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diff --git a/1275-h/1275-h.htm b/1275-h/1275-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b9a1dc --- /dev/null +++ b/1275-h/1275-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4262 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Alexandria and her Schools, by Charles Kingsley</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Alexandria and her Schools, by Charles +Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Alexandria and her Schools + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + + + +Release Date: April 5, 2015 [eBook #1275] +[This file was first posted on March 23, 1998] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALEXANDRIA AND HER SCHOOLS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1902 Macmillan and Co. “Historical +Lectures and Essays” edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>ALEXANDRIA AND HER SCHOOLS. <a name="citation3"></a><a +href="#footnote3" class="citation">[3]</a></h1> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">should</span> not have presumed to +choose for any lectures of mine such a subject as that which I +have tried to treat in this book. The subject was chosen by +the Institution where the lectures were delivered. Still +less should I have presumed to print them of my own accord, +knowing how fragmentary and crude they are. They were +printed at the special request of my audience. Least of +all, perhaps, ought I to have presumed to publish them, as I have +done, at Cambridge, where any inaccuracy or sciolism (and that +such defects exist in these pages, I cannot but fear) would be +instantly detected, and severely censured: but nevertheless, it +seemed to me that Cambridge was the fittest place in which they +could see the light, because to Cambridge I mainly owe what +little right method or sound thought may be found in them, or +indeed, in anything which I have ever written. In the +heyday of youthful greediness and ambition, when the mind, +dazzled by the vastness and variety of the universe, must needs +know everything, or rather know about everything, at once and on +the spot, too many are apt, as I have been in past years, to +complain of Cambridge studies as too dry and narrow: but as time +teaches the student, year by year, what is really required for an +understanding of the objects with which he meets, he begins to +find that his University, in as far as he has really received her +teaching into himself, has given him, in her criticism, her +mathematics, above all, in Plato, something which all the popular +knowledge, the lectures and institutions of the day, and even +good books themselves, cannot give, a boon more precious than +learning; namely, the art of learning. That instead of +casting into his lazy lap treasures which he would not have known +how to use, she has taught him to mine for them himself; and has +by her wise refusal to gratify his intellectual greediness, +excited his hunger, only that he may be the stronger to hunt and +till for his own subsistence; and thus, the deeper he drinks, in +after years, at fountains wisely forbidden to him while he was a +Cambridge student, and sees his old companions growing up into +sound-headed and sound-hearted practical men, liberal and +expansive, and yet with a firm standing-ground for thought and +action, he learns to complain less and less of Cambridge studies, +and more and more of that conceit and haste of his own, which +kept him from reaping the full advantage of her training.</p> +<p>These Lectures, as I have said, are altogether crude and +fragmentary—how, indeed, could they be otherwise, dealing +with so vast a subject, and so long a period of time? They +are meant neither as Essays nor as Orations, but simply as a +collection of hints to those who may wish to work out the subject +for themselves; and, I trust, as giving some glimpses of a +central idea, in the light of which the spiritual history of +Alexandria, and perhaps of other countries also, may be seen to +have in itself a coherence and organic method.</p> +<p>I was of course compelled, by the circumstances under which +these Lectures were delivered, to keep clear of all points which +are commonly called “controversial.” I cannot +but feel that this was a gain, rather than a loss; because it +forced me, if I wished to give any interpretation at all of +Alexandrian thought, any Theodicy at all of her fate, to refer to +laws which I cannot but believe to be deeper, wider, more truly +eternal than the points which cause most of our modern +controversies, either theological or political; laws which will, +I cannot but believe also, reassert themselves, and have to be +reasserted by all wise teachers, very soon indeed, and it may be +under most novel embodiments, but without any change in their +eternal spirit.</p> +<p>For I may say, I hope, now (what if said ten years ago would +have only excited laughter), that I cannot but subscribe to the +opinion of the many wise men who believe that Europe, and England +as an integral part thereof, is on the eve of a revolution, +spiritual and political, as vast and awful as that which took +place at the Reformation; and that, beneficial as that revolution +will doubtless be to the destinies of mankind in general, it +depends upon the wisdom and courage of each nation individually, +whether that great deluge shall issue, as the Reformation did, in +a fresh outgrowth of European nobleness and strength or usher in, +after pitiable confusions and sorrows, a second Byzantine age of +stereotyped effeminacy and imbecility. For I have as little +sympathy with those who prate so loudly of the progress of the +species, and the advent of I know-not-what Cockaigne of universal +peace and plenty, as I have with those who believe on the +strength of “unfulfilled prophecy,” the downfall of +Christianity, and the end of the human race to be at hand. +Nevertheless, one may well believe that prophecy will be +fulfilled in this great crisis, as it is in every great crisis, +although one be unable to conceive by what method of symbolism +the drying up of the Euphrates can be twisted to signify the fall +of Constantinople: and one can well believe that a day of +judgment is at hand, in which for every nation and institution, +the wheat will be sifted out and gathered into God’s +garner, for the use of future generations, and the chaff burnt up +with that fire unquenchable which will try every man’s +work, without being of opinion that after a few more years are +over, the great majority of the human race will be consigned +hopelessly to never-ending torments.</p> +<p>If prophecy be indeed a divine message to man; if it be +anything but a cabbala, useless either to the simple-minded or to +the logical, intended only for the plaything of a few devout +fancies, it must declare the unchangeable laws by which the +unchangeable God is governing, and has always governed, the human +race; and therefore only by understanding what has happened, can +we understand what will happen; only by understanding history, +can we understand prophecy; and that not merely by picking +out—too often arbitrarily and unfairly—a few names +and dates from the records of all the ages, but by trying to +discover its organic laws, and the causes which produce in +nations, creeds, and systems, health and disease, growth, change, +decay and death. If, in one small corner of this vast +field, I shall have thrown a single ray of light upon these +subjects—if I shall have done anything in these pages +towards illustrating the pathology of a single people, I shall +believe that I have done better service to the Catholic Faith and +the Scriptures, than if I did really “know the times and +the seasons, which the Father has kept in His own +hand.” For by the former act I may have helped to +make some one man more prudent and brave to see and to do what +God requires of him; by the latter I could only add to that +paralysis of superstitious fear, which is already but too common +among us, and but too likely to hinder us from doing our duty +manfully against our real foes, whether it be pestilence at home +or tyranny abroad.</p> +<p>These last words lead me to another subject, on which I am +bound to say a few words. I have, at the end of these +Lectures, made some allusion to the present war. To have +entered further into political questions would have been improper +in the place where those Lectures were delivered: but I cannot +refrain from saying here something more on this matter; and that, +first, because all political questions have their real root in +moral and spiritual ones, and not (as too many fancy) in +questions merely relating to the balance of power or commercial +economy, and are (the world being under the guidance of a +spiritual, and not a physical Being) finally decided on those +spiritual grounds, and according to the just laws of the kingdom +of God; and, therefore, the future political horoscope of the +East depends entirely on the present spiritual state of its +inhabitants, and of us who have (and rightly) taken up their +cause; in short, on many of those questions on which I have +touched in these Lectures: and next, because I feel bound, in +justice to myself, to guard against any mistake about my meaning +or supposition that I consider the Turkish empire a righteous +thing, or one likely to stand much longer on the face of +God’s earth.</p> +<p>The Turkish empire, as it now exists, seems to me an +altogether unrighteous and worthless thing. It stands no +longer upon the assertion of the great truth of Islam, but on the +merest brute force and oppression. It has long since lost +the only excuse which one race can have for holding another in +subjection; that which we have for taking on ourselves the +tutelage of the Hindoos, and which Rome had for its tutelage of +the Syrians and Egyptians; namely, the governing with tolerable +justice those who cannot govern themselves, and making them +better and more prosperous people, by compelling them to submit +to law. I do not know when this excuse is a sufficient +one. God showed that it was so for several centuries in the +case of the Romans; God will show whether it is in the case of +our Indian empire: but this I say, that the Turkish empire has +not even that excuse to plead; as is proved by the patent fact +that the whole East, the very garden of the old world, has become +a desert and a ruin under the upas-blight of their +government.</p> +<p>As for the regeneration of Turkey, it is a question whether +the regeneration of any nation which has sunk, not into mere +valiant savagery, but into effete and profligate luxury, is +possible. Still more is it a question whether a +regeneration can be effected, not by the rise of a new spiritual +idea (as in the case of the Koreish), but simply by more perfect +material appliances, and commercial prudence. History gives +no instance, it seems to me, of either case; and if our attempt +to regenerate Greece by freeing it has been an utter failure, +much more, it seems to me, would any such attempt fail in the +case of the Turkish race. For what can be done with a +people which has lost the one great quality which was the tenure +of its existence, its military skill? Let any one read the +accounts of the Turkish armies in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and +seventeenth centuries, when they were the tutors and models of +all Europe in the art of war, and then consider the fact that +those very armies require now to be officered by foreign +adventurers, in order to make them capable of even keeping +together, and let him ask himself seriously, whether such a fall +can ever be recovered. When, in the age of Theodosius, and +again in that of Justinian, the Roman armies had fallen into the +same state; when the Italian legions required to be led by +Stilicho the Vandal, and the Byzantine by Belisar the Sclav and +Narses the Persian, the end of all things was at hand, and came; +as it will come soon to Turkey.</p> +<p>But if Turkey deserves to fall, and must fall, it must not +fall by our treachery. Its sins will surely be avenged upon +it: but wrong must not avenge wrong, or the penalty is only +passed on from one sinner to another. Whatsoever element of +good is left in the Turk, to that we must appeal as our only +means, if not of saving him, still of helping him to a quiet +euthanasia, and absorption into a worthier race of +successors. He is said (I know not how truly) to have one +virtue left; that of faithfulness to his word. Only by +showing him that we too abhor treachery and bad faith, can we +either do him good, or take a safe standing-ground in our own +peril. And this we have done; and for this we shall be +rewarded. But this is surely not all our duty. Even +if we should be able to make the civil and religious freedom of +the Eastern Christians the price of our assistance to the +Mussulman, the struggle will not be over; for Russia will still +be what she has always been, and the northern Anarch will be +checked, only to return to the contest with fiercer lust of +aggrandisement, to enact the part of a new Macedon, against a new +Greece, divided, not united, by the treacherous bond of that +balance of power, which is but war under the guise of +peace. Europe needs a holier and more spiritual, and +therefore a stronger union, than can be given by armed +neutralities, and the so-called cause of order. She needs +such a bond as in the Elizabethan age united the free states of +Europe against the Anarch of Spain, and delivered the Western +nations from a rising world-tyranny, which promised to be even +more hideous than the elder one of Rome. If, as then, +England shall proclaim herself the champion of freedom by acts, +and not by words and paper, she may, as she did then, defy the +rulers of the darkness of this world, for the God of Light will +be with her. But, as yet, it is impossible to look without +sad forebodings upon the destiny of a war, begun upon the express +understanding that evil shall be left triumphant throughout +Europe, wheresoever that evil does not seem, to our own selfish +short-sightedness, to threaten us with immediate danger; with +promises, that under the hollow name of the Cause of +Order—and that promise made by a revolutionary +Anarch—the wrongs of Italy, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, shall +remain unredressed, and that Prussia and Austria, two tyrannies, +the one far more false and hypocritical, the other even more +rotten than that of Turkey, shall, if they will but observe a +hollow and uncertain neutrality (for who can trust the liar and +the oppressor?)—be allowed not only to keep their +ill-gotten spoils, but even now to play into the hands of our +foe, by guarding his Polish frontier for him, and keeping down +the victims of his cruelty, under pretence of keeping down those +of their own.</p> +<p>It is true, the alternative is an awful one; one from which +statesmen and nations may well shrink: but it is a question, +whether that alternative may not be forced upon us sooner or +later, whether we must not from the first look it boldly in the +face, as that which must be some day, and for which we must +prepare, not cowardly, and with cries about God’s wrath and +judgments against us—which would be abject, were they not +expressed in such second-hand stock-phrases as to make one +altogether doubt their sincerity, but chivalrously, and with +awful joy, as a noble calling, an honour put upon us by the God +of Nations, who demands of us, as some small return for all His +free bounties, that we should be, in this great crisis, the +champions of Freedom and of Justice, which are the cause of +God. At all events, we shall not escape our duty by being +afraid of it; we shall not escape our duty by inventing to +ourselves some other duty, and calling it +“Order.” Elizabeth did so at first. She +tried to keep the peace with Spain; she shrank from injuring the +cause of Order (then a nobler one than now, because it was the +cause of Loyalty, and not merely of Mammon) by assisting the +Scotch and the Netherlanders: but her duty was forced upon her; +and she did it at last, cheerfully, boldly, utterly, like a hero; +she put herself at the head of the battle for the freedom of the +world, and she conquered, for God was with her; and so that +seemingly most fearful of all England’s perils, when the +real meaning of it was seen, and God’s will in it obeyed +manfully, became the foundation of England’s naval and +colonial empire, and laid the foundation of all her future +glories. So it was then, so it is now; so it will be for +ever: he who seeks to save his life will lose it: he who +willingly throws away his life for the cause of mankind, which is +the cause of God, the Father of mankind, he shall save it, and be +rewarded a hundred-fold. That God may grant us, the +children of the Elizabethan heroes, all wisdom to see our duty, +and courage to do it, even to the death, should be our earliest +prayer. Our statesmen have done wisely and well in +refusing, in spite of hot-headed clamours, to appeal to the sword +as long as there was any chance of a peaceful settlement even of +a single evil. They are doing wisely and well now in +declining to throw away the scabbard as long as there is hope +that a determined front will awe the offender into submission: +but the day may come when the scabbard must be thrown away; and +God grant that they may have the courage to do it.</p> +<p>It is reported that our rulers have said, that English +diplomacy can no longer recognise “nationalities,” +but only existing “governments.” God grant that +they may see in time that the assertion of national life, as a +spiritual and indefeasible existence, was for centuries the +central idea of English policy; the idea by faith in which she +delivered first herself, and then the Protestant nations of the +Continent, successively from the yokes of Rome, of Spain, of +France; and that they may reassert that most English of all +truths again, let the apparent cost be what it may.</p> +<p>It is true, that this end will not be attained without what is +called nowadays “a destruction of human life.” +But we have yet to learn (at least if the doctrines which I have +tried to illustrate in this little book have any truth in them) +whether shot or shell has the power of taking away human life; +and to believe, if we believe our Bibles, that human life can +only be destroyed by sin, and that all which is lost in battle is +that animal life of which it is written, “Fear not those +who can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can +do: but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear; him who, after +he has killed, has power to destroy both body and soul in +hell.” Let a man fear him, the destroying devil, and +fear therefore cowardice, disloyalty, selfishness, sluggishness, +which are his works, and to be utterly afraid of which is to be +truly brave. God grant that we of the clergy may remember +this during the coming war, and instead of weakening the +righteous courage and honour of our countrymen by instilling into +them selfish and superstitious fears, and a theory of the future +state which represents God, not as a saviour, but a tormentor, +may boldly tell them that “He is not the God of the dead +but of the living; for all live unto Him;” and that he who +renders up his animal life as a worthless thing, in the cause of +duty, commits his real and human life, his very soul and self, +into the hands of a just and merciful Father, who has promised to +leave no good deed unrewarded, and least of all that most noble +deed, the dying like a man for the sake not merely of this land +of England, but of the freedom and national life of half the +world.</p> +<h2>LECTURE I.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE PTOLEMAIC ERA.</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Before</span> I begin to lecture upon the +Physical and Metaphysical schools of Alexandria, it may be +better, perhaps, to define the meaning of these two +epithets. Physical, we shall all agree, means that which +belongs to φύσις; <i>natura</i>; +nature, that which φύεται, +<i>nascitur</i>, grows, by an organic life, and therefore decays +again; which has a beginning, and therefore, I presume, an +end. And Metaphysical means that which we learn to think of +after we think of nature; that which is supernatural, in fact, +having neither beginning nor end, imperishable, immovable, and +eternal, which does not become, but always is. These, at +least, are the wisest definitions of these two terms for us just +now; for they are those which were received by the whole +Alexandrian school, even by those commentators who say that +Aristotle, the inventor of the term Metaphysics, named his +treatise so only on account of its following in philosophic +sequence his book on Physics.</p> +<p>But, according to these definitions, the whole history of +Alexandria might be to us, from one point of view, a physical +school; for Alexandria, its society and its philosophy, were +born, and grew, and fed, and reached their vigour, and had their +old age, their death, even as a plant or an animal has; and after +they were dead and dissolved, the atoms of them formed food for +new creations, entered into new organisations, just as the atoms +of a dead plant or animal might do. Was Alexandria then, +from beginning to end, merely a natural and physical +phenomenon?</p> +<p>It may have been. And yet we cannot deny that Alexandria +was also a metaphysical phenomenon, vast and deep enough; seeing +that it held for some eighteen hundred years a population of +several hundred thousand souls; each of whom, at least according +to the Alexandrian philosophy, stood in a very intimate relation +to those metaphysic things which are imperishable and immovable +and eternal, and indeed, contained them more or less, each man, +woman, and child of them in themselves; having wills, reasons, +consciences, affections, relations to each other; being parents, +children, helpmates, bound together by laws concerning right and +wrong, and numberless other unseen and spiritual relations.</p> +<p>Surely such a body was not merely natural, any more than any +other nation, society, or scientific school, made up of men and +of the spirits, thoughts, affections of men. It, like them, +was surely spiritual; and could be only living and healthy, in as +far as it was in harmony with certain spiritual, unseen, and +everlasting laws of God; perhaps, as certain Alexandrian +philosophers would have held, in as far as it was a pattern of +that ideal constitution and polity after which man was created, +the city of God which is eternal in the Heavens. If so, may +we not suspect of this Alexandria that it was its own fault if it +became a merely physical phenomenon; and that it stooped to +become a part of nature, and took its place among the things +which are born to die, only by breaking the law which God had +appointed for it; so fulfilling, in its own case, St. +Paul’s great words, that death entered into the world by +sin, and that sin is the transgression of the law?</p> +<p>Be that as it may, there must have been metaphysic enough to +be learnt in that, or any city of three hundred thousand +inhabitants, even though it had never contained lecture-room or +philosopher’s chair, and had never heard the names of +Aristotle and Plato. Metaphysic enough, indeed, to be +learnt there, could we but enter into the heart of even the most +brutish negro slave who ever was brought down the Nile out of the +desert by Nubian merchants, to build piers and docks in whose +commerce he did not share, temples whose worship he did not +comprehend, libraries and theatres whose learning and +civilisation were to him as much a sealed book as they were to +his countryman, and fellow-slave, and only friend, the ape. +There was metaphysic enough in him truly, and things eternal and +immutable, though his dark-skinned descendants were three hundred +years in discovering the fact, and in proving it satisfactorily +to all mankind for ever. You must pardon me if I seem +obscure; I cannot help looking at the question with a somewhat +Alexandrian eye, and talking of the poor negro dock-worker as +certain Alexandrian philosophers would have talked, of whom I +shall have to speak hereafter.</p> +<p>I should have been glad, therefore, had time permitted me, +instead of confining myself strictly to what are now called +“the physic and metaphysic schools” of Alexandria, to +have tried as well as I could to make you understand how the +whole vast phenomenon grew up, and supported a peculiar life of +its own, for fifteen hundred years and more, and was felt to be +the third, perhaps the second city of the known world, and one so +important to the great world-tyrant, the Cæsar of Rome, +that no Roman of distinction was ever sent there as prefect, but +the Alexandrian national vanity and pride of race was allowed to +the last to pet itself by having its tyrant chosen from its own +people.</p> +<p>But, though this cannot be, we may find human elements enough +in the schools of Alexandria, strictly so called, to interest us +for a few evenings; for these schools were schools of men; what +was discovered and taught was discovered and taught by men, and +not by thinking-machines; and whether they would have been +inclined to confess it or not, their own personal characters, +likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, strength and weakness, +beliefs and disbeliefs, determined their metaphysics and their +physics for them, quite enough to enable us to feel for them as +men of like passions with ourselves; and for that reason only, +men whose thoughts and speculations are worthy of a +moment’s attention from us. For what is really +interesting to man, save men, and God, the Father of men?</p> +<p>In the year 331 <span class="GutSmall">B.C.</span> one of the +greatest intellects whose influence the world has ever felt, saw, +with his eagle glance, the unrivalled advantage of the spot which +is now Alexandria; and conceived the mighty project of making it +the point of union of two, or rather of three worlds. In a +new city, named after himself, Europe, Asia, and Africa were to +meet and to hold communion. A glance at the map will show +you what an ὀμφαλὸς +γῆς, a centre of the world, this Alexandria +is, and perhaps arouse in your minds, as it has often done in +mine, the suspicion that it has not yet fulfilled its whole +destiny, but may become at any time a prize for contending +nations, or the centre of some world-wide empire to come. +Communicating with Europe and the Levant by the Mediterranean, +with India by the Red Sea, certain of boundless supplies of food +from the desert-guarded valley of the Nile, to which it formed +the only key, thus keeping all Egypt, as it were, for its own +private farm, it was weak only on one side, that of Judea. +That small strip of fertile mountain land, containing innumerable +military positions from which an enemy might annoy Egypt, being, +in fact, one natural chain of fortresses, was the key to +Phoenicia and Syria. It was an eagle’s eyrie by the +side of a pen of fowls. It must not be left defenceless for +a single year. Tyre and Gaza had been taken; so no danger +was to be apprehended from the seaboard: but to subdue the Judean +mountaineers, a race whose past sufferings had hardened them in a +dogged fanaticism of courage and endurance, would be a long and +sanguinary task. It was better to make terms with them; to +employ them as friendly warders of their own mountain +walls. Their very fanaticism and isolation made them sure +allies. There was no fear of their fraternising with the +Eastern invaders. If the country was left in their hands, +they would hold it against all comers. Terms were made with +them; and for several centuries they fulfilled their trust.</p> +<p>This I apprehend to be the explanation of that conciliatory +policy of Alexander’s toward the Jews, which was pursued +steadily by the Ptolemies, by Pompey, and by the Romans, as long +as these same Jews continued to be endurable upon the face of the +land. At least, we shall find the history of Alexandria and +that of Judea inextricably united for more than three hundred +years.