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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, History of the Intellectual Development of
+Europe, Volume I (of 2), by John William Draper
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2)
+ Revised Edition
+
+
+Author: John William Draper
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 21, 2010 [eBook #31345]
+Most recently updated: October 9, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL
+DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE, VOLUME I (OF 2)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has Volume II of this two-volume work.
+ See http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34051
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE.
+
+by
+
+JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M.D., LL.D.,
+
+Professor of Chemistry in the University of New York, Author of a
+"Treatise on Human Physiology," "Civil Policy of America,"
+"History of the American Civil War," &c.
+
+REVISED EDITION, IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+New York:
+Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
+Franklin Square.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
+Harper & Brothers,
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
+Science, held at Oxford in 1860, I read an abstract of the physiological
+argument contained in this work respecting the mental progress of
+Europe, reserving the historical evidence for subsequent publication.
+
+This work contains that evidence. It is intended as the completion of my
+treatise on Human Physiology, in which man was considered as an
+individual. In this he is considered in his social relation.
+
+But the reader will also find, I think, that it is a history of the
+progress of ideas and opinions from a point of view heretofore almost
+entirely neglected. There are two methods of dealing with philosophical
+questions--the literary and the scientific. Many things which in a
+purely literary treatment of the subject remain in the background,
+spontaneously assume a more striking position when their scientific
+relations are considered. It is the latter method that I have used.
+
+Social advancement is as completely under the control of natural law as
+is bodily growth. The life of an individual is a miniature of the life
+of a nation. These propositions it is the special object of this book to
+demonstrate.
+
+No one, I believe, has hitherto undertaken the labour of arranging the
+evidence offered by the intellectual history of Europe in accordance
+with physiological principles, so as to illustrate the orderly progress
+of civilization, or collected the facts furnished by other branches of
+science with a view of enabling us to recognize clearly the conditions
+under which that progress takes place. This philosophical deficiency I
+have endeavoured in the following pages to supply.
+
+Seen thus through the medium of physiology, history presents a new
+aspect to us. We gain a more just and thorough appreciation of the
+thoughts and motives of men in successive ages of the world.
+
+In the Preface to the second edition of my Physiology, published in
+1858, it was mentioned that this work was at that time written. The
+changes that have been since made in it have been chiefly with a view of
+condensing it. The discussion of several scientific questions, such as
+that of the origin of species, which have recently attracted public
+attention so strongly, has, however remained untouched, the principles
+offered being the same as presented in the former work in 1856.
+
+_New York, 1861._
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
+
+
+Many reprints of this work having been issued, and translations
+published in various foreign languages, French, German, Russian, Polish,
+Servian, &c., I have been induced to revise it carefully, and to make
+additions wherever they seemed to be desirable. I therefore hope that it
+will commend itself to the continued approval of the public.
+
+_November, 1875._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+
+ ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAW.
+
+ _The subject of this Work proposed.--Its difficulty._
+
+ _Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by
+ Law.--Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological,
+ and Physiological Discoveries.--Illustrations from Kepler's
+ Laws, the Trade-winds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of
+ Vegetable and Animal Life, Variation of Species and their
+ Permanence._
+
+ _Individual Man is an Emblem of Communities, Nations, and
+ Universal Humanity.--They exhibit Epochs of Life like his,
+ and, like him, are under the Control of Physical Conditions,
+ and therefore of Law._
+
+ _Plan of this Work.--The Intellectual History of Greece.--Its
+ Five characteristic Ages.--European Intellectual History._
+
+ _Grandeur of the Doctrine that the World is governed by Law._
+ Page 1
+
+
+ CHAPTER II.
+
+ OF EUROPE: ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY.
+
+ ITS PRIMITIVE MODES OF THOUGHT, AND THEIR PROGRESSIVE VARIATIONS,
+ MANIFESTED IN THE GREEK AGE OF CREDULITY.
+
+ _Description of Europe: its Topography, Meteorology, and
+ secular Geological Movements.--Their Effect on its
+ Inhabitants._
+
+ _Its Ethnology determined through its Vocabularies._
+
+ _Comparative Theology of Greece; the Stage of Sorcery, the
+ Anthropocentric Stage.--Becomes connected with false Geography
+ and Astronomy.--Heaven, the Earth, the Under World.--Origin,
+ continuous Variation and Progress of Greek Theology.--It
+ introduces Ionic Philosophy._
+
+ _Decline of Greek Theology, occasioned by the Advance of
+ Geography and Philosophical Criticism.--Secession of Poets,
+ Philosophers, Historians.--Abortive public Attempts to sustain
+ it.--Duration of its Decline.--Its Fall._ 23
+
+
+ CHAPTER III.
+
+ DIGRESSION ON HINDU THEOLOGY AND EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION.
+
+ _Comparative Theology of India; its Phase of Sorcery; its
+ Anthropocentric Phase._
+
+ VEDAISM _the Contemplation of Matter, or Adoration of Nature,
+ set forth in the Vedas and Institutes of Menu.--The Universe
+ is God.--Transmutation of the World.--Doctrine of
+ Emanation.--Transmigration.--Absorption.--Penitential
+ Services.--Happiness in Absolute Quietude._
+
+ BUDDHISM _the Contemplation of Force.--The supreme impersonal
+ Power.--Nature of the World--of Man.--The Passage of every
+ thing to Nonentity.--Development of Buddhism into a vast
+ monastic System marked by intense Selfishness.--Its practical
+ Godlessness._
+
+ EGYPT _a mysterious Country to the old Europeans.--Its
+ History, great public Works, and foreign Relations.--Antiquity
+ of its Civilization and Art.--Its Philosophy, hieroglyphic
+ Literature, and peculiar Agriculture._
+
+ _Rise of Civilization in rainless Countries.--Geography,
+ Geology, and Topography of Egypt.--The Inundations of the Nile
+ lead to Astronomy._
+
+ _Comparative Theology of Egypt.--Animal Worship, Star
+ Worship.--Impersonation of Divine Attributes.--Pantheism.--The
+ Trinities of Egypt.--Incarnation.--Redemption.--Future
+ Judgment.--Trial of the Dead.--Rituals and Ceremonies._ 56
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV.
+
+ GREEK AGE OF INQUIRY.
+
+ RISE AND DECLINE OF PHYSICAL SPECULATION.
+
+ IONIAN PHILOSOPHY, _commencing from Egyptian Ideas, identifies
+ in Water, or Air, or Fire, the First Principle.--Emerging from
+ the Stage of Sorcery, it founds Psychology, Biology,
+ Cosmogony, Astronomy, and ends in doubting whether there is
+ any Criterion of Truth._
+
+ ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY _depends on Numbers and Harmonies.--It
+ reproduces the Egyptian and Hindu Doctrine of Transmigration._
+
+ ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY _presents a great Advance, indicating a
+ rapid Approach to Oriental Ideas.--It assumes a Pantheistic
+ Aspect._
+
+ RISE OF PHILOSOPHY IN EUROPEAN GREECE.--_Relations and
+ Influence of the Mediterranean Commercial and Colonial
+ System.--Athens attains to commercial Supremacy.--Her vast
+ Progress in Intelligence and Art.--Her Demoralization.--She
+ becomes the Intellectual Centre of the Mediterranean._
+
+ _Commencement of the Athenian higher Analysis.--It is
+ conducted by_ THE SOPHISTS, _who reject Philosophy, Religion,
+ and even Morality, and end in Atheism._
+
+ _Political Dangers of the higher Analysis.--Illustration from
+ the Middle Ages._ 94
+
+
+ CHAPTER V.
