Xlbe ©pen Court
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE
2)e\>ote& to tbc Science of IReltgion, tbe IRellaion of Science, an& tbe Bitension of tbe IReligious parliament l^ea
Founded by Edward C. Hegeler,
VOL. XXXIII (No. 3) MARCH, 1919 NO. 754
CONTENTS: •
rAG»
Death (Poem) Paul Carus 129
Andrew Dickson White as I Knew Him. Edward T. Heyn 132
Bolshevism and the Laws of Property. Homer Hoyt 138
American Ideals as Applied to China. Gilbert Reid 140
Byzantium. An Historical Poem. With Letter from Horatio Gates Gibson 145
The Religion of Beauty. F. W. Fitzpatrick 151
Savage Life and Custom. Illustrated. (Continued.) Edward Lawrence . . 157
Paracelsus cus a Theological Writer. With Four Portraits of Paracelsus.
John Maxson Stillman 169
The Talmud on Dreams. Julius J. Price 182
Dreams. T. B. Stork 186
Regarding Christian Origins. Edgar A. Josselyn 189
Book Reviews and Notes 191
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'"T^llIC ()])en Court l*ul)lishing- Companv announce with profound sorrow the death, following a ])rolonge(l illness, of
DR. PAUL CARUS,
Editor of The Open Court and Tlie Monisf, at La Salle, Illinois, on Tuesday, Fehruarv the eleventh, nineteen hundred and nineteen. A memoir of the lifework of Dr. Cams and of the long and faithful service which he rendered our country and humanity in general will he found in a subsequent num- ber of this journal.
The Open Court
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE
Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea.
VOL. XXXIII (No. 3) MARCH, 1919 NO. 754
Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Company, I9i9-
DEATH.
0 DEATH, in thee we reach hfe's consummation In thee we shall find peace ; in thee our woes, Anxieties and struggles will be past. Thou art our best, our truest friend ! Thou boldest The anodyne that cureth every ill.
Thou lookest stern, O Death ; the living fear thee ;
Thy grim, cold countenance inspireth awe,
And creatures shrink from thee as their worst foe.
They know thee not, for they believe that thou
Takest delight in agony and horror,
Disease and pain. The host of all these ills
Precedes thee often, but thou brook'st them not.
'Tis life that is replete with suffering,
Not thou, O refuge of the unfortunate,
For thou com'st as surcease of pain ; thou grantest
Release from torture, and thy sweetest boon
Is peace eternal. So I call thee friend
And will proclaim thy gift as greatest blessing.
Death is the twin of birth : he blotteth out The past but to provide for life's renewal. All life on earth is one continuous flow Which death and birth cut up in single lives Of individual existences So as to keep life ever new and fresh.
Oblivious of the day that moulded us. We enter life with virgin expectations ; Traditions of parental past are we, Handing the gain of our expanding souls
130 THE OPEN COURT.
Down so succeeding ages which we build. The lives of predecessors live in us .And we continue in the race to come. Thus in the Eleusinian Mysteries .\ burning torch was passed from hand to hand. .And every hand was needed in the chain To keep the holy flame aglow — the symbol Of spirit-life, of higher aspirations.
Tis not desirable to eke out life
Into eternity, world without end.
Far better 'tis to live in fresh renewals,
Far better to remain within time's limits.
Our fate 'tis to be born, to grow, to learn,
To tread life's stage: and when our time has come
There is no choice but to depart resigned.
Again and evermore again, life starteth
In each new birth a fresh new consciousness
With larger tasks, new quickened interests.
And with life's worn-out problems all renewed.
But we must work the work while it is day.
For thou, O Death, w'ilt hush life's turbulence
And then the night will come to stay our w^ork.
When we have tasted of the zests of life, Breathed in the bracing air of comprehension. Enjoyed the pleasures of accomplishment. When we have felt the glow of happiness, The thrill of love, of friendship, of endeavor, When we have borne the heat of day and sweated Under the burden of our tasks, we shall. Wearied of life's long drudgery, be glad To sink into the arms of sleep, to rest From all our labors, while our work lives on. As at the end of day we greet the night. So we shall tire of duties, pains and joys And gladly quaff the draught of Lethe's cup.
Wilt thou be kind to me, O Death, then spare me The time to do my duties, to complete My lifework ere I die. Let me accomplish The most important tasks that lie before me, So when I die I have not lived in vain.
131
P)nt has my purpose grown beyond myself, I shall be satisfied and welcome thee.
Kinder thou art than thou appearest, Death!
Peace-bringer, healer of life's malady,
Thou lullest us into unconsciousness.
Thine eye, well do I know it, solves the transient
Into mere dust ; but thou discriminatest.
Thou provest all, O just and unbribed judge,
Appli'st the touchstone of eternal worth
And so preservest the enduring gold.
Thou settest free the slave, soothest all anguish,
Grantest an amnesty for trespasses,
Abolishest responsibilities,
Ordainest the cessation of the ills
That harass life. Withal thou simply closest
A chapter in time's fascinating book.
There to remain as we have written it.
And so thou dost no harm. Happy is he
Who neither feareth nor inviteth thee.
I honor thee, great sanctifier Death,
Lord of the realm of no return — High Priest
Of the unchangeable, thou consecratest
Our souls when gathering them unto their fathers
In their eternal home ; I honor thee.
Yet will not seek thee ! I am here to live
And so will bide until the summons come
To enter on my Sabbath eve of life.
But neither shall I shrink from thee, for truly
I see no cause why I should face thee not.
Thou dost not doom me to annihilation.
Thou wipest out my trace of life as little
As any deed can ever be annulled.
Indeed, thou comest to immortalize.
To finish, to complete, to consummate,
To sanctify what I have been and done.
Therefore, I shall be ready at thy call
And deem the common destiny of all
Meet for myself, so when thou beckonest,
Friend Death, grant me thy sw^eet enduring rest.
Paul Carus.
132 THE OPEN LOUKT.
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE AS I KNEW HIM.
I!Y EDWARD T. IIEVX.
SHORTLY before the tessation of hostilities in the world war, came the death of Andrew Dickson White. It was not granted him to see the end of the contest with its promise of universal peace, a cause which he so brilliantly and assiduously advocated. His lofty but w^ell tempered idealism and his profound scholarship commanded the greatest respect at home and abroad. A zealous guardian of his country's rights, he performed his difficult task as Minister, and subsequently as Ambassador, to the German Em- pire with admirable success, and with dignity worthy of emulation.
It was in Berlin in 1901 that the writer, entering upon his work as Correspondent of the Chicago Record, was first privileged to make the acquaintance of Dr. ^^l^ite. A warm letter of introduction by Charles Kendall Adams, the President of my Alma Mater, the Uni- ersity of Wisconsin, undoubtedly contributed greatly to the special kindness and courtesy with which I was received, for Dr. Adams was an intimate friend of the American Ambassador, and at one time closely allied with him in liis historical studies. After Dr. White's resignation, Adams became his successor as President of Cornell University. The high regard in which Dr. White held President Adams can be seen from the following letter which he wrote me from Bad Plomburg, August 13, 1902, when I informed him of the death of the former President of the University of Wisconsin.
"The news of President Adams's death is a grief to me. My friendship with him began in 1857, when, on arriving as a young professor at the University of Michigan, I found him in my lecture room. He was one of my two best students in historical and kin- dred subjects. He at that time became greatly interested in history, and showed not merely a tenacious memory, but a power of think- ing and judging on historical men and questions that interested me in him.
"( )n my taking a year's leave of absence from that university in 186.3, I selected him to carry on my classes as an instructor, and on my departure to take the presidency of Cornell, he succeeded me in the professorship. His work was admirable from the first;
ANDRKW DICKSON WHITE AS I KNEW IIIM. 133
his published articles in the North American Reviezv and elsewhere, gained the highest approval, and were translated abroad.
"After some time, when the circumstances of Cornell University allowed me to do so, I called him, during several successive years, to give a course of historical lectures to the senior class, and they were greatly admired.
"When, on my resignation at Cornell, after twenty years of service, the Trustees requested me to nominate my own successor, I named him, and. he was elected with virtual unanimity.
"His career at Cornell, in all its most important elements, was a thorough success. He had a most remarkable gift of choosing members of the faculty. Every professor whom he nominated turned out to be of the very best. He had also admirable judgment in regard to matters of administration. Of his resignation from his Cornell presidency, it is too early to speak ; but it is only justice to him to say that both the circumstances which led to it and his whole course in regard to it were to his credit. Feeling this deeply, I recommended him to a committee of the Regents of your State University, who called him, and his career there you know better than I can. All that I can say is that my observation at my short visit to Madison during his presidency showed that he was doing noble work there for the State and, indeed, for the Nation. He, like myself, was a warm believer in the mission of the great state universities of the West. He believed, as I did and as James Bryce, in his remarkable book on America, has stated, that they are among the greatest, most valuable, and most promising of American crea- tions. That being the case, he threw himself heartily into the work, and the great institutions at Ann Arbor, Ithaca, and Madison have every reason to be grateful to him and to express their gratitude by proper memorials to him. Cornell has alreadv done so. the Trustees having secured a fine portrait of him and hung it in the great reading-room of the University's Library.
"I regret that I must simply send you this hastily dictated letter ; but I hope that some other person, who has more leisure, will do better justice to him."
I may say that during the time that Dr. ^^'hite was American Ambassador in Berlin I saw a good deal of him and I learned to admire him not only for his great knowledge and splendid grasp of all matters relating to the diplomatic service, but also for his fine qualities as a gentleman, his freedom from all narrow prejudices, and his unfailing kindness. And upon coming into closer relations with many leading men of atTairs connected with the German
134 THE OPEN COURT.
government, the universities, and German industry. I soon realized how highly the genial American Ambassador was regarded in all these circles.
The key-note of Dr. White's success in his diplomatic career was admirably expressed by John Hay when he wrote of the Am- bassador upon the occasion of the latter's retirement from the diplomatic service: "He has the singular felicity of having been always a fighting man. and having gone through life without a wound. While fimi in the advocacy of any cause which he espoused, his methods in bringing his opponents to his point of view were always conciliatory and marked by consummate tact."
Dr. White, while Minister at Berlin in 1879-1881. had won the friendship of Baron von Bvilow, then Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and when he returned to Berlin in 1897 as Ameri- can Ambassador, a similar friendship sprang up between him and Prince Bemhard von Bulow, the German Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who later ( 1900) became Imperial Chancellor. Of the \'on Billows. Dr. White in his autobiography writes:
"Father and son were amazingly like each other, not only in personal manner, but in their mode of dealing with public affairs. \\'ith the multitude of trying questions which pressed upon me as ambassador during six years, it hardly seemed possible that I should be still alive were it not for the genial, hearty intercourse, at the Foreign Office and elsewhere, with Count von Biilow. Sundry German papers indeed attacked him as yielding too much to me, and sundry American papers attacked me for yielding too much to him : both of us exerted ourselves to do the best possible each for his own country, and at the same time to preserA-e peace and in- crease good feeling. Occasionally during my walks in the Tiergarten I met him on his way to parliament, and no matter how pressing public business might be, he found time to extend his walk and prolong our discussions."
Dr. White placed great value on these informal discussions. When the policy of our Government in favor of the open door in ( "liina assumed a definite shape. Dr. \\Miitc handed me the following memorandum :
"The Imperial Chancellor and the .American Ambassador were observed, day before yesterday, taking a walk together in the Tier- garten. and. to all a])pearance. chatting hap])ily in apparent con- tinuance of the old friendship which existed between Count von B.iilow's father and Mr. White when the latter was Minister here twenty years ago. Those who know that, during the past week,
ANDRiaV DICKSON WIII'l'K AS I KXKW IIIM. 135
the Ambassador has ])rcsc-ntccl to the I-'oreij^n f office a new and more definite memoranchnn from his j^overnment against land- grabbing in China, may see in this some confirmation of the general opinion here that Germany inclines to take a friendly attitude toward the American view."
It was from Prince Herbert liismarck, son of the Iron Chan- cellor, that the present writer learned how highly Dr. White had been regarded by his father. Prince Herbert IJismarck stated to me that not since the days of Motley had there been an American held in such high esteem by the man of blood and iron, as had Dr. White. At a later date, when the Ambassador had published an article on Bismarck (I think in the Century Magazine), a some- what bitter controversy arose in one of the Hamburg papers, in the course of which, some of Dr. White's statements with regard to his relations to Bismarck were challenged. I took occasion to send him the original text of the article in the Hamburg paper to Italy where he then was, and received the following reply from him:
"Arriving in Alassio, I find your kind letter of Xovember 13th. [1903,] and for the first time see the original text of the article in the Hamburger Nachrichten.
"I, of course, do not wish to enter into a question of veracity with one who writes in the spirit shown in this article, but I may say to you, personally, that, apart possibly from the one trifling detail, every statement made in my Bismarck article is exact in every particular.
"The only possibility of mistake is as to the exact 'date of my first sight of Bismarck. My article was written at Berlin, my diaries being in America, where they are now. and there is a bare possi- bility that my memory may have deceived me as to the date, though I still think that it must have been in 1868.
"It is also barely possible that upon seeing Bismarck and his family at that time in south middle Germany, I may have jumped hastily to the conclusion that they were coming from Kissingen. But apart from those two unimportant details every other state- ment is exactly and literally conformed to the truth.
"I beg you as a friend not to bring me into any controvers}' on the matter ; I have no time nor taste for it. When the articles are gathered in book form. I shall have given them careful revision, and should I find any mistake anywhere it shall be rectified."
j\Ir. White's Bismarck letter also brings to mind the verv inter- esting conversation I had with the Ambassador after I had shown
136 THE OPEN COLKT.
him a very illuminating letter which 1 had received from the ^reat historian of ancient Rome, Thcodor Mommsen. It may still be recalled that during the Spanish-American War, iNIommsen, although previously always most friendly to the United States, revealed an antagonism to our country not unlike that shown in the great war just over, by certain prominent German professors. Mr. White, after reading Mommsen's letter then told me with much satisfaction, how during the Spanish-American War he had induced Mommsen not to publish a highly sensational article in an English magazine, in which the historian charged that the United States had become "a robber power, a piratical power, and that by pouring her incom- parable resources into military designs she might menace the world's quiet, and might like Rome carry forays into ever)' continent."
I may say that I was not in Berlin during the Spanish-American War, but in 1902, when Cuba became free and independent, I wrote Mommsen as follows : "The enclosed clipping will show you that the sceptical predictions of the German press that the United States would not grant independence to Cuba has been proved false by the establishment of the Cuban Republic." Mommsen's letter in reply, to which I have already referred, written in excellent English, contained the following:
"Do you know what the Germans call a Hans in alien Eckcn? I should certainly get in this not very flattering predicament if I dared to sit in judgment between the United States and Cuba. Still I do not hesitate to give my private opinion. The actual .American imperialism, utilizing the lesson of the South-African War, allows to Cuba full self-government, reserving political su- premacy to America. This certainly will be the substance of the paramount treaty between Cuba and the United States. This final decision may be very wise, and on the whole, the new form of the Monroe Doctrine will raise. I should think, no opposition in Germany, but I cannot find it so extraordinarily generous as you seem to think."
I recall that Mr. White, while .\mbassador in Berlin, gave a dinner in honor of his friend the late Frederick W. IIoUs of New "S'ork. who with him had been one of the American delegates to the International Peace Conference at the Hague in 1899. A reference to Dr. Holls in this article has a certain interest at the present time, for Mr. White can be quoted as authority for the statement that wliile both Chancellor von Hohenlohe and his Foreign Secretary, then Count von Biilow, had assured Mr. llolls while on a visit to T'.crlin, that Germany at the Hague conference would support the
ANDREW DICKSON WTIITIC AS I KXEW III.M. 137
suggestion of the United States for arbitration treaties, it was the Kaiser who finally prevented the acceptance of the far-reaching plan, which might possibly have prevented the world war.