</p> +<p>So arose, at the command of the great conqueror, a mighty +city, around those two harbours, of which the western one only is +now in use. The Pharos was then an island. It was +connected with the mainland by a great mole, furnished with forts +and drawbridges. On the ruins of that mole now stands the +greater part of the modern city; the vast site of the ancient one +is a wilderness.</p> +<p>But Alexander was not destined to carry out his own +magnificent project. That was left for the general whom he +most esteemed, and to whose personal prowess he had once owed his +life; a man than whom history knows few greater, Ptolemy, the son +of Lagus. He was an adventurer, the son of an adventurer, +his mother a cast-off concubine of Philip of Macedon. There +were those who said that he was in reality a son of Philip +himself. However, he rose at court, became a private friend +of young Alexander, and at last his Somatophylax, some sort of +Colonel of the Life Guards. And from thence he rose +rapidly, till after his great master’s death he found +himself despot of Egypt.</p> +<p>His face, as it appears on his coins, is of the loftiest and +most Jove-like type of Greek beauty. There is a possibility +about it, as about most old Greek faces, of boundless cunning; a +lofty irony too, and a contemptuousness, especially about the +mouth, which puts one in mind of Goethe’s expression; the +face, altogether, of one who knew men too well to respect +them. At least, he was a man of clear enough vision. +He saw what was needed in those strange times, and he went +straight to the thing which he saw. It was his wisdom which +perceived that the huge amorphous empire of Alexander could not +be kept together, and advised its partition among the generals, +taking care to obtain himself the lion’s share; not in +size, indeed, but in capability. He saw, too (what every +man does not see), that the only way to keep what he had got was +to make it better, and not worse, than he found it. His +first Egyptian act was to put to death Cleomenes, +Alexander’s lieutenant, who had amassed vast treasures by +extortion; and who was, moreover, (for Ptolemy was a prudent man) +a dangerous partisan of his great enemy, Perdiccas. We do +not read that he refunded the treasures: but the Egyptians +surnamed him Soter, the Saviour; and on the whole he deserved the +title. Instead of the wretched misrule and slavery of the +conquering Persian dynasty, they had at least law and order, +reviving commerce, and a system of administration, we are told (I +confess to speaking here quite at second-hand), especially +adapted to the peculiar caste-society, and the religious +prejudices of Egypt. But Ptolemy’s political genius +went beyond such merely material and Warburtonian care for the +conservation of body and goods of his subjects. He effected +with complete success a feat which has been attempted, before and +since, by very many princes and potentates, but has always, +except in Ptolemy’s case, proved somewhat of a failure, +namely, the making a new deity. Mythology in general was in +a rusty state. The old Egyptian gods had grown in his +dominions very unfashionable, under the summary iconoclasm to +which they had been subjected by the Monotheist +Persians—the Puritans of the old world, as they have been +well called. Indeed, all the dolls, and the treasure of the +dolls’ temples too, had been carried off by Cambyses to +Babylon. And as for the Greek gods, philosophers had +sublimed them away sadly during the last century: not to mention +that Alexander’s Macedonians, during their wanderings over +the world, had probably become rather remiss in their religious +exercises, and had possibly given up mentioning the Unseen world, +except for those hortatory purposes for which it used to be +employed by Nelson’s veterans. But, as Ptolemy felt, +people (women especially) must have something wherein to +believe. The “Religious Sentiment” in man must +be satisfied. But, how to do it? How to find a deity who +would meet the aspirations of conquerors as well as +conquered—of his most irreligious Macedonians, as well as +of his most religious Egyptians? It was a great problem: +but Ptolemy solved it. He seems to have taken the same +method which Brindley the engineer used in his perplexities, for +he went to bed. And there he had a dream: How the foreign +god Serapis, of Pontus (somewhere near this present hapless +Sinope), appeared to him, and expressed his wish to come to +Alexandria, and there try his influence on the Religious +Sentiment. So Serapis was sent for, and came—at least +the idol of him, and—accommodating personage!—he +actually fitted. After he had been there awhile, he was +found to be quite an old acquaintance—to be, in fact, the +Greek Jove, and two or three other Greek gods, and also two or +three Egyptian gods beside—indeed, to be no other than the +bull Apis, after his death and deification. I can tell you +no more. I never could find that anything more was +known. You may see him among Greek and Roman statues as a +young man, with a sort of high basket-shaped Persian turban on +his head. But, at least, he was found so pleasant and +accommodating a conscience-keeper, that he spread, with Isis, his +newly-found mother, or wife, over the whole East, and even to +Rome. The Consuls there—50 years <span +class="GutSmall">B.C.</span>—found the pair not too +respectable, and pulled down their temples. But, so popular +were they, in spite of their bad fame, that seven years after, +the Triumvirs had to build the temples up again elsewhere; and +from that time forth, Isis and Serapis, in spite, poor things, of +much persecution, were the fashionable deities of the Roman +world. Surely this Ptolemy was a man of genius!</p> +<p>But Ptolemy had even more important work to do than making +gods. He had to make men; for he had few or none ready made +among his old veterans from Issus and Arbela. He had no +hereditary aristocracy: and he wanted none. No aristocracy +of wealth; that might grow of itself, only too fast for his +despotic power. But as a despot, he must have a knot of men +round him who would do his work. And here came out his deep +insight into fact. It had not escaped that man, what was +the secret of Greek supremacy. How had he come there? +How had his great master conquered half the world? How had +the little semi-barbarous mountain tribe up there in Pella, risen +under Philip to be the master-race of the globe? How, indeed, had +Xenophon and his Ten Thousand, how had the handfuls of Salamis +and Marathon, held out triumphantly century after century, +against the vast weight of the barbarian? The simple answer +was: Because the Greek has mind, the barbarian mere brute +force. Because mind is the lord of matter; because the +Greek being the cultivated man, is the only true man; the rest +are βάρβαροι, mere +things, clods, tools for the wise Greeks’ use, in spite of +all their material phantom-strength of elephants, and treasures, +and tributaries by the million. Mind was the secret of +Greek power; and for that Ptolemy would work. He would have +an aristocracy of intellect; he would gather round him the wise +men of the world (glad enough most of them to leave that +miserable Greece, where every man’s life was in his hand +from hour to hour), and he would develop to its highest the +conception of Philip, when he made Aristotle the tutor of his son +Alexander. The consequences of that attempt were written in +letters of blood, over half the world; Ptolemy would attempt it +once more, with gentler results. For though he fought long, +and often, and well, as Despot of Egypt, no less than as general +of Alexander, he was not at heart a man of blood, and made peace +the end of all his wars.</p> +<p>So he begins. Aristotle is gone: but in +Aristotle’s place Philetas the sweet singer of Cos, and +Zenodotus the grammarian of Ephesus, shall educate his favourite +son, and he will have a literary court, and a literary age. +Demetrius Phalereus, the Admirable Crichton of his time, the last +of Attic orators, statesman, philosopher, poet, warrior, and each +of them in the most graceful, insinuating, courtly way, migrates +to Alexandria, after having had the three hundred and sixty +statues, which the Athenians had too hastily erected to his +honour, as hastily pulled down again. Here was a prize for +Ptolemy! The charming man became his bosom friend and +fellow, even revised the laws of his kingdom, and fired him, if +report says true, with a mighty thought—no less a one than +the great public Library of Alexandria; the first such +institution, it is said, which the world had ever seen.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>So a library is begun by Soter, and organised and completed by +Philadelphus; or rather two libraries, for while one part was +kept at the Serapeium, that vast temple on the inland rising +ground, of which, as far as we can discover, Pompey’s +Pillar alone remains, one column out of four hundred, the rest +was in the Brucheion adjoining the Palace and the Museum. +Philadelphus buys Aristotle’s collection to add to the +stock, and Euergetes cheats the Athenians out of the original +MSS. of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and adds +largely to it by more honest methods. Eumenes, King of +Pergamus in Asia Minor, fired with emulation, commences a similar +collection, and is so successful, that the reigning Ptolemy has +to cut off his rival’s supplies by prohibiting the +exportation of papyrus; and the Pergamenian books are henceforth +transcribed on parchment, parchemin, Pergamene, which thus has +its name to this day, from Pergamus. That collection, too, +found its way at last to Alexandria. For Antony having +become possessor of it by right of the stronger, gave it to +Cleopatra; and it remained at Alexandria for seven hundred +years. But we must not anticipate events.</p> +<p>Then there must be besides a Mouseion, a Temple of the Muses, +with all due appliances, in a vast building adjoining the palace +itself, under the very wing of royalty; and it must have +porticos, wherein sages may converse; lecture-rooms, where they +may display themselves at their will to their rapt scholars, each +like a turkey-cock before his brood; and a large dining-hall, +where they may enjoy themselves in moderation, as befits sages, +not without puns and repartees, epigrams, anagrams, and Attic +salt, to be fatal, alas, to poor Diodorus the dialectician. +For Stilpo, prince of sophists, having silenced him by some +quibbling puzzle of logic, Ptolemy surnamed him Chronos the +Slow. Poor Diodorus went home, took pen and ink, wrote a +treatise on the awful nothing, and died in despair, leaving five +“dialectical daughters” behind him, to be thorns in +the sides of some five hapless men of Macedonia, as +“emancipated women;” a class but too common in the +later days of Greece, as they will always be, perhaps, in +civilisations which are decaying and crumbling to pieces, leaving +their members to seek in bewilderment what they are, and what +bonds connect them with their fellow-beings. But to return: +funds shall be provided for the Museum from the treasury; a +priest of rank, appointed by royalty, shall be curator; botanical +and zoological gardens shall be attached; collections of wonders +made. In all things the presiding genius of Aristotle shall +be worshipped; for these, like Alexander, were his pupils. +Had he not mapped out all heaven and earth, things seen and +unseen, with his entelechies, and energies, and dunameis, and put +every created and uncreated thing henceforth into its proper +place, from the ascidians and polypes of the sea to the virtues +and the vices—yea, to that Great Deity and Prime Cause +(which indeed was all things), <i>Noesis Noeseon</i>, “the +Thought of Thoughts,” whom he discovered by irrefragable +processes of logic, and in whom the philosophers believe +privately, leaving Serapis to the women and the sailors? +All they had to do was to follow in his steps; to take each of +them a branch, of science or literature, or as many branches as +one man conveniently can; and working them out on the approved +methods, end in a few years, as Alexander did, by weeping on the +utmost shore of creation that there are no more worlds left to +conquer.</p> +<p>Alas! the Muses are shy and wild; and though they will haunt, +like skylarks, on the bleakest northern moor as cheerfully as on +the sunny hills of Greece, and rise thence singing into the +heaven of heavens, yet they are hard to tempt into a gilded cage, +however amusingly made and plentifully stored with +comforts. Royal societies, associations of savants, and the +like, are good for many things, but not for the breeding of art +and genius: for they are things which cannot be bred. Such +institutions are excellent for physical science, when, as among +us now, physical science is going on the right method: but where, +as in Alexandria, it was going on an utterly wrong method, they +stereotype the errors of the age, and invest them with the +prestige of authority, and produce mere Sorbonnes, and schools of +pedants. To literature, too, they do some good, that is, in +a literary age—an age of reflection rather than of +production, of antiquarian research, criticism, imitation, when +book-making has become an easy and respectable pursuit for the +many who cannot dig, and are ashamed to beg. And yet, by +adding that same prestige of authority, not to mention of good +society and Court favour, to the popular mania for literature, +they help on the growing evil, and increase the multitude of +prophets who prophesy out of their own heart and have seen +nothing.</p> +<p>And this was, it must be said, the outcome of all the +Ptolemæan appliances.</p> +<p>In Physics they did little. In Art nothing. In +Metaphysics less than nothing.</p> +<p>We will first examine, as the more pleasant spectacle of the +two, that branch of thought in which some progress was really +made, and in which the Ptolemaic schools helped forward the +development of men who have become world-famous, and will remain +so, I suppose, until the end of time.</p> +<p>Four names at once attract us: Euclid, Aristarchus, +Eratosthenes, Hipparchus. Archimedes, also, should be +included in the list, for he was a pupil of the Alexandrian +school, having studied (if Proclus is to be trusted) in Egypt, +under Conon the Samian, during the reigns of two Ptolemies, +Philadelphus and Euergetes.</p> +<p>Of Euclid, as the founder (according to Proclus) of the +Alexandrian Mathematical school, I must of course speak +first. Those who wish to attain to a juster conception of +the man and his work than they can do from any other source, will +do well to read Professor De Morgan’s admirable article on +him in “Smith’s Classical Dictionary;” which +includes, also, a valuable little sketch of the rise of Geometric +science, from Pythagoras and Plato, of whose school Euclid was, +to the great master himself.</p> +<p>I shall confine myself to one observation on Euclid’s +genius, and on the immense influence which it exerted on after +generations. It seems to me, speaking under correction, +that it exerted this, because it was so complete a type of the +general tendency of the Greek mind, deductive, rather than +inductive; of unrivalled subtlety in obtaining results from +principles, and results again from them <i>ad infinitum</i>: +deficient in that sturdy moral patience which is required for the +examination of facts, and which has made Britain at once a land +of practical craftsmen, and of earnest scientific +discoverers.</p> +<p>Volatile, restless, “always children longing for +something new,” as the Egyptian priest said of them, they +were too ready to believe that they had attained laws, and then, +tired with their toy, throw away those hastily assumed laws, and +wander off in search of others. Gifted, beyond all the sons +of men, with the most exquisite perception of form, both physical +and metaphysical, they could become geometers and logicians as +they became sculptors and artists; beyond that they could hardly +rise. The were conscious of their power to build; and it +made them ashamed to dig.</p> +<p>Four men only among them seem, as far as I can judge, to have +had a great inductive power: Socrates and Plato in Metaphysics; +Archimedes and Hipparchus in Physics. But these men ran so +far counter to the national genius, that their examples were not +followed. As you will hear presently, the discoveries of +Archimedes and Hipparchus were allowed to remain where they were +for centuries. The Dialectic of Plato and Socrates was +degraded into a mere art for making anything appear alternately +true and false, and among the Megaric school, for undermining the +ground of all science, and paving the way for scepticism, by +denying the natural world to be the object of certain +knowledge. The only element of Plato’s thought to +which they clung was, as we shall find from the Neoplatonists, +his physical speculations; in which, deserting his inductive +method, he has fallen below himself into the popular cacoethes, +and Pythagorean deductive dreams about the mysterious powers of +numbers, and of the regular solids.</p> +<p>Such a people, when they took to studying physical science, +would be, and in fact were, incapable of Chemistry, Geognosy, +Comparative Anatomy, or any of that noble choir of sister +sciences, which are now building up the material as well as the +intellectual glory of Britain.</p> +<p>To Astronomy, on the other hand, the pupils of Euclid turned +naturally, as to the science which required the greatest amount +of their favourite geometry: but even that they were content to +let pass from its inductive to its deductive stage—not as +we have done now, after two centuries of inductive search for the +true laws, and their final discovery by Kepler and Newton: but as +soon as Hipparchus had propounded any theory which would do +instead of the true laws, content there to stop their +experiments, and return to their favourite work of commenting, +deducing, spinning notion out of notion, <i>ad infinitum</i>.</p> +<p>Still, they were not all of this temper. Had they been, +they would have discovered, not merely a little, but absolutely +nothing. For after all, if we will consider, induction +being the right path to knowledge, every man, whether he knows it +or not, uses induction, more or less, by the mere fact of his +having a human reason, and knowing anything at all; as M. +Jourdain talked prose all his life without being aware of it.</p> +<p>Aristarchus is principally famous for his attempt to discover +the distance of the sun as compared with that of the moon. +His method was ingenious enough, but too rough for success, as it +depended principally on the belief that the line bounding the +bright part of the moon was an exact straight line. The +result was of course erroneous. He concluded that the sun +was 18 times as far as the moon, and not, as we now know, 400; +but his conclusion, like his conception of the vast extent of the +sphere of the fixed stars, was far enough in advance of the +popular doctrine to subject him, according to Plutarch, to a +charge of impiety.</p> +<p>Eratosthenes, again, contributed his mite to the treasure of +human science—his one mite; and yet by that he is better +known than by all the volumes which he seems to have poured out, +on Ethics, Chronology, Criticism on the Old Attic Comedy, and +what not, spun out of his weary brain during a long life of +research and meditation. They have all perished,—like +ninety-nine hundredths of the labours of that great literary age; +and perhaps the world is no poorer for the loss. But one +thing, which he attempted on a sound and practical philosophic +method, stands, and will stand for ever. And after all, is +not that enough to have lived for? to have found out one true +thing, and, therefore, one imperishable thing, in one’s +life? If each one of us could but say when he died: +“This one thing I have found out; this one thing I have +proved to be possible; this one eternal fact I have rescued from +Hela, the realm of the formless and unknown,” how rich one +such generation might make the world for ever!</p> +<p>But such is not the appointed method. The finders are +few and far between, because the true seekers are few and far +between; and a whole generation has often nothing to show for its +existence but one solitary gem which some one man—often +unnoticed in his time—has picked up for them, and so given +them “a local habitation and a name.”</p> +<p>Eratosthenes had heard that in Syene, in Upper Egypt, deep +wells were enlightened to the bottom on the day of the summer +solstice, and that vertical objects cast no shadows.</p> +<p>He had before suggested, as is supposed, to Ptolemy Euergetes, +to make him the two great copper armillæ, or circles for +determining the equinox, which stood for centuries in “that +which is called the Square Porch”—probably somewhere +in the Museum. By these he had calculated the obliquity of +the ecliptic, closely enough to serve for a thousand years +after. That was one work done. But what had the Syene +shadows to do with that? Syene must be under that +ecliptic. On the edge of it. In short, just under the +tropic. Now he had ascertained exactly the latitude of one +place on the earth’s surface. He had his known point +from whence to start on a world-journey, and he would use it; he +would calculate the circumference of the earth—and he did +it. By observations made at Alexandria, he ascertained its +latitude compared with that of Syene; and so ascertained what +proportion to the whole circumference was borne by the 5000 +stadia between Alexandria and Syene. He fell into an error, +by supposing Alexandria and Syene to be under the same meridians +of longitude: but that did not prevent his arriving at a fair +rough result of 252,000 stadia—31,500 Roman miles; +considerably too much; but still, before him, I suppose, none +knew whether it was 10,000, or 10,000,000. The right method +having once been found, nothing remained but to employ it more +accurately.</p> +<p>One other great merit of Eratosthenes is, that he first raised +Geography to the rank of a science. His Geographica were an +organic collection, the first the world had ever seen, of all the +travels and books of earth-description heaped together in the +Great Library, of which he was for many years the keeper. +He began with a geognostic book, touched on the traces of +Cataclysms and Change visible on the earth’s surface; +followed by two books, one a mathematical book, the other on +political geography, and completed by a map—which one would +like to see: but—not a trace of all remains, save a few +quoted fragments—</p> +<p +class="poetry"> We +are such stuff<br /> +As dreams are made of.</p> +<p>But if Eratosthenes had hold of eternal fact and law on one +point, there was a contemporary who had hold of it in more than +one. I mean Archimedes; of whom, as I have said, we must +speak as of an Alexandrian. It was as a mechanician, rather +than as an astronomer, that he gained his reputation. The +stories of his Hydraulic Screw, the Great Ship which he built for +Hiero, and launched by means of machinery, his crane, his +war-engines, above all his somewhat mythical arrangement of +mirrors, by which he set fire to ships in the harbour—all +these, like the story of his detecting the alloy in Hiero’s +crown, while he himself was in the bath, and running home +undressed shouting +εὕρηκα—all these are +schoolboys’ tales. To the thoughtful person it is the +method of the man which constitutes his real greatness, that +power of insight by which he solved the two great problems of the +nature of the lever and of hydrostatic pressure, which form the +basis of all static and hydrostatic science to this day. +And yet on that very question of the lever the great mind of +Aristotle babbles—neither sees the thing itself, nor the +way towards seeing it. But since Archimedes spoke, the +thing seems self-evident to every schoolboy. There is +something to me very solemn in such a fact as this. It +brings us down to some of the very deepest questions of +metaphysic. This mental insight of which we boast so much, +what is it? Is it altogether a process of our own brain and +will? If it be, why have so few the power, even among men +of power, and they so seldom? If brain alone were what was +wanted, what could not Aristotle have discovered? Or is it +that no man can see a thing unless God shows it him? Is it +that in each separate act of induction, that mysterious and +transcendental process which cannot, let logicians try as they +will, be expressed by any merely logical formula, Aristotelian or +other—is it I say, that in each separate act of induction +we do not find the law, but the law is shown to us, by Him who +made the law? Bacon thought so. Of that you may find clear +proof in his writings. May not Bacon be right? May it +not be true that God does in science, as well as in ethics, hide +things from the wise and prudent, from the proud, complete, +self-contained systematiser like Aristotle, who must needs +explain all things in heaven and earth by his own formulæ, +and his entelechies and energies, and the rest of the notions +which he has made for himself out of his own brain, and then pack +each thing away in its proper niche in his great cloud-universe +of conceptions? Is it that God hides things from such men +many a time, and reveals them to babes, to gentle, affectionate, +simple-hearted men, such as we know Archimedes to have been, who +do not try to give an explanation for a fact, but feel how awful +and divine it is, and wrestle reverently and stedfastly with it, +as Jacob with the Angel, and will not let it go, until it bless +them? Sure I am, from what I have seen of scientific men, +that there is an intimate connection between the health of the +moral faculties and the health of the inductive ones; and that +the proud, self-conceited, and passionate man will see nothing: +perhaps because nothing will be shown him.</p> +<p>But we must leave Archimedes for a man not perhaps so well +known, but to whom we owe as much as to the great +Syracusan—Hipparchus the astronomer. To his case much +which I have just said applies. In him astronomic science +seemed to awaken suddenly to a true inductive method, and after +him to fall into its old slumber for 300 years. In the +meantime Timocharis, Aristyllus, and Conon had each added their +mites to the discoveries of Eratosthenes: but to Hipparchus we +owe that theory of the heavens, commonly called the Ptolemaic +system, which, starting from the assumption that the earth was +the centre of the universe, attempted to explain the motions of +the heavenly bodies by a complex system of supposed eccentrics +and epicycles. This has of course now vanished before +modern discoveries. But its value as a scientific attempt +lies in this: that the method being a correct one, correct +results were obtained, though starting from a false assumption; +and Hipparchus and his successors were enabled by it to calculate +and predict the changes of the heavens, in spite of their clumsy +instruments, with almost as much accuracy as we do now.</p> +<p>For the purpose of working out this theory he required a +science of trigonometry, plane and spherical: and this he +accordingly seems to have invented. To him also we owe the +discovery of that vast gradual change in the position of the +fixed stars, in fact, of the whole celestial system, now known by +the name of the precession of the equinoxes; the first great +catalogue of fixed stars, to the number of 1080; attempts to +ascertain whether the length of years and days were constant; +with which, with his characteristic love of truth, he seems to +have been hardly satisfied. He too invented the +planisphere, or mode of representing the starry heavens upon a +plane, and is the father of true geography, having formed the +happy notion of mapping out the earth, as well as the heavens, by +degrees of latitude and longitude.