+
+ THE GREEK AGE OF FAITH.
+
+ RISE AND DECLINE OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY.
+
+ SOCRATES _rejects Physical and Mathematical Speculations, and
+ asserts the Importance of Virtue and Morality, thereby
+ inaugurating an Age of Faith.--His Life and Death.--The
+ schools originating from his Movement teach the Pursuit of
+ Pleasure and Gratification of Self._
+
+ PLATO _founds the Academy.--His three primal Principles.--The
+ Existence of a personal God.--Nature of the World and the
+ Soul.--The ideal Theory, Generals or
+ Types.--Reminiscence.--Transmigration.--Plato's political
+ Institutions.--His Republic.--His Proofs of the Immortality of
+ the Soul.--Criticism on his Doctrines._
+
+ RISE OF THE SCEPTICS, _who conduct the higher Analysis of
+ Ethical Philosophy.--Pyrrho demonstrates the Uncertainty of
+ Knowledge.--Inevitable Passage into tranquil Indifference,
+ Quietude, and Irreligion, as recommended by
+ Epicurus.--Decomposition of the Socratic and Platonic Systems
+ in the later Academies.--Their Errors and Duplicities.--End of
+ the Greek Age of Faith._ 143
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI.
+
+ THE GREEK AGE OF REASON.
+
+ RISE OF SCIENCE.
+
+ THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN.--_Disastrous in its political Effects
+ to Greece, but ushering in the Age of Reason._
+
+ ARISTOTLE _founds the Inductive Philosophy.--His Method the
+ Inverse of that of Plato.--Its great power.--In his own hands
+ it fails for want of Knowledge, but is carried out by the
+ Alexandrians._
+
+ ZENO.--_His Philosophical Aim is the Cultivation of Virtue and
+ Knowledge.--He is in the Ethical Branch the Counterpart of
+ Aristotle in the Physical._
+
+ FOUNDATION OF THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA.--_The great Libraries,
+ Observatories, Botanical Gardens, Menageries, Dissecting
+ Houses.--Its Effect on the rapid Development of exact
+ Knowledge.--Influence of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes,
+ Apollonius, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, on Geometry, Natural
+ Philosophy, Astronomy, Chronology, Geography._
+
+ _Decline of the Greek Age of Reason._ 171
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII.
+
+ THE GREEK AGE OF INTELLECTUAL DECREPITUDE.
+
+ THE DEATH OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
+
+ _Decline of Greek Philosophy: it becomes Retrospective, and in
+ Philo the Jew and Apollonius of Tyana leans on Inspiration,
+ Mysticism, Miracles._
+
+ NEO-PLATONISM _founded by Ammonius Saccas, followed by
+ Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblicus, Proclus.--The Alexandrian
+ Trinity.--Ecstasy.--Alliance with Magic, Necromancy._
+
+ _The Emperor Justinian closes the philosophical Schools._
+
+ _Summary of Greek Philosophy.--Its four Problems: 1. Origin of
+ the World; 2. Nature of the Soul; 3. Existence of God; 4.
+ Criterion of Truth.--Solution of these Problems in the Age of
+ Inquiry--in that of Faith--in that of Reason--in that of
+ Decrepitude._
+
+ _Determination of the Law of Variation of Greek Opinion.--The
+ Development of National Intellect is the same as that of
+ Individual._
+
+ _Determination of the final Conclusions of Greek Philosophy as
+ to God, the World, the Soul, the Criterion of
+ Truth.--Illustrations and Criticisms on each of these Points._
+ 207
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ DIGRESSION ON THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES OF ROME.
+
+ PREPARATION FOR RESUMING THE EXAMINATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS
+ OF EUROPE.
+
+ _Religious Ideas of the primitive Europeans.--The Form of
+ their Variations is determined by the Influence of
+ Rome.--Necessity of Roman History in these Investigations._
+
+ _Rise and Development of Roman Power, its successive Phases,
+ territorial Acquisitions.--Becomes Supreme in the
+ Mediterranean.--Consequent Demoralization of
+ Italy.--Irresistible Concentration of Power.--Development of
+ Imperialism.--Eventual Extinction of the true Roman Race._
+
+ _Effect on the intellectual, religious, and social Condition
+ of the Mediterranean Countries.--Produces homogeneous
+ Thought.--Imperialism prepares the Way for
+ Monotheism.--Momentous Transition of the Roman World in its
+ religious Ideas._
+
+ _Opinions of the Roman Philosophers.--Coalescence of the new
+ and old Ideas.--Seizure of Power by the Illiterate, and
+ consequent Debasement of Christianity in Rome._ 239
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX.
+
+ THE EUROPEAN AGE OF INQUIRY.
+
+ THE PROGRESSIVE VARIATION OF OPINIONS CLOSED BY THE INSTITUTION OF
+ COUNCILS AND THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN A PONTIFF. RISE, EARLY
+ VARIATIONS, CONFLICTS, AND FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+ _Rise of Christianity.--Distinguished from ecclesiastical
+ Organization.--It is demanded by the deplorable Condition of
+ the Empire.--Its brief Conflict with Paganism.--Character of
+ its first Organization.--Variations of Thought and Rise of
+ Sects: their essential Difference in the East and West.--The
+ three primitive Forms of Christianity: the Judaic Form, its
+ End--the Gnostic Form, its End--the African Form, continues._
+
+ _Spread of Christianity from Syria.--Its Antagonism to
+ Imperialism; their Conflicts.--Position of Affairs under
+ Diocletian.--The Policy of Constantine.--He avails himself of
+ the Christian Party, and through it attains supreme
+ Power.--His personal Relations to it._
+
+ _The Trinitarian Controversy.--Story of Arius.--The Council of
+ Nicea._
+
+ _The Progress of the Bishop of Rome to Supremacy.--The Roman
+ Church; its primitive subordinate Position.--Causes of its
+ increasing Wealth, Influence, and Corruptions.--Stages of its
+ Advancement through the Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian
+ Disputes.--Rivalry of the Bishops of Constantinople,
+ Alexandria, and Rome._
+
+ _Necessity of a Pontiff in the West and ecclesiastical
+ Councils in the East.--Nature of those Councils and of
+ pontifical Power._
+
+ _The Period closes at the Capture and Sack of Rome by
+ Alaric.--Defence of that Event by St. Augustine.--Criticism on
+ his Writings._
+
+ _Character of the Progress of Thought through this
+ Period.--Destiny of the three great Bishops._ 266
+
+
+ CHAPTER X.