The saddest day for tlie American colony in I'erlin came in 1902 when it was informed that Dr. White would retire from his ambassadorial post on his seventieth birthday. Americans then living in the German capital felt that soon they would lose their best friend, and this sentiment was well expressed by the late Sena- tor John L. Mitchell of Wisconsin when he wrote me in 1903: "Air. Vvhite must be greatly missed by Americans in Berlin...., so gentle, kind, and helpful in every way." The friendly interest of Americans in Mr. White was admirably expressed by President Roosevelt when he wrote Mr. White on his seventieth birthday: "The best is yet to be and certainly, if world-fame, troops of friends, a consciousness of well-spent years, and a great career filled with righteous achievement are constituents of happiness, you have every- thing the heart could wish."
Many former American university and musical students can still testify to the personal interest which Mr. White took in them while they were in Berlin. Indeed he always said that he considered it a pleasure and honor to render them service. Especially American women students were greatly indebted to him, for it was chiefly through Mr. White's efforts that the doors of the Berlin and other German universities were finally opened to American womanhood.
Mr. White was formerly a great admirer of the German uni- versities and especially of the Berlin University, and it was there- fore of special interest to me that he wrote in a letter which was read at the Alumni dinner of Cornell students in New York. Xo- vember 29, 1916: "Stronger and stronger becomes my belief that the American universities are now to take the lead in the advanced education of the world, and that the American people will recognize this fact, and stand back of these institutions in the epoch-making days now at hand."
After his retirement from his post, in several messages Mr. White gave me further proofs of his interest and good will, and I recall with pleasure his interesting letter in 1909, when I ser\'ed the American Government in an official capacity in Bohemia. On a visit to Prague, after I had written Dr. White of this intensely interesting city, he answered that he would have been much pleased to again have visited the "Hradschin," the castle where the Bohe- mian kings once lived, and especially the "Landstube," that part of the old "Burg" where the famous "defenestration" took place.
138 THE OPEN COURT.
when the two imperial Austrian commissioners Martinitz and Sla- vata. by an angry crowd were thrown from a high window and had a very narrow escape from death. The aforesaid reference made by Dr. \\'hite to an incident in Bohemian history, which, ushering in the Thirty Years' War, led to the destruction of Bohemian inde- pendence, is of particular interest just now when Prague is again the center of attention through the establishment of the Czecho- slovak Republic.
In 1910 when I went to Catania. Sicily, and while on a beautiful Thanksgiving day I sojourned in Syracuse, I was reminded of the introduction which Von Moltke gave to Dr. White when he pre- sented him to the German Empress : "Mr. White was born in Homer, he lived in Syracuse, and he was once President in Ithaca." In the last named American city is Cornell University, and this famous institution, and a fine statue of Dr. \\'hite now standing before Goldwin Smith Hall, dedicated in his presence in 1915, are em- bodiments of his work and of his personal appearance. In his autobiography Dr. White states, that not in a boastful spirit, but reverently he had recorded his achievements in the line of educa- tion, literature, science, politics, and diplomacy, and that he had sought to fight the good fight and keep the faith. What some of these achievements were while Dr. White was American Ambassa- dor in Berlin. I have in a small way attempted to tell in this article.
BOLSHEMSM AXD THE LA\\'S OF PROPERTY.
y.\ HOMER 1I()^■T.
'"T^ITK Russian revolution was a lesson in the anatomy of nations. i The slender nerve filaments that control the huge corporate bodies of material wealth and the institutions of Church and State were laid open before the eyes of the world. This dissection taught us not only that nations possess a central nervous system, but that a shock to a vital part of this nervous system will cause the dis- integration and paralysis of a mighty empire. Chief among these vital points is the system of distributing wealth, or rather the laws of ]>roperty and contract which control the distribution of that wealth. Recent events in Russia have demonstrated that a sudden shock to the laws of property may shatter the structure of credit which rests on the foundation of stability in property values, that it may deaden the nerves of ])usincss enterprise, kill the specializa-
BOLSTIEVISM AND THK LAWS OF I'ROl'KKTY. 139
tion, interdependence and large-scale production which absolutely rely on mutual confidence, stop the wheels of transportation, and carry the entire nation centuries backward to the crudities of medi- eval barter. Business men will not venture on unknown seas without chart or compass; the spirit of industry dies when the terror" of plunder, pillage, and violence runs riot through the land. As industry languishes, and respect for the laws of property dis- appears, the demoralization is communicated to other stable in- stitutions like marriage and religion, and they go down before the savage onrush of the primitive instincts that seek a long-denied gratification. Idleness, profligacy, and the gamljling spirit attack the soul of a nation like a dry rot ; world contacts established by peaceful intercourse are broken ; and the fine gold of civilization, accumulated by centuries of careful saving, is dissipated in a wild orgy of revolution.
The very masses of the people who hoped to gain from the disturbance they created, lose their employment, their small capital, their peace of mind, their liberties, and their health ; as industries close their doors, as the fountain of justice becomes polluted, and as disease, unrestrained by the enforcement of hygienic regulations, stalks abroad through city and country. The people who pull down the temple of property, perish like Samson, under the falling col- umns.
This dismal picture doss not present a moral for the United States — at least not yet. The laws of private property can- not be overturned suddenly by a fiat of either people^ or State, unless the ground has been prepared. As long as the masses of the people benefit from the continuance of the existing order or as long as the masses have not much to gain from an equal division of the country's resources, business men and lawyers can safely boast of the unvarying stability of the laws of property. But if the disparity should ever become sufficiently great, the ground underneath our feet will begin to tremble and the distant roar of the coming del- uge will be heard. If the concentration of wealth under the legiti- mate ruks of the game should proceed to the point where a few toil little and enjoy disproportionately much and where the many work long and receive disproportionately little, then there will come into existence a reason for revolution. Then the seeds of Bolshevism and the I. W. W. will be carried over the land with the speed of the whirlwind and their crop will come soon and it will be bitter. The breaking-point is finally reached in every case of growing con-
140 THE OPIiN COURT.
ceiilration of wealth. It was reached in France in 1789; it was reached in Russia in 1'^/.
Ahhough the menace to us is yet far distant, it behooves us to take warning and to reheve the growing pressure by reversing the tendency toward concentration. The gradual restrictions on in- heritances, the guarantee of better living conditions to labor, shorter hours and higher pay will not register any violent effect on our economic or social system. Such reforms will also probably pre- vent the gradual emergence of two poles — one the pole of concen- tration of wealth and the other the pole of poverty — that finally causes the electric shock of revolution.
Since the forces that affect the lives of nations traverse cen- turies in their course, wise statesmen who have the enduring stability of our country at heart must be unusually alert to detect the first germs of the peril that may threaten America in the far distant future. The adjustment of our legal balance wheel so that it will maintain the proper equilibrium between labor and capital, will prevent the formation of a social environment that is favorable to Bolshevism.
AMERICAN IDEALS AS APPLIED TO CHINA.^
r.V GILBERT REII).
AMERICAN ideals are higher than mere opinions, which too . often are a distorted shaping of the prejudices of passion. Our ideals in these days of world war and world catastrophe have been voiced by the Chief Executive of our nation. Probably the clearest expression of these ideals was contained in the President's address of September 27 of last year in Xew York City. This address ins])ircd hoj^e in all who wish well for humanity. It en- couraged the sentinicMits of peace in the three enemy countries. It has been spoken of as a Magna Charta for the world.
As with all of President Wilson's pronouncements there are apparently mutually contradictory statements representing two sides to all theorizing. Only one who has been nourished in strict Cal- vinism and knows how to harmonize the freedom of the human will with God's sovereignty, is capable of harmonizing all of Presi-
1 We are privileged to publish this article from the pen of Dr. Gilbert Rcirl, of tlic International Institute of Cliina, who only recently returned from .SliauKhai. — Ed.
AMERICy\N IDEALS AS API'MRD TO CHI.VA. 141
dent Wilson's utterances, even those of September 27. Some pug- nacious individuals quote only the part about the villainous char- acter of the governments of the Central Empires. Others, more charitable, dwell on the princii)les of universal application, assur- ing a League of Nations. If difficulty of harmonizing ideas exists it is because of difficulty of applying general principles to enemy governments.
There should be no difficulty in applying these general and good principles to an associate in war so friendly as China, whose entrance into the war was induced Ijy representatives of our own government. This application may be an interesting topic for dis- cussion, as well as informing to not a few of the noble adherents of the League of Nations.
I. "Shall the military power of any nation or group of nations be suffered to determine the fortunes of peoples over whom they have no right to rule except the right of force?"
In 1900. after the barbarism and atrocities of the Boxer up- rising, all foreign powers proceeded to take the Chinese monarch- ical government in hand, and in a military way to occupy Peking and all adjoining towns. These powers, all of them- proceeded to dictate a humiliating peace, though at that time they insisted on plenipotentiaries from the old empress dowager, the guilty head of a sinning government. But all this was eighteen years ago.
'Since 1914 the fortunes of the Chinese people, as also the present military autocracy of Peking and all north China, have been gradually and imperceptibly determined by the military power of Japan, or, if this be too prejudiced a view, by the military power of the Entente group of nations, with whom the United States has associated herself.
The question therefore arises : Can China at the close of this war free herself from military or political power assumed through favorable opportunities by "any nation or group of nations" during these last four years? On the principle just cited, no outside nation has the "right to rule" in any part of China, whether ^Manchuria, Shantung, the Yang-tze valley, or any other part, or to attempt that rule, that dictation, that extraterritoriality, by the so-called "right of force."
Is China to be set free?
2. "Shall strong nations be free to wrong weak nations and make them subject to their purpose and interest?"
Suppose we trace the wrong done to China from the year 1871 — the year Alsace-Lorraine was made a conquest to Prussia
142 THE OPEN COURT.
and. in part at least, restored to German rule — what a record we would have. Tongking taken by France from the suzerainty of China in 1883 : Formosa and Liaotung in Manchuria taken by Japan in 1895 "through conquest of military power": Kiaochow leased by China to dcnnany in 1898 (afterward occupied by Japan) ; Port Arthur and Dalny leased to Russia (afterward occupied by Japan) ; K wan-chow-wan leased to France, and Weihaiwei and Kowloon leased to Great Britain, all in the same year, and all in- stigating the Boxer fanaticism of 1900; and the Legation area of Peking arranged as a fortress in 1901. the recompense for Chinese outrages.
All this wrong is merely in territory. Other and perhaps deeper wrongs are in the general treatment which China has re- ceived at the hands of "strong nations," especially since this war of Europe was thrust into China just struggling into a republic. Take the renewal of opium trade through the British Opium Com- bine. Take the introduction of morphine into Manchuria and Shan- tung by the Japanese. Take the twenty-one demands of Japan — and the insulting ultimatum that went with them. Take the various forms of dictation, generally denominated "friendly advice." which the Chinese government has received week after week for the last year or more, since China was persuaded to imitate the United States in severing relations with the Imperial German government. Take the secret compacts connected with Japan's request for Chi- nese cooperation in intervention in Siberia. Take all the secret negotiations by loan-mongers of more than one nation, which have loaded China with burdens grievous to be borne. These are so many hints as to the way "strong nations" are trying to "subject" China "to their purpose and interest."
At the peace conference shall China, one of our associates in war, be freed from the domination of superior force?
3. "Shall peoples be ruled and dominated even in their own internal aflfairs by arbitrary and irresponsible force or by their own will and choice?"
This may be taken to mean not arbitrary use of force by for- eign powers in China, but the "arbitrary and irresponsible force" of the present recognized government in Peking. That government, since July, 1917, has been "arbitrary and irresponible." "Military power" dissolved Parliament, and overthrew President Li Yuan- hung. p:vcn war on the two Central Empires was declared without sanction of any legislative body. The legal, constitutional govern- ment of tlie rci)ul)lic has been asseml)lcd in Canton. It consists of
AMERICAN ll)i:Ar.S AS AI'l'I.IKI) TO CHIXA. 143
progressive men from every province of China. The distinguished statesman, Dr. Wu Ting-fang, has api)ealcd to the ICntente Allies and the United States for recognition, but the appeal is other than that of the Czecho-Slovaks, the Russians, or the Poles.
Will, the peace conference he!]) to set China free from her own arbitrary rule?
4. "The impartial justice meted out must invoKe no discrimi- nation between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish to Ijc just. It must be a justice that plays no favorites and knows no standard but the ecjual rights of the several peoples concerned."
This dictum applies to both sides of this great war. It is a warning to the concjueror ; it is good-cheer, based on fair play, to those who surrender.
Suppose we apply it to China and to affairs of these nations in China, what happens? Will Germans be again accorded "equal opportunity of trade and industry," already vouchsafed by Japan in agreement with Great Britain, Russia, France, and the United States, or shall German trade be destroyed? Shall German con- cessions in railways and mines be restored to Germans or be allowed the Japanese? Shall the beautiful port of Tsingtao be held by the Japanese, be handed over to China, or be returned to Germany, if China herself so permits? Is there to be discrimina- tion against Germans after the war, even as there has been during the war, and this not so much by Chinese as by Germany's enemies in China?
As to China, in comparison with her great rival. Japan, is American sympathy to go out to the latter more than to the former, even in matters pertaining to China? Shall our State Department make arrangements with China about "special interests" in China, or with Japan? Ought China to be given at the peace conference an equally high seat with Japan, and will China's rights be determined by the common action of all?
5. "Xo special or separate interest of any single nation or any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the settle- ment which is not consistent with the common interest of all."
Shall Japan be this "single nation" with "special" interests in China? Shall Great Britain, France,' Belgium, Italy. Japan, and the United States, together form a powerful group to direct, reform, or rejuvenate China, or shall all powers take a hand, whether China wants such aid or not? Shall the benevolent moulding of China be even left to the great Anglo-American combination? \\'ill
144 THE OPEN COURT.
it after all be possible for us to see in China the fruition of "the common interest of all"?
6. "There can be no special selfish economic combinations within the leajjue and no employment of any form of economic boycott or exclusion."
Will British or Japanese merchants in China give support to this principle? The law is good; will victors sustain the law?
7. ".Ml international agreements and treaties of every kind must be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world."
.Another good principle, but can even a League of Nations guarantee its observance? Are "the two Central Powers" the only offenders? If the rule, an eminently sound one. is to be applied to the Far East, by what pressure can Japan and the present mili- tary government in Peking be brought to publish their varied agree- ments since China declared war on Germany and .\ustria-Hungary? Is the baneful element of secrecy to be limited to "treaties," or shall it also be forbidden to all contracts in which diplomats concern themselves? What of secret "conversations"?
8. "Special alliances and economic rivalries and hostilities hare been the prolific source in the modern world of the plans and pas- sions that produce war. It would be an insincere as ivell as an insecure peace that did not exclude them in definite and binding terms."
Write this in letters of gold. No alliance, no allies. President Wilson has consistently refrained from saying, "our Allies."
It was economic rivalry that brought the war on to Chinese soil. Can it be expugned at the peace conference?
In maintaining these high ideals, as well as others. President Wilson finds the task a hard one just as much with his own country- men and the strong Allied nations, as with the two Central Em- pires.
It may be safely asserted that the people of China are with our President in every one of these ideal principles. Will he be able to rccij)rocate and help China in the face of opposition from "any single nation or any group of nations"?
Well-wishers of China as well as the Chinese people are look- ing to President Wilson to guide the nations and peoples on all the continents to a sincere and secure peace such as this that is planned on the basis of true righteousness.
BYZANTIUM. 145
BYZANTIUM.
AN HISTORICAL POEM.
ROLL on, thou Bosphorus, in wrath or play, Roused by the storm or gilded by the ray; With thy blue billows, to the boundless sea, Roll on, like Time, into Eternity. Thy empire naught shall change — upon thy breast Guilt hath no record, tyranny no rest. Roll on, the rock-built city shall decay. Men sleep in death and kingdoms pass away, But thou unbowed shalt steal like music by, Or lift thy Titan head and dare the sky.
Alas for proud Byzantium! on her head
The fire may smoulder and the foe may tread,
Yet with heroic look and lovely form
She mocks the deep, unconscious of the storm.
Her footstool is the shore, which hears the moan
Of dying waves — the mountain is her throne.