</p> +<p>Strange it is, and somewhat sad, that we should know nothing +of this great man, should be hardly able to distinguish him from +others of the same name, but through the works of a commentator, +who wrote and observed in Alexandria 300 years after, during the +age of the Antonines. I mean, of course, the famous +Ptolemy, whose name so long bore the honour of that system which +really belonged to Hipparchus.</p> +<p>This single fact speaks volumes for the real weakness of the +great artificial school of literature and science founded by the +kings of Egypt. From the father of Astronomy, as Delambre +calls him, to Ptolemy, the first man who seems really to have +appreciated him, we have not a discovery, hardly an observation +or a name, to fill the gap. Physical sages there were; but +they were geometers and mathematicians, rather than astronomic +observers and inquirers. And in spite of all the huge +appliances and advantages of that great Museum, its inhabitants +were content, in physical science, as in all other branches of +thought, to comment, to expound, to do everything but open their +eyes and observe facts, and learn from them, as the predecessors +whom they pretended to honour had done. But so it is +always. A genius, an original man appears. He puts +himself boldly in contact with facts, asks them what they mean, +and writes down their answer for the world’s use. And +then his disciples must needs form a school, and a system; and +fancy that they do honour to their master by refusing to follow +in his steps; by making his book a fixed dogmatic canon; +attaching to it some magical infallibility; declaring the very +lie which he disproved by his whole existence, that discovery is +henceforth impossible, and the sum of knowledge complete: instead +of going on to discover as he discovered before them, and in +following his method, show that they honour him, not in the +letter, but in spirit and in truth.</p> +<p>For this, if you will consider, is the true meaning of that +great command, “Honour thy father and mother, that thy days +may be long in the land.” On reverence for the +authority of bygone generations depends the permanence of every +form of thought or belief, as much as of all social, national, +and family life: but on reverence of the spirit, not merely of +the letter; of the methods of our ancestors, not merely of their +conclusions. Ay, and we shall not be able to preserve their +conclusions, not even to understand them; they will die away on +our lips into skeleton notions, and soulless phrases, unless we +see that the greatness of the mighty dead has always consisted in +this, that they were seekers, improvers, inventors, endued with +that divine power and right of discovery which has been bestowed +on us, even as on them; unless we become such men as they were, +and go on to cultivate and develop the precious heritage which +they have bequeathed to us, instead of hiding their talent in a +napkin and burying it in the earth; making their greatness an +excuse for our own littleness, their industry for our laziness, +their faith for our despair; and prating about the old paths, +while we forget that paths were made that men might walk in them, +and not stand still, and try in vain to stop the way.</p> +<p>It may be said, certainly, as an excuse for these Alexandrian +Greeks, that they were a people in a state of old age and decay; +and that they only exhibited the common and natural faults of old +age. For as with individuals, so with races, nations, +societies, schools of thought—youth is the time of free +fancy and poetry; manhood of calm and strong induction; old age +of deduction, when men settle down upon their lees, and content +themselves with reaffirming and verifying the conclusions of +their earlier years, and too often, alas! with denying and +anathematising all conclusions which have been arrived at since +their own meridian. It is sad: but it is patent and +common. It is sad to think that the day may come to each of +us, when we shall have ceased to hope for discovery and for +progress; when a thing will seem <i>à priori</i> false to +us, simply because it is new; and we shall be saying querulously +to the Divine Light which lightens every man who comes into the +world: “Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further. +Thou hast taught men enough; yea rather, thou hast exhausted +thine own infinitude, and hast no more to teach +them.” Surely such a temper is to be fought against, +prayed against, both in ourselves, and in the generation in which +we live. Surely there is no reason why such a temper should +overtake old age. There may be reason enough, “in the +nature of things.” For that which is of nature is +born only to decay and die. But in man there is more than +dying nature; there is spirit, and a capability of spiritual and +everlasting life, which renews its youth like the eagle’s, +and goes on from strength to strength, and which, if it have its +autumns and its winters, has no less its ever-recurring springs +and summers; if it has its Sabbaths, finds in them only rest and +refreshment for coming labour. And why not in nations, +societies, scientific schools? These too are not merely +natural: they are spiritual, and are only living and healthy in +as far as they are in harmony with spiritual, unseen, and +everlasting laws of God. May not they, too, have a +capability of everlasting life, as long as they obey those laws +in faith, and patience, and humility? We cannot deny the +analogy between the individual man and these societies of +men. We cannot, at least, deny the analogy between them in +growth, decay, and death. May we not have hope that it +holds good also for that which can never die; and that if they do +die, as this old Greek society did, it is by no brute natural +necessity, but by their own unfaithfulness to that which they +knew, to that which they ought to have known? It is always +more hopeful, always, as I think, more philosophic, to throw the +blame of failure on man, on our own selves, rather than on God, +and the perfect law of His universe. At least let us be +sure for ourselves, that such an old age as befell this Greek +society, as befalls many a man nowadays, need not be our +lot. Let us be sure that earth shows no fairer sight than +the old man, whose worn-out brain and nerves make it painful, and +perhaps impossible, to produce fresh thought himself: but who can +yet welcome smilingly and joyfully the fresh thoughts of others; +who keeps unwearied his faith in God’s government of the +universe, in God’s continual education of the human race; +who draws around him the young and the sanguine, not merely to +check their rashness by his wise cautions, but to inspirit their +sloth by the memories of his own past victories; who hands over, +without envy or repining, the lamp of truth to younger runners +than himself, and sits contented by, bidding the new generation +God speed along the paths untrodden by him, but seen afar off by +faith. A few such old persons have I seen, both men and +women; in whom the young heart beat pure and fresh, beneath the +cautious and practised brain of age, and gray hairs which were +indeed a crown of glory. A few such have I seen; and from +them I seemed to learn what was the likeness of our Father who is +in heaven. To such an old age may He bring you and me, and +all for whom we are bound to pray.</p> +<h2>LECTURE II.<br /> +THE PTOLEMAIC ERA.<br /> +(<i>Continued</i>.)</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">said</span> in my first Lecture, that +even if royal influence be profitable for the prosecution of +physical science, it cannot be profitable for art. It can +only produce a literary age, as it did in the Ptolemaic era; a +generation of innumerable court-poets, artificial epigrammatists, +artificial idyllists, artificial dramatists and epicists; above +all, a generation of critics. Or rather shall we say, that +the dynasty was not the cause of a literary age, but only its +correlative? That when the old Greeks lost the power of +being free, of being anything but the slaves of oriental despots, +as the Ptolemies in reality were, they lost also the power of +producing true works of art; because they had lost that youthful +vigour of mind from which both art and freedom sprang? Let the +case be as it will, Alexandrian literature need not detain us +long—though, alas! it has detained every boy who ever +trembled over his Greek grammar, for many a weary year; and, I +cannot help suspecting, has been the main cause that so many +young men who have spent seven years in learning Greek, know +nothing about it at the end of the seven. For I must say, +that as far as we can see, these Alexandrian pedants were +thorough pedants; very polished and learned gentlemen, no doubt, +and, like Callimachus, the pets of princes: but after all, men +who thought that they could make up for not writing great works +themselves, by showing, with careful analysis and commentation, +how men used to write them of old, or rather how they fancied men +used to write them; for, consider, if they had really known how +the thing was done, they must needs have been able to do it +themselves. Thus Callimachus, the favourite of Ptolemy +Philadelphus, and librarian of his Museum, is the most +distinguished grammarian, critic, and poet of his day, and has +for pupils Eratosthenes, Apollonius Rhodius, Aristophanes of +Byzantium, and a goodly list more. He is an +encyclopædia in himself. There is nothing the man +does not know, or probably, if we spoke more correctly, nothing +he does not know about. He writes on history, on the +Museum, on barbarous names, on the wonders of the world, on +public games, on colonisation, on winds, on birds, on the rivers +of the world, and—ominous subject—a sort of +comprehensive history of Greek literature, with a careful +classification of all authors, each under his own heading. +Greek literature was rather in the sere and yellow leaf, be sure, +when men thought of writing that sort of thing about it. +But still, he is an encyclopædic man, and, moreover, a +poet. He writes an epic, “Aitia,” in four +books, on the causes of the myths, religious ceremonies, and so +forth—an ominous sign for the myths also, and the belief in +them; also a Hecate, Galatæa, Glaucus—four epics, +besides comedies, tragedies, iambics, choriambics, elegies, +hymns, epigrams seventy-three—and of these last alone can +we say that they are in any degree readable; and they are +courtly, far-fetched, neat, and that is all. Six hymns +remain, and a few fragments of the elegies: but the most famous +elegy, on Berenice’s hair, is preserved to us only in a +Latin paraphrase of Catullus. It is curious, as the +earliest instance we have of genuinely ungenuine Court poetry, +and of the complimentary lie which does not even pretend to be +true; the flattery which will not take the trouble to prevent +your seeing that it is laughing in your face.</p> +<p>Berenice the queen, on Ptolemy’s departure to the wars, +vows her beautiful tresses to her favourite goddess, as the price +of her husband’s safe return; and duly pays her vow. +The hair is hung up in the temple: in a day or two after it has +vanished. Dire is the wrath of Ptolemy, the consternation +of the priests, the scandal to religion; when Conon, the +court-astronomer, luckily searching the heavens, finds the +missing tresses in an utterly unexpected place—as a new +constellation of stars, which to this day bears the title of Coma +Berenices. It is so convenient to believe the fact, that +everybody believes it accordingly; and Callimachus writes an +elegy thereon, in which the constellified, or indeed deified +tresses, address in most melodious and highly-finished Greek, +bedizened with concetto on concetto, that fair and sacred head +whereon they grew, to be shorn from which is so dire a sorrow, +that apotheosis itself can hardly reconcile them to the +parting.</p> +<p>Worthy, was not all this, of the descendants of the men who +fought at Marathon and Thermopylæ? The old Greek +civilisation was rotting swiftly down; while a fire of God was +preparing, slowly and dimly, in that unnoticed Italian town of +Rome, which was destined to burn up that dead world, and all its +works.</p> +<p>Callimachus’s hymns, those may read who list. They +are highly finished enough; the work of a man who knew thoroughly +what sort of article he intended to make, and what were the most +approved methods of making it. Curious and cumbrous +mythological lore comes out in every other line. The +smartness, the fine epithets, the recondite conceits, the bits of +effect, are beyond all praise; but as for one spark of life, of +poetry, of real belief, you will find none; not even in that +famous Lavacrum Palladis which Angelo Poliziano thought worth +translating into Latin elegiacs, about the same time that the +learned Florentine, Antonio Maria Salviano, found +Berenice’s Hair worthy to be paraphrased back from +Catullus’ Latin into Greek, to give the world some faint +notion of the inestimable and incomparable original. They +must have had much time on their hands. But at the Revival +of Letters, as was to be expected, all works of the ancients, +good and bad, were devoured alike with youthful eagerness by the +Medicis and the Popes; and it was not, we shall see, for more +than one century after, that men’s taste got sufficiently +matured to distinguish between Callimachus and the Homeric hymns, +or between Plato and Proclus. Yet Callimachus and his +fellows had an effect on the world. His writings, as well +as those of Philetas, were the model on which Ovid, Propertius, +Tibullus, formed themselves.</p> +<p>And so I leave him, with two hints. If any one wishes to +see the justice of my censure, let him read one of the +Alexandrian hymns, and immediately after it, one of those +glorious old Homeric hymns to the very same deities; let him +contrast the insincere and fulsome idolatry of Callimachus with +the reverent, simple and manful anthropomorphism of the +Homerist—and let him form his own judgment.</p> +<p>The other hint is this. If Callimachus, the founder of +Alexandrian literature, be such as he is, what are his pupils +likely to become, at least without some infusion of healthier +blood, such as in the case of his Roman imitators produced a new +and not altogether ignoble school?</p> +<p>Of Lycophron, the fellow-grammarian and poet of Callimachus, +we have nothing left but the Cassandra, a long iambic poem, +stuffed with traditionary learning, and so obscure, that it +obtained for him the surname of +σκοτεινός, +the dark one. I have tried in vain to read it: you, if you +will, may do the same.</p> +<p>Philetas, the remaining member of the Alexandrian Triad, seems +to have been a more simple, genial, and graceful spirit than the +other two, to whom he was accordingly esteemed inferior. +Only a few fragments are left; but he was not altogether without +his influence, for he was, as I have just said, one of the models +on which Propertius and Ovid formed themselves; and some, indeed, +call him the Father of the Latin elegy, with its terseness, +grace, and clear epigrammatic form of thought, and, therefore, in +a great degree, of our modern eighteenth century poets; not a +useless excellence, seeing that it is, on the whole, good for him +who writes to see clearly what he wants to say, and to be able to +make his readers see it clearly also. And yet one natural +strain is heard amid all this artificial jingle—that of +Theocritus. It is not altogether Alexandrian. Its +sweetest notes were learnt amid the chestnut groves and orchards, +the volcanic glens and sunny pastures of Sicily; but the +intercourse, between the courts of Hiero and the Ptolemies seems +to have been continual. Poets and philosophers moved freely +from one to the other, and found a like atmosphere in both; and +in one of Theocritus’ idyls, two Sicilian gentlemen, +crossed in love, agree to sail for Alexandria, and volunteer into +the army of the great and good king Ptolemy, of whom a sketch is +given worth reading; as a man noble, generous, and stately, +“knowing well who loves him, and still better who loves him +not.” He has another encomium on Ptolemy, more +laboured, though not less interesting: but the real value of +Theocritus lies in his power of landscape-painting.</p> +<p>One can well conceive the delight which his idyls must have +given to those dusty Alexandrians, pent up forever between sea +and sand-hills, drinking the tank-water, and never hearing the +sound of a running stream—whirling, too, forever, in all +the bustle and intrigue of a great commercial and literary +city. Refreshing indeed it must have been to them to hear +of those simple joys and simple sorrows of the Sicilian shepherd, +in a land where toil was but exercise, and mere existence was +enjoyment. To them, and to us also. I believe +Theocritus is one of the poets who will never die. He sees +men and things, in his own light way, truly; and he describes +them simply, honestly, with little careless touches of pathos and +humour, while he floods his whole scene with that gorgeous +Sicilian air, like one of Titian’s pictures; with still +sunshine, whispering pines, the lizard sleeping on the wall, and +the sunburnt cicala shrieking on the spray, the pears and apples +dropping from the orchard bough, the goats clambering from crag +to crag after the cistus and the thyme, the brown youths and +wanton lasses singing under the dark chestnut boughs, or by the +leafy arch of some</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Grot +nymph-haunted,<br /> +Garlanded over with vine, and acanthus, and clambering roses,<br +/> +Cool in the fierce still noon, where the streams glance clear in +the moss-beds;</p> +<p>and here and there, beyond the braes and meads, blue glimpses +of the far-off summer sea; and all this told in a language and a +metre which shapes itself almost unconsciously, wave after wave, +into the most luscious song. Doubt not that many a soul +then, was the simpler, and purer, and better, for reading the +sweet singer of Syracuse. He has his immoralities; but they +are the immoralities of his age: his naturalness, his sunny calm +and cheerfulness, are all his own.</p> +<p>And now, to leave the poets, and speak of those grammarians to +whose corrections we owe, I suppose, the texts of the Greek poets +as they now stand. They seem to have set to work at their +task methodically enough, under the direction of their most +literary monarch, Ptolemy Philadelphus. Alexander the +Ætolian collected and revised the tragedies, Lycophron the +comedies, Zenodotus the poems of Homer, and the other poets of +the Epic cycle, now lost to us. Whether Homer prospered +under all his expungings, alterations, and +transpositions—whether, in fact, he did not treat Homer +very much as Bentley wanted to treat Milton, is a suspicion which +one has a right to entertain, though it is long past the +possibility of proof. Let that be as it may, the critical +business grew and prospered. Aristophanes of Byzantium +wrote glossaries and grammars, collected editions of Plato and +Aristotle, æsthetic disquisitions on Homer—one wishes +they were preserved, for the sake of the jest, that one might +have seen an Alexandrian cockney’s views of Achilles and +Ulysses! Moreover, in a hapless moment, at least for us +moderns, he invented Greek accents; thereby, I fear, so +complicating and confusing our notions of Greek rhythm, that we +shall never, to the end of time, be able to guess what any Greek +verse, saving the old Homeric Hexameter, sounded like. +After a while, too, the pedants, according to their wont, began +quarrelling about their accents and their recessions. +Moreover, there was a rival school at Pergamus where the fame of +Crates all but equalled the Egyptian fame of Aristarchus. +Insolent! What right had an Asiatic to know anything? +So Aristarchus flew furiously on Crates, being a man of plain +common sense, who felt a correct reading a far more important +thing than any of Crates’s illustrations, æsthetic, +historical, or mythological; a preference not yet quite extinct, +in one, at least, of our Universities. “Sir,” +said a clever Cambridge Tutor to a philosophically inclined +freshman, “remember, that our business is to translate +Plato correctly, not to discover his meaning.” And, +paradoxical as it may seem, he was right. Let us first have +accuracy, the merest mechanical accuracy, in every branch of +knowledge. Let us know what the thing is which we are +looking at. Let us know the exact words an author +uses. Let us get at the exact value of each word by that +severe induction of which Buttmann and the great Germans have set +such noble examples; and then, and not till then, we may begin to +talk about philosophy, and æsthetics, and the rest. +Very Probably Aristarchus was right in his dislike of +Crates’s preference of what he called criticism, to +grammar. Very probably he connected it with the other +object of his especial hatred, that fashion of interpreting Homer +allegorically, which was springing up in his time, and which +afterwards under the Neoplatonists rose to a frantic height, and +helped to destroy in them, not only their power of sound +judgment, and of asking each thing patiently what it was, but +also any real reverence for, or understanding of, the very +authors over whom they declaimed and sentimentalised.</p> +<p>Yes—the Cambridge Tutor was right. Before you can +tell what a man means, you must have patience to find out what he +says. So far from wishing our grammatical and philological +education to be less severe than it is, I think it is not severe +enough. In an age like this—an age of lectures, and +of popular literature, and of self-culture, too often random and +capricious, however earnest, we cannot be too careful in asking +ourselves, in compelling others to ask themselves, the meaning of +every word which they use, of every word which they read; in +assuring them, whether they will believe us or not, that the +moral, as well as the intellectual culture, acquired by +translating accurately one dialogue of Plato, by making out +thoroughly the sense of one chapter of a standard author, is +greater than they will get from skimming whole folios of +Schlegelian æsthetics, resumes, histories of philosophy, +and the like second-hand information, or attending seven lectures +a-week till their lives’ end. <i>It is better +to know one thing</i>, <i>than to know about ten thousand +things</i>. I cannot help feeling painfully, after reading +those most interesting Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, that +the especial danger of this time is intellectual sciolism, +vagueness, sentimental eclecticism—and feeling, too, as +Socrates of old believed, that intellectual vagueness and +shallowness, however glib, and grand, and eloquent it may seem, +is inevitably the parent of a moral vagueness and shallowness, +which may leave our age as it left the later Greeks, without an +absolute standard of right or of truth, till it tries to escape +from its own scepticism, as the later Neoplatonists did, by +plunging desperately into any fetish-worshipping superstition +which holds out to its wearied and yet impatient intellect, the +bait of decisions already made for it, of objects of admiration +already formed and systematised.</p> +<p>Therefore let us honour the grammarian in his place; and, +among others, these old grammarians of Alexandria; only being +sure that as soon as any man begins, as they did, displaying +himself peacock-fashion, boasting of his science as the great +pursuit of humanity, and insulting his fellow-craftsmen, he +becomes, ipso facto, unable to discover any more truth for us, +having put on a habit of mind to which induction is impossible; +and is thenceforth to be passed by with a kindly but a pitying +smile. And so, indeed, it happened with these quarrelsome +Alexandrian grammarians, as it did with the Casaubons and +Scaligers and Daciers of the last two centuries. As soon as +they began quarrelling they lost the power of discovering. +The want of the inductive faculty in their attempts at philology +is utterly ludicrous. Most of their derivations of words +are about on a par with Jacob Böhmen’s etymology of +sulphur, wherein he makes <i>sul</i>, if I recollect right, +signify some active principle of combustion, and <i>phur</i> the +passive one. It was left for more patient and less noisy +men, like Grimm, Bopp, and Buttmann, to found a science of +philology, to discover for us those great laws which connect +modern philology with history, ethnology, physiology, and with +the very deepest questions of theology itself. And in the +meanwhile, these Alexandrians’ worthless criticism has been +utterly swept away; while their real work, their accurate +editions of the classics, remain to us as a precious +heritage. So it is throughout history: nothing dies which +is worthy to live. The wheat is surely gathered into the +garner, the chaff is burnt up by that eternal fire which, happily +for this universe, cannot be quenched by any art of man, but goes +on forever, devouring without indulgence all the folly and the +falsehood of the world.</p> +<p>As yet you have heard nothing of the metaphysical schools of +Alexandria; for as yet none have existed, in the modern +acceptation of that word. Indeed, I am not sure that I must +not tell you frankly, that none ever existed at all in +Alexandria, in that same modern acceptation. Ritter, I +think, it is who complains naïvely enough, that the +Alexandrian Neoplatonists had a bad habit, which grew on them +more and more as the years rolled on, of mixing up philosophy +with theology, and so defiling, or at all events colouring, its +pure transparency. There is no denying the imputation, as I +shall show at greater length in my next Lecture. But one +would have thought, looking back through history, that the +Alexandrians were not the only philosophers guilty of this +shameful act of syncretism. Plato, one would have thought, +was as great a sinner as they. So were the Hindoos. +In spite of all their logical and metaphysical acuteness, they +were, you will find, unable to get rid of the notion that +theological inquiries concerning Brahma, Atma, Creeshna, were +indissolubly mixed up with that same logic and metaphysic. +The Parsees could not separate questions about Ahriman and Ormuzd +from Kant’s three great philosophic problems: What is +Man?—What may be known?—What should be done? +Neither, indeed, could the earlier Greek sages. Not one of +them, of any school whatsoever—from the semi-mythic Seven +Sages to Plato and Aristotle—but finds it necessary to +consider not in passing, but as the great object of research, +questions concerning the gods:—whether they are real or +not; one or many; personal or impersonal; cosmic, and parts of +the universe, or organisers and rulers of it; in relation to man, +or without relation to him. Even in those who flatly deny +the existence of the gods, even in Lucretius himself, these +questions have to be considered, before the question, What is +man? can get any solution at all. On the answer given to +them is found to depend intimately the answer to the question, +What is the immaterial part of man? Is it a part of nature, +or of something above nature? Has he an immaterial part at +all?—in one word, Is a human metaphysic possible at +all? So it was with the Greek philosophers of old, even, as +Asclepius and Ammonius say, with Aristotle himself. +“The object of Aristotle’s metaphysic,” one of +them says, “is theological. Herein Aristotle +theologises.” And there is no denying the +assertion. We must not then be hard on the Neoplatonists, +as if they were the first to mix things separate from the +foundation of the world. I do not say that theology and +metaphysic are separate studies. That is to be ascertained +only by seeing some one separate them. And when I see them +separated, I shall believe them separable. Only the +separation must not be produced by the simple expedient of +denying the existence of either one of them, or at least of +ignoring the existence of one steadily during the study of the +other. If they can be parted without injury to each other, +let them be parted; and till then let us suspend hard judgments +on the Alexandrian school of metaphysic, and also on the schools +of that curious people the Jews, who had at this period a +steadily increasing influence on the thought, as well as on the +commercial prosperity, of Alexandria.