+
+ THE EUROPEAN AGE OF FAITH.
+
+ AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.
+
+ _Consolidation of the Byzantine System, or the Union of Church
+ and State.--The consequent Paganization of Religion and
+ Persecution of Philosophy._
+
+ _Political Necessity for the enforcement of Patristicism, or
+ Science of the Fathers.--Its peculiar Doctrines._
+
+ _Obliteration of the Vestiges of Greek Knowledge by
+ Patristicism.--The Libraries and Serapion of
+ Alexandria.--Destruction of the latter by Theodosius.--Death
+ of Hypatia.--Extinction of Learning in the East by Cyril, his
+ Associates and Successors._ 308
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI.
+
+ PREMATURE END OF THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.
+
+ THE THREE ATTACKS, VANDAL, PERSIAN, ARAB.
+
+ THE VANDAL ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Africa.--Recovery of
+ that Province by Justinian after great Calamities._
+
+ THE PERSIAN ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Syria and Fall of
+ Jerusalem.--The true Cross carried away as a Trophy.--Moral
+ Impression of these Attacks._
+
+ THE ARAB ATTACK.--_Birth, Mission, and Doctrines of
+ Mohammed.--Rapid Spread of his Faith in Asia and Africa.--Fall
+ of Jerusalem.--Dreadful Losses of Christianity to
+ Mohammedanism.--The Arabs become a learned Nation._
+
+ _Review of the Koran.--Reflexions on the Loss of Asia and
+ Africa by Christendom._ 326
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII.
+
+ THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST.
+
+ _The Age of Faith in the West is marked by Paganism.--The
+ Arabian military Attacks produce the Isolation and permit the
+ Independence of the Bishop of Rome._
+
+ GREGORY THE GREAT _organizes the Ideas of his Age,
+ materializes Faith, allies it to Art, rejects Science, and
+ creates the Italian Form of Religion._
+
+ _An Alliance of the Papacy with France diffuses that
+ Form.--Political History of the Agreement and Conspiracy of
+ the Frankish Kings and the Pope.--The resulting Consolidation
+ of the new Dynasty in France, and Diffusion of Roman
+ Ideas.--Conversion of Europe._
+
+ _The Value of the Italian Form of Religion determined from the
+ papal Biography._ 349
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+
+ DIGRESSION ON THE PASSAGE OF THE ARABIANS TO THEIR AGE OF REASON.
+
+ INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL IDEAS THROUGH THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS.
+
+ _The intellectual Development of the Arabians is guided by the
+ Nestorians and the Jews, and is in the Medical Direction.--The
+ Basis of this Alliance is theological._
+
+ _Antagonism of the Byzantine System to Scientific
+ Medicine.--Suppression of the Asclepions.--Their Replacement
+ by Miracle-cure.--The resulting Superstition and Ignorance._
+
+ _Affiliation of the Arabians with the Nestorians and Jews._
+
+ _1st. The Nestorians, their Persecutions, and the Diffusion of
+ their Sectarian Ideas.--They inherit the old Greek Medicine._
+
+ _Sub-digression on Greek Medicine.--The
+ Asclepions.--Philosophical Importance of Hippocrates, who
+ separates Medicine from Religion.--The School of Cnidos.--Its
+ Suppression by Constantine._
+
+ _Sub-digression on Egyptian Medicine.--It is founded on
+ Anatomy and Physiology.--Dissections and Vivisections.--The
+ Great Alexandrian Physicians._
+
+ _2nd. The Jewish Physicians.--Their Emancipation from
+ Superstition.--They found Colleges and promote Science and
+ Letters._
+
+ _The contemporary Tendency to Magic, Necromancy, the Black
+ Art.--The Philosopher's Stone, Elixir of Life, etc._
+
+ _The Arabs originate scientific Chemistry.--Discover the
+ strong Acids, Phosphorus, etc.--Their geological Ideas.--Apply
+ Chemistry to the Practice of Medicine.--Approach of the
+ Conflict between the Saracenic material and the European
+ supernatural System._ 383
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Continued_).
+
+ IMAGE-WORSHIP AND THE MONKS.
+
+ _Origin of_ IMAGE-WORSHIP.--_Inutility of Images discovered in
+ Asia and Africa during the Saracen Wars.--Rise of Iconoclasm._
+
+ _The Emperors prohibit Image-worship.--The Monks, aided by
+ court Females, sustain it.--Victory of the latter._
+
+ _Image-worship in the West sustained by the Popes.--Quarrel
+ between the Emperor and the Pope.--The Pope, aided by the
+ Monks, revolts and allies himself with the Franks._
+
+ THE MONKS.--_History of the Rise and Development of
+ Monasticism.--Hermits and Coenobites.--Spread of Monasticism
+ from Egypt over Europe.--Monk Miracles and
+ Legends.--Humanization of the monastic Establishments.--They
+ materialize Religion, and impress their Ideas on Europe._ 413
+
+
+
+
+THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAW.
+
+ _The subject of this Work proposed.--Its difficulty._
+
+ _Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by
+ Law.--Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological,
+ and Physiological Discoveries.--Illustrations from Kepler's
+ Laws, the Trade-winds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of
+ Vegetable and Animal Life, Variation of Species and their
+ Permanence._
+
+ _Individual Man is an Emblem of Communities, Nations, and
+ Universal Humanity.--They exhibit Epochs of Life like his,
+ and, like him are under the Control of Physical Conditions,
+ and therefore of Law._
+
+ _Plan of this Work.--The Intellectual History of Greece.--Its
+ Five characteristic Ages.--European Intellectual History._
+
+ _Grandeur of the Doctrine that the World is governed by Law._
+
+
+[Sidenote: The subject proposed.]
+
+I intend, in this work, to consider in what manner the advancement of
+Europe in civilization has taken place, to ascertain how far its
+progress has been fortuitous, and how far determined by primordial law.
+
+Does the procession of nations in time, like the erratic phantasm of a
+dream, go forward without reason or order? or, is there a predetermined,
+a solemn march, in which all must join, ever moving, ever resistlessly
+advancing, encountering and enduring an inevitable succession of events?
+
+[Sidenote: Its difficulty and grandeur.]
+
+In a philosophical examination of the intellectual and political history
+of nations, an answer to these questions is to be found. But how
+difficult it is to master the mass of facts necessary to be collected,
+to handle so great an accumulation, to place it in the clearest point of
+view; how difficult it is to select correctly the representative men,
+to produce them in the proper scenes, and to conduct successfully so
+grand and complicated a drama as that of European life! Though in one
+sense the subject offers itself as a scientific problem, and in that
+manner alone I have to deal with it; in another it swells into a noble
+epic--the life of humanity, its warfare and repose, its object and its
+end.
+
+Man is the archetype of society. Individual development is the model of
+social progress.