Her princely minarets, whose spires on high
Gleam with their crescent in the cloudless sky ;
Her temples bathed with all the pomp of day ;
Her domes that backward flash the living ray ;
Her cool kiosks 'round which from granite white
High sparkling fountains catch a rainbow light,
And the dark cypress, sombre and o'ercast.
Which speaks the sleep the longest and the last, —
Each scene around the haughty city throws
A mingled charm of action and repose ;
Each feature breathes of glory wrapt in gloom —
The feast, the shroud, the palace, and the tomb!
Yet thou art fair, and still my soul surveys
A vision of delight, and still I gaze.
Proud city, on the last, when first the beam
Slept on thy temples in its midday dream.
Methinks the genius of thy fatherland
Raised his gray head and clenched his withered hand,
146 THE OPEN COURT.
Exulting in a parent's pride to see
Did Rome, without her gods, revived in thee.
I'^air Queen, unlike thy proud and high compeers,
Thou wert not cradled in the lap of years,
But like celestial Pallas, hymned of old,
Thy sovereign form, inviolate and bold,
Sprang to the zenith of its prime.
And took no favors from the hand of Time.
( )li. every glorious gift of every zone
Was flung before thee on thy virgin throne.
Xo breeze could blow but from thy yielding slaves
Some handmaid ship came riding o'er the waves ;
The costly treasures of the marble isle,
The spice of Ind. the riches of the Nile,
The stores of earth, like streams that seek the sea,
Poured out the tribute of their wealth to thee.
How proud was thy dominion ! States and kings
Slept 'neath the shadow of thine outstretched wings,
And to the mortal eye how more than fair
Were thy peculiar charms, which boasted there
Xo proud Pantheon, flaming in the sun.
To claim for many gods the meed of One,
Xo scene of tranquil grove and babbling stream
For vain philosophy to muse and dream,
Till reason shows a maze without a clue.
And truth seems false and falsehood's self seems true.
Oh no ! upon thy temples gladly bright
The truth revealed shed down its living light ;
Thine was no champion badge of pagan shame,
P>ut that best gift, the cross of Him who came
To lift the guilty spirit from the sod,
To i)oint from earth to Heaven — from man to God!
Alas, that peace so gentle, hope so fair,
Should make but strife and herald but despair.
Oh thine, P>yzantium. thine were bitter tears,
A couch of fever and a throne of fears,
When Passion drugged the bowl and flashed the steel,
When Murder followed in the track of Zeal,
When that Religion, born to guide and bless,
Itself became perverse and merciless,
I'.YZANTIUM.
And factions of the circus and the shrine,
And lords like slaves and slaves like lords were thine.
Then did thy empire sink in slow decay ;
Then were its stately branches torn away ;
And thou, exposed and stripped, were left instead
To bear the lightnings on thy naked head.
Yet wert thou noble — still in vain, in vain. The Vandal strgve, he could not break the chain ; The bold Bulgarian cursed thee as he bled ; The Persian trembled and the pirate fled ; Twice did the baffled Arab onward press To drink thy tears of danger and distress ; Twice did the fiery Frank usurp thy halls, And twice the Grecian drove him from thy walls ; And when at last up-sprang thy Tartar foe, With fire and sword more dread than Dandolo, Vain was the task, the triumph was not won Till fraud achieved what treason had begun.
But in that fierce distress, and at thy cry.
Did none assist thee, and did none reply?
No, kings were deaf, and pontiffs in their pride,
Like Levites gazed, and like them turned aside ;
While infidels within Sophia's shrine
Profaned the cup that held the sacred wine,
And worse than base idolators of old.
Proclaimed that Prophet-chief whose books unfold
The deadliest faith that ever framed a spell
To make of Heaven an Earth — of Earth a Hell !
Yet stood there one, erect in might and mind.
Before whom groaned despair and death behind.
Oh, thou last Caesar, greater midst thy tears
Than all thy laureled and renowned compeers !
I see thee yet — I see thee kneeling where
The Patriarch lifts the cup and breathes the prayer;
Now in the tempest of the battle's strife.
Where trumpets drown the shrieks of parting life ;
Now with a thousand wounds upon thy breast
I see thee pillow thy calm head in rest,
And like a glory-circled martyr claim
The wings of death to speed thy soul from shame.
147
148 lilE OPEN COURT.
But thou, fair city, to the Turk bowed down,
Didst lose the brightest jewel in thy crown.
They could not spoil thee of thy sky, thy sea,
Thy mountain belts of strength and majesty;
But the bright Cross, the volumes rescued long,
Sank 'neath the feet of the barbarian throng;
While rose the gorgeous Harem in its sin,
So fair without, so deadly foul within —
That sepulcher, in all except repose.
Where woman strikes the lute and plucks the rose,
Strives to be glad, but feels, despite the will,
The heart, the heart is true to nature still.
Yet for a season did the Moslem's hand
Win for thy state an aspect of command.
Let Syria. Egypt tell, let Persia's shame,
Let haughty Barbarossa's deathless name.
Let Buda speak, let Rhodes, whose knighted brave
Were weak to serve her, impotent to save.
Zeal in the rear and \'alor in the van
Spread far the fiats of thy sage divan,
Till stretched the scepter of thy sway awhile
\'ictorious from the Dnieper to the Nile.
Brief, transitory glory! foul the day,
Foul thy dishonor when in Corinth's bay
'Xeath the rich sun triumphant \^enice spread
Her lion banner as the Moslem fled ;
When proud X'ienna's 'saulting troops were seen.
When Zenta's laurels decked the brave Eugene ;
When the great Shepherd led the Persian van
And Cyrus lived again in Kouli Khan ;
And last, and most when Freedom spurned the yoke.
And tyrants trembled as the Greeks awoke.
That name shall be thy knell, the fostering smile Of five bright summers on sweet Scio's isle Hath beamed in vain. Oh, blood is on thy head! The heartless living and the tombless dead Invoke their just avengers. Lo, they come! The Mu.scovite is up. Hark, hark, the drum Speeds its prophetic summons on the gale! Thy Sultan trembles and thy sons turn pale. I'p for the Prophet I Concjuer or die free.
BYZANTIUM. 149
The Balkan make the Turks' Thermopylae.
Up for the Prophet ! No, tlie axe and cord
Suit Moslem hands far licttcr than the sword.
Then bow your heads, your towers are bought and sold,
Prepare the parchment, weigh the bribing gold,
While rings the welkin with the tale of doom,
And faction smiles al)Ove her yawning tomlj.
Now joy to Greece, the genius of her clime Shall cast her gauntlet at the tyrant Time, And wake again the valor and the fire Which rears the trophy and attunes the lyre. Oh, known how early and beloved how long, Ye sea-girt isles of battle and of song! Ye clustering isles that by the ^gean pressed In sunshine slumber on her dark blue breast ! Land of the brave, athwart whose gloomy night Breaks the bright dawn and harbinger of light, May Glory now efface each blot of shame. May Freedom's torch yet light thy path to fame ; May Christian truth, in this thy sacred birth. Add strength to empire, give to wisdom worth. And with the rich-fraught hopes of coming years Inspire thy triumphs while it dries thy tears !
Yet joy to Greece, but e'en a brighter star
On Hope's horizon sheds its light afar.
Oh Stamboul! thou who once didst clasp the sign.
What if again Sophia's holy shrine
Should, deaf to creeds of sensual joy and strife.
Reecho to the words whose gift is life?
If down those aisles the billowy music's swell
Should pour the song of Judah, and should tell
Of sinners met in penitence to kneel,
And bless the rapture they have learned to feel ?
Then, though thy fortunes and thy fame decline,
Then, oh ! how more than victory were thine !
Ah, dear Religion, born of Him who smiled And prayed for pardon while the Jews reviled. No rose-decked houris, with their songs of glee. Strew the rich couch, no tyrants strike for thee ;
150 THE OPEN COURT.
Thy holier altar feeds its silent fire With love, not hate, with reason, not desire. Welcome in weal or woe. thy sovereign might Can temi)er sorrow and enrich delight. Can gild with hope our darkest, gloomiest hours, Or crown the brimming cup of joy with flowers. Tiiine is the peace-branch, thine the pure command Which joins mankind like brothers hand in hand. And oh, 'tis thine to purge each guilty stain, Wrench the loose links that form this mortal chain. Whisper of realms untraveled. paths untrod, And lead, like Jacob's ladder, up to God!
Tlic following letter was received with the foregoing poem : To the Editor of The Open Court:
During the summer of the year 1852. there appeared in a newspaper pub- lished in the provincial town of York in Pennsylvania, a poem of rare merit and extraordinary beauty — an imitation of Byron at his best, the manuscript of which in its illiterate defects clearly indicated that the writer thereof was not the author of the poem. No trace of it could be discovered among the pro- ductions of ancient or modern poets. Twenty-five years thereafter, the poem again appeared, this time in a New York journal of high literary character, accompanied by a letter from a gentleman who had revised its first publication. and who had first mentioned its existence to the writer of this letter. — and also by a criticism from a distinguished Princeton professor, who attributed it to some Philhellene who, inspired like Lord Byron by sympathy for the Greek in his revolt against the Moslem rule, had gone to Greece to aid her cause — an Englishman or an American with an English education. Sixteen years later the poem reappeared in a magazine — Modern Culture, now extinct, — but as in the other publications seems to have attracted little or no attention, though the writer hopes that this does not "speak the sleep, the longest and the last."
With "grim-visaged war rearing its terrible front" on the continents of Europe and Asia until recently, involving the continent of America and "all tlie world and the rest of mankind." with Anglican, Greek, and Roman Catho- lic, disciples of Luther, Calvin, and Knox, with "furious Frank and fiery Hun." aye Christendom. Israel, and Moslem in deadly conflict, may not the beautiful poem foreshadow the restoration of Byzantiimi and of Sophia's lioly shrine, where
"The Patriarch lifted the cup and breathed the prayer."
and of the land where from Sinai's Mount, Moses proclaimed the oracles of God, and the Son of Man "the Resurrection and the Life"?
The writer has ever had a vague suspicion, conjecture, or surmise that the author of the poem was the gentleman who was responsible for its first pub- lication. This supposition is based upon the fact that in the schoolboy days
TFTR RFJ.ir.ION OF ISKAUTY. 151
of the suspect, in youthful debating societies, his favorite theme was classic Greece, her grand history, and lier esthetic mythrjlogy, and in later years, the writer heard him deliver an original poem which bore the earmarks of the same sympathy and train of thought and expression. The reason for conceal- ment, the writer has failed to divine, for the gentleman was naturally proud of his literary productions, and surely this would have added to his modest fame. The writer, long and well as he knew him, never ventured to make the accusation to him, but he is sure that he could have said to him: "Thou art the man."
But whosoever may be the author, the writer hopes that tlic poem may be deemed worthy of republication in your valued magazine, inasmuch as he thinks that it "makes a few remarks appropriate to the occasion" — the most momentous crisis in the history of tlie world. Horatio Gates Gibson,
Brig. General U. S.A.
THE RELIGION OF BEAUTY.
BY F. W. FITZPATRTCK.
THE eye is virtually the main doorway to the mind and is un- doubtedly also one of the most important factors, or instru- ments, or whatever you want to call them, that can be used in the process of civilizing, educating, bettering the human kind, the gcnu^ homo. We have evidences of it every day.
We just naturally crave for pleasant or pretty things to look at, and light is one of them. It is also one of the greatest crime- preventors known. We are not going to delve into a lot of statis- tics, for this is not a scientific treatise but just a chat between friends. But we do know that nearly all crimes are "deeds of darkness." The philosophy of the thing has been known for ages, but only in very recent years have we had gumption enough to apply what we knew. For instance, certain localities in our larger cities have for years been renowned for their lawlessness and bloody deeds ; those were dark and dismal streets where travel was most unsafe after sunset. Policemen in pairs patrolled those beats, ex- pedients galore were resorted.to to reduce the criminality thereabout, but murders and the like went merrily on with but slight abatement. Then some one had a flash of intelligence and a few arc-lights were installed in those streets and alleys, the ash- and the garbage-man cleaned them up with greater regularity and. presto, they're as safe now for night travel as is Broadway or the main thoroughfare of any city. A bright light and crime are not congenial bedfellows, one invariably tumbles the other out.
152 THE OPEN COURT.
So with our tenements and the humljler domiciles, the wisest regulation any city can introduce is that which prescribes a rea- sonable amount of outdoor window surface for light and air into every living- or sleeping-room. That regulation has cut down crime and disease amazingly.
Comparatively few men are attracted to the corner barroom for the actual drinking they can do there. It's the companionship, sociability, and. most of all. the bright lights, the cheer, the sparkle, the pictures, the beauty ( ?) of it all that allures. Provide those features in some other combination, without the guczUng, and you'll cut down the bar attendance mightily.
Not so many years ago a manufacturer would establish his plant at a convenient point, but that was about all he thought of. Kven if the buildings were half-way respectable the surroundings were sadly neglected. All around those buildings scrap-heaps ac- cumulated, the more unsightly the place became, the dirtier, why. the busier was it supposed to be, the more prosperous its owner. Indeed the so-called hard-headed business man would have been ashamed to make a concession to, or expend any money for, what he termed "silly prettiness." Art and Business couldn't travel to- gether, the latter looked down upon the former as effeminate, an evidence of weakness, something to be scorned. Then came the insurance experts who made at least decency in factories profitable. They offered lowered premiums if those factories were cleaned up a bit and the refuse removed. Not that the insurance companies were doing this in any virtuous or pro bono publico spirit, but siinply because it would lessen the danger of fire and their consequent losses. Followed then the pure-food "cranks" who had the author- ities step in and insist that in at least certain factories extreme cleanliness must be the rule. And, my. there was a howl of oppo- sition !
But after a while it was noted by the alert business men that in those "reformed" factories the operatives did better work, more of it. and seemed more cheerful. So much so that the keen business men l)egan to j)ut one and one together, and it dawned upon them that cleanliness, much daylight and at least half-way decent sur- roundings were assets instead of msre expenses, that what had been termed useless extravagance was actually producing a profit. A few pioneers plunged even farther, they made their workshops beautiful, cheerful, convenient for the workers. They actually added frills, rest-rooms, pictures, gardens with real fountains in them and behf)ld. it all ])roduccd big returns upon the investment. The
THE RELIGION OF BEAUTY. 153
workers felt it, tl-jey came better dressed, cleaner, brighter in mind and body; more self-respecting and self-reliant they sjjeeded up the work and evidenced greater loyalty to their employers. To-day the man who maintains a slipshod, dirty, unattractive factory gen- erally has an exceedingly poor investment on hand. Art in Business does pay.
Why, in Cuba they've known that for years, and in the big cigar factories a good reader is employed to read interesting stories to the workers. Their work is the better for it.
A man who puts a fresh coat of paint on his house feels an inch taller when he goes down the street. Take a hobo and wash him up and dress him in natty raiment and he'll act like a gentle- man— for a while anyway. When he falls it will be because he's very far gone in some disease or other and very weak. Isn't drink a disease?
An old school-teacher was telling me some time ago that in the old times when he took a village school where the big bullies had a reputation for manhandling every teacher who had attempted to preside there, his first move was to whitewash and clean up that schoolroom, hang up a few chromos in it, put a couple of cans of flowers in the window, and then invite those bullies to help him keep the flowers watered and a certain daintiness about. He avers he never had any trouble, and his physique was not such as to inspire awe, so he attributes the reform to the power of Art over Matter !
The civic leagues and societies that get after the authorities to compel the cleaning up of cities and who offer prizes and other inducements for well-kept lawns, attractive flower-beds, reformed back yards, and the like, are doing more real good work to advance culture, civilization, and Christianity than are the missionaries sent, at infinitely greater cost, into far distant lands.