</p> +<p>You must not suppose, in the meanwhile, that the philosophers +whom the Ptolemies collected (as they would have any other +marketable article) by liberal offers of pay and patronage, were +such men as the old Seven Sages of Greece, or as Socrates, Plato, +and Aristotle. In these three last indeed, Greek thought +reached not merely its greatest height, but the edge of a +precipice, down which it rolled headlong after their +decease. The intellectual defects of the Greek mind, of +which I have already spoken, were doubtless one great cause of +this decay: but, to my mind, moral causes had still more to do +with it. The more cultivated Greek states, to judge from +the writings of Plato, had not been an over-righteous people +during the generation in which he lived. And in the +generations which followed, they became an altogether wicked +people; immoral, unbelieving, hating good, and delighting in all +which was evil. And it was in consequence of these very +sins of theirs, as I think, that the old Hellenic race began to +die out physically, and population throughout Greece to decrease +with frightful rapidity, after the time of the Achæan +league. The facts are well known; and foul enough they +are. When the Romans destroyed Greece, God was just and +merciful. The eagles were gathered together only because +the carrion needed to be removed from the face of God’s +earth. And at the time of which I now speak, the signs of +approaching death were fearfully apparent. Hapless and +hopeless enough were the clique of men out of whom the first two +Ptolemies hoped to form a school of philosophy; men certainly +clever enough, and amusing withal, who might give the kings of +Egypt many a shrewd lesson in king-craft, and the ways of this +world, and the art of profiting by the folly of fools, and the +selfishness of the selfish; or who might amuse them, in default +of fighting-cocks, by puns and repartees, and battles of logic; +“how one thing cannot be predicated of another,” or +“how the wise man is not only to overcome every misfortune, +but not even to feel it,” and other such mighty questions, +which in those days hid that deep unbelief in any truth +whatsoever which was spreading fast over the minds of men. +Such word-splitters were Stilpo and Diodorus, the slayer and the +slain. They were of the Megaran school, and were named +Dialectics; and also, with more truth, Eristics, or +quarrellers. Their clique had professed to follow Zeno and +Socrates in declaring the instability of sensible presumptions +and conclusions, in preaching an absolute and eternal +Being. But there was this deep gulf between them and +Socrates; that while Socrates professed to be seeking for the +Absolute and Eternal, for that which is, they were content with +affirming that it exists. With him, as with the older +sages, philosophy was a search for truth. With them it was +a scheme of doctrines to be defended. And the dialectic on +which they prided themselves so much, differed from his +accordingly. He used it inductively, to seek out, under the +notions and conceptions of the mind, certain absolute truths and +laws of which they were only the embodiment. Words and +thought were to him a field for careful and reverent induction, +as the phenomena of nature are to us the disciples of +Bacon. But with these hapless Megarans, who thought that +they had found that for which Socrates professed only to seek +dimly and afar off, and had got it safe in a dogma, preserved as +it were in spirits, and put by in a museum, the great use of +dialectic was to confute opponents. Delight in their own +subtlety grew on them, the worship not of objective truth, but of +the forms of the intellect whereby it may be demonstrated; till +they became the veriest word-splitters, rivals of the old +sophists whom their master had attacked, and justified too often +Aristophanes’ calumny, which confounded Socrates with his +opponents, as a man whose aim was to make the worse appear the +better reason.</p> +<p>We have here, in both parties, all the marks of an age of +exhaustion, of scepticism, of despair about finding any real +truth. No wonder that they were superseded by the +Pyrrhonists, who doubted all things, and by the Academy, which +prided itself on setting up each thing to knock it down again; +and so by prudent and well-bred and tolerant qualifying of every +assertion, neither affirming too much, nor denying too much, keep +their minds in a wholesome—or unwholesome—state of +equilibrium, as stagnant pools are kept, that everything may have +free toleration to rot undisturbed.</p> +<p>These hapless caricaturists of the dialectic of Plato, and the +logic of Aristotle, careless of any vital principles or real +results, ready enough to use fallacies each for their own party, +and openly proud of their success in doing so, were assisted by +worthy compeers of an outwardly opposite tone of thought, the +Cyrenaics, Theodorus and Hegesias. With their clique, as +with their master Aristippus, the senses were the only avenues to +knowledge; man was the measure of all things; and +“happiness our being’s end and aim.” +Theodorus was surnamed the Atheist; and, it seems, not without +good reason; for he taught that there was no absolute or eternal +difference between good and evil; nothing really disgraceful in +crimes; no divine ground for laws, which according to him had +been invented by men to prevent fools from making themselves +disagreeable; on which theory, laws must be confessed to have +been in all ages somewhat of a failure. He seems to have +been, like his master, an impudent light-hearted fellow, who took +life easily enough, laughed at patriotism, and all other +high-flown notions, boasted that the world was his country, and +was no doubt excellent after-dinner company for the great +king. Hegesias, his fellow Cyrenaic, was a man of a darker +and more melancholic temperament; and while Theodorus contented +himself with preaching a comfortable selfishness, and obtaining +pleasure, made it rather his study to avoid pain. Doubtless +both their theories were popular enough at Alexandria, as they +were in France during the analogous period, the Siècle +Louis Quinze. The “Contrat Social,” and the +rest of their doctrines, moral and metaphysical, will always have +their admirers on earth, as long as that variety of the human +species exists for whose especial behoof Theodorus held that laws +were made; and the whole form of thought met with great +approbation in after years at Rome, where Epicurus carried it to +its highest perfection. After that, under the pressure of a +train of rather severe lessons, which Gibbon has detailed in his +“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” little or +nothing was heard of it, save <i>sotto voce</i>, perhaps, at the +Papal courts of the sixteenth century. To revive it +publicly, or at least as much of it as could be borne by a world +now for seventeen centuries Christian, was the glory of the +eighteenth century. The moral scheme of Theodorus has now +nearly vanished among us, at least as a confessed creed; and, in +spite of the authority of Mr. Locke’s great and good name, +his metaphysical scheme is showing signs of a like approaching +disappearance. Let us hope that it may be a speedy one; for +if the senses be the only avenues to knowledge; if man be the +measure of all things; and if law have not, as Hooker says, her +fount and home in the very bosom of God himself, then was +Homer’s Zeus right in declaring man to be “the most +wretched of all the beasts of the field.”</p> +<p>And yet one cannot help looking with a sort of awe (I dare not +call it respect) at that melancholic faithless Hegesias. +Doubtless he, like his compeers, and indeed all Alexandria for +three hundred years, cultivated philosophy with no more real +purpose than it was cultivated by the graceless +<i>beaux-esprits</i> of Louis XV.’s court, and with as +little practical effect on morality; but of this Hegesias alone +it stands written, that his teaching actually made men do +something; and moreover, do the most solemn and important thing +which any man can do, excepting always doing right. I must +confess, however, that the result of his teaching took so +unexpected a form, that the reigning Ptolemy, apparently +Philadelphus, had to interfere with the sacred right of every man +to talk as much nonsense as he likes, and forbade Hegesias to +teach at Alexandria. For Hegesias, a Cyrenaic like +Theodorus, but a rather more morose pedant than that saucy and +happy scoffer, having discovered that the great end of man was to +avoid pain, also discovered (his digestion being probably in a +disordered state) that there was so much more pain than pleasure +in the world, as to make it a thoroughly disagreeable place, of +which man was well rid at any price. Whereon he wrote a +book called, +Ἀποκαρτερῶν, +in which a man who had determined to starve himself, preached the +miseries of human life, and the blessings of death, with such +overpowering force, that the book actually drove many persons to +commit suicide, and escape from a world which was not fit to +dwell in. A fearful proof of how rotten the state of +society was becoming, how desperate the minds of men, during +those frightful centuries which immediately preceded the +Christian era, and how fast was approaching that dark chaos of +unbelief and unrighteousness, which Paul of Tarsus so analyses +and describes in the first chapter of his Epistle to the +Romans—when the old light was lost, the old faiths extinct, +the old reverence for the laws of family and national life, +destroyed, yea even the natural instincts themselves perverted; +that chaos whose darkness Juvenal, and Petronius, and Tacitus +have proved, in their fearful pages, not to have been exaggerated +by the more compassionate though more righteous Jew.</p> +<p>And now observe, that this selfishness—this wholesome +state of equilibrium—this philosophic calm, which is really +only a lazy pride, was, as far as we can tell, the main object of +all the schools from the time of Alexander to the Christian +era. We know very little of those Sceptics, Cynics, +Epicureans, Academics, Peripatetics, Stoics, of whom there has +been so much talk, except at second-hand, through the Romans, +from whom Stoicism in after ages received a new and not ignoble +life. But this we do know of the later sets, that they +gradually gave up the search for truth, and propounded to +themselves as the great type for a philosopher, How shall a man +save his own soul from this evil world? They may have been right; +it may have been the best thing to think about in those exhausted +and decaying times: but it was a question of ethics, not of +philosophy, in the sense which the old Greek sages put on that +latter word. Their object was, not to get at the laws of +all things, but to fortify themselves against all things, each +according to his scheme, and so to be self-sufficient and +alone. Even in the Stoics, who boldly and righteously +asserted an immutable morality, this was the leading +conception. As has been well said of them:</p> +<p>“If we reflect how deeply the feeling of an intercourse +between men and a divine race superior to themselves had worked +itself into the Greek character—what a number of fables, +some beautiful, some impure, it had impregnated and procured +credence for—how it sustained every form of polity and +every system of laws, we may imagine what the effects must have +been of its disappearance. If it is possible for any man, +it was not, certainly, possible for a Greek, to feel himself +connected by any real bonds with his fellow-creatures around him, +while he felt himself utterly separated from any being above his +fellow-creatures. But the sense of that isolation would +affect different minds very differently. It drove the +Epicurean to consider how he might make a world in which he +should live comfortably, without distracting visions of the past +and future, and the dread of those upper powers who no longer +awakened in him any feelings of sympathy. It drove Zeno the +Stoic to consider whether a man may not find enough in himself to +satisfy him, though what is beyond him be ever so unfriendly. . . +. We may trace in the productions which are attributed to Zone a +very clear indication of the feeling which was at work in his +mind. He undertook, for instance, among other tasks, to +answer Plato’s ‘Republic.’ The truth that +a man is a political being, which informs and pervades that book, +was one which must have been particularly harassing to his mind, +and which he felt must be got rid of, before he could hope to +assert his doctrine of a man’s solitary dignity.”</p> +<p>Woe to the nation or the society in which this individualising +and separating process is going on in the human mind! +Whether it take the form of a religion or of a philosophy, it is +at once the sign and the cause of senility, decay, and +death. If man begins to forget that he is a social being, a +member of a body, and that the only truths which can avail him +anything, the only truths which are worthy objects of his +philosophical search, are those which are equally true for every +man, which will equally avail every man, which he must proclaim, +as far as he can, to every man, from the proudest sage to the +meanest outcast, he enters, I believe, into a lie, and helps +forward the dissolution of that society of which he is a +member. I care little whether what he holds be true or +not. If it be true, he has made it a lie by appropriating +it proudly and selfishly to himself, and by excluding others from +it. He has darkened his own power of vision by that act of +self-appropriation, so that even if he sees a truth, he can only +see it refractedly, discoloured by the medium of his own private +likes and dislikes, and fulfils that great and truly philosophic +law, that he who loveth not his brother is in darkness, and +knoweth not whither he goeth. And so it befell those old +Greek schools. It is out of our path to follow them to +Italy, where sturdy old Roman patriots cursed them, and with good +reason, as corrupting the morals of the young. Our business +is with Alexandria; and there, certainly, they did nothing for +the elevation of humanity. What culture they may have +given, probably helped to make the Alexandrians, what Cæsar +calls them, the most ingenious of all nations: but righteous or +valiant men it did not make them. When, after the three +great reigns of Soter, Philadelphus, and Euergetes, the race of +the Ptolemies began to wear itself out, Alexandria fell morally, +as its sovereigns fell; and during a miserable and shameful +decline of a hundred and eighty years, sophists wrangled, pedants +fought over accents and readings with the true <i>odium +gammaticum</i>, and kings plunged deeper and deeper into the +abysses of luxury and incest, laziness and cruelty, till the +flood came, and swept them all away. Cleopatra, the Helen +of Egypt, betrayed her country to the Roman; and thenceforth the +Alexandrians became slaves in all but name.</p> +<p>And now that Alexandria has become a tributary province, is it +to share the usual lot of enslaved countries and lose all +originality and vigour of thought? Not so. From this +point, strangely enough, it begins to have a philosophy of its +own. Hitherto it has been importing Greek thought into +Egypt and Syria, even to the furthest boundaries of Persia; and +the whole East has become Greek: but it has received little in +return. The Indian Gymnosophists, or Brahmins, had little +or no effect on Greek philosophy, except in the case of Pyrrho: +the Persian Dualism still less. The Egyptian symbolic +nature-worship had been too gross to be regarded by the +cultivated Alexandrian as anything but a barbaric +superstition. One eastern nation had intermingled closely +with the Macedonian race, and from it Alexandrian thought +received a new impulse.</p> +<p>I mentioned in my first lecture the conciliatory policy which +the Ptolemies had pursued toward the Jews. Soter had not +only allowed but encouraged them to settle in Alexandria and +Egypt, granting them the same political privileges with the +Macedonians and other Greeks. Soon they built themselves a +temple there, in obedience to some supposed prophecy in their +sacred writings, which seems most probably to have been a wilful +interpolation. Whatsoever value we may attach to the +various myths concerning the translation of their Scriptures into +Greek, there can be no doubt that they were translated in the +reign of Soter, and that the exceedingly valuable Septuagint +version is the work of that period. Moreover, their numbers +in Alexandria were very great. When Amrou took +Constantinople in <span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 640, there +were 40,000 Jews in it; and their numbers during the Ptolemaic +and Roman periods, before their temporary expulsion by Cyril +about 412, were probably greater; and Egypt altogether is said to +have contained 200,000 Jews. They had schools there, which +were so esteemed by their whole nation throughout the East, that +the Alexandrian Rabbis, the Light of Israel, as they were called, +may be fairly considered as the centre of Jewish thought and +learning for several centuries.</p> +<p>We are accustomed, and not without reason, to think with some +contempt of these old Rabbis. Rabbinism, Cabbalism, are +become by-words in the mouths of men. It may be instructive +for us—it is certainly necessary for us, if we wish to +understand Alexandria—to examine a little how they became +so fallen.</p> +<p>Their philosophy took its stand, as you all know, on certain +ancient books of their people; histories, laws, poems, +philosophical treatises, which all have one element peculiar to +themselves, namely, the assertion of a living personal Ruler and +Teacher, not merely of the Jewish race, but of all the nations of +the earth. After the return of their race from Babylon, +their own records give abundant evidence that this strange people +became the most exclusive and sectarian which the world ever +saw. Into the causes of that exclusiveness I will not now +enter; suffice it to say, that it was pardonable enough in a +people asserting Monotheism in the midst of idolatrous nations, +and who knew, from experience even more bitter than that which +taught Plato and Socrates, how directly all those popular +idolatries led to every form of baseness and immorality. +But we may trace in them, from the date of their return from +Babylon, especially from their settlement in Alexandria, a +singular change of opinion. In proportion as they began to +deny that their unseen personal Ruler had anything to do with the +Gentiles—the nations of the earth, as they called +them—in proportion as they considered themselves as His +only subjects—or rather, Him and His guidance as their own +private property—exactly in that proportion they began to +lose all living or practical belief that He did guide them. +He became a being of the past; one who had taught and governed +their forefathers in old times: not one who was teaching and +governing them now. I beg you to pay attention to this +curious result; because you will see, I think, the very same +thing occurring in two other Alexandrian schools, of which I +shall speak hereafter.</p> +<p>The result to these Rabbis was, that the inspired books which +spoke of this Divine guidance and government became objects of +superstitious reverence, just in proportion as they lost all +understanding of their real value and meaning. +Nevertheless, this too produced good results; for the greatest +possible care was taken to fix the Canon of these books; to +settle, as far as possible, the exact time at which the Divine +guidance was supposed to have ceased; after which it was impious +to claim a Divine teaching; when their sages were left to +themselves, as they fancied, with a complete body of knowledge, +on which they were henceforth only to comment. Thus, +whether or not they were right in supposing that the Divine +Teacher had ceased to teach and inspire them, they did infinite +service by marking out for us certain writers whom He had +certainly taught and inspired. No doubt they were right in +their sense of the awful change which had passed over their +nation. There was an infinite difference between them and +the old Hebrew writers. They had lost something which those +old prophets possessed. I invite you to ponder, each for +himself, on the causes of this strange loss; bearing in mind that +they lost their forefathers’ heirloom, exactly in +proportion as they began to believe it to be their exclusive +possession, and to deny other human beings any right to or share +in it. It may have been that the light given to their +forefathers had, as they thought, really departed. It may +have been, also, that the light was there all around them still, +as bright as ever, but that they would not open their eyes and +behold it; or rather, could not open them, because selfishness +and pride had sealed them. It may have been, that +inspiration was still very near <i>them</i> too, if their spirits +had been willing to receive it. But of the fact of the +change there was no doubt. For the old Hebrew seers were +men dealing with the loftiest and deepest laws: the Rabbis were +shallow pedants. The old Hebrew seers were righteous and +virtuous men: the Rabbis became, in due time, some of the worst +and wickedest men who ever trod this earth.</p> +<p>Thus they too had their share in that downward career of +pedantry which we have seen characterise the whole past +Alexandrine age. They, like Zenodotus and Aristarchus, were +commentators, grammarians, sectarian disputers: they were not +thinkers or actors. Their inspired books were to them no +more the words of living human beings who had sought for the +Absolute Wisdom, and found it after many sins and doubts and +sorrows. The human writers became in their eyes the puppets +and mouthpieces of some magical influence, not the disciples of a +living and loving person. The book itself was, in their +belief, not in any true sense inspired, but magically +dictated—by what power they cared not to define. His +character was unimportant to them, provided He had inspired no +nation but their own. But, thought they, if the words were +dictated, each of them must have some mysterious value. And +if each word had a mysterious value, why not each letter? +And how could they set limits to that mysterious value? +Might not these words, even rearrangements of the letters of +them, be useful in protecting them against the sorceries of the +heathen, in driving away those evil spirits, or evoking those +good spirits, who, though seldom mentioned in their early +records, had after their return from Babylon begun to form an +important part of their unseen world? For as they had lost +faith in the One Preserver of their race, they had filled up the +void by a ponderous demonology of innumerable preservers. +This process of thought was not confined to Alexandria. Dr. +Layard, in his last book on Nineveh, gives some curious instances +of its prevalence among them at an earlier period, well worth +your careful study. But it was at Alexandria that the +Jewish Cabbalism formed itself into a system. It was there +that the Jews learnt to become the jugglers and magic-mongers of +the whole Roman world, till Claudius had to expel them from Rome, +as pests to rational and moral society.</p> +<p>And yet, among these hapless pedants there lingered nobler +thoughts and hopes. They could not read the glorious +heirlooms of their race without finding in them records of +antique greatness and virtue, of old deliverances worked for +their forefathers; and what seemed promises, too, that that +greatness should return. The notion that those promises +were conditional; that they expressed eternal moral laws, and +declared the consequences of obeying those laws, they had lost +long ago. By looking on themselves as exclusively and +arbitrarily favoured by Heaven, they were ruining their own moral +sense. Things were not right or wrong to them because Right +was eternal and divine, and Wrong the transgression of that +eternal right. How could that be? For then the right +things the Gentiles seemed to do would be right and +divine;—and that supposition in their eyes was all but +impious. None could do right but themselves, for they only +knew the law of God. So, right with them had no absolute or +universal ground, but was reduced in their minds to the +performance of certain acts commanded exclusively to them—a +form of ethics which rapidly sank into the most petty and +frivolous casuistry as to the outward performance of those +acts. The sequel of those ethics is known to all the world, +in the spectacle of the most unrivalled religiosity, and +scrupulous respectability, combined with a more utter absence of +moral sense, in their most cultivated and learned men, than the +world has ever beheld before or since.</p> +<p>In such a state of mind it was impossible for them to look on +their old prophets as true seers, beholding and applying eternal +moral laws, and, therefore, seeing the future in the present and +in the past. They must be the mere utterers of an +irreversible arbitrary fate; and that fate must, of course, be +favourable to their nation. So now arose a school who +picked out from their old prophets every passage which could be +made to predict their future glory, and a science which settled +when that glory was to return. By the arbitrary rules of +criticism a prophetic day was defined to mean a year; a week, +seven years. The most simple and human utterances were +found to have recondite meanings relative to their future triumph +over the heathens whom they cursed and hated. If any of you +ever come across the popular Jewish interpretations of The Song +of Solomon, you will there see the folly in which acute and +learned men can indulge themselves when they have lost hold of +the belief in anything really absolute and eternal and moral, and +have made Fate, and Time, and Self, their real deities. But +this dream of a future restoration was in no wise ennobled, as +far as we can see, with any desire for a moral restoration. +They believed that a person would appear some day or other to +deliver them. Even they were happily preserved by their +sacred books from the notion that deliverance was to be found for +them, or for any man, in an abstraction or notion ending in +-ation or -ality. In justice to them it must be said, that +they were too wise to believe that personal qualities, such as +power, will, love, righteousness, could reside in any but in a +person, or be manifested except by a person. And among the +earlier of them the belief may have been, that the ancient unseen +Teacher of their race would be their deliverer: but as they lost +the thought of Him, the expected Deliverer became a mere human +being: or rather not a human being; for as they lost their moral +sense, they lost in the very deepest meaning their humanity, and +forgot what man was like till they learned to look only for a +conqueror; a manifestation of power, and not of goodness; a +destroyer of the hated heathen, who was to establish them as the +tyrant race of the whole earth. On that fearful day on +which, for a moment, they cast away even that last dream, and +cried, “We have no king but Cæsar,” they spoke +the secret of their hearts. It was a Cæsar, a Jewish +Cæsar, for whom they had been longing for centuries. +And if they could not have such a deliverer, they would have +none: they would take up with the best embodiment of brute +Titanic power which they could find, and crucify the embodiment +of Righteousness and Love. Amid all the metaphysical +schools of Alexandria, I know none so deeply instructive as that +school of the Rabbis, “the glory of Israel.”