+
+Some have asserted that human affairs are altogether determined by the
+voluntary action of men, some that the Providence of God directs us in
+every step, some that all events are fixed by Destiny. It is for us to
+ascertain how far each of these affirmations is true.
+
+[Sidenote: Individual life of a mixed kind.]
+
+The life of individual man is of a mixed nature. In part he submits to
+the free-will impulses of himself and others, in part he is under the
+inexorable dominion of law. He insensibly changes his estimate of the
+relative power of each of these influences as he passes through
+successive stages. In the confidence of youth he imagines that very much
+is under his control, in the disappointment of old age very little. As
+time wears on, and the delusions of early imagination vanish away, he
+learns to correct his sanguine views, and prescribes a narrower boundary
+for the things he expects to obtain. The realities of life undeceive him
+at last, and there steals over the evening of his days an unwelcome
+conviction of the vanity of human hopes. The things he has secured are
+not the things he expected. He sees that a Supreme Power has been using
+him for unknown ends, that he was brought into the world without his own
+knowledge, and is departing from it against his own will.
+
+[Sidenote: It foreshadows social life.]
+
+Whoever has made the physical and intellectual history of individual man
+his study, will be prepared to admit in what a surprising manner it
+foreshadows social history. The equilibrium and movement of humanity are
+altogether physiological phenomena. Yet not without hesitation may such
+an opinion be frankly avowed, since it is offensive to the pride, and to
+many of the prejudices and interests of our age. An author who has been
+disposed to devote many years to the labour of illustrating this topic,
+has need of the earnest support of all who prize the truth; and,
+considering the extent and profundity of his subject, his work, at the
+best, must be very imperfect, requiring all the forbearance, and even
+the generosity of criticism.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: First opinions of savage life.]
+
+In the intellectual infancy of a savage state, Man transfers to Nature
+his conceptions of himself, and, considering that every thing he does is
+determined by his own pleasure, regards all passing events as depending
+on the arbitrary volition of a superior but invisible power. He gives to
+the world a constitution like his own. His tendency is necessarily to
+superstition. Whatever is strange, or powerful, or vast, impresses his
+imagination with dread. Such objects are only the outward manifestations
+of an indwelling spirit, and therefore worthy of his veneration.
+
+After Reason, aided by Experience, has led him forth from these
+delusions as respects surrounding things, he still clings to his
+original ideas as respects objects far removed. In the distance and
+irresistible motions of the stars he finds arguments for the
+supernatural, and gives to each of those shining bodies an abiding and
+controlling genius. The mental phase through which he is passing permits
+him to believe in the exercise of planetary influences on himself.
+
+[Sidenote: Fetichism displaced by star-worship.]
+
+But as reason led him forth from fetichism, so in due time it again
+leads him forth from star-worship. Perhaps not without regret does he
+abandon the mythological forms he has created; for, long after he has
+ascertained that the planets are nothing more than shining points,
+without any perceptible influence on him, he still venerates the genii
+once supposed to vivify them, perhaps even he exalts them into immortal
+gods.
+
+[Sidenote: The idea of government by law.]
+
+Philosophically speaking, he is exchanging by ascending degrees his
+primitive doctrine of arbitrary volition for the doctrine of law. As the
+fall of a stone, the flowing of a river, the movement of a shadow, the
+rustling of a leaf, have been traced to physical causes, to like causes
+at last are traced the revolutions of the stars. In events and scenes
+continually increasing in greatness and grandeur, he is detecting the
+dominion of law. The goblins, and genii, and gods who successively
+extorted his fear and veneration, who determined events by their fitful
+passions or whims, are at last displaced by the noble conception of one
+Almighty Being, who rules the universe according to reason, and
+therefore according to law.
+
+[Sidenote: Its application to the solar system.]
+
+In this manner the doctrine of government by law is extended, until at
+last it embraces all natural events. It was thus that, hardly two
+centuries ago, that doctrine gathered immense force from the discovery
+of Newton that Kepler's laws, under which the movements of the planetary
+bodies are executed, issue as a mathematical necessity from a very
+simple material condition, and that the complicated motions of the solar
+system cannot be other than they are. Few of those who read in the
+beautiful geometry of the 'Principia' the demonstration of this fact,
+saw the imposing philosophical consequences which must inevitably follow
+this scientific discovery. And now the investigation of the aspect of
+the skies in past ages, and all predictions of its future, rest
+essentially upon the principle that no arbitrary volition ever
+intervenes, the gigantic mechanism moving impassively in accordance with
+a mathematical law.
+
+[Sidenote: And to terrestrial events.]
+
+And so upon the earth, the more perfectly we understand the causes of
+present events, the more plainly are they seen to be the consequences of
+physical conditions, and therefore the results of law. To allude to one
+example out of many that might be considered, the winds, how
+proverbially inconstant, who can tell whence they come or whither they
+go! If any thing bears the fitful character of arbitrary volition,
+surely it is these. But we deceive ourselves in imagining that
+atmospheric events are fortuitous. Where shall a line be drawn between
+that eternal trade-wind, which, originating in well-understood physical
+causes, sweeps, like the breath of Destiny, slowly, and solemnly, and
+everlastingly over the Pacific Ocean, and the variable gusts into which
+it degenerates in more northerly and southerly regions--gusts which seem
+to come without any cause, and to pass away without leaving any trace?
+In what latitude is it that the domain of the physical ends, and that of
+the supernatural begins?
+
+All mundane events are the results of the operation of law. Every
+movement in the skies or upon the earth proclaims to us that the
+universe is under government.
+
+But if we admit that this is the case, from the mote that floats in the
+sunbeam to multiple stars revolving round each other, are we willing to
+carry our principles to their consequences, and recognise a like
+operation of law among living as among lifeless things, in the organic
+as well as the inorganic world? What testimony does physiology offer on
+this point?
+
+[Sidenote: And to the organic world.]
+
+Physiology, in its progress, has passed through the same phases as
+physics. Living beings have been considered as beyond the power of
+external influences, and, conspicuously among them, Man has been
+affirmed to be independent of the forces that rule the world in which he
+lives. Besides that immaterial principle, the soul, which distinguishes
+him from all his animated companions, and makes him a moral and
+responsible being, he has been feigned, like them, to possess another
+immaterial principle, the vital agent, which, in a way of its own,
+carries forward all the various operations in his economy.
+
+[Sidenote: Especially to man.]
+
+But when it was discovered that the heart of man is constructed upon the
+recognised rules of hydraulics, and with its great tubes is furnished
+with common mechanical contrivances, valves; when it was discovered that
+the eye has been arranged on the most refined principles of optics, its
+cornea, and humours, and lens properly converging the rays to form an
+image--its iris, like the diaphragm of a telescope or microscope,
+shutting out stray light, and also regulating the quantity admitted;
+when it was discovered that the ear is furnished with the means of
+dealing with the three characteristics of sound--its tympanum for
+intensity, its cochlea for pitch, its semicircular canals for quality;
+when it was seen that the air brought into the great air-passages by the
+descent of the diaphragm, calling into play atmospheric pressure, is
+conveyed upon physical principles into the ultimate cells of the lungs,
+and thence into the blood, producing chemical changes throughout the
+system, disengaging heat, and permitting all the functions of organic
+life to go on; when these facts and very many others of a like kind were
+brought into prominence by modern physiology, it obviously became
+necessary to admit that animated beings do not constitute the exception
+once supposed, and that organic operations are the result of physical
+agencies.