Perhaps I may be thought to be a bit radical when I say that Art should be made more or less compulsory. I mean by Art, Beauty. A little child may and probably will squirm at being bathed. We know that bathing is necessary, therefore it is ad- ministered willy-nilly. So in this case, we know that the general public, much as the little child, rebels, just naturally squirms at anything intended for its own good. Here's the point: By years of patient hammering we have gotten our cities to insisting upon buildings being erected a certain way, so they will neither fall down, nor burn up with the old-time alacrity ; we've secured the relegation of soap or other smelly factories to regions where they no longer
154 THE OPEN COURT.
oflfend us : so with boiler and such noisy shops : we're cutting down the bell-ringing, yelling, and other unnecessary noises in our cities. Our cars and our noses are being fairly protected, albeit it has been hard work, for each step was most bitterly opposed, it was fought for tooth and nail. The broad principle of the greater good of the many even at the cost of the individual is not very well understood here. The average American citizen, proud of his lib- erty and rights, couldn't get it out of his noddle that he ought to be able to build where and how he pleased upon his own property and make all the racket he wanted to and be as much of a nuisance as he might elect. His "personal" liberty stuck out all over him por- cupine-like. Well, we've done so well for the ears and nose and j)rogresscd so far for the safety of the rest of our anatomy that, it seems to me, we ought to give some little thought and attention to the comfort and pleasure of the eyes as w-ell.
In many cities they've followed Washington's example and have an Art Commission that passes upon all public work to keep it in harmony with some established plan of artistic development. I'm urging that we go further than that. Our Building Departments carefully examine every plan made for private as well as for public buildings and prescribe just how the walls shall be for strength. how high the building may go. what the sanitary details must be. etc.. etc.. all in the efifort to make our buildings safe and healthful. The people have become used to such control and direction. Why not go a step more? There have been many such steps since the first big fight that was made because the city wanted its sidewalks alike and the same width and level. Theretofore personal liberty was such that you walked on brick, stone, plank, or cinders, all in the same block, and you went up or down steps to the different levels to which the kind-hearted owners of property built their sidewalks in an earnest endeavor to have you break your neck.
The city .Art Commissions should have greater power and should cooperate with the Building Departments and pass on all plans for all l)uildings, private as well as public. Not that I'm clamoring for a certain style of architecture, or that greater ex- pense and elaboration be insisted upon in private buildings, all I want is that our eyes should not be abused, offended, murdered any more than we permit our ears and noses to be. Buildings on any one block should conform to certain major lines, they should not be allowed to scream at each other, there should be a certain harmony of color and material, an effort made toward the really artistic. ;\s it is now buildings are planted down every one differ-
TIIR RFJjniON OF RF.AUTY. 155
ent from the other, a new and sometimes startling creation every twenty-five feet, for all the world as if a confectioner attempted a novel confection by sticking together slices of every imaginable kind, color, sha])e, and previous condition of cake he could lay hands upon and then wonder at the hodge-podge effect.
Why should we have to look upon buildings that appal us with their utter ugliness? Why should we put all our efforts into one class of building? For instance, here in Washington there are wondrously fine public buildings, marvels of art, but the private individual is permitted to build any freak construction he wishes and the uglier it is the better it seems to serve his purpose. In consequence there are miles and miles of hideous brick rows and, spite of the beautiful government buildings, the city as a whole is irreparably marred, spoiled beyond redemption. Everywhere, in Cleveland as well as Washington, in San Francisco as well as in New York there are misfits, awful efforts at originality, colors that swear at one, "designs" that were conceived in sin and brought forth in terrible travail. In some cities they rule distressingly crippled beggars off the streets ; by the same token why must we tolerate advertising signs and such things that literally insult any sense of beauty we may possess.
It's a big field, there's endless work to be done in it. We need to cultivate beauty in our homes, in our schools, on our streets, everywhere in our lives and wherever we are, and we'll be the better for it all. They say cleanliness is next to godliness and, I maintain, beauty is first cousin to cleanliness, nay, I do believe they are twins !
Now, don't get excited, art and beauty do not necessarily mean the expenditure of great sums of money, building with fine marbles and gold, dressing in satins and sables. Those words are merely synonyms for good taste and refinement. I've seen a simple ging- ham dress that expressed beauty as forcefully as did any elaborate gown by Worth, and one of the most beautiful bits of architecture done this year anywhere in the country was a modest little three thousand dollar bungalow on a far western hill.
Perhaps I haven't made myself quite clear as to what Art is. At first blush it may seem simple enough to decide, but lexicologists as well as artists and other recognized authorities have fussed for years over the term and are fussing still. We find variants of the term that I think have no place there, distinctions and additions that have crept in and are almost recognized. To-day you have to specify and term your art, fine art, useful art, mechanic art.
156 THE OPEN COURT.
Why. even our pugs practise a pugilistic art and we are barbered by tonsorial artists and dressed by a sartorial one. It is all correct enough in a general way. There is an art of living, a gastronomical art. even the art of hatred. And others would disassociate Art from everything practical making it so that its votaries withdraw them- selves in a sense from the urgencies of practical life and become esoteric and ultimately nuisances of the first water.
Some would have Art always purely decorative ; true Art is the making of everything beautiful as well as useful. A picture painted without any regard as to its decorative value, the proper filling of some space, is but a bauble ; a bow on a lady's dress that has no function, just a "decorative" bow, is. I claim, inartistic, useless, meaningless. Art is not essentially embellishment ; it is the function of doing things well, exercising good taste, gratifying the sight.
The history of the origin and development, growth and decline of beautiful artistic form constitutes a major portion of the history of civilization. As regards each particular people, the history of their efforts to conceive and express absolute perfection, or what is commonly called Beauty, in form and color, is with the single exception of the histor}' of their speculative opinions, the most reliable test of the stage of progress which they have attained ; nor is it an indication of the abundance of their external resources or even of their intellectual activity alone, that the history of the .Art of a people is thus important. It determines their moral, their religious position, for the inseparable connection between the beauti- ful and the good is in no way more clearly manifested than in that fact, that the first inroads of demoralization and social disorder are invariably indicated by a diminution in the strength and purity of artistic forms, especially in architecture.
Am I wrong in praying for greater attention to matters artistic, the popularizing of .Art. making it an every-day, intimate, and working function ?
We've learned that our religion, whatever it be, is not a Sun- day dress to be set aside work-days; it's something we must live to. something to be with us constantly and to guide our every thought and act. To our religious beliefs, whatever they may be — and no man is so low as to be without some — let us add (for bur own material and spiritual welfare, our selfish interests if you wish)
the RKI.IGIOX OF BE.\UTV.
SAVAGE LIFE AND CUSTOM. 157
SAVAGE LIFE AND CUSTOM.
BY EDWAKD LAVVKEN'CE.
IX. CANNIBALISM AND HUMAN SACRIFICES.
WB] must now proceed to give particular attention to those two remarkable, though quite distinct customs which have been practised by many savage races in all parts of the world — the eating of human flesh and the offering of human sacrifices to the gods or the spirits of the dead.
Cruel and gruesome as such practices must appear at first sight, we must nevertheless endeavor to cast aside all preconceived ideas. Even the savage is entitled to any benefit of the doubt which all of us ought to give when complete knowledge is lacking. We must also remember that even our own ancestors indulged in such rites and that there still exist in many of our customs to-day, distinct traces of those practices.
The early Christians themselves were accused by their so-called enemies, of killing and eating a child at their sacramental feasts. Again, in the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell, in a diplomatic message to the Duke of Savoy, charged his Royal Highness with allowing his troops to dash infants on the rocks and cook and eat the brains of others !
It may also be called to mind that, during the French Revolu- tion, Brissot, the Girondin leader, justified cannibalism on the ground that it was natural, because animals in a state of nature ate one another !
While the practice of eating human flesh is quite common to many of the very lowest races, although unknown to others on a similar plane of culture, the offering of human sacrifices is quite unknown to these peoples. It is only when man has attained a higher stage in civilization that the latter rite appears. Thus, for example, while cannibalism is practised by the Australians and the nomad tribes of Brazil, it is quite unknown to the Andamanese. and human sacrifices are unknown to either.
The early Portuguese travelers of the sixteenth century were the first to bring accounts to Europe of cannibalism in Africa.
Joano Dos Santos in 1586 said that near Tete, on the Zambesi River, there existed one tribe which kept prisoners in pens and
158
THE OPEN COURT.
killed and ate them in succession. Gruesome reports were also cir- culated in Europe of like doings in the Congo regions. It was declared that in those regions tribes existed which ate their enemies captured in battle ; who fattened and devoured their slaves, and whose butcher shops were filled with human flesh instead of beef and mutton.
Fig. 28. CANNIBAL BUTCHER SHOP, AS DEPICTED BY A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ARTIST.
(From Regnum Congo, per Philip pum Pigafettam. 1598. — After Huxley.)
The truth of these early accounts has been abundantly con- firmed by explorers during the last fifty or sixty years. Not only in Africa, but as I have said, practically all over the world we meet with cannibal practices in some shape or form.
Cannibalism is rife over the greater part of the Upper Congo
SAVAGE LIFI.: A.VI) CUSTOM. 159
River. The Bangala.s cat all they kill in battle; they remove the inside, stuff the body with bananas, and roast whole over a fire. It is said that two men will eat one body in a night. Even a corpse will be snatched from the grave in order to be eaten. Before eating a slave, the victim is kept prisoner for three days, his limbs are broken and he is fastened to a log chin-deep in a pool of water, to make the flesh tender. With some tribes it is the custom to decapitate the body, clean it out, cut it up, and cook in large pots. The head is not eaten, and the teeth are used as ornaments by the women.
Mr. John H. Weeks, the well-known Baptist missionary, has given a vivid description of the Bangalas returning from the field of battle, laden with their human spoil.
He says : "While we were sitting at our tea, the last party of returning warriors filed past our house, carrying the limbs of those who had been slain in the fight. Some had human legs over their shoulders, others had threaded arms through slits in the stomachs of their dismembered foes, had tied the ends of the arms together thus forming loops, and through these ghastly loops they had thrust their own living arms and were carrying them thus with the gory trunks dangling to and fro. The horrible sight was too much for us, and retching badly we had to abandon our meal and it was some days before we could again eat with any relish. The sight worked on our nerves, and in the night we would start from our sleep, having seen in our dreams exaggerated processions passing before us, burdened with the sanguinary loads of slain and dis- membered bodies."
The Basongo sell slaves and children as food : children will eat their own parents as soon as they show signs of decrepitude. One man who accidentally killed his father expressed regret that he could not eat him, being forbidden by taboo, but he gave the body to his friends for them to eat.
It is no unusual thing to see women carrying portions of human flesh in baskets suspended from their heads, to serve as provisions during a journey.
The Niam-Niam allow women and children to eat human flesh, but the men themselves must only eat those whom they have killed in battle.
On the Mubangi River, slaves are kept and fattened for the butcher. The purchaser feeds them up, kills them, and sells the meat in small joints, and what remains unsold is smoked. Some tribes are said to prefer the flesh of women and children to that
160 ' THE OPEN COURT.
of men. One African traveler tells us that he never bought flesh of any kind in the market for fear it might be human.
.Among the Baluba, only those who are initiated into the secrets of a certain sect are allowed to eat human flesh, which is done secretly. Some of the victim's bones are burnt and the cinders put into a small pot on which a larger pot is placed upside down. A pin is then attached to the smaller pot and fastened by a cord to a branch fixed in the ground. The object of this is to imprison the victim's soul and thus prevent it doing harm to the living.
The Bambala will eat any corpse that is not in the last stage of decomposition. The body is buried for two days before being eaten ; a fire kept burning on the grave, the body is then exhumed, cooked with manioc flour and practically all eaten.
The Fiji Islanders considered every unfortunate wrecked upon their shores a fit candidate for their cooking-pots. When a canoe was launched they celebrated the event by a cannibal feast, the man to be cooked being decked out, and his face painted. After a battle the bodies of the slain were dragged by ropes tied to their necks, and in this manner taken to the temple where they were offered to the gods. Afterward all the bodies were cooked and divided among the men and the priests. During this time, every restraint was laid aside. Sometimes the victims were not killed, but were bound and placed alive in the ovens, and on special occa- sions were even made to eat part of their own bodies.
The bodies were cut up by means of a bamboo knife, a special fork with four prongs being used to convey the flesh to the mouth, it being considered too sacred to be touched by human hands. The bones of the dead were afterward placed in the branches of a tree.
The savages of the South Seas exercise a discriminating taste, and show a decided preference for the flesh of John Chinaman to that of John Bull. They say the Chinaman is a vegetable feeder and his flesh is therefore sweet to the taste, whereas the white man is frequently a hard drinker whose flesh is also rendered rank from the habitual use of tobacco. Consequently the yellow man more frcfjuently finds his way to the cooking-pot than does his white brother.
In New Britain portions of the dead are sold to neighboring tribes, and it is declared that the women are worse cannibals than the men.
The natives of New Ireland hang up by the neck the bodies of those killed in battle, washing and scraping them carefully. After certain ceremonies have been performed the bodies are cut up into
SAVAOK LIFR y\ND CUSTOM. 161
small pieces, wrapped in tough leaves to make them tender and put into ovens in the ground. I^'our days after the flesh is eaten. Their own hodies are also rubhed with this "human" food, which now resembles grease ; so fond are they of its odor, they do not wash themselves for several days so tliat the smell of the flesh shall not be lost.
A case is reported from New Guinea where a lad was partly devoured by a crocodile ; his mother and sister finished what the crocodile had left, the lad's flesh being eaten raw.
In Australia, when a child was weak, it was fed with the flesh of an infant brother or sister to make it strong. These Australians consider that the fat surrounding the kidneys is the most important for consumption, as it contains the center of life ; the kidney fat being frequently extracted while the victim is alive.
Sometimes a man killed in a fight will be skinned and eaten. A burning stick is passed over the body which causes the skin to peel ofY and leaves the corpse nearly as white as the body of a white man.
The Cocomas of the Upper Amazon, after eating the body, ground up the bones which were afterward put into fermented liquor and drank.
In Nicaragua the head was cut ofif, the body cut up into small pieces and boiled in earthen pots with salt and garlic and then eaten by the chiefs with Indian corn. The head was neither cooked nor eaten, but was placed on a stake in front of a temple.
Lionel Decla, while traveling in Central Africa, unknowingly dined ofi human flesh on more than one occasion. The natives in order to test the white man's knowledge, supplied his cook with human flesh to see if the traveler found it out. Decla made several meals before he did find it out and relates how he ate the flesh with great relish and particularly enjoyed the grilled bones which afterward turned out to be ribs of man and not ribs of beef !
Now comes the question: Why do men eat men? The custom is not primarily due to hunger, because cannibalism is most rife in those countries where the food supply is abundant. It is not due to cruelty, or to the ferocity of the savage, because the cannibal is usually a "gentleman" and most kindly in disposition, as Robert Louis Stevenson found by experience. The Congo cannibals are more advanced socially and far less bloodthirsty than tribes in the same region which do not dine upon their fellows.
In many instances it was due to revenge — to punish the dead man and destroy his spirit. Thus in Hayti, the thief was punished
162 THE OPEN COURT.
by being eaten. In Australia white men have frequently been de- voured because of their cruelty to the natives. In the Xew Hebrides it was usually a murdered or a detested enemy that was eaten.
In other cases it was to obtain the quahties of the dead. The Ashantis ate a portion so that their own spirits and courage would not waste away. In South Australia, only the old men and women were allowed to partake, in order to obtain fresh vitality.
The eater was polluted by his act and frequently had to undergo certain rites before he resumed his usual place in the community. Thus the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia were not allowed to eat any warm food for sixteen days ; even the spoon, dish, and kettle must be thrown away four months after the act. Whenever a man wished to leave the house, he had to do so by a secret door at the back ; if he left by the usual opening the ghost of the dead man was ready to pounce down upon him. In Melanesia, while cutting up a human body, the operator covered his mouth and nose for fear the spirit of the dead might enter into him and cause him hurt.