</p> +<p>But you will say: “This does not look like a school +likely to regenerate Alexandrian thought.” True: and +yet it did regenerate it, both for good and for evil; for these +men had among them and preserved faithfully enough for all +practical purposes, the old literature of their race; a +literature which I firmly believe, if I am to trust the +experience of 1900 years, is destined to explain all other +literatures; because it has firm hold of the one eternal +root-idea which gives life, meaning, Divine sanction, to every +germ or fragment of human truth which is in any of them. It +did so, at least, in Alexandria for the Greek literature. +About the Christian era, a cultivated Alexandrian Jew, a disciple +of Plato and of Aristotle, did seem to himself to find in the +sacred books of his nation that which agreed with the deepest +discoveries of Greek philosophy; which explained and corroborated +them. And his announcement of this fact, weak and defective +as it was, had the most enormous and unexpected results. +The father of New Platonism was Philo the Jew.</p> +<h2>LECTURE III.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">NEOPLATONISM.</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> now approach the period in which +Alexandria began to have a philosophy of its own—to be, +indeed, the leader of human thought for several centuries.</p> +<p>I shall enter on this branch of my subject with some fear and +trembling; not only on account of my own ignorance, but on +account of the great difficulty of handling it without trenching +on certain controversial subjects which are rightly and wisely +forbidden here. For there was not one school of Metaphysic +at Alexandria: there were two; which, during the whole period of +their existence, were in internecine struggle with each other, +and yet mutually borrowing from each other; the Heathen, namely, +and the Christian. And you cannot contemplate, still less +can you understand, the one without the other. Some of late +years have become all but unaware of the existence of that +Christian school; and the word Philosophy, on the authority of +Gibbon, who, however excellent an authority for facts, knew +nothing about Philosophy, and cared less, has been used +exclusively to express heathen thought; a misnomer which in +Alexandria would have astonished Plotinus or Hypatia as much as +it would Clement or Origen. I do not say that there is, or +ought to be, a Christian Metaphysic. I am speaking, as you +know, merely as a historian, dealing with facts; and I say that +there was one; as profound, as scientific, as severe, as that of +the Pagan Neoplatonists; starting indeed, as I shall show +hereafter, on many points from common ground with theirs. +One can hardly doubt, I should fancy, that many parts of St. +John’s Gospel and Epistles, whatever view we may take of +them, if they are to be called anything, are to be called +metaphysic and philosophic. And one can no more doubt that +before writing them he had studied Philo, and was expanding +Philo’s thought in the direction which seemed fit to him, +than we can doubt it of the earlier Neoplatonists. The +technical language is often identical; so are the primary ideas +from which he starts, howsoever widely the conclusions may +differ. If Plotinus considered himself an intellectual +disciple of Plato, so did Origen and Clemens. And I must, +as I said before, speak of both, or of neither. My only +hope of escaping delicate ground lies in the curious fact, that +rightly or wrongly, the form in which Christianity presented +itself to the old Alexandrian thinkers was so utterly different +from the popular conception of it in modern England, that one may +very likely be able to tell what little one knows about it, +almost without mentioning a single doctrine which now influences +the religious world.</p> +<p>But far greater is my fear, that to a modern British auditory, +trained in the school of Locke, much of ancient thought, heathen +as well as Christian, may seem so utterly the product of the +imagination, so utterly without any corresponding reality in the +universe, as to look like mere unintelligible madness. +Still, I must try; only entreating my hearers to consider, that +how much soever we may honour Locke and his great Scotch +followers, we are not bound to believe them either infallible, or +altogether world-embracing; that there have been other methods +than theirs of conceiving the Unseen; that the common ground from +which both Christian and heathen Alexandrians start, is not +merely a private vagary of their own, but one which has been +accepted undoubtingly, under so many various forms, by so many +different races, as to give something of an inductive probability +that it is not a mere dream, but may be a right and true instinct +of the human mind. I mean the belief that the things which +we see—nature and all her phenomena—are temporal, and +born only to die; mere shadows of some unseen realities, from +whom their laws and life are derived; while the eternal things +which subsist without growth, decay, or change, the only real, +only truly existing things, in short, are certain things which +are not seen; inappreciable by sense, or understanding, or +imagination, perceived only by the conscience and the +reason. And that, again, the problem of philosophy, the +highest good for man, that for the sake of which death were a +gain, without which life is worthless, a drudgery, a degradation, +a failure, and a ruin, is to discover what those unseen eternal +things are, to know them, possess them, be in harmony with them, +and thereby alone to rise to any real and solid power, or safety, +or nobleness. It is a strange dream. But you will see +that it is one which does not bear much upon “points of +controversy,” any more than on “Locke’s +philosophy;” nevertheless, when we find this same strange +dream arising, apparently without intercommunion of thought, +among the old Hindoos, among the Greeks, among the Jews; and +lastly, when we see it springing again in the Middle Age, in the +mind of the almost forgotten author of the “Deutsche +Theologie,” and so becoming the parent, not merely of +Luther’s deepest belief, or of the German mystic schools of +the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but of the great German +Philosophy itself as developed by Kant, and Fichte, and +Schelling, and Hegel, we must at least confess it to be a popular +delusion, if nothing better, vast enough and common enough to be +worth a little patient investigation, wheresoever we may find it +stirring the human mind.</p> +<p>But I have hope, still, that I may find sympathy and +comprehension among some, at least, of my audience, as I proceed +to examine the ancient realist schools of Alexandria, on account +of their knowledge of the modern realist schools of +Germany. For I cannot but see, that a revulsion is taking +place in the thoughts of our nation upon metaphysic subjects, and +that Scotland, as usual, is taking the lead therein. That +most illustrious Scotchman, Mr. Thomas Carlyle, first vindicated +the great German Realists from the vulgar misconceptions about +them which were so common at the beginning of this century, and +brought the minds of studious men to a more just appreciation of +the philosophic severity, the moral grandeur, of such thinkers as +Emmanuel Kant, and Gottlieb Fichte. To another Scotch +gentleman, who, I believe, has honoured me by his presence here +to-night, we owe most valuable translations of some of +Fichte’s works; to be followed, I trust, by more. And +though, as a humble disciple of Bacon, I cannot but think that +the method both of Kant and Fichte possesses somewhat of the same +inherent defect as the method of the Neoplatonist school, yet I +should be most unfair did I not express my deep obligations to +them, and advise all those to study them carefully, who wish to +gain a clear conception either of the old Alexandrian schools, or +of those intellectual movements which are agitating the modern +mind, and which will, I doubt not, issue in a clearer light, and +in a nobler life, if not for us, yet still for our +children’s children for ever.</p> +<p>The name of Philo the Jew is now all but forgotten among +us. He was laughed out of sight during the last century, as +a dreamer and an allegorist, who tried eclectically to patch +together Plato and Moses. The present age, however, is +rapidly beginning to suspect that all who thought before the +eighteenth century were not altogether either fools or impostors; +old wisdom is obtaining a fairer hearing day by day, and is found +not to be so contradictory to new wisdom as was supposed. +We are beginning, too, to be more inclined to justify Providence, +by believing that lies are by their very nature impotent and +doomed to die; that everything which has had any great or +permanent influence on the human mind, must have in it some germ +of eternal truth; and setting ourselves to separate that germ of +truth from the mistakes which may have distorted and overlaid +it. Let us believe, or at least hope, the same for a few +minutes, of Philo, and try to find out what was the secret of his +power, what the secret of his weakness.</p> +<p>First: I cannot think that he had to treat his own sacred +books unfairly, to make them agree with the root-idea of Socrates +and Plato. Socrates and Plato acknowledged a Divine teacher +of the human spirit; that was the ground of their +philosophy. So did the literature of the Jews. +Socrates and Plato, with all the Greek sages till the Sophistic +era, held that the object of philosophy was the search after that +which truly exists: that he who found that, found wisdom: +Philo’s books taught him the same truth: but they taught +him also, that the search for wisdom was not merely the search +for that which is, but for Him who is; not for a thing, but for a +person. I do not mean that Plato and the elder Greeks had +not that object also in view; for I have said already that +Theology was with them the ultimate object of all metaphysic +science: but I do think that they saw it infinitely less clearly +than the old Jewish sages. Those sages were utterly unable +to conceive of an absolute truth, except as residing in an +absolutely true person; of absolute wisdom, except in an +absolutely wise person; of an absolute order and law, except in a +lawgiver; of an absolute good, except in an absolutely good +person: any more than either they or we can conceive of an +absolute love, except in an absolutely loving person. I say +boldly, that I think them right, on all grounds of Baconian +induction. For all these qualities are only known to us as +exhibited in persons; and if we believe them to have any absolute +and eternal existence at all, to be objective, and independent of +us, and the momentary moods and sentiments of our own mind, they +must exist in some absolute and eternal person, or they are mere +notions, abstractions, words, which have no counterparts.</p> +<p>But here arose a puzzle in the mind of Philo, as it in reality +had, we may see, in the minds of Socrates and Plato. How +could he reconcile the idea of that absolute and eternal one +Being, that Zeus, Father of Gods and men, self-perfect, +self-contained, without change or motion, in whom, as a Jew, he +believed even more firmly than the Platonists, with the +Dæmon of Socrates, the Divine Teacher whom both Plato and +Solomon confessed? Or how, again, could he reconcile the +idea of Him with the creative and providential energy, working in +space and time, working on matter, and apparently affected and +limited, if not baffled, by the imperfection of the minds which +he taught, by the imperfection of the matter which he +moulded? This, as all students of philosophy must know, was +one of the great puzzles of old Greek philosophy, as long as it +was earnest and cared to have any puzzles at all: it has been, +since the days of Spinoza, the great puzzle of all earnest modern +philosophers. Philo offered a solution in that idea of a +Logos, or Word of God, Divinity articulate, speaking and acting +in time and space, and therefore by successive acts; and so +doing, in time and space, the will of the timeless and spaceless +Father, the Abysmal and Eternal Being, of whom he was the perfect +likeness. In calling this person the Logos, and making him +the source of all human reason, and knowledge of eternal laws, he +only translated from Hebrew into Greek the name which he found in +his sacred books, “The Word of God.” As yet we +have found no unfair allegorising of Moses, or twisting of +Plato. How then has he incurred this accusation?</p> +<p>I cannot think, again, that he was unfair in supposing that he +might hold at the same time the Jewish belief concerning +Creation, and the Platonic doctrine of the real existence of +Archetypal ideas, both of moral and of physical phenomena. +I do not mean that such a conception was present consciously to +the mind of the old Jews, as it was most certainly to the mind of +St. Paul, a practised Platonic dialectician; but it seems to me, +as to Philo, to be a fair, perhaps a necessary, corollary from +the Genetic Philosophy, both of Moses and of Solomon.</p> +<p>But in one thing he was unfair; namely, in his +allegorising. But unfair to whom? To Socrates and +Plato, I believe, as much as to Moses and to Samuel. For +what is the part of the old Jewish books which he evaporates away +into mere mystic symbols of the private experiences of the devout +philosopher? Its practical everyday histories, which deal +with the common human facts of family and national life, of +man’s outward and physical labour and craft. These to +him have no meaning, except an allegoric one. But has he +thrown them away for the sake of getting a step nearer to +Socrates, or Plato, or Aristotle? Surely not. To +them, as to the old Jewish sages, man is most important when +regarded not merely as a soul, but as a man, a social being of +flesh and blood. Aristotle declares politics to be the +architectonical science, the family and social relations to be +the eternal master-facts of humanity. Plato, in his +Republic, sets before himself the Constitution of a State, as the +crowning problem of his philosophy. Every work of his, like +every saying of his master Socrates, deals with the common, +outward, vulgar facts of human life, and asserts that there is a +divine meaning in them, and that reverent induction from them is +the way to obtain the deepest truths. Socrates and Plato +were as little inclined to separate the man and the philosopher +as Moses, Solomon, or Isaiah were. When Philo, by +allegorising away the simple human parts of his books, is untrue +to Moses’s teaching, he becomes untrue to +Plato’s. He becomes untrue, I believe, to a higher +teaching than Plato’s. He loses sight of an eternal +truth, which even old Homer might have taught him, when he treats +Moses as one section of his disciples in after years treated +Homer.</p> +<p>For what is the secret of the eternal freshness, the eternal +beauty, ay, I may say boldly, in spite of all their absurdities +and immoralities, the eternal righteousness of those old Greek +myths? What is it which made Socrates and Plato cling +lovingly and reverently to them, they scarce knew why, while they +deplored the immoralities to which they had given rise? +What is it which made those myths, alone of all old mythologies, +the parents of truly beautiful sculpture, painting, poetry? What +is it which makes us love them still; find, even at times against +our consciences, new meaning, new beauty in them; and brings home +the story of Perseas or of Hercules, alike to the practised +reason of Niebuhr, and the untutored instincts of Niebuhr’s +little child, for whom he threw them into simplest forms? +Why is it that in spite of our disagreeing with their creed and +their morality, we still persist—and long may we persist, +or rather be compelled—as it were by blind instinct, to +train our boys upon those old Greek dreams; and confess, whenever +we try to find a substitute for them in our educational schemes, +that we have as yet none? Because those old Greek stories +do represent the Deities as the archetypes, the kinsmen, the +teachers, the friends, the inspirers of men. Because while +the schoolboy reads how the Gods were like to men, only better, +wiser, greater; how the Heroes are the children of the Gods, and +the slayers of the monsters which devour the earth; how Athene +taught men weaving, and Phœbus music, and Vulcan the +cunning of the stithy; how the Gods took pity on the +noble-hearted son of Danae, and lent him celestial arms and +guided him over desert and ocean to fulfil his vow—that boy +is learning deep lessons of metaphysic, more in accordance with +the <i>reine vernunft</i>, the pure reason whereby man perceives +that which is moral, and spiritual, and eternal, than he would +from all disquisitions about being and becoming, about +actualities and potentialities, which ever tormented the weary +brain of man.</p> +<p>Let us not despise the gem because it has been broken to +fragments, obscured by silt and mud. Still less let us +fancy that one least fragment of it is not more precious than the +most brilliant paste jewel of our own compounding, though it be +polished and faceted never so completely. For what are all +these myths but fragments of that great metaphysic idea, which, I +boldly say, I believe to be at once the justifier and the +harmoniser of all philosophic truth which man has ever +discovered, or will discover; which Philo saw partially, and yet +clearly; which the Hebrew sages perceived far more deeply, +because more humanly and practically; which Saint Paul the +Platonist, and yet the Apostle, raised to its highest power, when +he declared that the immutable and self-existent Being, for whom +the Greek sages sought, and did not altogether seek in vain, has +gathered together all things both in heaven and in earth in one +inspiring and creating Logos, who is both God and Man?</p> +<p>Be this as it may, we find that from the time of Philo, the +deepest thought of the heathen world began to flow in a theologic +channel. All the great heathen thinkers henceforth are +theologians. In the times of Nero, for instance, Epictetus +the slave, the regenerator of Stoicism, is no mere speculator +concerning entities and quiddities, correct or incorrect. +He is a slave searching for the secret of freedom, and finding +that it consists in escaping not from a master, but from self: +not to wealth and power, but to Jove. He discovers that +Jove is, in some most mysterious, but most real sense, the Father +of men; he learns to look up to that Father as his guide and +friend.</p> +<p>Numenius, again, in the second century, was a man who had +evidently studied Philo. He perceived so deeply, I may say +so exaggeratedly, the analogy between the Jewish and the Platonic +assertions of an Absolute and Eternal Being, side by side with +the assertion of a Divine Teacher of man, that he is said to have +uttered the startling saying: “What is Plato but Moses +talking Attic?” Doubtless Plato is not that: but the +expression is remarkable, as showing the tendency of the +age. He too looks up to God with prayers for the guidance +of his reason. He too enters into speculation concerning +God in His absoluteness, and in His connection with the +universe. “The Primary God,” he says, +“must be free from works and a King; but the Demiurgus must +exercise government, going through the heavens. Through Him +comes this our condition; through Him Reason being sent down in +efflux, holds communion with all who are prepared for it: God +then looking down, and turning Himself to each of us, it comes to +pass that our bodies live and are nourished, receiving strength +from the outer rays which come from Him. But when God turns +us to the contemplation of Himself, it comes to pass that these +things are worn out and consumed, but that the reason lives, +being partaker of a blessed life.”</p> +<p>This passage is exceedingly interesting, as containing both +the marrow of old Hebrew metaphysic, and also certain notional +elements, of which we find no trace in the Scripture, and which +may lead—as we shall find they afterwards did lead—to +confusing the moral with the notional, and finally the notional +with the material; in plain words, to Pantheism.</p> +<p>You find this tendency, in short, in all the philosophers who +flourished between the age of Augustus and the rise of +Alexandrian Neoplatonism. Gibbon, while he gives an +approving pat on the back to his pet “Philosophic +Emperor,” Marcus Aurelius, blinks the fact that +Marcus’s philosophy, like that of Plutarch, contains as an +integral element, a belief which to him would have been, I fear, +simply ludicrous, from its strange analogy with the belief of +John, the Christian Apostle. What is Marcus +Aurelius’s cardinal doctrine? That there is a God +within him, a Word, a Logos, which “has hold of him,” +and who is his teacher and guardian; that over and above his body +and his soul, he has a Reason which is capable of “hearing +that Divine Word, and obeying the monitions of that +God.” What is Plutarch’s cardinal +doctrine? That the same Word, the Dæmon who spoke to +the heart of Socrates, is speaking to him and to every +philosopher; “coming into contact,” he says, +“with him in some wonderful manner;” addressing the +reason of those who, like Socrates, keep their reason pure, not +under the dominion of passion, nor mixing itself greatly with the +body, and therefore quick and sensitive in responding to that +which encountered it.</p> +<p>You see from these two extracts what questions were arising in +the minds of men, and how they touched on ethical and theological +questions. I say arising in their minds: I believe that I +ought to say rather, stirred up in their minds by One greater +than they. At all events, there they appeared, utterly +independent of any Christian teaching. The belief in this +Logos or Dæmon speaking to the Reason of man, was one which +neither Plutarch nor Marcus, neither Numenius nor Ammonius, as +far as we can see, learnt from the Christians; it was the common +ground which they held with them; the common battlefield which +they disputed with them.</p> +<p>Neither have we any reason to suppose that they learnt it from +the Hindoos. That much Hindoo thought mixed with +Neoplatonist speculation we cannot doubt; but there is not a jot +more evidence to prove that Alexandrians borrowed this conception +from the Mahabharavata, than that George Fox the Quaker, or the +author of the “Deutsche Theologie,” did so. +They may have gone to Hindoo philosophy, or rather, to second and +third hand traditions thereof, for corroborations of the belief; +but be sure, it must have existed in their own hearts first, or +they would never have gone thither. Believe it; be sure of +it. No earnest thinker is a plagiarist pure and +simple. He will never borrow from others that which he has +not already, more or less, thought out for himself. When +once a great idea, instinctive, inductive (for the two +expressions are nearer akin than most fancy), has dawned on his +soul, he will welcome lovingly, awfully, any corroboration from +foreign schools, and cry with joy: “Behold, this is not +altogether a dream: for others have found it also. Surely +it must be real, universal, eternal.” No; be sure +there is far more originality (in the common sense of the word), +and far less (in the true sense of the word), than we fancy; and +that it is a paltry and shallow doctrine which represents each +succeeding school as merely the puppets and dupes of the +preceding. More originality, because each earnest man seems +to think out for himself the deepest grounds of his creed. +Less originality, because, as I believe, one common Logos, Word, +Reason, reveals and unveils the same eternal truth to all who +seek and hunger for it.</p> +<p>Therefore we can, as the Christian philosophers of Alexandria +did, rejoice over every truth which their heathen adversaries +beheld, and attribute them, as Clement does, to the highest +source, to the inspiration of the one and universal Logos. +With Clement, philosophy is only hurtful when it is untrue to +itself, and philosophy falsely so called; true philosophy is an +image of the truth, a divine gift bestowed on the Greeks. +The Bible, in his eyes, asserts that all forms of art and wisdom +are from God. The wise in mind have no doubt some peculiar +endowment of nature, but when they have offered themselves for +their work, they receive a spirit of perception from the Highest +Wisdom, giving them a new fitness for it. All severe study, +all cultivation of sympathy, are exercises of this spiritual +endowment. The whole intellectual discipline of the Greeks, +with their philosophy, came down from God to men. +Philosophy, he concludes in one place, carries on “an +inquiry concerning Truth and the nature of Being; and this Truth +is that concerning which the Lord Himself said: ‘I am the +Truth.’ And when the initiated find, or rather +receive, the true philosophy, they have it from the Truth itself; +that is from Him who is true.”</p> +<p>While, then, these two schools had so many grounds in common, +where was their point of divergence? We shall find it, I +believe, fairly expressed in the dying words of Plotinus, the +great father of Neoplatonism. “I am striving to bring +the God which is in us into harmony with the God which is in the +universe.” Whether or not Plotinus actually so spoke, +that was what his disciples not only said that he spoke, but what +they would have wished him to speak. That one sentence +expresses the whole object of their philosophy.</p> +<p>But to that Pantænus, Origen, Clement, and Augustine +would have answered: “And we, on the other hand, assert +that the God which is in the universe, is the same as the God +which is in you, and is striving to bring you into harmony with +Himself.” There is the <i>experimentum +crucis</i>. There is the vast gulf between the Christian +and the Heathen schools, which when any man had overleaped, the +whole problem of the universe was from that moment +inverted. With Plotinus and his school man is seeking for +God: with Clement and his, God is seeking for man. With the +former, God is passive, and man active: with the latter, God is +active, man is passive—passive, that is, in so far as his +business is to listen when he is spoken to, to look at the light +which is unveiled to him, to submit himself to the inward laws +which he feels reproving and checking him at every turn, as +Socrates was reproved and checked by his inward Dæmon.</p> +<p>Whether of these two theorems gives the higher conception +either of the Divine Being, or of man, I leave it for you to +judge. To those old Alexandrian Christians, a being who was +not seeking after every single creature, and trying to raise him, +could not be a Being of absolute Righteousness, Power, Love; +could not be a Being worthy of respect or admiration, even of +philosophic speculation. Human righteousness and love flows +forth disinterestedly to all around it, however unconscious, +however unworthy they may be; human power associated with +goodness, seeks for objects which it may raise and benefit by +that power. We must confess this, with the Christian +schools, or, with the Heathen schools, we must allow another +theory, which brought them into awful depths; which may bring any +generation which holds it into the same depths.</p> +<p>If Clement had asked the Neoplatonists: “You believe, +Plotinus, in an absolutely Good Being. Do you believe that +it desires to shed forth its goodness on all?” +“Of course,” they would have answered, “on +those who seek for it, on the philosopher.”