+
+If thus, in the recesses of the individual economy, these natural agents
+bear sway, must they not operate in the social economy too?
+
+[Sidenote: In social as well as individual life.]
+
+Has the great shadeless desert nothing to do with the habits of the
+nomade tribes who pitch their tents upon it--the fertile plain no
+connection with flocks and pastoral life--the mountain fastnesses with
+the courage that has so often defended them--the sea with habits of
+adventure? Indeed, do not all our expectations of the stability of
+social institutions rest upon our belief in the stability of surrounding
+physical conditions? From the time of Bodin, who nearly three hundred
+years ago published his work 'De Republica,' these principles have been
+well recognized: that the laws of Nature cannot be subordinated to the
+will of Man, and that government must be adapted to climate. It was
+these things which led him to the conclusion that force is best resorted
+to for northern nations, reason for the middle, and superstition for the
+southern.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of the seasons on animals and plants.]
+
+In the month of March the sun crosses the equator, dispensing his rays
+more abundantly over our northern hemisphere. Following in his train, a
+wave of verdure expands towards the pole. The luxuriance is in
+proportion to the local brilliancy. The animal world is also affected.
+Pressed forward, or solicited onward by the warmth, the birds of passage
+commence their annual migration, keeping pace with the developing
+vegetation beneath. As summer declines, this orderly advance of light
+and life is followed by an orderly retreat, and in its turn the southern
+hemisphere presents the same glorious phenomenon. Once every year the
+life of the earth pulsates; now there is an abounding vitality, now a
+desolation. But what is the cause of all this? It is only mechanical.
+The earth's axis of rotation is inclined to the plane of her orbit of
+revolution round the sun.
+
+Let that wonderful phenomenon and its explanation be a lesson to us; let
+it profoundly impress us with the importance of physical agents and
+physical laws. They intervene in the life and death of man personally
+and socially. External events become interwoven in our constitution;
+their periodicities create periodicities in us. Day and night are
+incorporated in our waking and sleeping; summer and winter compel us to
+exhibit cycles in our life.
+
+[Sidenote: Individual existence depends on physical conditions.]
+
+They who have paid attention to the subject have long ago ascertained
+that the possibility of human existence on the earth depends on
+conditions altogether of a material kind. Since it is only within a
+narrow range of temperature that life can be maintained, it is needful
+that our planet should be at a definite mean distance from the source of
+light and heat, the sun; and that the form of her orbit should be so
+little eccentric as to approach closely to a circle. If her mass were
+larger or less than it is, the weight of all living and lifeless things
+on her surface would no longer be the same; but absolute weight is one
+of the primary elements of organic construction. A change in the time of
+her diurnal rotation, as affecting the length of the day and night, must
+at once be followed by a corresponding modification of the periodicities
+of the nervous system of animals; a change in her orbitual translation
+round the sun, as determining the duration of the year, would, in like
+manner, give rise to a marked effect. If the year were shorter, we
+should live faster and die sooner.
+
+[Sidenote: Animal and vegetable life interbalanced by material
+conditions.]
+
+In the present economy of our globe, natural agents are relied upon as
+the means of regulation and of government. Through heat, the
+distribution and arrangement of the vegetable tribes are accomplished;
+through their mutual relations with the atmospheric air, plants and
+animals are interbalanced, and neither permitted to obtain a
+superiority. Considering the magnitude of this condition, and its
+necessity to general life, it might seem worthy of incessant Divine
+intervention, yet it is in fact accomplished automatically.
+
+[Sidenote: And also appearances and extinctions determined.]
+
+Of past organic history the same remark may be made. The condensation of
+carbon from the air, and its inclusion in the strata, constitute the
+chief epoch in the organic life of the earth, giving a possibility for
+the appearance of the hot-blooded and more intellectual animal tribes.
+That great event was occasioned by the influence of the rays of the sun.
+And as such influences have thus been connected with the appearance of
+organisms, so likewise have they been concerned in the removal. Of the
+myriads of species which have become extinct, doubtless every one has
+passed away through the advent of material conditions incompatible with
+its continuance. Even now, a fall of half-a-dozen degrees in the mean
+temperature of any latitude would occasion the vanishing of the forms of
+warmer climates, and the advent of those of the colder. An obscuration
+of the rays of the sun for a few years would compel a redistribution of
+plants and animals all over the earth; many would totally disappear, and
+everywhere new comers would be seen.
+
+[Sidenote: Permanence of organisms due to immobility of external
+conditions.]
+
+The permanence of organic forms is altogether dependent on the
+invariability of the material conditions under which they live. Any
+variation therein, no matter how insignificant it might be, would be
+forthwith followed by a corresponding variation in the form. The present
+invariability of the world of organization is the direct consequence of
+the physical equilibrium, and so it will continue as long as the mean
+temperature, the annual supply of light, the composition of the air, the
+distribution of water, oceanic and atmospheric currents, and other such
+agencies remain unaltered; but if any one of these, or of a hundred
+other incidents that might be mentioned, should suffer modification, in
+an instant the fanciful doctrine of the immutability of species would be
+brought to its true value. The organic world appears to be in repose,
+because natural influences have reached an equilibrium. A marble may
+remain for ever motionless upon a level table; but let the surface be a
+little inclined, and the marble will quickly run off. What should we say
+of him, who, contemplating it in its state of rest, asserted that it was
+impossible for it ever to move?
+
+[Sidenote: Orderly sequence of conditions is followed by orderly organic
+changes.]
+
+They who can see no difference between the race-horse and the Shetland
+pony, the bantam and the Shanghai fowl, the greyhound and the poodle
+dog, who altogether deny that impressions can be made on species, and
+see in the long succession of extinct forms, the ancient existence of
+which they must acknowledge, the evidences of a continuous and creative
+intervention, forget that mundane effects observe definite sequences,
+event following event in the necessity of the case, and thus
+constituting a chain, each link of which hangs on a preceding, and holds
+a succeeding one. Physical influences thus following one another, and
+bearing to each other the inter-relation of cause and effect, stand in
+their totality to the whole organic world as causes, it representing the
+effect, and the order of succession existing among them is perpetuated
+or embodied in it. Thus, in those ancient times to which we have
+referred, the sunlight acting on the leaves of plants disturbed the
+chemical constitution of the atmosphere, gave rise to the accumulation
+of a more energetic element therein, diminished the mechanical pressure,
+and changed the rate of evaporation from the sea, a series of events
+following one another so necessarily that we foresee their order, and,
+in their turn, making an impression on the vegetable and animal economy.