Thus, while the savage may assign various, though to us un- satisfactory reasons for devouring his own species, it will be obvious that magical and religious motives are really at the bottom of the rite. Abhorrent as this horrible and gruesome custom must appear, it will be allowed that civilization has also its grave defects. As Robert Louis Stevenson said of the South Sea cannibals, rightly speaking it is far less hateful to cut a man's flesh when he is dead than to oppress him while he lives. Weighing all the facts one is, after all, inclined to agree with Joaquin Miller that civilized life is a sort of moral cannibalism where souls eat souls, and where men kill men in order to get their places !
In giving attention to the other sanguinary rite about to be detailed, we must not forget that any preconception on our part must necessarily prejudice our judgment.
Human sacrifices are acts which belong to a stage of civiliza- tion in advance of that found among the very lowest races, although the sacrifices themselves may be accompanied by cannibalism.
The sacrificial act was an act made either on behalf of an individual or on behalf of the community at large. It appears to have had two distinct objects— one to bring prosperity or avert disaster— and the other, to provide attendants for the dead in the land of spirits. In order to achieve these supposed results, hun- dreds and hundreds of victims have been, from time to time, offered u|) alive.
SAVAr.K lAVK ANIJ CUSTfJM. 163
In many parts, children were offered to the earth-spirits in order to fertilize the soil and thereby ensure good crops. In other cases, to avert famine, a child will be offered, as for instance during a draught in India some years since, a lad was discovered in a temple near Calcutta, with his throat cut and his eyes staring out of his head.
In the same country, in order that a journey may prove suc- cessful, a child was buried alive in a hole up to its shoulders ; loaded bullocks were then driven over the poor little victim, and in pro- portion as this trampling was thoroughly done, so was the journey likely to prove an equally successful one.
It is stated that the Lambadis — a tribe of carriers known all over southern and western India — up to a recent period carried off the first person they met ; took him to a lonely spot, where a hole was dug in the ground and the victim buried up to the neck. A dough made of flour was then placed on his head and filled with oil, four wicks were stuck in and set alight. The men and women formed a circle, danced and sang around the victim until he expired.
A case is also recorded from India where a litigant made a final appeal to the Privy Council in England, and to ensure success, caught a harmless lunatic and killed him as a sacrifice in order to obtain a successful issue to his cause.
In Oceania, in order to bring peace, two women were sacrificed. The victims arrayed themselves in their best clothing, specially made for the occasion, and their bodies were then oft'ered upon the altar. The ears were divided between the two contending chiefs and the noses among the political sovereigns, and thus was peace ".signed."
To make young braves courageous, the witch-doctor in South Africa killed a boy and a girl, mixed their blood with that of an ox, and then used it as a magical potion.
To ensure good crops, the Pawnees formerly sacrificed a young girl, who had been carefully tended and fed for several months. At the approach of spring, she was painted half red and half black, then attached to a gallows, slowly roasted over a fire, and finally shot to death w^ith arrows. Her heart was then torn out and de- voured by the chief priest. The still quivering flesh was now cut into small pieces and taken to the cornfield where a little of her blood was pressed upon some grains of corn, in order to make the crops plentiful.
In Africa, as elsewhere, human sacrifices were made to provide attendants and wives for the deceased in the land of spirits. The hill-tribes of North East India make raids specially for this pur-
164
THE OPEN COURT.
pose, upon the weak Bengali of the plains, and will kill their cap- tives at the funeral of their chief in order to provide him with a retinue in his new world.
The Hawaiians on making an expedition of great magnitude offered victims to induce the gods to grant them victory by striking terror in the hearts of their enemies. These victims were either captives taken in battle or persons who deserved punishment for ha\ ing broken their sacred laws. W'ar-gods were carried by the
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HEAD OF W./^R-GOD OF THE
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Fig. 30.
SACRIFICIAL DRUM OF THE
ASHANTIS.
(Photos by permission of the Trustees of the Britisli Museum.)
priests on to the field of battle, the body of the god being made of wood and crowned by this helmet or mask (Fig. 29). All will agree that the terrible and distorted features of this hideous image were well calculated to strike panic in the hearts of the enemy.
The gods were kept in or near a palisaded enclosure which was of considerable extent and of which offenders had the right of
♦Made of hasket-work from the aerial roots of a fig-tree; covered with string net-work, overlain with beautiful red and yellow feathers. The eyes arc of niother-of-])earl. The teeth are those of dogs or sharks. Human hair adorns the top of the head.
SAVACI-: 1,1 FK AXi; CUSTOM, 165
sanctuary. Here dwelt tlie priests and lierc were buried kinj^s and high chiefs.
During a sacrifice the victims were dragged by the priests into the presence of the god and slain, and their bodies placed upon the altar, face downward in front of the idol. Sometimes as many as twenty persons were killed at one time.
In that land of blood, Ashanti, hundreds of victims were killed at one time, on the death of important persons. The executions were announced by the priests beating the celebrated sacrificial drum, which was ornamented at the sides with human skulls and thigh- bones (Fig. 30).
To prevent the victims screaming out or cursing their execu- tioners, long knives or skewers were thrust through their tongues and cheeks. The executioners rushed forward and lopped off the right hands of their victims, which they threw at their feet and then severed the heads from their bodies. The remains of the chief having been placed in a basket, a man was called forward to assist in lowering the corpse into the grave. While doing this he received a severe blow at the back of his head by which he was stunned ; he was then swiftly gashed in the neck and his body toppled into the grave on top of the dead chief. The heads of the other victims were deposited at the side of the corpse.
During the Ashanti harvest festival or "yam custom" which took place in the autumn, large numbers were also put to death every year. The festival was attended by all the chiefs under dire compulsion. Executioners grotesquely adorned and with painted faces danced and beat time with their long executioner's knives on human skulls which they carried. Slaves and other persons wdio were guilty of ofifenses were put to death and their blood placed in a large brass pan, and mingled with a decoction of vegetable and animal matter.
When danger threatened, a newly-born child, not more than a few hours old, would be torn to pieces and its limbs and members scattered around. If the country feared an invasion, men and women were sacrificed and their bodies placed along the road by which the foe must travel. Sometimes the corpses would be ex- tended cruciform fashion and stakes driven through the bodies. When the British under Lord Wolseley invaded Ashanti, the vic- tims were placed along the road leading to the capital. Avith their severed heads toward their advancing foe. and their feet toward Coomassie.
The Kondhs of India systematically oflfered sacrifices to the
166 THE OPEN COURT.
earth-spirit to ensure good crops and to obtain immunity from disease. Children who had not been guilty of any impurity were purchased to be offered up. They were carefully tended, fed and clothed at the public expense.
A month before the sacrifice the whole community indulged in intoxication, danced and feted themselves. On the day before the offering, a child was stupified with toddy and bound to the bottom of the sacrificial post. The assembly now danced and addressed the earth : "O god, we offer the sacrifice to you. Give us good crops, seasons, and health." Then addressing the victim they cried: "We bought you with a price and did not seize you. Now we sacri- fice you according to custom and no sin rests with us." The fol- lowing day the victim is again made drunk, anointed with oil and carried in procession round the village. He is then seized and thrown into a pit, his face pressed downward until he is suffocated in the mud. The priest cuts off a portion from the body which is buried near the village idol as an offering to the earth. All the assembly now help themselves to a portion of the body and carry their bloody prizes to their villages. The head and face alone are left untouched.
Another method of sacrifice was to fix the victim to an image of an elephant's head, rudely carved, which was fixed to the top of a stout post on which it revolved — the victim being fastened to the trunk. Amid the shouts and yells of the assembled multitude, the disk was turned rapidly round, and at a signal given by the priest the mob rushed forward and amid the shrieks of the little victim, gashed the flesh from his body as long as life itself lasted. The remains were then cut down and the skeleton burnt.
Sometimes the victim was dragged through the fields, sur- rounded by screaming and gesticulating Kondhs who rushed upon the victim, cut the flesh piecemeal from his body till he expired, then the remains were burnt and the ashes mixed with new grain to preserve it.
The following custom is said to be peculiar to the Kondhs of Jeypore. A stout post was fixed in the ground and at the foot a grave was dug. To the top of this post the sacrifice was secured firmly by his hair. Then four men advanced, outstretched his arms and legs, the body itself being suspended over the grave and facing the earth. At different intervals the priest hacked the back of the shrieking victim with his sacrificial knife, and as he did so, repeated the following prayer :
'T) mighty one. this is your festal day. On account of this
SAVAf)!': MI'K AND CUSTfJM. 167
sacrifice you have given us kingdoms anrl sworrls. 'Jlie sacrifice we now offer you must eat, and we pray that our battle-axes may be converted into swords, and if we have any fjuarrcls with other tribes, give us the victory. I 'reserve us from the tyranny of kings and their officers."
He then addressed the victim and said:
"That we may enjoy prosperity we ofifer you a sacrifice to our god, who will immediately eat you, so be not grieved at our slay- ing you, you were purchased for sixty rupees, therefore no sin is on our hands but on your parents."
The sacrifice is now decapitated, the body thrown into the grave, but the head is left attached to the post to be devoured by wild beasts.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the Indian government, probably these sacrifices are still practised in secret, and only as recently as 1902 a district magistrate actually received a petition requesting him to allow a human sacrifice to be performed.
Among the tribes of the Lower Mississippi, when a chief died, the youngest wife and some hundred men offered themselves as living sacrifices to the shade of the departed. The temple of sacri- fice was built like the house of a chief, with the exception that it had figures of three eagles which looked toward the rising sun. High walls of mud surrounded this building, and upon the wall, spikes were placed which held the heads of those killed in battle or of persons who had been sacrificed to the sun. The center of this temple contained an altar at the foot of which a fire was kept burning continually by two old priests. If lightning set one of these temples on fire, five infants were thrown into the flames to appease the angered spirits.
When a chief was dead, his household esteemed it a great honor to follow him hence. Dressing themselves in their best finery, they repaired to the temple where all the tribe had assembled. Having sung and danced, a cord of buffalo hair, made with a running noose, was passed around them. The priest came forward, and commanding them to join their master in the land of spirits, strangled them, their bodies being afterward placed in a row in the temple (Fig. 31).
Such are a few of those ciistoms practised by uncivilized man which illustrate in a most forcible way that king of all beliefs — the doctrine of a future life.
While one may well stand horrified at the manner in which the savage gives expression to that belief, at those rites which to us
168
THE OPEN COURT.
are so gnicsomc and so sanguinary, yet one cannot fail to be moved deeply by tbeir intensity and reality, and by the "sacrifices" which primitive man is always ready to make on behalf of his creed. Xo such "faith" exists in Christendom. That which ice call the doctrine of a future life is but a flimsy shadow of that serious belief which is so tenaciously held l)y those poor savages whom we so ignorantly
Fig. 31. IIUAIAX SACRIFICES IN LOL'ISIAXA.
Depicted by an artist in the early part of the eighteenth century. ( I'rom Lafitau, Ma-urs dcs Sanz'Ufics.)
despise. If life itself is real to the savage, death and the beyond are yet more real. Hence he shapes his life as if death itself and the continued life beyond counted for more than aught else. It has been stated, over and over again, that those who went forward to their slaughter, sang with joy and danced as if their happy time had come at last, and willingly submitted themselves to the knife
I'ARACKI.SUS AS A TI 1 IlOI.OfWCAI, WKITKK. 169
of the executioner. There are lessons — and they are many — which civilized man might well learn from his naked brother, and one of those lessons is, that if faith and creed are to be held at all, they should he acted as well as believed.
[to bk continued.]
PARACELSUS AS A THEOLOGICAL WRITER.^
r,V JOHN MAXSON STILLMAN,
UNTIL recently little notice has been taken of the very con- siderable activity of Paracelsus (1493-1541) as a thinker and writer on theology. To be sure, it was known from very early records that Paracelsus had written works of this character. Even the inventory of his personal effects recorded at Salzburg after his death makes mention of a collection of theological manuscripts presumably written by himself. So also Conrad Gesner in his Bib- Uotheca Universalis (1545) says of Paracelsus that he composed and dedicated to the Abbot of St. Gall, "I know not what theo- logical works which I believe not to have been published. "-
Moreover there exists on record a receipt signed by Johann Huser^ at Neuburg, October 10, 1594, for a collection of autograph manuscripts by Paracelsus upon theological subjects. The collection includes some twenty-five titles of works. Other lists of his theo- logical writings are in existence dating from the latter half of the sixteenth century. In 1618 a publisher, Johann Staricius, issued a volume containing a few of these theological essays. In his preface the editor asserts that he knows a place where nearly a cart-load of the theological manuscripts may be found.*
Of all these manuscripts not one is now known to exist as auto- graph, though Sudhoff's search through the libraries of Europe has brought to light collections of copies in the libraries at Leyden, Gorlitz, and elsewhere, some of these copies dating as early as 1564 to 1567, and many of them bearing titles included in the early list
1 The following is a chapter taken from a book on Paracelsus by Professor Stillman which we intend to publish soon. — Ed.
2 Netzhammer, Thcophrastiis Paracelsus, p. 53.
3Joh. Huser had just pubHshed the medical, philosophical, and surgical writings of Paracelsus (Basel, 1589-91).
■* Cf. Netzhammer, op. cit., p. 127.
170 THE OPEN COURT.
of autograj)!! manuscripts as receipted for by Iluser, or in other early lists.°
These manuscripts borrowed by Huser from the library at Neu- burg were manifestly intended to be used in the published collection of his works. That they were not so used is easily explained by the tenor of the contents of such as have been in part printed or abstracted by SudhofT." For they are very outspoken and indeed frankly heretical in their criticisms of many of the institutions and observances of the Roman Church. Huser was himself a Roman Catholic, and the publication of the works of Paracelsus by Huser was undertaken under the patronage and with the support of the Archbishop of Cologne. Though Paracelsus claimed allegiance to the Catholic Church and died and was buried at Salzburg as a Catholic, yet his views were so radical and so severely critical of many of the essential doctrines of the Church, that their publication could hardly have been possible under such support and super- vision. Indeed it is evident that any wide circulation of his writ- ings would have brought upon him the severest discipline of the Church. Even the Lutheran clerical party would have had little sympathy with his point of view. It is quite probable indeed that Paracelsus himself made no effort to print them but rather avoided their publication, preferring merely to place them in the hands of congenial thinkers or to leave them for posterity.
It is certain that the revolt of his contemporary Luther, and his countryman Zwingli, as well as the critical spirit of Erasmus exercised a great influence upon Paracelsus — predisposed by nat- ural temperament to independent and free thinking and criticism of authority.
It should be kept in mind also that severe criticism of the orthodox Church, its observances and corruption was quite pre- valent even before the time of the Protestant Reformation. Thus in Italy Macchiavelli writing about 1500 thus freely criticizes the corruption of the Church: "Should we send the Curia to Switzer- land, the most religious and martial of countries, that experiment would prove that no piety nor warrior's strength could resist the l)aj)al corruption and intrigue. .. .The peoples nearest Rome have least religion. .. .We Italians have to thank the Church and the priests that wc have become irreligious and corrupt."^
"' For stiitcmciits as to evidence of aiUlicnticity of many of these manu- scripts, cf. Siullioff, I'crsuch cincr Kritik der Echthcit dcr Paracclsischen Schriflcii, Vol. II, Introduction.
n I'crsuch etc., Vol. II.
T VV. Dilthey, Arcliii' fiir Gcschichtc dcr Philosophic, Vol. IV, pp. 636-7.
PARACia.SUS AS A Til KOI.DGICAr. WRITER.
171
ALTERIVS NON SIT Q;/I 5W5 ESSE POTEST
AVKE 0LV5 PHILIPPVS
AJB HOHENHEIM,
JeefmnaA' nabilium ^emmj P^RjICELSVS
Qua tntiLS JJeLuim clant Erenuu kamo. <fcc ocmIos t/2r ore bJit, c-nm plunma Lrtyum Z>ucendi ^ybiJio per locaJ^sxJ lUr
J. Tintortt a3 Inuum pirvnt
THEOPHRASTVS BOMBAST
DJCTVS PAR.'\CELSV'5
Lujk^ njium ct rrujdiitm. s^uzu L^firo anzt
■Lut/urum Po/tqwe Cuos- tuftrvJUncnu, Erairm, roaoj ■/Ijcm iju our Jena J'epunbnj tua Juiiujt: OjtaSi^Jburja nurx cuu-r^ (jUc jaunZ
■F Chauueau Jculpsit.