</p> +<p>“But not, it seems, Plotinus, on the herd, the brutal, +ignorant mass, wallowing in those foul crimes above which you +have risen?” And at that question there would have +been not a little hesitation. These brutes in human form, +these souls wallowing in earthly mire, could hardly, in the +Neoplatonists’ eyes, be objects of the Divine desire.</p> +<p>“Then this Absolute Good, you say, Plotinus, has no +relation with them, no care to raise them. In fact, it +cannot raise them, because they have nothing in common with +it. Is that your notion?” And the Neoplatonists +would have, on the whole, allowed that argument. And if +Clement had answered, that such was not his notion of Goodness, +or of a Good Being, and that therefore the goodness of their +Absolute Good, careless of the degradation and misery around it, +must be something very different from his notions of human +goodness; the Neoplatonists would have answered—indeed they +did answer—“After all, why not? Why should the +Absolute Goodness be like our human goodness?” This +is Plotinus’s own belief. It is a question with him, +it was still more a question with those who came after him, +whether virtues could be predicated of the Divine nature; +courage, for instance, of one who had nothing to fear; +self-restraint, of one who had nothing to desire. And thus, +by setting up a different standard of morality for the divine and +for the human, Plotinus gradually arrives at the conclusion, that +virtue is not the end, but the means; not the Divine nature +itself, as the Christian schools held, but only the purgative +process by which man was to ascend into heaven, and which was +necessary to arrive at that nature—that nature itself +being—what?</p> +<p>And how to answer that last question was the abysmal problem +of the whole of Neoplatonic philosophy, in searching for which it +wearied itself out, generation after generation, till tired +equally of seeking and of speaking, it fairly lay down and +died. In proportion as it refused to acknowledge a common +divine nature with the degraded mass, it deserted its first +healthy instinct, which told it that the spiritual world is +identical with the moral world, with right, love, justice; it +tried to find new definitions for the spiritual; it conceived it +to be identical with the intellectual. That did not satisfy +its heart. It had to repeople the spiritual world, which it +had emptied of its proper denizens, with ghosts; to reinvent the +old dæmonologies and polytheisms—from thence to +descend into lower depths, of which we will speak hereafter.</p> +<p>But in the meanwhile we must look at another quarrel which +arose between the two twin schools of Alexandria. The +Neoplatonists said that there is a divine element in man. +The Christian philosophers assented fervently, and raised the old +disagreeable question: “Is it in every man? In the +publicans and harlots as well as in the philosophers? We +say that it is.” And there again the Neoplatonist +finds it over hard to assent to a doctrine, equally contrary to +outward appearance, and galling to Pharisaic pride; and enters +into a hundred honest self-puzzles and self-contradictions, which +seem to justify him at last in saying, No. It is in the +philosopher, who is ready by nature, as Plotinus has it, and as +it were furnished with wings, and not needing to sever himself +from matter like the rest, but disposed already to ascend to that +which is above. And in a degree too, it is in the +“lover,” who, according to Plotinus, has a certain +innate recollection of beauty, and hovers round it, and desires +it, wherever he sees it. Him you may raise to the +apprehension of the one incorporeal Beauty, by teaching him to +separate beauty from the various objects in which it appears +scattered and divided. And it is even in the third class, +the lowest of whom there is hope, namely, the musical man, +capable of being passively affected by beauty, without having any +active appetite for it; the sentimentalist, in short, as we +should call him nowadays.</p> +<p>But for the herd, Plotinus cannot say that there is anything +divine in them. And thus it gradually comes out in all +Neoplatonist writings which I have yet examined, that the Divine +only exists in a man, in proportion as he is conscious of its +existence in him. From which spring two conceptions of the +Divine in man. First, is it a part of him, if it is +dependent for its existence on his consciousness of it? Or is it, +as Philo, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius would have held, as the +Christians held, something independent of him, without him, a +Logos or Word speaking to his reason and conscience? With +this question Plotinus grapples, earnestly, shrewdly, +fairly. If you wish to see how he does it, you should read +the fourth and fifth books of the sixth Ennead, especially if you +be lucky enough to light on a copy of that rare book, +Taylor’s faithful though crabbed translation.</p> +<p>Not that the result of his search is altogether +satisfactory. He enters into subtle and severe +disquisitions concerning soul. Whether it is one or +many. How it can be both one and many. He has the +strongest perception that, to use the noble saying of the +Germans, “Time and Space are no gods.” He sees +clearly that the soul, and the whole unseen world of truly +existing being, is independent of time and space: and yet, after +he has wrestled with the two Titans, through page after page, and +apparently conquered them, they slip in again unawares into the +battle-field, the moment his back is turned. He denies that +the one Reason has parts—it must exist as a whole +wheresoever it exists: and yet he cannot express the relation of +the individual soul to it, but by saying that we are parts of it; +or that each thing, down to the lowest, receives as much soul as +it is capable of possessing. Ritter has worked out at +length, though in a somewhat dry and lifeless way, the hundred +contradictions of this kind which you meet in Plotinus; +contradictions which I suspect to be inseparable from any +philosophy starting from his grounds. Is he not looking for +the spiritual in a region where it does not exist; in the region +of logical conceptions and abstractions, which are not realities, +but only, after all, symbols of our own, whereby we express to +ourselves the processes of our own brain? May not his +Christian contemporaries have been nearer scientific truth, as +well as nearer the common sense and practical belief of mankind, +in holding that that which is spiritual is personal, and can only +be seen or conceived of as residing in persons; and that that +which is personal is moral, and has to do, not with abstractions +of the intellect, but with right and wrong, love and hate, and +all which, in the common instincts of men, involves a free will, +a free judgment, a free responsibility and desert? And that, +therefore, if there were a Spirit, a Dæmonic Element, an +universal Reason, a Logos, a Divine Element, closely connected +with man, that one Reason, that one Divine Element, must be a +person also? At least, so strong was the instinct of even +the Heathen schools in this direction, that the followers of +Plotinus had to fill up the void which yawned between man and the +invisible things after which he yearned, by reviving the whole +old Pagan Polytheism, and adding to it a Dæmonology +borrowed partly from the Chaldees, and partly from the Jewish +rabbis, which formed a descending chain of persons, downward from +the highest Deities to heroes, and to the guardian angel of each +man; the meed of the philosopher being, that by self-culture and +self-restraint he could rise above the tutelage of some lower and +more earthly dæmon, and become the pupil of a God, and +finally a God himself.</p> +<p>These contradictions need not lower the great Father of +Neoplatonism in our eyes, as a moral being. All accounts of +him seem to prove him to have been what Apollo, in a lengthy +oracle, declared him to have been, “good and gentle, and +benignant exceedingly, and pleasant in all his +conversation.” He gave good advice about earthly +matters, was a faithful steward of moneys deposited with him, a +guardian of widows and orphans, a righteous and loving man. +In his practical life, the ascetic and gnostic element comes out +strongly enough. The body, with him, was not evil, neither +was it good; it was simply nothing—why care about it? He +would have no portrait taken of his person: “It was +humiliating enough to be obliged to carry a shadow about with +him, without having a shadow made of that shadow.” He +refused animal food, abstained from baths, declined medicine in +his last illness, and so died about 200 <span +class="GutSmall">A.D.</span></p> +<p>It is in his followers, as one generally sees in such cases, +that the weakness of his conceptions comes out. Plotinus +was an earnest thinker, slavishly enough reverencing the opinion +of Plato, whom he quotes as an infallible oracle, with a +“He says,” as if there were but one he in the +universe: but he tried honestly to develop Plato, or what he +conceived to be Plato, on the method which Plato had laid +down. His dialectic is far superior, both in quantity and +in quality, to that of those who come after him. He is a +seeker. His followers are not. The great work which +marks the second stage of his school is not an inquiry, but a +justification, not only of the Egyptian, but of all possible +theurgies and superstitions; perhaps the best attempt of the kind +which the world has ever seen; that which marks the third is a +mere cloud-castle, an inverted pyramid, not of speculation, but +of dogmatic assertion, patched together from all accessible rags +and bones of the dead world. Some here will, perhaps, guess +from my rough descriptions, that I speak of Iamblichus and +Proclus.</p> +<p>Whether or not Iamblichus wrote the famous work usually +attributed to him, which describes itself as the letter of +Abamnon the Teacher to Porphyry, he became the head of that +school of Neoplatonists who fell back on theurgy and magic, and +utterly swallowed up the more rational, though more hopeless, +school of Porphyry. Not that Porphyry, too, with all his +dislike of magic and the vulgar superstitions—a dislike +intimately connected with his loudly expressed dislike of the +common herd, and therefore of Christianity, as a religion for the +common herd—did not believe a fact or two, which looks to +us, nowadays, somewhat unphilosophical. From him we learn +that one Ammonius, trying to crush Plotinus by magic arts, had +his weapons so completely turned against himself, that all his +limbs were contracted. From him we learn that Plotinus, +having summoned in the temple of Isis his familiar spirit, a god, +and not a mere dæmon, appeared. He writes sensibly +enough however to one Anebos, an Egyptian priest, stating his +doubts as to the popular notions of the Gods, as beings subject +to human passions and vices, and of theurgy and magic, as +material means of compelling them to appear, or alluring them to +favour man. The answer of Abamnon, Anebos, Iamblichus, or +whoever the real author may have been, is worthy of perusal by +every metaphysical student, as a curious phase of thought, not +confined to that time, but rife, under some shape or other, in +every age of the world’s history, and in this as much as in +any. There are many passages full of eloquence, many more +full of true and noble thought: but on the whole, it is the +sewing of new cloth into an old garment; the attempt to suit the +old superstition to the new one, by eclectically picking and +choosing, and special pleading, on both sides; but the rent is +only made worse. There is no base superstition which +Abamnon does not unconsciously justify. And yet he is +rapidly losing sight of the real eternal human germs of truth +round which those superstitions clustered, and is really further +from truth and reason than old Homer or Hesiod, because further +from the simple, universal, everyday facts, and relations, and +duties of man, which are, after all, among the most mysterious, +and also among the most sacred objects which man can +contemplate.</p> +<p>It was not wonderful, however, that Neoplatonism took the +course it did. Spirit, they felt rightly, was meant to rule +matter; it was to be freed from matter only for that very +purpose. No one could well deny that. The +philosopher, as he rose and became, according to Plotinus, a god, +or at least approached toward the gods, must partake of some +mysterious and transcendental power. No one could well deny +that conclusion, granting the premiss. But of what +power? What had he to show as the result of his intimate +communion with an unseen Being? The Christian Schools, who +held that the spiritual is the moral, answered accordingly. +He must show righteousness, and love, and peace in a Holy +Spirit. That is the likeness of God. In proportion as +a man has them, he is partaker of a Divine nature. He can +rise no higher, and he needs no more. Platonists had +said—No, that is only virtue; and virtue is the means, not +the end. We want proof of having something above that; +something more than any man of the herd, any Christian slave, can +perform; something above nature; portents and wonders. So +they set to work to perform wonders; and succeeded, I suppose, +more or less. For now one enters into a whole fairyland of +those very phenomena which are puzzling us so +nowadays—ecstasy, clairvoyance, insensibility to pain, +cures produced by the effect of what we now call mesmerism. +They are all there, these modern puzzles, in those old books of +the long bygone seekers for wisdom. It makes us love them, +while it saddens us to see that their difficulties were the same +as ours, and that there is nothing new under the sun. Of +course, a great deal of it all was +“imagination.” But the question then, as now +is, what is this wonder-working imagination?—unless the +word be used as a mere euphemism for lying, which really, in many +cases, is hardly fair. We cannot wonder at the old +Neoplatonists for attributing these strange phenomena to +spiritual influence, when we see some who ought to know better +doing the same thing now; and others, who more wisely believe +them to be strictly physical and nervous, so utterly unable to +give reasons for them, that they feel it expedient to ignore them +for awhile, till they know more about those physical phenomena +which can be put under some sort of classification, and +attributed to some sort of inductive law.</p> +<p>But again. These ecstasies, cures, and so forth, brought +them rapidly back to the old priestcrafts. The Egyptian +priests, the Babylonian and Jewish sorcerers, had practised all +this as a trade for ages, and reduced it to an art. It was +by sleeping in the temples of the deities, after due mesmeric +manipulations, that cures were even then effected. Surely +the old priests were the people to whom to go for +information. The old philosophers of Greece were +venerable. How much more those of the East, in comparison +with whom the Greeks were children? Besides, if these +dæmons and deities were so near them, might it not be +possible to behold them? They seemed to have given up +caring much for the world and its course—</p> + +<blockquote><p> Effugerant +adytis templisque relictis<br /> +Dî quibus imperium steterat.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The old priests used to make them appear—perhaps they +might do it again. And if spirit could act directly and +preternaturally on matter, in spite of the laws of matter, +perhaps matter might act on spirit. After all, were matter +and spirit so absolutely different? Was not spirit some +sort of pervading essence, some subtle ethereal fluid, differing +from matter principally in being less gross and dense? This +was the point to which they went down rapidly enough; the point +to which all philosophies, I firmly believe, will descend, which +do not keep in sight that the spiritual means the moral. In +trying to make it mean exclusively the intellectual, they will +degrade it to mean the merely logical and abstract; and when that +is found to be a barren and lifeless phantom, a mere projection +of the human brain, attributing reality to mere conceptions and +names, and confusing the subject with the object, as logicians +say truly the Neoplatonists did, then in despair, the school will +try to make the spiritual something real, or, at least, something +conceivable, by reinvesting it with the properties of matter, and +talking of it as if it were some manner of gas, or heat, or +electricity, or force, pervading time and space, conditioned by +the accidents of brute matter, and a part of that nature which is +born to die.</p> +<p>The culmination of all this confusion we see in Proclus. +The unfortunate Hypatia, who is the most important personage +between him and Iamblichus, has left no writings to our times; we +can only judge of her doctrine by that of her instructors and her +pupils. Proclus was taught by the men who had heard her +lecture; and the golden chain of the Platonic succession +descended from her to him. His throne, however, was at +Athens, not at Alexandria. After the murder of the maiden +philosopher, Neoplatonism prudently retired to Greece. But +Proclus is so essentially the child of the Alexandrian school +that we cannot pass him over. Indeed, according to M. +Cousin, as I am credibly informed, he is <i>the</i> Greek +philosopher; the flower and crown of all its schools; in whom, +says the learned Frenchman, “are combined, and from whom +shine forth, in no irregular or uncertain rays, Orpheus, +Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Plotinus, Porphyry, and +Iamblichus;” and who “had so comprehended all +religions in his mind, and paid them such equal reverence, that +he was, as it were, the priest of the whole universe!”</p> +<p>I have not the honour of knowing much of M. Cousin’s +works. I never came across them but on one small matter of +fact, and on that I found him copying at second hand an +anachronism which one would have conceived palpable to any reader +of the original authorities. This is all I know of him, +saving these his raptures over Proclus, of which I have quoted +only a small portion, and of which I can only say, in Mr. Thomas +Carlyle’s words, “What things men will worship, in +their extreme need!” Other moderns, however, have expressed +their admiration of Proclus; and, no doubt, many neat sayings may +be found in him (for after all he was a Greek), which will be +both pleasing and useful to those who consider philosophic method +to consist in putting forth strings of brilliant apophthegms, +careless about either their consistency or coherence: but of the +method of Plato or Aristotle, any more than of that of Kant or +Mill, you will find nothing in him. He seems to my +simplicity to be at once the most timid and servile of +commentators, and the most cloudy of declaimers. He can +rave symbolism like Jacob Böhmen, but without an atom of his +originality and earnestness. He can develop an inverted +pyramid of dæmonology, like Father Newman himself, but +without an atom of his art, his knowledge of human +cravings. He combines all schools, truly, Chaldee and +Egyptian as well as Greek; but only scraps from their mummies, +drops from their quintessences, which satisfy the heart and +conscience as little as they do the logical faculties. His +Greek gods and heroes, even his Alcibiades and Socrates, are +“ideas;” that is, symbols of certain notions or +qualities: their flesh and bones, their heart and brain, have +been distilled away, till nothing is left but a word, a notion, +which may patch a hole in his huge heaven-and-earth-embracing +system. He, too, is a commentator and a deducer; all has +been discovered; and he tries to discover nothing more. +Those who followed him seem to have commented on his +comments. With him Neoplatonism properly ends. Is its +last utterance a culmination or a fall? Have the Titans +sealed heaven, or died of old age, “exhibiting,” as +Gibbon says of them, “a deplorable instance of the senility +of the human mind?” Read Proclus, and judge for yourselves: +but first contrive to finish everything else you have to do which +can possibly be useful to any human being. Life is short, +and Art—at least the art of obtaining practical guidance +from the last of the Alexandrians—very long.</p> +<p>And yet—if Proclus and his school became gradually +unfaithful to the great root-idea of their philosophy, we must +not imitate them. We must not believe that the last of the +Alexandrians was under no divine teaching, because he had +be-systemed himself into confused notions of what that teaching +was like. Yes, there was good in poor old Proclus; and it +too came from the only source whence all good comes. Were +there no good in him I could not laugh at him as I have done; I +could only hate him. There are moments when he rises above +his theories; moments when he recurs in spirit, if not in the +letter, to the faith of Homer, almost to the faith of +Philo. Whether these are the passages of his which his +modern admirers prize most, I cannot tell. I should fancy +not: nevertheless I will read you one of them.</p> +<p>He is about to commence his discourses on the Parmenides, that +book in which we generally now consider that Plato has been most +untrue to himself, and fallen from his usual inductive method to +the ground of a mere <i>à priori</i> theoriser—and +yet of which Proclus is reported to have said, and, I should +conceive, said honestly, that if it, the Timæus, and the +Orphic fragments were preserved, he did not care whether every +other book on earth were destroyed. But how does he +commence?</p> +<p>“I pray to all the gods and goddesses to guide my reason +in the speculation which lies before me, and having kindled in me +the pure light of truth, to direct my mind upward to the very +knowledge of the things which are, and to open the doors of my +soul to receive the divine guidance of Plato, and, having +directed my knowledge into the very brightness of being, to +withdraw me from the various forms of opinion, from the apparent +wisdom, from the wandering about things which do not exist, by +that purest intellectual exercise about the things which do +exist, whereby alone the eye of the soul is nourished and +brightened, as Socrates says in the Phædrus; and that the +Noetic Gods will give to me the perfect reason, and the Noeric +Gods the power which leads up to this, and that the rulers of the +Universe above the heaven will impart to me an energy unshaken by +material notions and emancipated from them, and those to whom the +world is given as their dominion a winged life, and the angelic +choirs a true manifestation of divine things, and the good +dæmons the fulness of the inspiration which comes from the +Gods, and the heroes a grand, and venerable, and lofty fixedness +of mind, and the whole divine race together a perfect preparation +for sharing in Plato’s most mystical and far-seeing +speculations, which he declares to us himself in the Parmenides, +with the profundity befitting such topics, but which <i>he</i> +(<i>i.e.</i> his master Syrianus) completed by his most pure and +luminous apprehensions, who did most truly share the Platonic +feast, and was the medium for transmitting the divine truth, the +guide in our speculations, and the hierophant of these divine +words; who, as I think, came down as a type of philosophy, to do +good to the souls that are here, in place of idols, sacrifices, +and the whole mystery of purification, a leader of salvation to +the men who are now and who shall be hereafter. And may the +whole band of those who are above us be propitious; and may the +whole force which they supply be at hand, kindling before us that +light which, proceeding from them, may guide us to +them.”</p> +<p>Surely this is an interesting document. The last Pagan +Greek prayer, I believe, which we have on record; the death-wail +of the old world—not without a touch of melody. One +cannot altogether admire the style; it is inflated, pedantic, +written, I fear, with a considerable consciousness that he was +saying the right thing and in the very finest way: but still it +is a prayer. A cry for light—by no means, certainly, +like that noble one in Tennyson’s “In +Memoriam:”</p> +<blockquote><p>So runs my dream. But what am I?<br /> + An infant crying in the night;<br /> + An infant crying for the light;<br /> +And with no language but a cry.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yet he asks for light: perhaps he had settled already for +himself—like too many more of us—what sort of light +he chose to have: but still the eye is turned upward to the sun, +not inward in conceited fancy that self is its own +illumination. He asks—surely not in vain. There +was light to be had for asking. That prayer certainly was +not answered in the letter: it may have been ere now in the +spirit. And yet it is a sad prayer enough. Poor old +man, and poor old philosophy!</p> +<p>This he and his teachers had gained by despising the simpler +and yet far profounder doctrine of the Christian schools, that +the Logos, the Divine Teacher in whom both Christians and +Heathens believed, was the very archetype of men, and that He had +proved that fact by being made flesh, and dwelling bodily among +them, that they might behold His glory, full of grace and truth, +and see that it was at once the perfection of man and the +perfection of God: that that which was most divine was most +human, and that which was most human, most divine. That was +the outcome of <i>their</i> metaphysic, that they had found the +Absolute One; because One existed in whom the apparent antagonism +between that which is eternally and that which becomes in time, +between the ideal and the actual, between the spiritual and the +material, in a word, between God and man, was explained and +reconciled for ever.</p> +<p>And Proclus’s prayer, on the other hand, was the outcome +of the Neoplatonists’ metaphysic, the end of all +<i>their</i> search after the One, the Indivisible, the Absolute, +this cry to all manner of innumerable phantoms, ghosts of ideas, +ghosts of traditions, neither things nor persons, but thoughts, +to give the philosopher each something or other, according to the +nature of each. Not that he very clearly defines what each +is to give him; but still he feels himself in want of all manner +of things, and it is as well to have as many friends at court as +possible—Noetic Gods, Noeric Gods, rulers, angels, +dæmons, heroes—to enable him to do what? To +understand Plato’s most mystical and far-seeing +speculations. The Eternal Nous, the Intellectual Teacher +has vanished further and further off; further off still some dim +vision of a supreme Goodness. Infinite spaces above that +looms through the mist of the abyss a Primæval One. +But even that has a predicate, for it is one; it is not pure +essence. Must there not be something beyond that again, +which is not even one, but is nameless, inconceivable, +absolute? What an abyss! How shall the human mind +find anything whereon to rest, in the vast nowhere between it and +the object of its search? The search after the One issues +in a wail to the innumerable; and kind gods, angels, and heroes, +not human indeed, but still conceivable enough to satisfy at +least the imagination, step in to fill the void, as they have +done since, and may do again; and so, as Mr. Carlyle has it, +“the bottomless pit got roofed over,” as it may be +again ere long.