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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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +LECTURE I--THE PTOLEMAIC ERA + + + +Before 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 +[Greek text: phusis]; natura; nature, that which [Greek text: +phuetai], nascitur, 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. + +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? + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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 Caesar 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. + +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? + +In the year 331 B.C. 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 [Greek text: omphalosgees], 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 B.C.--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! + +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 [Greek text: barbaroi], 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. + +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. + + +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 +AEschylus, 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. + +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), Noesis Noeseon, "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. + +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. + +And this was, it must be said, the outcome of all the Ptolemaean +appliances. + +In Physics they did little. In Art nothing. In Metaphysics less than +nothing. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 ad infinitum: 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, ad infinitum. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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." + +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. + +He had before suggested, as is supposed, to Ptolemy Euergetes, to make +him the two great copper armillae, 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. + +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 - + + +We are such stuff +As dreams are made of. + + +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 [Greek text: eureeka]--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 formulae, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 e priori +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. + + + +LECTURE II--THE PTOLEMAIC ERA (Continued.) + + + +I said 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 encyclopaedia 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 encyclopaedic 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, Galataea, 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. + +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. + +Worthy, was not all this, of the descendants of the men who fought at +Marathon and Thermopylae? 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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 [Greek text: skoteinos] the dark one. I have tried in vain +to read it: you, if you will, may do the same. + +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. + +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 + + +Grot nymph-haunted, +Garlanded over with vine, and acanthus, and clambering roses, +Cool in the fierce still noon, where the streams glance clear in the +moss-beds; + + +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. + +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 AEtolian 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, aesthetic +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, aesthetic, +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 aesthetics, 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. + +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 aesthetics, resumes, histories of philosophy, and +the like second-hand information, or attending seven lectures a-week +till their lives' end. It is better to know one thing, than to know +about ten thousand things. 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. + +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 Bohmen's etymology of sulphur, wherein he +makes sul, if I recollect right, signify some active principle of +combustion, and phur 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. + +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 naively 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. + +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 Achaean 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. + +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. + +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 Siecle 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 sotto voce, 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." + +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 beaux-esprits 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, [Greek text: apokarteroon], 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. + +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: + +"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." + +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 Caesar 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 odium gammaticum, 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. + +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. + +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 A.D. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 them 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +Caesar," they spoke the secret of their hearts. It was a Caesar, a +Jewish Caesar, 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." + +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. + + + +LECTURE III--NEOPLATONISM + + + +We 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Daemon 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? + +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. + +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. + +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 Phoebus 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 reine vernunft, 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. + +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? + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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 Daemon 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. + +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 Daemon 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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +But to that Pantaenus, 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 experimentum crucis. +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 +Daemon. + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +"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? + +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 daemonologies and +polytheisms--from thence to descend into lower depths, of which we will +speak hereafter. + +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. + +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. + +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 Daemonic 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 Daemonology +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 daemon, and +become the pupil of a God, and finally a God himself. + +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 A.D. + +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. + +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 daemon, 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. + +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. + +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 daemons 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 - + + +Effugerant adytis templisque relictis +Di quibus imperium steterat. + + +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. + +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 the 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!" + +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 Bohmen, but without an +atom of his originality and earnestness. He can develop an inverted +pyramid of daemonology, 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. + +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. + +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 e priori theoriser--and yet of which Proclus is reported to have +said, and, I should conceive, said honestly, that if it, the Timaeus, +and the Orphic fragments were preserved, he did not care whether every +other book on earth were destroyed. But how does he commence? + +"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 Phaedrus; 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 daemons 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 he (i.e. 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." + +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:" + + +So runs my dream. But what am I? +An infant crying in the night; +An infant crying for the light; +And with no language but a cry. + + +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! + +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 their 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. + +And Proclus's prayer, on the other hand, was the outcome of the +Neoplatonists' metaphysic, the end of all their 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, daemons, 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 Primaeval 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +LECTURE IV--THE CROSS AND THE CRESCENT + + + +I tried 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. + +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. + +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 disciplina arcani, 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. + +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. + +That work was left for the Christian schools; and up to a certain point +they performed it. They made men good. This 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. + +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? + +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 daemonologies, 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. + +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.'" + +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 mediaeval 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 "Vitae +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 e priori 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 +not 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. + +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. + +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 was 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 were 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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +But there is another cause of the failure of Islamism, more intimately +connected with those metaphysical questions which we have been hitherto +principally considering. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, Averroes +and Maimonides rivalled the fame of Avicenna, who had flourished at +Bagdad a century before. + +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. Averroes, +in quality of commentator on Aristotle, became his rival in the minds of +the mediaeval 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." + +To this article of Professor De Morgan's on Euclid, {2} 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + + +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. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} These Lectures were delivered at the Philosophical Institution, +Edinburgh, in February, 1854, at the commencement of the Crimean War. + +{2} Smith's "Classical Dictionary." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText Alexandria and her Schools + diff --git a/old/alxsc10.zip b/old/alxsc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5f931b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/alxsc10.zip |