+The natural influences, thus varying in an orderly way, controlled
+botanical events, and made them change correspondingly. The orderly
+procedure of the one must be imitated in the orderly procedure of the
+other. And the same holds good in the animal kingdom; the recognized
+variation in the material conditions is copied in the organic effects,
+in vigour of motion, energy of life, intellectual power.
+
+When, therefore, we notice such orderly successions, we must not at once
+assign them to a direct intervention, the issue of wise predeterminations
+of a voluntary agent; we must first satisfy ourselves how far they are
+dependent on mundane or material conditions, occurring in a definite and
+necessary series, ever bearing in mind the important principle that an
+orderly sequence of inorganic events necessarily involves an orderly and
+corresponding progression of organic life.
+
+[Sidenote: Universal control of physical agents over organisms.]
+
+To this doctrine of the control of physical agencies over organic forms
+I acknowledge no exception, not even in the case of man. The varied
+aspects he presents in different countries are the necessary
+consequences of those influences.
+
+[Sidenote: The case of man.]
+
+He who advocates the doctrine of the unity of the human race is plainly
+forced to the admission of the absolute control of such agents over the
+organization of man, since the originally-created type has been brought
+to exhibit very different aspects in different parts of the world,
+apparently in accordance with the climate and other purely material
+circumstances. To those circumstances it is scarcely necessary to add
+manner of life, for that itself arises from them. The doctrine of unity
+demands as its essential postulate an admission of the paramount control
+of physical agents over the human aspect and organization, else how
+could it be that, proceeding from the same stock, all shades of
+complexion in the skin, and variety in the form of the skull, should
+have arisen? Experience assures us that these are changes assumed only
+by slow degrees, and not with abruptness; they come as a cumulative
+effect. They plainly enforce the doctrine that national type is not to
+be regarded as a definite or final thing, a seeming immobility in this
+particular being due to the attainment of a correspondence with the
+conditions to which the type is exposed. Let those conditions be
+changed, and it begins forthwith to change too. I repeat it, therefore,
+that he who receives the doctrine of the unity of the human race, must
+also accept, in view of the present state of humanity on various parts
+of the surface of our planet, its necessary postulate, the complete
+control of physical agents, whether natural, or arising artificially
+from the arts of civilization and the secular progress of nations toward
+a correspondence with the conditions to which they are exposed.
+
+To the same conclusion also must he be brought who advocates the origin
+of different races from different centres. It comes to the same thing,
+whichever of those doctrines we adopt. Each brings us to the admission
+of the transitory nature of typical forms, to their transmutations and
+extinctions.
+
+[Sidenote: Human variations.]
+
+Variations in the aspect of men are best seen when an examination is
+made of nations arranged in a northerly and southerly direction; the
+result is such as would ensue to an emigrant passing slowly along a
+meridional track; but the case would be quite different if the movement
+were along a parallel of latitude. In this latter direction the
+variations of climate are far less marked, and depend much more on
+geographical than on astronomical causes. In emigrations of this kind
+there is never that rapid change of aspect, complexion, and intellectual
+power which must occur in the other. Thus, though the mean temperature
+of Europe increases from Poland to France, chiefly through the influence
+of the great Atlantic current transferring heat from the Gulf of Mexico
+and tropical ocean, that rise is far less than would be encountered on
+passing through the same distance to the south. By the arts of
+civilization man can much more easily avoid the difficulties arising
+from variations along a parallel of latitude than those upon a meridian,
+for the simple reason that in that case those variations are less.
+
+[Sidenote: Their political result.]
+
+But it is not only complexion, development of the brain, and, therefore,
+intellectual power, which are thus affected. With difference of climate
+there must be differences of manners and customs, that is, differences
+in the modes of civilization. These are facts which deserve our most
+serious attention, since such differences are inevitably connected with
+political results. If homogeneousness be an element of strength, an
+empire that lies east and west must be more powerful than one that lies
+north and south. I cannot but think that this was no inconsiderable
+cause of the greatness and permanence of Rome and that it lightened the
+task of the emperors, often hard enough, in government. There is a
+natural tendency to homogeneousness in the east and west direction, a
+tendency to diversity and antagonism in the north and south, and hence
+it is that government under the latter circumstances will always demand
+the highest grade of statesmanship.
+
+[Sidenote: Nature of transitional forms.]
+
+The transitional forms which an animal type is capable of producing on a
+passage north and south are much more numerous than those it can produce
+on a passage east and west. These, though they are truly transitional as
+respects the type from which they have proceeded, are permanent as
+regards the locality in which they occur, being, in fact, the
+incarnation of its physical influences. As long, therefore, as those
+influences remain without change the form that has been produced will
+last without any alteration. For such a permanent form in the case of
+man we may adopt the designation of an ethnical element.
+
+[Sidenote: Conditions of change in an ethnical element.]
+
+An ethnical element is therefore necessarily of a dependent nature; its
+durability arises from its perfect correspondence with its environment.
+Whatever can affect that correspondence will touch its life.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress of nations like that of individuals.]
+
+Such considerations carry us from individual man to groups of men or
+nations. There is a progress for races of men as well marked as the
+progress of one man. There are thoughts and actions appertaining to
+specific periods in the one case as in the other. Without difficulty we
+affirm of a given act that it appertains to a given period. We recognize
+the noisy sports of boyhood, the business application of maturity, the
+feeble garrulity of old age. We express our surprise when we witness
+actions unsuitable to the epoch of life. As it is in this respect in the
+individual, so it is in the nation. The march of individual existence
+shadows forth the march of race-existence, being, indeed, its
+representative on a little scale.
+
+[Sidenote: Communities, like families, exhibit members in different
+stages of advance.]
+
+Groups of men, or nations, are disturbed by the same accidents, or
+complete the same cycle as the individual. Some scarcely pass beyond
+infancy, some are destroyed on a sudden, some die of mere old age. In
+this confusion of events, it might seem altogether hopeless to
+disentangle the law which is guiding them all, and demonstrate it
+clearly. Of such groups, each may exhibit, at the same moment, an
+advance to a different stage, just as we see in the same family the
+young, the middle-aged, the old. It is thus that Europe shows in its
+different parts societies in very different states--here the restless
+civilization of France and England, there the contentment and
+inferiority of Lapland. This commingling might seem to render it
+difficult to ascertain the true movement of the whole continent, and
+still more so for distant and successive periods of time. In each
+nation, moreover, the contemporaneously different classes, the educated
+and illiterate, the idle and industrious, the rich and poor, the
+intelligent and superstitious, represent different contemporaneous
+stages of advancement. One may have made a great progress, another
+scarcely have advanced at all. How shall we ascertain the real state of
+the case? Which of these classes shall we regard as the truest and most
+perfect type?