</p> +<p>Are we then to say, that Neoplatonism was a failure? +That Alexandria, during four centuries of profound and earnest +thought, added nothing? Heaven forbid that we should say so of a +philosophy which has exercised on European thought, at the crisis +of its noblest life and action, an influence as great as did the +Aristotelian system during the Middle Ages. We must never +forget, that during the two centuries which commence with the +fall of Constantinople, and end with our civil wars, not merely +almost all great thinkers, but courtiers, statesmen, warriors, +poets, were more or less Neoplatonists. The Greek +grammarians, who migrated into Italy, brought with them the works +of Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus; and their gorgeous reveries +were welcomed eagerly by the European mind, just revelling in the +free thought of youthful manhood. And yet the Alexandrian +impotence for any practical and social purposes was to be +manifested, as utterly as it was in Alexandria or in Athens of +old. Ficinus and Picus of Mirandola worked no deliverance, +either for Italian morals or polity, at a time when such +deliverance was needed bitterly enough. Neoplatonism was +petted by luxurious and heathen popes, as an elegant play of the +cultivated fancy, which could do their real power, their +practical system, neither good nor harm. And one cannot +help feeling, while reading the magnificent oration on +Supra-sensual Love, which Castiglione, in his admirable book +“The Courtier,” puts into the mouth of the profligate +Bembo, how near mysticism may lie not merely to dilettantism or +to Pharisaism, but to sensuality itself. But in England, +during Elizabeth’s reign, the practical weakness of +Neoplatonism was compensated by the noble practical life which +men were compelled to live in those great times; by the strong +hold which they had of the ideas of family and national life, of +law and personal faith. And I cannot but believe it to have +been a mighty gain to such men as Sidney, Raleigh, and Spenser, +that they had drunk, however slightly, of the wells of Proclus +and Plotinus. One cannot read Spenser’s “Fairy +Queen,” above all his Garden of Adonis, and his cantos on +Mutability, without feeling that his Neoplatonism must have kept +him safe from many a dark eschatological superstition, many a +narrow and bitter dogmatism, which was even then tormenting the +English mind, and must have helped to give him altogether a freer +and more loving conception, if not a consistent or accurate one, +of the wondrous harmony of that mysterious analogy between the +physical and the spiritual, which alone makes poetry (and I had +almost said philosophy also) possible, and have taught him to +behold alike in suns and planets, in flowers and insects, in man +and in beings higher than man, one glorious order of love and +wisdom, linking them all to Him from whom they all proceed, rays +from His cloudless sunlight, mirrors of His eternal glory.</p> +<p>But as the Elizabethan age, exhausted by its own fertility, +gave place to the Caroline, Neoplatonism ran through much the +same changes. It was good for us, after all, that the plain +strength of the Puritans, unphilosophical as they were, swept it +away. One feels in reading the later Neoplatonists, Henry +More, Smith, even Cudworth (valuable as he is), that the old +accursed distinction between the philosopher, the scholar, the +illuminate, and the plain righteous man, was growing up again +very fast. The school from which the “Religio +Medici” issued was not likely to make any bad men good, or +any foolish men wise.</p> +<p>Besides, as long as men were continuing to quote poor old +Proclus as an irrefragable authority, and believing that he, +forsooth, represented the sense of Plato, the new-born Baconian +philosophy had but little chance in the world. Bacon had +been right in his dislike of Platonism years before, though he +was unjust to Plato himself. It was Proclus whom he was +really reviling; Proclus as Plato’s commentator and +representative. The lion had for once got into the +ass’s skin, and was treated accordingly. The true +Platonic method, that dialectic which the Alexandrians gradually +abandoned, remains yet to be tried, both in England and in +Germany; and I am much mistaken, if, when fairly used, it be not +found the ally, not the enemy, of the Baconian philosophy; in +fact, the inductive method applied to words, as the expressions +of Metaphysic Laws, instead of to natural phenomena, as the +expressions of Physical ones. If you wish to see the +highest instances of this method, read Plato himself, not +Proclus. If you wish to see how the same method can be +applied to Christian truth, read the dialectic passages in +Augustine’s “Confessions.” Whether or not +you shall agree with their conclusions, you will not be likely, +if you have a truly scientific habit of mind, to complain that +they want either profundity, severity, or simplicity.</p> +<p>So concludes the history of one of the Alexandrian schools of +Metaphysic. What was the fate of the other is a subject +which I must postpone to my next Lecture.</p> +<h2>LECTURE IV.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT.</span></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">tried</span> to point out, in my last +Lecture, the causes which led to the decay of the Pagan +metaphysic of Alexandria. We have now to consider the fate +of the Christian school.</p> +<p>You may have remarked that I have said little or nothing about +the positive dogmas of Clement, Origen, and their disciples; but +have only brought out the especial points of departure between +them and the Heathens. My reason for so doing was twofold: +first, I could not have examined them without entering on +controversial ground; next, I am very desirous to excite some of +my hearers, at least, to examine these questions for +themselves.</p> +<p>I entreat them not to listen to the hasty sneer to which many +of late have given way, that the Alexandrian divines were mere +mystics, who corrupted Christianity by an admixture of Oriental +and Greek thought. My own belief is that they expanded and +corroborated Christianity, in spite of great errors and defects +on certain points, far more than they corrupted it; that they +presented it to the minds of cultivated and scientific men in the +only form in which it would have satisfied their philosophic +aspirations, and yet contrived, with wonderful wisdom, to ground +their philosophy on the very same truths which they taught to the +meanest slaves, and to appeal in the philosophers to the same +inward faculty to which they appealed in the slave; namely, to +that inward eye, that moral sense and reason, whereby each and +every man can, if he will, “judge of himself that which is +right.” I boldly say that I believe the Alexandrian +Christians to have made the best, perhaps the only, attempt yet +made by men, to proclaim a true world-philosophy; whereby I mean +a philosophy common to all races, ranks, and intellects, +embracing the whole phenomena of humanity, and not an arbitrarily +small portion of them, and capable of being understood and +appreciated by every human being from the highest to the +lowest. And when you hear of a system of reserve in +teaching, a <i>disciplina arcani</i>, of an esoteric and +exoteric, an inner and outer school, among these men, you must +not be frightened at the words, as if they spoke of priestcraft, +or an intellectual aristocracy, who kept the kernel of the nut +for themselves, and gave the husks to the mob. It was not +so with the Christian schools; it was so with the Heathen +ones. The Heathens were content that the mob, the herd, +should have the husks. Their avowed intention and wish was +to leave the herd, as they called them, in the mere outward +observance of the old idolatries, while they themselves, the +cultivated philosophers, had the monopoly of those deeper +spiritual truths which were contained under the old +superstitions, and were too sacred to be profaned by the vulgar +eyes. The Christian method was the exact opposite. +They boldly called those vulgar eyes to enter into the very holy +of holies, and there gaze on the very deepest root-ideas of their +philosophy. They owned no ground for their own speculations +which was not common to the harlots and the slaves around. +And this was what enabled them to do this; this was what brought +on them the charge of demagogism, the hatred of philosophers, the +persecution of princes—that their ground was a moral +ground, and not a merely intellectual one; that they started, not +from any notions of the understanding, but from the inward +conscience, that truly pure Reason in which the intellectual and +the moral spheres are united, which they believed to exist, +however dimmed or crushed, in every human being, capable of being +awakened, purified, and raised up to a noble and heroic +life. They concealed nothing moral from their disciples: +only they forbade them to meddle with intellectual matters, +before they had had a regular intellectual training. The +witnesses of reason and conscience were sufficient guides for all +men, and at them the many might well stop short. The +teacher only needed to proceed further, not into a higher region, +but into a lower one, namely, into the region of the logical +understanding, and there make deductions from, and illustrations +of, those higher truths which he held in common with every slave, +and held on the same ground as they.</p> +<p>And the consequence of this method of philosophising was +patent. They were enabled to produce, in the lives of +millions, generation after generation, a more immense moral +improvement than the world had ever seen before. Their +disciples did actually become righteous and good men, just in +proportion as they were true to the lessons they learnt. +They did, for centuries, work a distinct and palpable deliverance +on the earth; while all the solemn and earnest meditation of the +Neoplatonists, however good or true, worked no deliverance +whatsoever. Plotinus longed at one time to make a practical +attempt. He asked the Emperor Gallienus, his patron, to +rebuild for him a city in Campania; to allow him to call it +Platonopolis, and put it into the hands of him and his disciples, +that they might there realise Plato’s ideal republic. +Luckily for the reputation of Neoplatonism, the scheme was +swamped by the courtiers of Gallienus, and the earth was saved +the sad and ludicrous sight of a realised Laputa; probably a very +quarrelsome one. That was his highest practical conception: +the foundation of a new society: not the regeneration of society +as it existed.</p> +<p>That work was left for the Christian schools; and up to a +certain point they performed it. They made men good. +<i>This</i> was the test, which of the schools was in the right: +this was the test, which of the two had hold of the eternal roots +of metaphysic. Cicero says, that he had learnt more +philosophy from the Laws of the Twelve Tables than from all the +Greeks. Clement and his school might have said the same of +the Hebrew Ten Commandments and Jewish Law, which are so +marvellously analogous to the old Roman laws, founded, as they +are, on the belief in a Supreme Being, a Jupiter—literally +a Heavenly Father—who is the source and the sanction of +law; of whose justice man’s justice is the pattern; who is +the avenger of crimes against marriage, property, life; on whom +depends the sanctity of an oath. And so, to compare great +things with small, there was a truly practical human element here +in the Christian teaching; purely ethical and metaphysical, and +yet palpable to the simplest and lowest, which gave to it a +regenerating force which the highest efforts of Neoplatonism +could never attain.</p> +<p>And yet Alexandrian Christianity, notoriously enough, rotted +away, and perished hideously. Most true. But what if +the causes of its decay and death were owing to its being untrue +to itself?</p> +<p>I do not say that they had no excuses for being untrue to +their own faith. We are not here to judge them. That +peculiar subtlety of mind, which rendered the Alexandrians the +great thinkers of the then world, had with Christians, as well as +Heathens, the effect of alluring them away from practice to +speculation. The Christian school, as was to be expected +from the moral ground of their philosophy, yielded to it far more +slowly than the Heathen, but they did yield, and especially after +they had conquered and expelled the Heathen school. +Moreover, the long battle with the Heathen school had stirred up +in them habits of exclusiveness, of denunciation; the spirit +which cannot assert a fact, without dogmatising rashly and +harshly on the consequences of denying that fact. Their +minds assumed a permanent habit of combativeness. Having no +more Heathens to fight, they began fighting each other, +excommunicating each other; denying to all who differed from them +any share of that light, to claim which for all men had been the +very ground of their philosophy. Not that they would have +refused the Logos to all men in words. They would have +cursed a man for denying the existence of the Logos in every man; +but they would have equally cursed him for acting on his +existence in practice, and treating the heretic as one who had +that within him to which a preacher might appeal. Thus they +became Dogmatists; that is, men who assert a truth so fiercely, +as to forget that a truth is meant to be used, and not merely +asserted—if, indeed, the fierce assertion of a truth in +frail man is not generally a sign of some secret doubt of it, and +in inverse proportion to his practical living faith in it: just +as he who is always telling you that he is a man, is not the most +likely to behave like a man. And why did this befall +them? Because they forgot practically that the light +proceeded from a Person. They could argue over notions and +dogmas deduced from the notion of His personality: but they were +shut up in those notions; they had forgotten that if He was a +Person, His eye was on them, His rule and kingdom within them; +and that if He was a Person, He had a character, and that that +character was a righteous and a loving character: and therefore +they were not ashamed, in defending these notions and dogmas +about Him, to commit acts abhorrent to His character, to lie, to +slander, to intrigue, to hate, even to murder, for the sake of +what they madly called His glory: but which was really only their +own glory—the glory of their own dogmas; of propositions +and conclusions in their own brain, which, true or false, were +equally heretical in their mouths, because they used them only as +watchwords of division. Orthodox or unorthodox, they lost +the knowledge of God, for they lost the knowledge of +righteousness, and love, and peace. That Divine Logos, and +theology as a whole, receded further and further aloft into +abysmal heights, as it became a mere dreary system of dead +scientific terms, having no practical bearing on their hearts and +lives; and then they, as the Neoplatonists had done before them, +filled up the void by those dæmonologies, images, base +Fetish worships, which made the Mohammedan invaders regard them, +and I believe justly, as polytheists and idolaters, base as the +pagan Arabs of the desert.</p> +<p>I cannot but believe them, moreover, to have been untrue to +the teaching of Clement and his school, in that coarse and +materialist admiration of celibacy which ruined Alexandrian +society, as their dogmatic ferocity ruined Alexandrian +thought. The Creed which taught them that in the person of +the Incarnate Logos, that which was most divine had been proved +to be most human, that which was most human had been proved to be +most divine, ought surely to have given to them, as it has given +to modern Europe, nobler, clearer, simpler views of the true +relation of the sexes. However, on this matter they did not +see their way. Perhaps, in so debased an age, so profligate +a world, as that out of which Christianity had risen, it was +impossible to see the true beauty and sanctity of those primary +bonds of humanity. And while the relation of the sexes was +looked on in a wrong light, all other social relations were +necessarily also misconceived. “The very ideas of +family and national life,” as it has been said, +“those two divine roots of the Church, severed from which +she is certain to wither away into that most cruel and most +godless of spectres, a religious world, had perished in the East, +from the evil influence of the universal practice of +slave-holding, as well as from the degradation of that Jewish +nation which had been for ages the great witness for these ideas; +and all classes, like their forefather Adam—like, indeed, +the Old Adam—the selfish, cowardly, brute nature in every +man and in every age—were shifting the blame of sin from +their own consciences to human relationships and duties, and +therein, to the God who had appointed them; and saying, as of +old, ‘The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me +of the tree, and I did eat.’”</p> +<p>Much as Christianity did, even in Egypt, for woman, by +asserting her moral and spiritual equality with the man, there +seems to have been no suspicion that she was the true complement +of the man, not merely by softening him, but by strengthening +him; that true manhood can be no more developed without the +influence of the woman, than true womanhood without the influence +of the man. There is no trace among the Egyptian celibates +of that chivalrous woman-worship which our Gothic forefathers +brought with them into the West, which shed a softening and +ennobling light round the mediæval convent life, and warded +off for centuries the worst effects of monasticism. Among +the religious of Egypt, the monk regarded the nun, the nun the +monk, with dread and aversion; while both looked on the married +population of the opposite sex with a coarse contempt and disgust +which is hardly credible, did not the foul records of it stand +written to this day, in Rosweyde’s extraordinary +“Vitæ Patrum Eremiticorum;” no barren school of +metaphysic, truly, for those who are philosophic enough to +believe that all phenomena whatsoever of the human mind are +worthy matter for scientific induction.</p> +<p>And thus grew up in Egypt a monastic world, of such vastness +that it was said to equal in number the laity. This +produced, no doubt, an enormous increase in the actual amount of +moral evil. But it produced three other effects, which were +the ruin of Alexandria. First, a continually growing +enervation and numerical decrease of the population; next, a +carelessness of, and contempt for social and political life; and +lastly, a most brutalising effect on the lay population; who, +told that they were, and believing themselves to be, beings of a +lower order, and living by a lower standard, sank down more and +more generation after generation. They were of the world, +and the ways of the world they must follow. Political life +had no inherent sanctity or nobleness; why act holily and nobly +in it? Family life had no inherent sanctity or nobleness; +why act holily and nobly in it either, if there were no holy, +noble, and divine principle or ground for it? And thus grew +up, both in Egypt, Syria, and Byzantium, a chaos of profligacy +and chicanery, in rulers and people, in the home and the market, +in the theatre and the senate, such as the world has rarely seen +before or since; a chaos which reached its culmination in the +seventh century, the age of Justinian and Theodora, perhaps the +two most hideous sovereigns, worshipped by the most hideous +empire of parasites and hypocrites, cowards and wantons, that +ever insulted the long-suffering of a righteous God.</p> +<p>But, for Alexandria at least, the cup was now full. In +the year 640 the Alexandrians were tearing each other in pieces +about some Jacobite and Melchite controversy, to me +incomprehensible, to you unimportant, because the fighters on +both sides seem to have lost (as all parties do in their old age) +the knowledge of what they were fighting for, and to have so +bewildered the question with personal intrigues, spites, and +quarrels, as to make it nearly as enigmatic as that famous +contemporary war between the blue and green factions at +Constantinople, which began by backing in the theatre, the +charioteers who drove in blue dresses, against those wild drove +in green; then went on to identify themselves each with one of +the prevailing theological factions; gradually developed, the one +into an aristocratic, the other into a democratic, religious +party; and ended by a civil war in the streets of Constantinople, +accompanied by the most horrible excesses, which had nearly, at +one time, given up the city to the flames, and driven Justinian +from his throne.</p> +<p>In the midst of these Jacobite and Melchite controversies and +riots, appeared before the city the armies of certain wild and +unlettered Arab tribes. A short and fruitless struggle +followed; and, strange to say, a few months swept away from the +face of the earth, not only the wealth, the commerce, the +castles, and the liberty, but the philosophy and the Christianity +of Alexandria; crushed to powder by one fearful blow, all that +had been built up by Alexander and the Ptolemies, by Clement and +the philosophers, and made void, to all appearance, nine hundred +years of human toil. The people, having no real hold on +their hereditary Creed, accepted, by tens of thousands, that of +the Mussulman invaders. The Christian remnant became +tributaries; and Alexandria dwindled, from that time forth, into +a petty seaport town.</p> +<p>And now—can we pass over this new metaphysical school of +Alexandria? Can we help inquiring in what the strength of +Islamism lay? I, at least, cannot. I cannot help +feeling that I am bound to examine in what relation the creed of +Omar and Amrou stands to the Alexandrian speculations of five +hundred years, and how it had power to sweep those speculations +utterly from the Eastern mind. It is a difficult problem; +to me, as a Christian priest, a very awful problem. What +more awful historic problem, than to see the lower creed +destroying the higher? to see God, as it were, undoing his own +work, and repenting Him that He had made man? Awful indeed: +but I can honestly say, that it is one from the investigation of +which I have learnt—I cannot yet tell how much: and of this +I am sure, that without that old Alexandrian philosophy, I should +not have been able to do justice to Islam; without Islam I should +not have been able to find in that Alexandrian philosophy, an +ever-living and practical element.</p> +<p>I must, however, first entreat you to dismiss from your minds +the vulgar notion that Mohammed was in anywise a bad man, or a +conscious deceiver, pretending to work miracles, or to do things +which he did not do. He sinned in one instance: but, as far +as I can see, only in that one—I mean against what he must +have known to be right. I allude to his relaxing in his own +case those wise restrictions on polygamy which he had +proclaimed. And yet, even in this case, the desire for a +child may have been the true cause of his weakness. He did +not see the whole truth, of course: but he was an infinitely +better man than the men around: perhaps, all in all, one of the +best men of his day. Many here may have read Mr. +Carlyle’s vindication of Mohammed in his Lectures on Hero +Worship; to those who have not, I shall only say, that I entreat +them to do so; and that I assure them, that though I differ in +many things utterly from Mr. Carlyle’s inferences and +deductions in that lecture, yet that I am convinced, from my own +acquaintance with the original facts and documents, that the +picture there drawn of Mohammed is a true and a just description +of a much-calumniated man.</p> +<p>Now, what was the strength of Islam? The common answer +is, fanaticism and enthusiasm. To such answers I can only +rejoin: Such terms must be defined before they are used, and we +must be told what fanaticism and enthusiasm are. Till then +I have no more <i>à priori</i> respect for a long word +ending in -ism or -asm than I have for one ending in -ation or +-ality. But while fanaticism and enthusiasm are being +defined—a work more difficult than is commonly +fancied—we will go on to consider another answer. We +are told that the strength of Islam lay in the hope of their +sensuous Paradise and fear of their sensuous Gehenna. If +so, this is the first and last time in the world’s history +that the strength of any large body of people—perhaps of +any single man—lay in such a hope. History gives us +innumerable proofs that such merely selfish motives are the +parents of slavish impotence, of pedantry and conceit, of pious +frauds, often of the most devilish cruelty: but, as far as my +reading extends, of nothing better. Moreover, the Christian +Greeks had much the same hopes on those points as the Mussulmans; +and similar causes should produce similar effects: but those +hopes gave them no strength. Besides, according to the +Mussulmans’ own account, this was <i>not</i> their great +inspiring idea; and it is absurd to consider the wild +battle-cries of a few imaginative youths, about black-eyed and +green-kerchiefed Houris calling to them from the skies, as +representing the average feelings of a generation of sober and +self-restraining men, who showed themselves actuated by far +higher motives.</p> +<p>Another answer, and one very popular now, is that the +Mussulmans were strong, because they believed what they said; and +the Greeks weak, because they did not believe what they +said. From this notion I shall appeal to another doctrine +of the very same men who put it forth, and ask them, Can any man +be strong by believing a lie? Have you not told us, nobly +enough, that every lie is by its nature rotten, doomed to death, +certain to prove its own impotence, and be shattered to atoms the +moment you try to use it, to bring it into rude actual contact +with fact, and Nature, and the eternal laws? Faith to be +strong must be faith in something which is not one’s self; +faith in something eternal, something objective, something true, +which would exist just as much though we and all the world +disbelieved it. The strength of belief comes from that +which is believed in; if you separate it from that, it becomes a +mere self-opinion, a sensation of positiveness; and what sort of +strength that will give, history will tell us in the tragedies of +the Jews who opposed Titus, of the rabble who followed Walter the +Penniless to the Crusades, of the Munster Anabaptists, and many +another sad page of human folly. It may give the fury of +idiots; not the deliberate might of valiant men. Let us +pass this by, then; believing that faith can only give strength +where it is faith in something true and right: and go on to +another answer almost as popular as the last.</p> +<p>We are told that the might of Islam lay in a certain innate +force and savage virtue of the Arab character. If we have +discovered this in the followers of Mohammed, they certainly had +not discovered it in themselves. They spoke of themselves, +rightly or wrongly, as men who had received a divine light, and +that light a moral light, to teach them to love that which was +good, and refuse that which was evil; and to that divine light +they stedfastly and honestly attributed every right action of +their lives. Most noble and affecting, in my eyes, is that +answer of Saad’s aged envoy to Yezdegird, king of Persia, +when he reproached him with the past savagery and poverty of the +Arabs. “Whatsoever thou hast said,” answered +the old man, “regarding the former condition of the Arabs +is true. Their food <i>was</i> green lizards; they buried +their infant daughters alive; nay, some of them feasted on dead +carcases, and drank blood; while others slew their kinsfolk, and +thought themselves great and valiant, when by so doing they +became possessed of more property. They <i>were</i> clothed +with hair garments, they knew not good from evil, and made no +distinction between that which was lawful and unlawful. +Such was our state; but God in his mercy has sent us, by a holy +prophet, a sacred volume, which teaches us the true +faith.”