PARACELSUS BY TINTORETTO (?).^ Engraved by F. Chauveaii.
* May be by an artist of about 1520-25, when Paracelsus was in the Vene- tian wars. Tintoretto was born 1518.
172 THE OPEN COURT.
So also Savonarola, the great Dominican monk — writing in 1493. the year of the birth of Paracelsus: "Go to Rome and through- out all Christendom: in the houses of the great prelates and the great lords, they busy themselves with nothing but poetry and rhetoric. Go and see, you will find them with humanistic books in their hands ; — it will appear as if they knew how to guide souls by \ irgil, Horace, and Cicero. With Aristotle, Plato, \'irgil, and Petrarch they feed their ears and do not trouble themselves about the salvation of souls. Why do they not teach instead of so many books, that one in which is contained the law and the life." The prelates, said Savonarola, are sunk into ambition, shamelessness, and luxury, and the princes — ''their palaces and courts are the refuge of all beasts and monsters of the earth, asylums for all ras- cals and criminals. These stream thither because they find there opportunity and incitement to give free rein to all their boundless desires and evil passions. . . .and what is worse, there also may be seen churchmen who join in the same accord."^
Whatever stimulus may have been given to the unorthodox theology of Paracelsus by the Protestant Reformation, it is evident that he was not less critical and unsympathetic toward the Lutheran interpretation than toward the Catholic. This is evidenced by many passages in his writings wherein he refers to the Protestant leaders of his day as false prophets, etc.
"Those who stand with the Pope consider him a living saint, those who stand with Arianus" also hold him for a righteous man, those who hold with Zwingli likewise consider him a righteous man. those who stand with Luther hold him to be a true prophet. Thus the people are deceived. Every fool praises his own motley. He who depends on the Pope rests on the sand, he who depends on Zwingli depends on hollow ground, he who depends upon Luther depends on a reed. They all hold themselves each above the other, and denounce one another as Antichrists, heathens, and heretics, and are but four pairs of breeches from one cloth. It is with them as with a tree that has been twice grafted and bears white and yellow pears. Whoever opposes them and speaks the truth, he must die. How many thousands have they strangled and caused to be strangled in recent years."'"
"They pray in the temples — but their prayer is not acceptable
" Cf. Paulsen: Gcscliiclite dcs gclclirtcn Unicrrichts, 2d ed., Vol. I, pp. 10-11.
" I)otil)ilcss .'\riiis, founder of the Ariaii heresy.
'"Sudhoff. I'crsuclt etc., Vol. II. p. 411.
PARACia.SUS AS A TllVJ )\J )(,\(.\\. WKITF.R. 173
lo God, for it means nothing, and they are altogether, — Papists, Lutherans, Baptists, ZwingHans: — they all boast that they are of the Holy Ghost, that they are founded on the Gospel. Therefore they cry 'I am right, — the right is with me, I declare the word of God, here is Christ and his word as I tell it you, — follow me, I am he who brings you the Gospel.' Sec what an abomination among Philistines this is."'*
More specifically may be judged tlic extent of his departure from the doctrines of his own Church in such ])assages as the following:
"It is vain — the daily churchgoing and all the genuflection, bowing and observances of church rules by clericals and the wordly, ■ — none excepted. — all a vain work with no fruits, — the will and service of the Devil, — opposed to Christ and the Holy Trinity. The reasons? — the Church is called in Latin CathoUca and is the spirit of all true believers, and their coming together is in the Holy Spirit. These are all in the faith, that is in the fides cathoUca, and it has no place of worship. But Ecclesia is a wall" [i. e., the true Church is in the spirit, the corrupt Church worships in walled build- ings].
Continuing, he condemns public prayers in the churches, church- festivals ("a dance of devils") — "God wishes a humble and contrite heart and no devilish holiday observances, offerings, or displavs." Fasting in the "walled churches'" is an invention of the Devil. The giving of alms in the churches "does not serve toward eternal blessedness." and the giving of alms in the Catholic churches comes only from credulity and from no love from the neighbor 'nor for the neighbor. Pilgrimages, dispensations, "running to the saints" are all in vain and have no merit. The monastic orders, the re- ligious orders of knighthood and the like are inventions of the Devil and maintained in his honor. Spreading the faith bv the sword is from the Devil.
"Who can presume to consecrate and bless the earth? It is God's earth, blessed to. bring forth fruit; the water is blessed by God to quench thirst, to breed fish, to water the earth, not to sprinkle to banish the Devil as holy water."'-
Similar points of view are found expressed in his printed works though naturally with less of detail in his criticism.
Thus from the Paramiruni : "God will only have the heart. not ceremonies. . . .For every man is with God a neighbor and has
" Schubert-Sudhoff, Paracehusforschiingcn, Heft II, p. 153. 12 Sudhoff, Versuch etc., Vol. II, pp. 338ff.
174
THE OPEN COURT.
full power to take up his affairs with God. But if a man gives this power out of his hands and does not keep what God has given
♦ ALTERIVS ]AO]/l SIT ♦ qj/1 SVV5 ES5E POTEST^
/* AVRZQU ^THEOPHRASTI A f\R ^'HOHtNi: ■
PARACELSUS THREE YEARS BEFORE HIS DEATH.*
him, but surrenders it to another and seeks it again from that other, then he falls into ceremonies and depends upon despair.
* This portrait and the one following are by Augustin Hirschvogel (c. 1503-1569), engraved after sketches from life. The signature reproduced underneatli reads : "Theophrastus von Hohcnhcim, der Heiligen Schrift und beider Arzneien Doctor."
PARACKI.SUS AS A Til KfM/KHCAl, WKITKR.
175
For every ceremony is the way of despair. ... For if we have anything to receive from God it is our hearts he sees and not the ceremonies. If he has given us anything, he does not wish that we should employ it in ceremonies but in our work. For he gives it for no other purpose but that we should love God with all our heart and our might, and soul, and that we should help our neighbor.
PARACELSUS IN HIS LAST YEAR.
If that which he has given us helps toward that, all ceremonies will be forgotten. "^^
That such expressions as the above are not to be harmonized with the doctrines of the Church to which he claimed allegiance would appear obvious. The Rev. Raymund Netzhammer of the Benedictine order, one of the recent biographers of Paracelsus, thus expresses himself upon this point: 13 Op. fol., I, 114-115, "Paramirum."
170 THE OPEN COURT.
"Far more in the domain of theology than even in medicine, does Paracelsus, who sometimes calls himself Doctor of Sacred Scrii)ture, seem to recognize no authority, but to consider his own thinking and philosophizing as authoritative for him. That with this princij)le of free investigation, denying every authority, even that of the Church, he departed from the foundations of Catholic doctrine every well-informed person knows. But not only by this principle as such, but still more through its practical development did he separate himself from the faith of his fathers: he combatted the hierarchical establishment of the Church, the power of the keys, its monastic orders, its ceremonies, its public prayers and devotions. He rejected preaching among Christians, who should teach them- selves from the Scriptures, and banished the apostles and preachers to the heathen .... It must, however, not be denied, but on the contrary emphasized that Theophrastus possessed a very high, though unfortunately too mystical a concept of many doctrines and sacraments, as for instance of hereditary sin, of baptism with its inextinguishable symbols, and notably also of the communion. Baptism and communion are for him the two principal roads which lead to Heaven."^*
The question as to his orthodoxy has been viewed differently by his biographers. His editor Huser mildly defends his Catholi- cism. "Some are inclined to hold him in suspicion on account of his religion, because in various places he speaks in opposition to certain abuses: in my opinion this is unjust, for, as concerns his faith, it is well known that he did not separate frorn the holy Catholic and Roman Church, but remained in obedience to it. as the Arch- bishopric and City of Salzburg can bear witness, where he died in the year 1541. a Catholic and Christian and was honorably in- terred."
Schubert and Sudhoff summarize the results of their studies into the life and character of Paracelsus thus:
"If we consider his attitude toward the religious parties of the time, we may perhaps find that in the years before 1531 he felt some inclination toward the Reformation of Luther and Zwingli. perhaps only in so far as he presumed in them who had broken in matters of faith with ancient tradition, a greater sympathy also with his reform ideas in the domain of medicine and natural science. .. .Later — after the year LS31 — there is no further talk of sparing the Protestants. On the contrary, if he also combatted the Roman hierarchy, the external forms of worship and other 1* Nctzhammcr, op. cil., pp. 128-9.
PARACELSUS AS A THEOLOGICAL WRITER. 177
ceremonials, he yet rejects all dissenting relif(ious ];arties as 'sects,' almost even more violently."''^'
Though none of the theological papers of Paracelsus was pub- lished during his life, so far as is known, yet his views were more or less known, either from manuscript copies, or from his free oral expressions, and evidently brought upon him the displeasure and disapproval of Catholic authorities. Evidence as to this appears in a manuscript among the collection examined by SudhofT and pub- lished in large part in his volume on the manuscripts of Paracelsus.
The extract translated below is so eminently characteristic of his point of view in theological matters and so well illustrates his relation at the time to the orthodox theology, that it forms one of the most interesting expressions of his spiritual experience.
"Your daily disputations and sharp attacks upon me on account of my truth-speaking, namely, that I have sometimes and several times in taverns, inns, and roadhouses spoken against useless church- going, luxurious festivals, vain praying and fasting, giving of alms, offerings, tithes,. . . .confession, partaking of the sacrament, and all other priestly rules and observances, and have accused me of drunkenness on account of this, because this has taken place in the taverns, and the taverns are held to be inappropriate places for the truth ; — and that you call me a corner-preacher ; — Why do you do this to me at this time, when you were silent and well pleased when in the taverns I advised people to give offerings to you and to follow you and not speak against you? If that was proper in the inns and was of service to you, — then let it please you now that the truth is spoken in the inns. For then in the inns I was a believer in you, but now I am a believer in Christ and no longer in you. And if I came into the inns with you, then I would say to these same people, 'Guard yourselves against false prophets and deceivers who are sent by the Devil.' I would never again speak of giving to you, but of taking away from you, the usurped power which you have long exercised through the Devil's power. . . .Also you say of me that I have just sense enough to reason with peasants. . . . You say I should go amongst the doctors at Lowen [Louvain]. Paris, Vienna, Ingolstadt, Cologne, where I should. have real per- sons under my eyes, not peasants, not tradesmen, but masters of theology. Know then my answer to this : to those will come their own equals. If it be not I, it will be another, but my teaching and my witnessing for Christ will come forth and overcome them. Christ never came to Rome, yet Rome is His vicar ; St. Peter never 15 Schubert-Sudhofif, op. cit.. Heft II, pp. 152-3.
178 THE OPEN COUKT.
came to Cologne, yet he is her patron saint, and if in the end I do not come that is not my fanlt. For the teaching is not mine, it is from Christ. He will send a Netherlands messenger if I cannot speak the language, and to those of \'ienna and Ingolstadt he will send their countrymen, and the truth will be born amongst them and through them will come to light and not through me. And when I am dead the doctrine will live on, for it is of Christ, who dieth not. And if I were at Louvain and at Paris it is not me they would punish, — upon which you count, — they would but punish Christ and not me. Yet I believe that my speaking to-day will be heard by them as well as if I had spoken in their presence. For Christ does not let his word be lost at any time. Nor does he let it lie hidden, it must go forward. It is not for one alone, it must be spread abroad. Everything must be opened to it.
"You complain much and loudly that I have made the peasants contumacious, so that they never make offerings and care little for you or not at all. Consider, — if my speech were from the Devil, they would follow you and not me. But as they follow me and not you believe no else than that the Holy Spirit is in them which teaches them to recognize your character, trickery, and great false- hoods. For I have not invented anything myself. — what I have said that is from the Holy Ghost. It is the Gospel. .. .and has been the Gospel from the time of Christ till this day. But your trickery is more ancient — from Cain and from the old hypocrites and bishops. The new [Gospel] is true, the old false. The new con- demns the old, not the old the new. Were the Old Testament from which you take all your deceptions fully good and true, Christ would not have renewed it again."'®
The doctrines of theology which Paracelsus accepted appear not only from the above strong statement but consistently from numerous extracts throughout his works to be his own literal inter- pretation of the teachings of Christ. He asked for no intermediate authority to interpret to him their meaning, and entertained no doubts as to the correctness of his own rendering. That he was deeply impressed with the spirit of the teachings of Christ often shows itself, particularly in its practical relation to the service of man toward his fellow. Love and helpfulness for the neighbor, the poor, and the sick are frequent themes of his appeals.
Among the manuscripts which Sudhoff has reproduced is a sermon containing an autobiographical fragment, manifestly written
1" SiidhofF, Versuch etc., Vol. II, pp. Zii^. "Dc scptem punctis Idolatriae Christianae."
PARACii;r.su.s as a TirKor.oorcAL writer. 179
in his later years, which is retrospective and introspective, and so completely in accord with the known facts of the life of Paracelsus, that it hears the strongest possihle internal evidence of genuineness. The manuscript is at Leyden and is a copy made between 1590 and 1610. Copies of somewhat later date exist also in Copenhagen, Salzburg and the British Museum, the latter in a Latin version.
For the estimation of the personality and mental experiences of Paracelsus, it is too important to be omitted.
"As I have undertaken to write of the blessed life of Christian faith, it has not seemed proper to attempt to portray that without this introduction. .. .Therefore I have undertaken to write this preface to the blessed life of Christian experience that I may excuse my delay in writing this book, as I began working upon it in the twentieth year [1520]. Why I have so long postponed and delayed has not happened without reasons. One of these is that youth should not come forward before its proper time, as nothing should appear before its time, but should await the determined hour toward which we all progress. For another reason, not only my youth, but that other matters of my profession have prevented me, namely that astronomy, medicine, and works in philosophy had to be described, that is to say, that which concerns the Light of Nature, so that I had to leave for a later harvest the Sacred Writings ; — that they might be well ripened, they have been postponed to the end and the lessser things completed first. These are two reasons that have strongly influenced me. But not only from these causes has the delay arisen, but much more from this that I was raised and grew up in great poverty so that my resources have not permitted me to act according to my desires.
"And even when I had nearly finished there arose in my affairs public and private, much opposition which has lain on my shoulders alone, and there has been no one to hold back and shield for me. For very strange kinds of people have persecuted and accused me and hindered me and discredited me, so that I have had little repu- tation among men but rather contempt. For my tongue is not built for chattering but for work and for the truth. That is the reason that I have not counted for much with the logicians and dialecticians in medicine, philosophy, and astronomy. Also their pomp and dis- play and fine speeches for princes and the rich, — I have been noth- ing like that, and have therefore been forsaken. So also has greatly tormented me the winning of my bread [dcr Pfliig mciner Nahning]. For the world is not to be gained by astronomy, as it has little value except for itself, nor by medicine, as it has not power over all
180
THE OPEN COURT.
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BROADSIDE ON PARACELSUS (before 1606). Engraved by Balthasar Jeniclicn after originals by 1 lirschvogcl.
PARACKI.SdS AS A TUE()].()(:]C.\]. WKITKU. 181
diseases, nor by philosophy [i. c, natural pliilosophy| Hkewise, as it is held in contempt, but by tradesmen's wealth and courtly man- ners. That has been a cross to me and still is to this day.
"Nor has all this been the least:. . . .^fhe other [reason] is so great that I can hardly describe it, — that is the greatest cause which has hindered me from writing, — that I have not been considered a true Christian, — that has troubled me severely. For because I am a creature of God. redeemed by His blood and through it have received food and drink in the new birth, — that has seemed suffi- cient to me to make me a true Christian.
"But there has arisen against me another crowd and faction who say, 'Thou as a layman, as a peasant, as a common man, shouldst not speak of such things as pertain to the Sacred Scrip- tures, but shouldst listen to us — to what we tell you and hold to that, and shouldst listen to no others nor read anything except us alone !' I was thus forced into a delay, — I hardly dared to stir, for they were powerful in this world, — I had to endure it as one who must lie under the stairs.