+
+Though difficult, this ascertainment is not impossible. The problem is
+to be dealt with in the same manner that we should estimate a family in
+which there are persons of every condition from infancy to old age. Each
+member of it tends to pursue a definite course, though some, cut off in
+an untimely manner, may not complete it. One may be enfeebled by
+accident, another by disease; but each, if his past and present
+circumstances be fully considered, will illustrate the nature of the
+general movement that all are making. To demonstrate that movement most
+satisfactorily, certain members of such a family suit our purpose better
+than others, because they more closely represent its type, or have
+advanced farthest in their career.
+
+[Sidenote: The intellectual class the true representative of a
+community.]
+
+So in a family of many nations, some are more mature, some less
+advanced, some die in early life, some are worn out by extreme old age;
+all show special peculiarities. There are distinctions among kinsmen,
+whether we consider them intellectually or corporeally. Every one,
+nevertheless, illustrates in his own degree the march that all are
+making, but some do it more, some less completely. The leading, the
+intellectual class, is hence always the true representative of a state.
+It has passed step by step through the lower stages, and has made the
+greatest advance.
+
+[Sidenote: Interstitial change and death the condition of individual
+life.]
+
+In an individual, life is maintained only by the production and
+destruction of organic particles, no portion of the system being in a
+state of immobility, but each displaying incessant change. Death is,
+therefore, necessarily the condition of life, and the more energetic the
+function of a part--or, if we compare different animals with one
+another--the more active the mode of existence, correspondingly, the
+greater the waste and the more numerous the deaths of the interstitial
+constituents.
+
+[Sidenote: Particles in the individual answer to persons in the state.]
+
+To the death of particles in the individual answers the death of persons
+in the nation, of which they are the integral constituents. In both
+cases, in a period of time quite inconsiderable, a total change is
+accomplished without the entire system, which is the sum of these
+separate parts, losing its identity. Each particle or each person comes
+into existence, discharges an appropriate duty, and then passes away,
+perhaps unnoticed. The production, continuance, and death of an organic
+molecule in the person answers to the production, continuance, and death
+of a person in the nation. Nutrition and decay in one case are
+equivalent to well-being and transformation in the other.
+
+[Sidenote: Epochs in national the same as in individual life.]
+
+In the same manner that the individual is liable to changes through the
+action of external agencies, and offers no resistance thereto, nor any
+indication of the possession of a physiological inertia, but submits at
+once to any impression, so likewise it is with aggregates of men
+constituting nations. A national type pursues its way physically and
+intellectually through changes and developments answering to those of
+the individual, and being represented by Infancy, Childhood, Youth,
+Manhood, Old Age, and Death respectively.
+
+[Sidenote: Disturbance through emigration.]
+
+But this orderly process may be disturbed exteriorly or interiorly. If
+from its original seats a whole nation were transposed to some new
+abode, in which the climate, the seasons, the aspect of nature were
+altogether different, it would appear spontaneously in all its parts to
+commence a movement to come into harmony with the new conditions--a
+movement of a secular nature, and implying the consumption of many
+generations for its accomplishment. During such a period of
+transmutation there would, of course, be an increased waste of life, a
+risk, indeed, of total disappearance or national death; but the change
+once completed, the requisite correspondence once attained, things would
+go forward again in an orderly manner on the basis of the new
+modification that had been assumed. When the change to be accomplished
+is very profound, involving extensive anatomical alterations not merely
+in the appearance of the skin, but even in the structure of the skull,
+long periods of time are undoubtedly required, and many generations of
+individuals are consumed.
+
+[Sidenote: And through blood admixture.]
+
+Or, by interior disturbance, particularly by blood admixture, with more
+rapidity may a national type be affected, the result plainly depending
+on the extent to which admixture has taken place. This is a disturbance
+capable of mathematical computation. If the blood admixture be only of
+limited amount, and transient in its application, its effect will
+sensibly disappear in no very great period of time, though never,
+perhaps, in absolute reality. This accords with the observation of
+philosophical historians, who agree in the conclusion that a small tribe
+intermingling with a larger one will only disturb it in a temporary
+manner, and, after the course of a few years, the effect will cease to
+be perceptible. Nevertheless, the influence must really continue much
+longer than is outwardly apparent; and the result is the same as when,
+in a liquid, a drop of some other kind is placed, and additional
+quantities of the first liquid then successively added. Though it might
+have been possible at first to detect the adulteration without trouble,
+it becomes every moment less and less possible to do so, and before long
+it cannot be done at all. But the drop is as much present at last as it
+was at first: it is merely masked; its properties overpowered.
+
+Considering in this manner the contamination of a numerous nation, a
+trifling amount of foreign blood admixture would appear to be indelible,
+and the disturbance, at any moment, capable of computation by the
+ascertained degree of dilution that has taken place. But it must not be
+forgotten that there is another agency at work, energetically tending to
+bring about homogeneity: it is the influence of external physical
+conditions. The intrusive adulterating element possesses in itself no
+physiological inertia, but as quickly as may be is brought into
+correspondence with the new circumstances to which it is exposed, herein
+running in the same course as the element with which it had mingled had
+itself antecedently gone over.
+
+National homogeneity is thus obviously secured by the operation of two
+distinct agencies: the first, gradual but inevitable dilution; the
+second, motion to come into harmony with the external natural state. The
+two conspire in their effects.
+
+[Sidenote: Secular variations of nations.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their institutions must correspondingly change.]
+
+We must therefore no longer regard nations or groups of men as offering
+a permanent picture. Human affairs must be looked upon as in continuous
+movement, not wandering in an arbitrary manner here and there, but
+proceeding in a perfectly definite course. Whatever may be the present
+state, it is altogether transient. All systems of civil life are
+therefore necessarily ephemeral. Time brings new external conditions;
+the manner of thought is modified; with thought, action. Institutions of
+all kinds must hence participate in this fleeting nature, and, though
+they may have allied themselves to political power, and gathered
+therefrom the means of coercion, their permanency is but little improved
+thereby; for, sooner or later, the population on whom they have been
+imposed, following the external variations, spontaneously outgrows them,
+and their ruin, though it may have been delayed, is none the less
+certain. For the permanency of any such system it is essentially
+necessary that it should include within its own organization a law of
+change, and not of change only, but change in the right direction--the
+direction in which the society interested is about to pass. It is in an
+oversight of this last essential condition that we find an explanation
+of the failure of so many such institutions. Too commonly do we believe
+that the affairs of men are determined by a spontaneous action or free
+will; we keep that overpowering influence which really controls them in
+the background. In individual life we also accept a like deception,
+living in the belief that every thing we do is determined by the
+volition of ourselves or of those around us; nor is it until the close
+of our days that we discern how great is the illusion, and that we have
+been swimming--playing and struggling--in a stream which, in spite of
+all our voluntary motions, has silently and resistlessly borne us to a
+predetermined shore.
+
+In the foregoing pages I have been tracing analogies between the life of
+individuals and that of nations. There is yet one point more.
+
+[Sidenote: The death of nations.]