</p> +<p>These words, I think, show us the secret of Islam. They +are a just comment on that short and rugged chapter of the Koran +which is said to have been Mohammed’s first attempt either +at prophecy or writing; when, after long fasting and meditation +among the desert hills, under the glorious eastern stars, he came +down and told his good Kadijah that he had found a great thing, +and that she must help him to write it down. And what was +this which seemed to the unlettered camel-driver so priceless a +treasure? Not merely that God was one God—vast as +that discovery was—but that he was a God “who showeth +to man the thing which he knew not;” a “most merciful +God;” a God, in a word, who could be trusted; a God who +would teach and strengthen; a God, as he said, who would give him +courage to set his face like a flint, and would put an answer in +his mouth when his idolatrous countrymen cavilled and sneered at +his message to them, to turn from their idols of wood and stone, +and become righteous men, as Abraham their forefather was +righteous.</p> +<p>“A God who showeth to man the thing which he knew +not.” That idea gave might to Islam, because it was a +real idea, an eternal fact; the result of a true insight into the +character of God. And that idea alone, believe me, will +give conquering might either to creed, philosophy, or heart of +man. Each will be strong, each will endure, in proportion +as it believes that God is one who shows to man the thing which +he knew not: as it believes, in short, in that Logos of which +Saint John wrote, that He was the light who lightens every man +who comes into the world.</p> +<p>In a word, the wild Koreish had discovered, more or less +clearly, that end and object of all metaphysic whereof I have +already spoken so often; that external and imperishable beauty +for which Plato sought of old; and had seen that its name was +righteousness, and that it dwelt absolutely in an absolutely +righteous person; and moreover, that this person was no careless +self-contented epicurean deity; but that He was, as they loved to +call Him, the most merciful God; that He cared for men; that He +desired to make men righteous. Of that they could not +doubt. The fact was palpable, historic, present. To +them the degraded Koreish of the desert, who as they believed, +and I think believed rightly, had fallen from the old Monotheism +of their forefathers Abraham and Ismael, into the lowest +fetishism, and with that into the lowest brutality and +wretchedness—to them, while they were making idols of wood +and stone; eating dead carcases; and burying their daughters +alive; careless of chastity, of justice, of property; sunk in +unnatural crimes, dead in trespasses and sins; hateful and hating +one another—a man, one of their own people had come, +saying: “I have a message from the one righteous God. +His curse is on all this, for it is unlike Himself. He will +have you righteous men, after the pattern of your forefather +Abraham. Be that, and arise, body, soul, and spirit, out of +your savagery and brutishness. Then you shall be able to +trample under font the profligate idolaters, to sweep the Greek +tyrants from the land which they have been oppressing for +centuries, and to recover the East for its rightful heirs, the +children of Abraham.” Was this not, in every sense, a +message from God? I must deny the philosophy of Clement and +Augustine, I must deny my own conscience, my own reason, I must +outrage my own moral sense, and confess that I have no immutable +standard of right, that I know no eternal source of right, if I +deny it to have been one; if I deny what seems to me the palpable +historic fact, that those wild Koreish had in them a reason and a +conscience, which could awaken to that message, and perceive its +boundless beauty, its boundless importance, and that they did +accept that message, and lived by it in proportion as they +received it fully, such lives as no men in those times, and few +in after times, have been able to live. If I feel, as I do +feel, that Abubekr, Omar, Abu Obeidah, and Amrou, were better men +than I am, I must throw away all that Philo—all that a +Higher authority—has taught me: or I must attribute their +lofty virtues to the one source of all in man which is not +selfishness, and fancy, and fury, and blindness as of the beasts +which perish.</p> +<p>Why, then, has Islamism become one of the most patent and +complete failures upon earth, if the true test of a +system’s success be the gradual progress and amelioration +of the human beings who are under its influence? First, I +believe, from its allowing polygamy. I do not judge +Mohammed for having allowed it. He found it one of the +ancestral and immemorial customs of his nation. He found it +throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. He found it in the case +of Abraham, his ideal man; and, as he believed, the +divinely-inspired ancestor of his race. It seemed to him +that what was right for Abraham, could not be wrong for an +Arab. God shall judge him, not I. Moreover, the +Christians of the East, divided into either monks or profligates; +and with far lower and more brutal notions of the married state +than were to be found in Arab poetry and legend, were the very +last men on earth to make him feel the eternal and divine beauty +of that pure wedded love which Christianity has not only +proclaimed, but commanded, and thereby emancipated woman from her +old slavery to the stronger sex. And I believe, from his +chivalrous faithfulness to his good wife Kadijah, as long as she +lived, that Mohammed was a man who could have accepted that great +truth in all its fulness, had he but been taught it. He +certainly felt the evil of polyamy so strongly as to restrict it +in every possible way, except the only right way—namely, +the proclamation of the true ideal of marriage. But his +ignorance, mistake, sin, if you will, was a deflection from the +right law, from the true constitution of man, and therefore it +avenged itself. That chivalrous respect for woman, which +was so strong in the early Mohammedans, died out. The women +themselves—who, in the first few years of Islamism, rose as +the men rose, and became their helpmates, counsellors, and +fellow-warriors—degenerated rapidly into mere +playthings. I need not enter into the painful subject of +woman’s present position in the East, and the social +consequences thereof. But I firmly believe, not merely as a +theory, but as a fact which may be proved by abundant evidence, +that to polygamy alone is owing nine-tenths of the present decay +and old age of every Mussulman nation; and that till it be +utterly abolished, all Western civilisation and capital, and all +the civil and religious liberty on earth, will not avail one jot +toward their revival. You must regenerate the family before +you can regenerate the nation, and the relation of husband and +wife before the family; because, as long as the root is corrupt, +the fruit will be corrupt also.</p> +<p>But there is another cause of the failure of Islamism, more +intimately connected with those metaphysical questions which we +have been hitherto principally considering.</p> +<p>Among the first Mussulmans, as I have said, there was +generally the most intense belief in each man that he was +personally under a divine guide and teacher. But their +creed contained nothing which could keep up that belief in the +minds of succeeding generations. They had destroyed the +good with the evil, and they paid the penalty of their +undistinguishing wrath. In sweeping away the idolatries and +fetish worships of the Syrian Catholics, the Mussulmans had swept +away also that doctrine which alone can deliver men from idolatry +and fetish worships—if not outward and material ones, yet +the still more subtle, and therefore more dangerous idolatries of +the intellect. For they had swept away the belief in the +Logos; in a divine teacher of every human soul, who was, in some +mysterious way, the pattern and antitype of human virtue and +wisdom. And more, they had swept away that belief in the +incarnation of the Logos, which alone can make man feel that his +divine teacher is one who can enter into the human duties, +sorrows, doubts, of each human spirit. And, therefore, when +Mohammed and his personal friends were dead, the belief in a +present divine teacher, on the whole, died with them; and the +Mussulmans began to put the Koran in the place of Him of whom the +Koran spoke. They began to worship the book—which +after all is not a book, but only an irregular collection of +Mohammed’s meditations, and notes for sermons—with +the most slavish and ridiculous idolatry. They fell into a +cabbalism, and a superstitious reverence for the mere letters and +words of the Koran, to which the cabbalism of the old Rabbis was +moderate and rational. They surrounded it, and the history +of Mohammed, with all ridiculous myths, and prodigies, and lying +wonders, whereof the book itself contained not a word; and which +Mohammed, during his existence, had denied and repudiated, saying +that he worked no miracles, and that none were needed; because +only reason was required to show a man the hand of a good God in +all human affairs. Nevertheless, these later Mussulmans +found the miracles necessary to confirm their faith: and +why? Because they had lost the sense of a present God, a +God of order; and therefore hankered, as men in such a mood +always will, after prodigious and unnatural proofs of His having +been once present with their founder Mohammed.</p> +<p>And in the meanwhile that absolute and omnipotent Being whom +Mohammed, arising out of his great darkness, had so nobly +preached to the Koreish, receded in the minds of their +descendants to an unapproachable and abysmal distance. For +they had lost the sense of His present guidance, His personal +care. They had lost all which could connect Him with the +working of their own souls, with their human duties and +struggles, with the belief that His mercy and love were +counterparts of human mercy and human love; in plain English, +that He was loving and merciful at all. The change came +very gradually, thank God; you may read of noble sayings and +deeds here and there, for many centuries after Mohammed: but it +came; and then their belief in God’s omnipotence and +absoluteness dwindled into the most dark, and slavish, and +benumbing fatalism. His unchangeableness became in their +minds not an unchangeable purpose to teach, forgive, and deliver +men—as it seemed to Mohammed to have been—but a mere +brute necessity, an unchangeable purpose to have His own way, +whatsoever that way might be. That dark fatalism, also, has +helped toward the decay of the Mohammedan nations. It has +made them careless of self-improvement; faithless of the +possibility of progress; and has kept, and will keep, the +Mohammedan nations, in all intellectual matters, whole ages +behind the Christian nations of the West.</p> +<p>How far the story of Omar’s commanding the baths of +Alexandria to be heated with the books from the great library is +true, we shall never know. Some have doubted the story +altogether: but so many fresh corroborations of it are said to +have been lately discovered, in Arabic writers, that I can hardly +doubt that it had some foundation in fact. One cannot but +believe that John Philoponus, the last of the Alexandrian +grammarians, when he asked his patron Amrou the gift of the +library, took care to save some, at least, of its treasures; and +howsoever strongly Omar may have felt or said that all books +which agreed with the Koran were useless, and all which disagreed +with it only fit to be destroyed, the general feeling of the +Mohammedan leaders was very different. As they settled in +the various countries which they conquered, education seems to +have been considered by them an important object. We even +find some of them, in the same generation as Mohammed, obeying +strictly the Prophet’s command to send all captive children +to school—a fact which speaks as well for the +Mussulmans’ good sense, as it speaks ill for the state of +education among the degraded descendants of the Greek conquerors +of the East. Gradually philosophic Schools arose, first at +Bagdad, and then at Cordova; and the Arabs carried on the task of +commenting on Aristotle’s Logic, and Ptolemy’s +Megiste Syntaxis—which last acquired from them the name of +Almagest, by which it was so long known during the Middle +Ages.</p> +<p>But they did little but comment, though there was no +Neoplatonic or mystic element in their commentaries. It +seems as if Alexandria was preordained, by its very central +position, to be the city of commentators, not of +originators. It is worthy of remark, that Philoponus, who +may be considered as the man who first introduced the simple +warriors of the Koreish to the treasures of Greek thought, seems +to have been the first rebel against the Neoplatonist +eclecticism. He maintained, and truly, that Porphyry, +Proclus, and the rest, had entirely misunderstood Aristotle, when +they attempted to reconcile him with Plato, or incorporate his +philosophy into Platonism. Aristotle was henceforth the +text-book of Arab savants. It was natural enough. The +Mussulman mind was trained in habits of absolute obedience to the +authority of fixed dogmas. All those attempts to follow out +metaphysic to its highest object, theology, would be useless if +not wrong in the eyes of a Mussulman, who had already his simple +and sharply-defined creed on all matters relating to the unseen +world. With him metaphysic was a study altogether divorced +from man’s higher life and aspirations. So also were +physics. What need had he of Cosmogonies? what need to +trace the relations between man and the universe, or the universe +and its Maker? He had his definite material Elysium and +Tartarus, as the only ultimate relation between man and the +universe; his dogma of an absolute fiat, creating arbitrary and +once for all, as the only relation between the universe and its +Maker: and further it was not lawful to speculate. The idea +which I believe unites both physic and metaphysic with +man’s highest inspirations and widest +speculations—the Alexandria idea of the Logos, of the Deity +working in time and space by successive thoughts—he had not +heard of; for it was dead, as I have said, in Alexandria itself; +and if he had heard of it, he would have spurned it as detracting +from the absoluteness of that abysmal one Being, of whom he so +nobly yet so partially bore witness. So it was to be; +doubtless it was right that it should be so. Man’s +eye is too narrow to see a whole truth, his brain too weak to +carry a whole truth. Better for him, and better for the +world, is perhaps the method on which man has been educated in +every age, by which to each school, or party, or nation, is given +some one great truth, which they are to work out to its highest +development, to exemplify in actual life, leaving some happier +age—perhaps, alas! only some future state—to +reconcile that too favoured dogma with other truths which lie +beside it, and without which it is always incomplete, and +sometimes altogether barren.</p> +<p>But such schools of science, founded on such a ground as this, +on the mere instinct of curiosity, had little chance of +originality or vitality. All the great schools of the +world, the elder Greek philosophy, the Alexandrian, the present +Baconian school of physics, have had a deeper motive for their +search, a far higher object which they hope to discover. +But indeed, the Mussulmans did not so much wish to discover +truth, as to cultivate their own intellects. For that +purpose a sharp and subtle systematist, like Aristotle, was the +very man whom they required; and from the destruction of +Alexandria may date the rise of the Aristotelian +philosophy. Translations of his works were made into +Arabic, first, it is said, from Persian and Syriac translations; +the former of which had been made during the sixth and seventh +centuries, by the wreck of the Neoplatonist party, during their +visit to the philosophic Chozroos. A century after, they +filled Alexandria. After them Almansoor, Hairoun Alraschid, +and their successors, who patronised the Nestorian Christians, +obtained from them translations of the philosophic, medical, and +astronomical Greek works; while the last of the Omniades, +Abdalrahman, had introduced the same literary taste into Spain, +where, in the thirteenth century, Averroës and Maimonides +rivalled the fame of Avicenna, who had flourished at Bagdad a +century before.</p> +<p>But, as I have said already, these Arabs seem to have invented +nothing; they only commented. And yet not only commented; +for they preserved for us those works of whose real value they +were so little aware. Averroës, in quality of +commentator on Aristotle, became his rival in the minds of the +mediæval schoolmen; Avicenna, in quality of commentator on +Hippocrates and Galen, was for centuries the text-book of all +European physicians; while Albatani and Aboul Wefa, as +astronomers, commented on Ptolemy, not however without making a +few important additions to his knowledge; for Aboul Wefa +discovered a third inequality of the moon’s motion, in +addition to the two mentioned by Ptolemy, which he did, according +to Professor Whewell, in a truly philosophic manner—an +apparently solitary instance, and one which, in its own day, had +no effect; for the fact was forgotten, and rediscovered centuries +after by Tycho Brahe. To Albatani, however, we owe two +really valuable heirlooms. The one is the use of the sine, +or half-chord of the double arc, instead of the chord of the arc +itself, which had been employed by the Greek astronomers; the +other, of even more practical benefit, was the introduction of +the present decimal arithmetic, instead of the troublesome +sexagesimal arithmetic of the Greeks. These ten digits, +however, seem, says Professor Whewell, by the confession of the +Arabians themselves, to be of Indian origin, and thus form no +exception to the sterility of the Arabian genius in scientific +inventions. Nevertheless we are bound, in all fairness, to +set against his condemnation of the Arabs Professor De +Morgan’s opinion of the Moslem, in his article on Euclid: +“Some writers speak slightingly of this progress, the +results of which they are too apt to compare with those of our +own time. They ought rather to place the Saracens by the +side of their own Gothic ancestors; and making some allowance for +the more advantageous circumstances under which the first +started, they should view the second systematically dispersing +the remains of Greek civilisation, while the first were +concentrating the geometry of Alexandria, the arithmetic and +algebra of India, and the astronomy of both, to form a nucleus +for the present state of science.”</p> +<p>To this article of Professor De Morgan’s on Euclid, <a +name="citation127"></a><a href="#footnote127" +class="citation">[127]</a> and to Professor Whewell’s +excellent “History of the Inductive Sciences,” from +which I, being neither Arabic scholar nor astronomer, have drawn +most of my facts about physical science, I must refer those who +wish to know more of the early rise of physics, and of their +preservation by the Arabs, till a great and unexpected event +brought them back again to the quarter of the globe where they +had their birth, and where alone they could be regenerated into a +new and practical life.</p> +<p>That great event was the Crusades. We have heard little +of Alexandria lately. Its intellectual glory had departed +westward and eastward, to Cordova and to Bagdad; its commercial +greatness had left it for Cairo and Damietta. But Egypt was +still the centre of communication between the two great stations +of the Moslem power, and indeed, as Mr. Lane has shown in his +most valuable translation of the “Arabian Nights,” +possessed a peculiar life and character of its own.</p> +<p>It was the rash object of the Crusaders to extinguish that +life. Palestine was their first point of attack: but the +later Crusaders seem to have found, like the rest of the world, +that the destinies of Palestine could not be separated from those +of Egypt; and to Damietta, accordingly, was directed that last +disastrous attempt of St. Louis, which all may read so +graphically described in the pages of Joinville.</p> +<p>The Crusaders failed utterly of the object at which they +aimed. They succeeded in an object of which they never +dreamed; for in those Crusades the Moslem and the Christian had +met face to face, and found that both were men, that they had a +common humanity, a common eternal standard of nobleness and +virtue. So the Christian knights went home humbler and +wiser men, when they found in the Saracen emirs the same +generosity, truth, mercy, chivalrous self-sacrifice, which they +had fancied their own peculiar possession, and added to that, a +civilisation and a learning which they could only admire and +imitate. And thus, from the era of the Crusades, a kindlier +feeling sprang up between the Crescent and the Cross, till it was +again broken by the fearful invasions of the Turks throughout +Eastern Europe. The learning of the Moslem, as well as +their commerce, began to pour rapidly into Christendom, both from +Spain, Egypt, and Syria; and thus the Crusaders were, indeed, +rewarded according to their deeds. They had fancied that +they were bound to vindicate the possession of the earth for Him +to whom they believed the earth belonged. He showed +them—or rather He has shown us, their children—that +He can vindicate His own dominion better far than man can do it +for Him; and their cruel and unjust aim was utterly foiled. +That was not the way to make men know or obey Him. They +took the sword, and perished by the sword. But the truly +noble element in them—the element which our hearts and +reasons recognise and love, in spite of all the loud words about +the folly and fanaticism of the Crusades, whensoever we read +“The Talisman” or “Ivanhoe”—the +element of loyal faith and self-sacrifice—did not go +unrequited. They learnt wider, juster views of man and +virtue, which I cannot help believing must have had great effect +in weakening in their minds their old, exclusive, and bigoted +notions, and in paving the way for the great outburst of free +thought, and the great assertion of the dignity of humanity, +which the fifteenth century beheld. They opened a path for +that influx of scientific knowledge which has produced, in after +centuries, the most enormous effects on the welfare of Europe, +and made life possible for millions who would otherwise have been +pent within the narrow bounds of Europe, to devour each other in +the struggle for room and bread.</p> +<p>But those Arabic translations of Greek authors were a fatal +gift for Egypt, and scarcely less fatal gift for Bagdad. In +that Almagest of Ptolemy, in that Organon of Aristotle, which the +Crusaders are said to have brought home, lay, rude and embryotic, +the germs of that physical science, that geographical knowledge +which has opened to the European the commerce and the +colonisation of the globe. Within three hundred years after +his works reached Europe, Ptolemy had taught the Portuguese to +sail round Africa; and from that day the stream of eastern wealth +flowed no longer through the Red Sea, or the Persian Gulf, on its +way to the new countries of the West; and not only Alexandria, +but Damietta and Bagdad, dwindled down to their present +insignificance. And yet the whirligig of time brings about +its revenges. The stream of commerce is now rapidly turning +back to its old channel; and British science bids fair to make +Alexandria once more the inn of all the nations.</p> +<p>It is with a feeling of awe that one looks upon the huge +possibilities of her future. Her own physical capacities, +as the great mind of Napoleon saw, are what they always have +been, inexhaustible; and science has learnt to set at naught the +only defect of situation which has ever injured her prosperity, +namely, the short land passage from the Nile to the Red +Sea. The fate of Palestine is now more than ever bound up +with her fate; and a British or French colony might, holding the +two countries, develop itself into a nation as vast as sprang +from Alexander’s handful of Macedonians, and become the +meeting point for the nations of the West and those great +Anglo-Saxon peoples who seem destined to spring up in the +Australian ocean. Wide as the dream may appear, steam has +made it a far narrower one than the old actual fact, that for +centuries the Phoenician and the Arabian interchanged at +Alexandria the produce of Britain for that of Ceylon and +Hindostan. And as for intellectual development, though +Alexandria wants, as she has always wanted, that insular and +exclusive position which seems almost necessary to develop +original thought and original national life, yet she may still +act as the point of fusion for distinct schools and polities, and +the young and buoyant vigour of the new-born nations may at once +teach, and learn from, the prudence, the experience, the +traditional wisdom of the ancient Europeans.</p> +<p>This vision, however possible, may be a far-off one: but the +first step towards it, at least, is being laid before our +eyes—and that is, a fresh reconciliation between the +Crescent and the Cross. Apart from all political +considerations, which would be out of place here, I hail, as a +student of philosophy, the school which is now, both in +Alexandria and in Constantinople, teaching to Moslem and to +Christians the same lesson which the Crusaders learnt in Egypt +five hundred years ago. A few years’ more +perseverance in the valiant and righteous course which Britain +has now chosen, will reward itself by opening a vast field for +capital and enterprise, for the introduction of civil and +religious liberty among the down-trodden peasantry of Egypt; as +the Giaour becomes an object of respect, and trust, and gratitude +to the Moslem; and as the feeling that Moslem and Giaour own a +common humanity, a common eternal standard of justice and mercy, +a common sacred obligation to perform our promises, and to +succour the oppressed, shall have taken place of the old brute +wonder at our careless audacity, and awkward assertion of power, +which now expresses itself in the somewhat left-handed +Alexandrian compliment—“There is one Satan, and there +are many Satans: but there is no Satan like a Frank in a round +hat.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>It would be both uncourteous and unfair of me to close these +my hasty Lectures, without expressing my hearty thanks for the +great courtesy and kindness which I have received in this my +first visit to your most noble and beautiful city; and often, I +am proud to say, from those who differ from me deeply on many +important points; and also for the attention with which I have +been listened to while trying, clumsily enough, to explain dry +and repulsive subjects, and to express opinions which may be new, +and perhaps startling, to many of my hearers. If my +imperfect hints shall have stirred up but one hearer to +investigate this obscure and yet most important subject, and to +examine for himself the original documents, I shall feel that my +words in this place have not been spoken in vain; for even if +such a seeker should arrive at conclusions different from my own +(and I pretend to no infallibility), he will at least have learnt +new facts, the parents of new thought, perhaps of new action; he +will have come face to face with new human beings, in whom he +will have been compelled to take a human interest; and will +surely rise from his researches, let them lead him where they +will, at least somewhat of a wider-minded and a wider-hearted +man.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> These Lectures were delivered at +the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, in February, 1854, at +the commencement of the Crimean War.</p> +<p><a name="footnote127"></a><a href="#citation127" +class="footnote">[127]</a> Smith’s “Classical +Dictionary.”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALEXANDRIA AND HER SCHOOLS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1275-h.htm or 1275-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/2/7/1275 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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