"But nevertheless when I read the cornerstone of Christendom and heard the preaching and disputations of the others (it was like a miller and a coal-heaver against each other), it became necessary for me and manifest that I should accept rather the truth than lies, rather righteousness than unrighteousness, rather light than darkness, rather Christ than Satan. When I perceived the difference I let the opposition go without contradiction and accepted for myself the Christian cornerstone. As I then found that in the layman, in the common man, in the peasant (which name they employ when they would abuse their opponents most scornfully), the perfection of the blessed Christian life most abides, and not at all in those others, then I began to write of the truth of the life of Christ. When I had then finished the writing and concluded with much hope, there broke out the division of the kingdom of this world as it now is [i. e., the Reformation?]. So I d:layed and took pause — postponed it till another autumn and harvest. It has now seemed good to me to make an end, and so to close with these books, the fruits of the seed which has been with me from the beginning.
"Therefore I have included in one work the relation of Chris- tians to the blessed life and likewise the relation of Christians to the unblessed life. .. .Those in the unblessed life are great, are arrogant, — they own the world, it is theirs, — they are the children of the light of the world. But the blessed — they have not the
182 THE OPEN COURT.
world — but they have their kingdom which is not of this world but of the Eternal, and with the Eternal : where two of the blessed life are together, there is Christ the third. Those are the riches that they have in this world. And although those who have opposed me have greatly hindered me. they have not suspected what has lain in my pen ; — I have kept my mouth closed, that the storm and the thunderbolt should not strike me to earth. Thereby I have brought it forward till this day and have not troubled myself about them, but have held companionship with the common people of whom they are ashamed and ha\c myself therefore been despised. This has been my preparation for this work."'"
THE TAOIUD OX DREA^FS.
I'.V JL'LIL'S J. PRICK.
THE human mind has at all times sought to arrive at some ex- planation of what on the surface appears mysterious or wonder- ful. Man through the centuries of his development has endeavored to account for these strange phenomena of his sleeping hours that we call dreams.^ The suspension of the will-power clothes the ideas with reality ; and, as a result, one man acts many parts.^ The phe- nomenon of dreams has not only occupied the minds of the super- stitious, but it has engaged the careful attention and earnest study of the scientist'' as well as the scholar.* by reason of its points of contact"' with other mental conditions.'"' A scientific study of dreams proves that there is a similitude between the suspension of the higher mental activities known as the dreaming state, and the in- stinctive state of human development observed in the lower orders of human and animal life.
T)Ut though these phenomena might seem to the average man of to-day to be but a "state of mind."" yet we find that even such
'■ Siulhoff, J'crsitcli etc.. Vol. II, pp. 406-408.
1 Plutarch, De flacitis philosophorum, V, 2, pp. 904f.
- Xenoplion, Cyrop., VIII, 21 ; cf. also Cicero, Dc diviii., I, 30-63.
3 Aristotle, De hisomniis, II.
* .T^^schyhis, Prom., 485 f.
^ Hcsiod, Theog., 211; also Euripides, I ph. Taur., 1262.
" Maimonides however rcpardcd dreams as a form of prophecy; see Guide of the Perplexed, tr. by M. Friedlander, p. 240.
T Cf. Odyssey, XIX. 562f. tr. by Butcher and Lang.
Tin-: TALMUD ON DREAMS. 183
a cyclopedic work as the Tulmiul has endeavorcfl to give an ex- planation of tlie observed facts. Let us then Ijriefly see what the Rabbis have to say on the siiljject.
In one passage we lind that the Rabbis are of the opinion that we dream at night what we think in the daytime. Rabbi Jonathan said:** "It is the thoughts of his heart during the day which appear to a man in a dream ; for it is said : 'As for thee, O King, thy thoughts come into thy mind upon thy bed' (Dan. ii. 29)." Rava observed: "It must be so ; for they never show to a man a golden tree or an elephant passing through the eye of a needle," inasmuch as man never thinks of these.
The expression, "thoughts of his heart," sounds like an antici- pation of the Freudian theory of "wish-fulfilment." Is Professor Freud acquainted with this interpretation of dreams in the Talmud, and, if so, may he not possibly have been unconsciously influenced thereby ?
A further utterance of the kind we have referred to is to be found in several other passages of the Talmud, one of which reads as follows:" "Caesar said to Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah [who is supposed to have been a contemporary of Trajan] : 'You say that you are exceedingly wise ; tell me what I shall see in my dream.' He replied : 'You shall dream that the Persians will make you work for them, spoil you, and make you tend cattle with a golden crosier.' He thought of it the whole day and saw it at night." The Talmud has still another passage, as proof of the above, in the following: "Shevur, the king of Persia [perhaps this is none other than Sapor'° who took A'alerian prisoner] , once said to Samuel the Babylonian : 'You say that you are exceedingly wise ; tell me what I shall see in my dreams ?'^^ He replied : 'You shall see the Romans come and take you prisoner and compel you to grind date-kernels with golden grinders.' He thought of it the whole day and saw it at night."
In another instance we find that the Rabbis are of the opinion that it is not the dreams but the interpretation that we give of dreams that is really realized.^- Thus Rabbi Beris related of the aged Rabbi Benaab that "one day he went to all the twenty-four interpreters at Jerusalem to tell them his dream. Each gave a different interpretation and each was fulfilled — which, says the
8 Berachoth, 55b. ° Berachotli, 56a.
10 Meyer's Ancient History, Part II, p. 149, note 1.
" Berachoth, 56a.
12 Cf. Apuleius, Mctam., IV, 910; ibid., II, 125.
184 THE OPEN COUKT.
rabiji, coiihrms the sayinjjj that it is the interpretation and not the dream that is reahzed."'"'
The Rabbis give various interpretations of the jjhenomena sup- posed to have been seen in dreams. In one case I find that the Rabl)is state: "If one dreams that he is excommunicated he requires ten tnen to absolve him."'* Another passage reads as follows: "Among the four wise men.'' he that secth Rabbi Yochanan ben Xuri in a dream may hope to be a sin-eschewing man; if Rabbi l-lleizer ben Azaryah. he may hope to be a great and rich man ; if Rabbi Ishmael, he may hope to l)e a wise man ; if Rabbi Akiba. let him appreiiend misfortune."
The Rabbis also give an interpretation of the meaning of various animals seen in a dream. For example, we read: "He that seeth a goose"' in a dream may hope for wisdom: for it is said: AVisdom crieth in the streets' (Prov. i. 20) [and so do;s a goose]. rr?!; Nnni will be made the head of a seat of learning.'" At this Rabbi .\shi remarked : 'I had such a dream and was thus promoted.' "
In another passage we read as follows: "If one sees a dog in a dream, let him when awake say: 'Rut against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue' (Ex. xi. 7), before he is anticipated by the text: 'Th?y are greedy dogs' (Is. Ivi. 11). If he sees a lion in a dream let him when awake say: 'The lion hath roared, who will not fear?" (Amos iii. 8), before he is anticipated by the text: 'The lion is come u]) from his thicket' (Jer. iv. 7). If he sees a bullock in a dream, let him when awake say: 'His glory is like the firstling of his bullock' (Dent, xxxiii. 17), before he is anticipated by the text: 'If an ox gore a man' (Ex. xxi. 28)."'*
In two cases we find that dreams'" accurately foretold events that were to occur in the lives of several of the Rabbis.-" "Ben Damah, the son of Rabbi Ishmael's sister, said to his uncle: 'I have seen in a dream both my cheeks drop off.' The latter replird: Two Roman military bands have resolved to do thee mischief, but they died!' P.ar Kappora said to Rabbi Judah-han-Xasi : T have seen in a dream my nose drop off.' The Rabbi replied: 'Some one's anger against thee has been subdued.' 'I have seen in a dream both my hands cut off.' He rejilicd : 'Thou wilt be spared manual
'3 Berachoth, 55b. '* Nedarim, 8a.
If' Avoth d'Rav. Nathan, Cliap. XLI. "' Rcrachotli. 57a.
'■'The words given in Hebrew are untranslatable, but tboir import can easily be ascertained by reference to a lexicon.
'"Berachoth, 56b. '» Cf. Pliitarcli, / '//. Pclop., XXI.
2«Cf. ^schylus, Bum., 104, and Pindar, Frag. 108 (Bcrgk).
Till': T.\l..\Ii;i) ox DKICAMS. 185
labor.'"-' Another example is found in the following f|Uotation : "Rahl)i Yochanan hen Zakai saw in a dream, the night following the Day of Atonement, that his sister's son would lose one thou- sand seven hundred denars in the course of a year.-- Tie therefore asked them again and again for sums of money to he given to the poor, till, on the eve of the next Day of Atonement seventeen denars remained with them of the sum they were destined to lose.-"' On that very day the government of Csesar demanded seventeen denars of them. Rabbi Yochanan told them that they need not fear lest more should be exacted from them. 'And how dost thou know it?' they asked.-* He told them of his dream u^hich had induced him to make them distribute the doomed money in charity. 'But why,' they asked, 'didst thou not tell us of it before?' 'I wanted you,' said he, 'to give the money from a pure motive.' "
Various counsels are given by the Rabbis as to what is to be done in the case of a dream being forgotten or left uninterpreted. The following would take place when a dream was forgotten, according to the interpretation of Mar Zutra and Rabbi Ashi : "Whosoever has had a dream and cannot call it to mind, let him stand before the priests when they spread out their hands to bless the people, and say : 'Lord of the Universe, I am Thine and my dreams are Thine ; I have dreamed a dream and know not what it is ; wh-ther I have dreamed about myself, whether my neighbors have dreamed about me, or whether I have dreamed about others ; if the dreams be good, strengthen and confirm them, like the dreams of Joseph ; if they require healing, heal them as the bitter waters were by Moses, as Miriam was healed of leprosy. Hezekiah of his illness, and the waters of Jericho by Elisha. and as Thou didst turn the curse of the wicked Balaam into a blessing, so turn all my dreams into good.' "-' On the other hand, if a man had dreamed, and his dream was interpreted as of ill omen, the Rabbis prescribed as follows. Rabbi Chanan said : "A man should not despair of mercy, even when the master of dreams has told him that he should die to-morrow ; for it is said : 'In the multitude of dreams, and many vanities and words, fear but God' (Eccles. v. 7).""-''
While the Rabbis at various times stated that dreams were of comparatively small significance, and in many cases that little atten-
21 Berachoth, S6b.
22 Cf. Plato, Crito, 44b; also Herodotus, III, 124, and Plutarch, Cimon XVIII, p. 490.
23 Cf. Iliad, XXIII, 65 ; also Odyssey, IV, 796f, and XIX, 536f.
24 Bava Bathra. 10a.
25 Berachoth, 55b. 2c Berachoth, 10b.
186 THE OPEN COL-RT.
tion was to be paid to them, yet I have found Oiie instance where the Rabbis urge the interpretation of dreams. For according to Rabbi Chisda a dream not interpreted is Hke a letter not read, [of no consequence, says Rashi. for all depends upon the interpreta- tion] ; if so. Joseph was guilty of deliberate murder. Rabbi Chisda further said: "Neither a good dream nor a bad dream is wholly realized" : again. "A bad dream is better than a good dream ; for a bad dream is neutralized by the sadness it causes, and a good dream is realized by the joy it brings."-^
We s e then that although some Rabbis regarded dreams as of no consequence, yet some.-** on the other hand, were able to foretell future events'-" as well as ward off hardships that were to come upon them. Although dreams in general are made little of, vet people""' from the earliest times" to the present day have believed in them as something more than the result of a full stomach or a cherished thought.
DREA^IS.
P.V T. B. STORK.
APROPOS of Professor Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams," > which for the last few years has called forth considerable dis- cussion. T would like to call attention to a theory of dreams pub- lished some years ago, whether strictly new and original I know not, but which seems at least simpler and less open to the charge of being fantastic.
According to this view, dreams arc what niiglU l)c called blind perceptions ;. that is. they are the efforts of our perceptive faculty to form an intelligible p.rception with defective materials. An example will best illustrate the idea.
We are all familiar with the story of the dreamer who dreamed ihat he had enlisted in the army, was guilty of some grave offense for which he was condemned to death, and was just about to be
-■ ncniclwth, 55a.
2s Cf. Pausanias, IX, xxxix. 5f, wlierc we arc told tliat the oracles of Trophonins and /Esculapius were drcam-oraclcs wliere the sick slept, seeking means of cure, and wliere those who desired to know future events went to (jhtain it tlirnngh dreams.
"" Xenophon. writing al)oiit tlie retreat of the 10.000, states that he con- stantly depended on dreams. Cf. liis Hip Inarch., I, 1 ; also Cyncgct., I, If.
''o Hippocrates, I, 63.3, Dc iusoniiiUs; cf. also Artemidorus, Oiicir, passim.
3i///«rf, II. 322f.
DREAMS. 187
sliot. The sound of the guns of the execution awakened him and he heard the sound of a door slamming with a loud bang; this not only aroused him from his slumber, but was the active cause of his dream, which he had dreamed in the interval elapsing between the first sound of the slamming door and his actual awakening: of this the explanation is quite easy and satisfactory.
The auditory nerves of the slumberer had conveyed to his con- sciousness a loud sound ; it had intruded, so to speak, on a con- sciousness empty of all other sensations, and the perceptive faculty working in an automatic way had endeavored to form a rational perception of the sound, but with no other material than the sen- sation of the sound itself. This was impossible. In order to form a rational perception of the sound and make it intelligible, it was absolutely essential to have other sensations, other material, to build up the perception, and in the absence of any real sensations, the perceptive faculty called upon memory and from its store of past sensations, drew the materials that were wanting, supplied guns as the source of the sound and accounted for the guns by the rest of the events of the enlistment, misbehavior, etc., these latter not being perhaps essential to the immediate perception of the sound, but required by the sensations or material, the guns etc., invented to make the perception of the sound possible. A rational perception of a sound all by itself is impossible for the mind, it cannot perceive in the philosophical sense a sound by itself with nothing but a sound, no sensation from any other organ of perception, accompanying it. Yet, on the other hand, there is a sensation of sound presented to consciousness, real, persistent, that will not be denied or set aside, and so the perceptive faculty must do something with it, must form an intelligible perception containing it, and so for want of any other material, it catches up from memory any odd or end that will help make it rational, much as a woman might take up from her work- table any piece of finery or stuff to complete a garment. It is a sudden, 'almost instantaneous operation that flashes through the consciousness during the short time between the slumberer's hear- ing the noise and his awakening to full consciousness.
Here undoubtedly is the source of one large class of dreams ; that is. of dreams caused by some external irritation of the senses, and is it not quite likely, reasoning from analogy, that the dreams of a different class, those which are not directly traceable to any external irritation of the senses, may be caused by other less obvious internal irritations, obscure nerve-excitements transmitted by the bodily organs when not in a normal condition? There is a storv
188 TIIK OIMIN roLKT.
of a woman who had a dream that her hushand was being executed ; she awoke with a sensation of horror at the dreadful occurrence. Xot long after she was taken with an attack of smallpox ; it is rea- sonable to supi)Osc that, some prognosticating symptom of the dis- ease making itself felt in her sleei)ing consciousness and insisting upon being perceived, there occurred the resultant dream of her husband's peril.
Dr. Maudsley in his work on Dreams gives an instance of his own experience much to the same effect, viz., that he dreamed he was dissecting a subject when it suddenly revived ; his horror and mortification were nothing more than the suffering from an intes- tinal disturbance which introduced into his consciousness such a sensation of pain that the percei)tive faculty had to accept and per- ceive it to the above effect.
