of
words prescribed, or an immutable model laid down. Thus he
M. p. 30
466 LARGER VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
may think the conquest of Canaan was conducted with mixed
motives, and sullied with crimes. But these things will not startle
him more in a religious history, than they would in any other.
If they may happen in the world, they may be recorded in the
Bible. But he considers them as events which happened, and
not as examples, which he need admire, of faultlessness. So he
may think that patriotism, as well as religion, inspires the songs
which call Jerusalem the joy of the whole earth. Again, if
he reads that Jeroboam was particularly sinful for making priests
who were not of the tribe of Levi, he may infer that the Levi-
tical recorder resented the injury to his tribe, "no less than the
degradation to Divine service. Perhaps in the story of Samuel
and Saul he may note a like mixture of motives. For whatever
passions and frailties, and whatever complications from human
ignorance, are found under the Divine rule elsewhere, will seem
to him natural accompaniments of the evolution of truth in
Israel. Nor need even a play of imagination, or of poetry, in
magnifying the elder epochs, appear to him strange, unless he is
prepared to say, that such poetry elsewhere has not naturally
sprung from the human mind, and in turn elevated its tone.
For since we know that parental and conjugal love are divine, we
suffer them to ascribe beauties hardly due to children or wives,
without feeling ourselves bound to tame down their expressions
exactly ; and thus the better spirit of a nation often tinges with
its fancy the early stages of a history, which becomes typical of
its destiny. Nor is there any reason, why such a mode of edu
cating men, through poetry as well as prose, should not have
been extended by the God of the whole earth to the Hebrew
people. Nor need any kind of human shortcoming, or temporary
misunderstanding, much surprise us. There may be one know
ledge for the child*, and another for the man; and one virtue
for the soldier, and another for the saint. But, if there are steps
of growth in generations, we must expect each step to be con
sidered in its day as final ; or at least as absolutely imposed. It
* i Corinthians xiii. ir ; Galatians iv. I 3.
HEBREW SACERDOTALISM. 467
will be considered the very revelation; for by no less a view
could it acquire due reverence and fixity. But yet the Eternal
God may all along be training His people beyond their full con
sciousness. Especially, if a great priesthood is to have charge
of certain truths or rites, we may expect among them all the
faults* incidental to priesthoods. It seems a grand conception to
have a body of men in charge of the national temple, more
educated than their fellows, and living under the direct influence
of the breath of God, sought daily in prayer. Such a body
might be expected to mediate as it were between God and man,
having the clearest perception of right, as the unwritten law of
Him to whose service their lives are dedicated, and again asso
ciating the people together in harmony of inspired prayers and
songs. Thus they would give shape and voice to the better in
stincts and aspirations of the people at large, partaking with
them the life which the supreme Father upholds, and with clearer
consciousness f of its source. Yet we can see, on reflexion, what
temptations of form and of literalism, and of professional selfish
ness, and sloth, and even vice and rapacity, must beset such a body;
and if the Jewish priesthood yielded to such, and involved also
their nation in a barren literalism, and in obstinacy and in ruin,
they only partook of a sinfulness common to mankind. It is
evident that many of us in their place would have acted alike.
" But yet there are limits which neither institutions nor men
transgress with impunity. An institution must not suffer the
idea out of which it came to fade before an absorbing selfish
ness. Nor must men strengthen their passions against their
conscience, by crying down every teacher of righteousness, or
organising a conspiracy of the crowd against the meek and the
truth-speaker. Especially the Jews had received such Divine
sanction for the ideas of Truth and Right, and such experience
of great witnesses to them arising from time to time, that they
sinned against great light if they stoned the prophet or crucified
* Hosea iv. 6 9 ; Jeremiah v. 31 ; i Samuel ii.
t Jeremiah v. 4, 5.
302
468 JUDAIC SINS OF THE LETTER.
the reformer. It had been a promise in the law of Moses*, that
God would raise up prophets, reviving the sound of His word in
men s hearts. When then He had raised up prophet after pro
phet, and they had stoned one, and slain another with the sword,
and sawn another asunder |, they had outraged the better voice
of their consciences, and so forfeited the blessing of the spirit,
however zealous they might be for the letter of their covenant.
The whole argument of St Stephen with his countrymen (in
Acts vii.) is, that they had always resisted the Holy Ghost, or
stifled the better voice within them. Thus they had not under
stood Moses, when God raised him up as a deliverer out of
Egypt, and it was only characteristic of their old dulness of
spirit, that they understood not Christ, when God gave Him as
a Deliverer of the soul from evil of stain and fear, and from the
bondage of written ordinances. Thus, in rejecting Christ, the
Jews only brought to its fatal culmination that habit of rejecting
spiritual teachers, which is natural to animal men|, and which
their history had often shewn. They had accustomed themselves
to revile the servants when living, though they garnished their
tombs when dead j and at last they rejected the very Son. I do
not say that many of us might not have done the same : and in
many Christian literalists, especially in those who are most jea
lous for the historical Christ, I observe the same stamp of
mind which was in the Jews, and which would have turned as
deaf an ear to Christ as they did. For such men ever disparage
that spiritual power of the Truth, to which our blessed Lord
came into the world to bear witness ; and they make everything
depend on the external authority of the book or the temple, not
knowing that God can raise in three days out of the Truth a
temple not made with hands. Such men undo the w 