The theory will take a greater appearance of completeness if we contrast, for the moment, the blind perception of our dreaming with the true perception of our waking reality; the former built up by some single real sensation, to which other artificial sensations have been added from memory's store in order to make it possible to combine the real sensation into a rational perception ; the latter a congeries of real sensations unified and rationalized into a true perception by the mysterious and hidden operation of the percep- tive faculty — "apperception," Kant has called it. thus distinguishing it as the active work of the ego. from the more passive reception of sensations in consciousness. For example. I have a perception of myself walking along the street in a great city ; innumerable sensa- tions go to make up this perception, the absence of any one of which would render the perception defective, either wholly or partially unintelligible. Among the chief of these sensations — I will not presume to name them all. perhaps that is impossible — are: first, the sensation of sight ; I sec the street, the houses, the pavement, they all are sending sensations to my consciousness ; there is a sen- sation of hearing; the sound of my footfalls on the pavement; many other sounds of less prominence announce the presence of surrounding objects; there is a sensation of feeling; I experience under my feet the resistance of the pavement to their touch ; and further, there is another, less definite and not so easily recognized, a feeling of the muscular contraction taking place in my limbs as I exert them in the act of walking. Shut out any one of these and the perceptive faculty is at a loss to form its perception ; it becomes puzzled. Assume that only the mu.scular contraction of the limbs renders a sensation in consciousness: I see and hear nothing, and
MISCELLANEOUS. 189
the perceptive faculty is compelled to make a perception out of this alone. What could it do? How could it render it intelligible? If I had already had a perception made out of real sensations and were merely closing my eyes and ears to everything transmitted through them, I could recall the sensations just experienced and by means of my memory complete a true and full perception of what was suggested by the single real sensation. The action would be very similar to that posited as taking place in dreams, with the difference that here I consciously recall and rehabilitate at the suggestion of the single sensation all the rest. Thus I get my perception, blind, it is true, in that with the exception of feeling, all the other sensa- tions are merely invented, artificial or imaginary, yet nevertheless intelligible, a copy of the actual perception which by an act of con- scious will I have made, impossible by closing my eyes and ears to the other sensations of which it was composed.
MISCELLANEOUS.
REGARDING CHRISTIAN ORIGINS.
BY EDGAR A. JOSSELYN.
A number of interesting articles have appeared in The Open Court on the origin of Christianity, aboirt which there seems to be a rapidly growing interest among students of the history of religion. So much new information has been recently published about the early centuries of our era, that we are obliged to revise our idea of them, and give more serious attention to the "Christ myth" claim. Your contributors, however, while advancing strong arguments against various theories, do not appear to give consideration to two very important phases in the question, the combination of politics and religion in the early Roman Empire, and the strong hold that the dramatic elements of the ancient Greek mysteries had upon the people. Other writers ignore the same points, especially the first. Both points strengthen the Christ myth theory.
At the beginning of the Christian era the Roman emperors were deified and an acceptance of this deification was forced upon the empire. Apparently a unified religion was sought, corresponding to the unified political world that had been achieved. There was not such entire tolerance as Gibbon represents. To those who would not accept the deification of the emperors there was in- tolerance. The Jews resisted. We know that Philo of Alexandria went to Rome in 40 A. D. to persuade the emperor Gains to abstain from claiming divine honor of the Jews. A Jewish religious revolt arose that ultimately led to the destruction of the Temple in 70 A. D. As is usual with religious wars the offense was not so much a difference in belief as resistance to the estab-
190 THE OPEN COURT.
lished government, either Church or State. It is evident that it was considered desirable to have a uniform religion in the empire, and this idea is found out- side as well as inside governmental circles. Philosophy and religion were deeply discussed, especially at .Alexandria. We are told that "in the first cen- turies of Christianity, the religion of Persia was more studied and less under- stood than it had ever been before. The real object aimed at, in studying the old religion, was to form a new one." Christianity ultimately became a fusion of many elements, without any really new etliics, without any wholly new dogmas, but with one supreme feature, entirely new to the Roman world, a unified, established, intolerant, ruling Church, reproducing on a large scale what had existed in earlier times among the Egyptians, Jews, and other Orientals. The fusion is well described in Dr. Carus's Pleroma and Gilbert Sadler's Origin and Meaning of Christianity. The dogmas were principally Greek. Ethics, as of old (especially as in China), came from the "Mount." The Church establishment as a form of government was essentially Roman. Monotheism, or at least a modified monotheism, was of course adopted, as consistent with the aims and ideals of the movement. It should be noted that where other governing religions have been forcibly imposed on peoples, they have been monotheisms, as in the case of the Egyptian Aten, fourteen cen- turies before Christ, Judaism, and Mohammedanism. The fact that the new growth was largely outside of government circles might explain the persecu- tions. But Christianity was not alone in the race for supremacy. Mithraism made a mighty effort for control and nearly succeeded, but was overthrown and absorbed by Christianity which adopted its observance of Sunday and Cliristmas.
The second pliase of the question, that of the influence of the Greek religious drama, presents an entirely different side of the subject. Most writers agree that Christianity is a Greek religion. The resurrection myth, appearing as the Osiris myth in Egj'pt, that of Attis, Adonis, and Mithra in various parts of western Asia, and as that of Dionysos and others in Greece, seems to be as old as mankind, and to represent one of the foundation stones of religion. Moreover its appeal was to the community rather than the individual, was in- tuitional rather than intellectual in character, and was essentially dramatic. Jane Harrison, in her Ancient Art and Ritual, shows that art, especially drama, was derived from ritual. She also points out that it was a democrat, Peisis- tratos, who revived and favored the ancient ritual in the sixth century B. C. Both Miss Harrison and Gilbert Murray trace the development of Greek religion from the ancient Cyprian and Greek myths to the antliropomorphic Olympian gods, after which came the academic philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, which doubtless did not appeal to the people. Meanwhile in the centuries just before the Christian era the cult of Osiris was revived in Eg>-pt, and we know that Egyptian influence, especially in art, spread through the Greek world after Alexander's conquests. Gerald Massey in Ancient Egyft the Light of the World provides an Egyptian origin for nearly every Christian dogma. Now the essence of the Osiris and similar myths, — the resurrection or rebirth, — reflected the spirit of the times. The Roman Empire itself repre- sented a birth of a new western world. There was a great drama taking place before the eyes of the people in the unfolding of a new era. It is also true that civilization was breaking down as well as starting on a new road, and a reversion of thought to primitive type would be natural. The masses
MISCEIJ.AM'.OUS. 191
could easily welcome a new cult imposed on terms which gave them back the old myth that they instinctively loved. Meanwhile in the centuries since the old religion was most revered in Greece, there had come a change in man's attitude toward mankind. Man was now the measure of all things. The gods had already been made man-like, now man was to be god-like. The new mys- tery drama was to be in terms of men, not bulls and rams. However, the individual was still to be reborn by rites of initiation, — not of the mysteries, but of baptism, the ceremony that counted so much in earliest Christianity. It was no salvation on easy terms or any terms that the Greek world was seeking, but the old rebirth in new terms. In the Eucharist is found the same dramatic idea derived from other sources. In the ceremony of the mass the ancient mystery drama was re-enacted in a new guise.
BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES.
The Book of the Kindred Sayings (Sanyutta-Nikaya) : Part I (Sagatha- Vagga). Translated by Mrs. Rhys Davids, assisted by Suriyagoda Su- mangala Thera. London: The Oxford University Press [1917]. Pp. xvi, 321. Price, cloth, 10s. net. This translation, published for the Pali Text Society, contains the first eleven books of the "Classified Collection" {Sanyutta Nikaya) of the "Dia- logues" (Sutta Pitaka), the second group of the canonical texts of early Bud- dhism. The text followed is of course that of the Pali edition published by Leon Feer, 1884ff, of which we now have the first volume in English. There seems to be hope that the rest of these suttas will appear shortly. As we learn from the Preface, the volume before us was finished as early as July, 1916, but war prices of paper and printing threatened to delay the publication quite indefinitely. Then it was decided to proceed with the work regardless of financial considerations, a course for which the Society certainly deserves much credit. The second volume is announced as following closely behind.
Of these eleven books, the Sagatha Vagga, or section "with verses" as they are called, up to now only two were available to Western students in complete translations, the "Mara Suttas" and the "Suttas of Sisters," of which Pro- fessor Windisch gave a German version in his Mara und Buddha, Leipsic, 1895. Besides, the "Suttas of Sisters" were rendered into English by Mrs. Rhys Davids before, in her Psalms of the Early Buddhists, Part I (1909), Appendix. Of quotations of course there are many in books dealing with early Buddhism, having on the whole the effect of making the darkness cover- ing other parts only more visible. So we are glad to see at last the Sagatha Vagga made accessible in its entirety also to others than Pali scholars.
The impression the book creates as a whole is well summarized by the translator in the following (p. vii) :
"Mythical and folk-lore drapery are wrapped about many of the sayings here ascribed to the Buddha. And in nearly all of them, if any represent genuine prose utterances, they have become deflected in the prism of memorial- izing verse, and to that extent artificial. Nevertheless, the matter of them is of the stamp of the oldest doctrine known to us, and from them a fairly com-
192 THE OPEN COURT.
plete synopsis of the ancient Dliamma niiglit be compiled. And short and terse as are the presentations of both saying and episode, they contribute not a little to body out our somewhat vague outline of India's greatest son, so that we receive successive impressions of his great good sense, his willingness to adapt his sayings to the individual inquirer, his keen intuition, his humor and smiling irony, his courage and dignity, his catholic and tender compassion for all creatures."
Mrs. Rhys Davids has preserved the metrical form wherever she found it used in the original — disdaining "to scrape the gilt off the gold." However, she has added literal translations in foot-notes in instances where the standards of scholarship seemed to demand it. Of her spirited verse renderings we offer the following as a specimen (p. 110) :
"A man may spoil another, just so far As it may serve his ends, but when he's spoiled By others he, despoiled, spoils yet again. So long as evil's fruit is not matured, The fool doth fancy 'now's the hour, the chance!' But when the deed bears fruit, he fareth ill. The slayer gets a slayer in his turn ; The conqueror gets one who conquers him ; Th' abuser wins abuse, th' annoyer, fret. Thus by the evolution of the deed, A man who spoils is spoiled in his turn."
The Inde.x contains, besides a list of names and subjects, a list of Pali words paraphrased from Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Sanyutta Nikaya, the Sarattappakasini, wliich will be welcome to the student of the original, especially since the commentary itself exists in printed form only in Singha- lese cliaracters. This commentary also goes to make up a large part of ex- planations and elucidations of the text offered in the foot-notes.
In 1914 Dr. Carus published a volume of verse entitled Truth, and Other Poems in which appeared his poem "Death." Our readers will understand and appreciate the spirit in which we reprint it in this issue.
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Vol II. The Laws of Thought 445 pages By George Boole Price, $3.00
With the recent revival of the study of philosophical and mental origin of mathematics, George Boole's Collected Logical Works attempts an intricate survey of the laws of thought. A former volume entitled The Mathematical Analysis of Logic was published in 1847 by the same author, who was at that time a celebrated English professor of mathe- matics and logic at Queen's College, Cork.
The design of Collected Logical Works is to investigate the funda- mental laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is per- formed ; to give expression to them in the symbolical language of a Calculus, and upon this foundation to establish the science of Logic and construct its method ; to make that method itself the basis of a general method for the application of the mathematical doctrine of Probabilities ; and, finally, to collect from the various elements of truth brought to view in the course of these inquiries some probable intimations concerning the human mind.
To the occupants of responsible positions where decisive and logical thought is essential, to scholars of mathematics and philosophy, and to all thinking men, this book is recommended.
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PAULCARUS
VIRGIL'S PROPHECY
ON
THE SAVIOUR'S BIRTH
The Fourth Eclogue Edited and Translated by Dr. Paul Carus
Price, 50 cents
O, Virgil's Fourth Eclogue which is pre-Christian proves that the hopes of Christians and pagans had many ideals in common, and such were the return of the golden age, i. e., the coming of the kingdom of God and the advent of a Saviour.
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The
Origin and Philosophy of Language
By Ludwig Noire
Cloth, $1.00 •'./// future philosophy will be a philosophy of language."— Max Muller.
" Whoever wishes to explain humanity must understand what is human; he must know the points upon which everything else turns, and from which every thinjx else must be derived. Language con- tains the key to the problem, and whoever seeks it elsewhere will seek in vain."
" Here," continues the author, after showing by a number of well chosen instances to what curious self-deceptions reason is exposed through her own creations, "a large field is open to the student of language. It is his office to trace the original mean- ing of each word, to follow up its history, its changes of form and meaning in the schools of philosophy, or in the market-place and the senate. He ought to know how frequently the same idea is expressed by different terms. A history of such terms as to know and to believe, Finite and Infinite, Real and Neces- sary, would do more than anything else to clear the pliilos()])hical atmosphere of our da^'s."
Note. — This edition of Noire's valuable treatise on lan- Rtiape is a re|)rint of the edition published by Longmans, Green & Co. in London in 1879 to which are added two additional chapters published in Chicago in 1889 by The Open Court Publishing Company.
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CULTURAL REALITY
By FLORIAN ZNANIECKI, Ph.D.
Lecturer on Polish History and Institutions
in the University of Chicago
In the view of the author "reality" has always meant "nature." Men have been "naturalists" in their language and logic, in their science and philosophy. Religious and philosophical idealism was, indeed, a protest against this view, but a powerless protest.
At a relatively late stage of human evolution, with the increasing complexity of cultural life, arose the need of consciously controlling, not only reality, but human activities themselves, of directing, developing and organizing them. In spite, however, of strenuous efforts of many generations, the author thinks that our control of activity still remains on a very low level. The present crisis has helped us to see "that we have permitted ourselves to be blinded by the success of material science and technique and have failed to bring a consistent, self-conscious and critical, intellectual attitude into the domain of cultural science and practice."
This failure is due to the fact that in trying to control activity, men have been using the same methods and concepts which they had developed in controlling natural reality. The practical worker or the scientist who deals with human activities is at bottom a "naturalist," treats activity as a natural happening and thinks of culture, the product of activity, as a part of nature. He is forced to admit, however, that at least the higher types of actiyity are creative and that cultural evolution may and should be the realization of ideals. He finds at every step objects, which though real, are evi- dently not natural things nor processes — words, myths, poems, in- stitutions. And yet, his naturalistic preconception is so strong that he fails to draw the proper inference from these and other facts, that nature, like everything else within the sphere of our experience and reflection, is an agglomerated product of innumerable past activities and material for future activities, and is thus only a part of a wider and changing "cultural reality."
Once this cultural character of the world is recognized, entirely new horizons are opened for science and philosophy, and the pos- sibilities for the realization of ideals appear unlimited.
xvi— 352 Pages, Cloth ; $2.50, Postage Extra (Weight 1 lb. 7 oz.)
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"James Byrnie Shaw's Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics, as published in a single 2bb-page volume, will be found to offer rare interest to students of the mathematical heights and profundities. It deals with the sources, forms, logic, the- ories, methods, and validity of mathematics." — New York World.
ON THE FOUNDATION AND TECHNIC OF ARITHMETIC.
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THE WORKS OF WILLIAM OUGHTRED.
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Of particular interest to teachers of elementary mathematics.
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ESSAYS ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF NEWTON.
By Augustus De Morgan, Price, $1.25.
These essays concern the great controversy of the invention of the Infinitesimal Calculus in which Newton and Leibniz were the principals. They are marked by scrupulous care, sane judgment, and wide reading.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FOUNDING OF THE THEORY OF TRANSFINITE NUMBERS. By George Cantor. Translated and provided with an introduction and notes by Philip E. B. Jourdain, M.A. Cloth, $1.25.
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GEOMETRICAL LECTURES OF ISAAC BARROW.
Translated from a first-edition copy by J. M. Child, B.A. Cloth, $1.00.
Barrow, Newton, and Leibniz, three mathematical giants, have each in turn laid claim to being the inventor of the Infinitesimal Calculus. This volume fairly sets forth Barrow's claim to this distinction.
THE HISTORY AND ROOT OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. By Ernst Mach. Translated by Philip E. B. Jourdain. Cloth, $1.25.
Mach declares that knowledge of the historical development of any science is the first step toward its understanding. He declares that "history has made all, history can alter all. One can never lose one's footing or come into collision with facts if one always keeps in view the path by which one has come."
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