+
+Nations, like individuals, die. Their birth presents an ethnical
+element; their death, which is the most solemn event that we can
+contemplate, may arise from interior or from external causes. Empires
+are only sand-hills in the hour-glass of Time; they crumble
+spontaneously away by the process of their own growth.
+
+A nation, like a man, hides from itself the contemplation of its final
+day. It occupies itself with expedients for prolonging its present
+state. It frames laws and constitutions under the delusion that they
+will last, forgetting that the condition of life is change. Very able
+modern statesmen consider it to be the grand object of their art to keep
+things as they are, or rather as they were. But the human race is not at
+rest; and bands with which, for a moment, it may be restrained, break
+all the more violently the longer they hold. No man can stop the march
+of destiny.
+
+[Sidenote: There is nothing absolute in time.]
+
+Time, to the nation as to the individual, is nothing absolute; its
+duration depends on the rate of thought and feeling. For the same reason
+that to the child the year is actually longer than to the adult, the
+life of a nation may be said to be no longer than the life of a person,
+considering the manner in which its affairs are moving. There is a
+variable velocity of existence, though the lapses of time may be
+equable.
+
+[Sidenote: Nations are only transitional forms.]
+
+The origin, existence, and death of nations depend thus on physical
+influences, which are themselves the result of immutable laws. Nations
+are only transitional forms of humanity. They must undergo obliteration
+as do the transitional forms offered by the animal series. There is no
+more an immortality for them than there is an immobility for an embryo
+in any one of the manifold forms passed through in its progress of
+development.
+
+[Sidenote: Their course is ever advancing, never retrograde.]
+
+[Sidenote: Variable rapidity of national life.]
+
+The life of a nation thus flows in a regular sequence, determined by
+invariable law, and hence, in estimating different nations, we must not
+be deceived by the casual aspect they present. The philosophical
+comparison is made by considering their entire manner of career or cycle
+of progress, and not their momentary or transitory state. Though they
+may encounter disaster, their absolute course can never be retrograde;
+it is always onward, even if tending to dissolution. It is as with the
+individual, who is equally advancing in infancy, in maturity, in old
+age. Pascal was more than justified in his assertion that "the entire
+succession of men, through the whole course of ages, must be regarded as
+one man, always living and incessantly learning." In both cases, the
+manner of advance, though it may sometimes be unexpected, can never be
+abrupt. At each stage events and ideas emerge which not only necessarily
+owe their origin to preceding events and ideas, but extend far into the
+future and influence it. As these are crowded together, or occur more
+widely apart, national life, like individual, shows a variable rapidity,
+depending upon the intensity of thought and action. But, no matter how
+great that energy may be, or with what rapidity modifications may take
+place--since events are emerging as consequences of preceding events,
+and ideas from preceding ideas--in the midst of the most violent
+intellectual oscillations, a discerning observer will never fail to
+detect that there exists a law of continuous variation of human
+opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Plan of this work.]
+
+[Sidenote: Selection among European communities.]
+
+In the examination of the progress of Europe on which we now enter, it
+is, of course, to intellectual phenomena that we must, for the most
+part, refer; material aggrandisement and political power offering us
+less important though still valuable indications, and serving our
+purpose rather in a corroborative way. There are five intellectual
+manifestations to which we may resort--philosophy, science, literature,
+religion, government. Our obvious course is, first, to study the
+progress of that member of the European family, the eldest in point of
+advancement, and to endeavour to ascertain the characteristics of its
+mental unfolding. We may reasonably expect that the younger members of
+the family, more or less distinctly, will offer us illustrations of the
+same mode of advancement that we shall thus find for Greece; and that
+the whole continent, which is the sum of these different parts, will, in
+its secular progress, comport itself in like manner.
+
+[Sidenote: Our investigation limited to the intellectual, and commencing
+with Greece.]
+
+[Sidenote: From thence we pass to the examination of all Europe.]
+
+Of the early condition of Europe, since we have to consider it in its
+prehistoric times, our information must necessarily be imperfect.
+Perhaps, however, we may be disposed to accept that imperfection as a
+sufficient token of its true nature. Since history can offer us no aid,
+our guiding lights must be comparative theology and comparative
+philology. Proceeding from those times, we shall, in detail, examine the
+intellectual or philosophical movement first exhibited in Greece,
+endeavouring to ascertain its character at successive epochs, and
+thereby to judge of its complete nature. Fortunately for our purpose,
+the information is here sufficient, both in amount and distinctness. It
+then remains to show that the mental movement of the whole continent is
+essentially of the same kind, though, as must necessarily be the case,
+it is spread over far longer periods of time. Our conclusions will
+constantly be found to gather incidental support and distinctness from
+illustrations presented by the aged populations of Asia, and the
+aborigines of Africa and America.
+
+[Sidenote: The five ages of European life.]
+
+The intellectual progress of Europe being of a nature answering to that
+observed in the case of Greece, and this, in its turn, being like that
+of an individual, we may conveniently separate it into arbitrary
+periods, sufficiently distinct from one another, though imperceptibly
+merging into each other. To these successive periods I shall give the
+titles of--1, the Age of Credulity; 2, the Age of Inquiry; 3, the Age of
+Faith; 4, the Age of Reason; 5, the Age of Decrepitude; and shall use
+these designations in the division of my subject in its several
+chapters.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: The world is ruled by law.]
+
+From the possibility of thus regarding the progress of a continent in
+definite and successive stages, answering respectively to the periods of
+individual life--infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, old age--we may
+gather an instructive lesson. It is the same that we have learned from
+inquiries respecting the origin, maintenance, distribution, and
+extinction of animals and plants, their balancing against each other;
+from the variations of aspect and form of an individual man as
+determined by climate; from his social state, whether in repose or
+motion; from the secular variations of his opinions, and the gradual
+dominion of reason over society: this lesson is, that the government of
+the world is accomplished by immutable law.
+
+Such a conception commends itself to the intellect of man by its
+majestic grandeur. It makes him discern the eternal in the vanishing of
+present events and through the shadows of time. From the life, the
+pleasures, the sufferings of humanity, it points to the impassive; from
+our wishes, wants, and woes, to the inexorable. Leaving the individual
+beneath the eye of Providence, it shows society under the finger of law.
+And the laws of Nature never vary; in their application they never
+hesitate nor are wanting.
+
+[Sidenote: And yet there is free-will for man.]
+
+But in thus ascending to primordial laws, and asserting their
+immutability, universality, and paramount control in the government of
+this world, there is nothing inconsistent with the free action of man.
+The appearance of things depends altogether on the point of view we
+occupy. He who is immersed in the turmoil of a crowded city sees nothing
+but the acts of men, and, if he formed his opinion from his experience
+alone, must conclude that the course of events altogether depends on the
+uncertainties of human volition. But he who ascends to a sufficient
+elevation loses sight of the passing conflicts, and no longer hears the
+contentions. He discovers that the importance of individual action is
+diminishing, as the panorama beneath him is extending. And if he could
+attain to the truly philosophical, the general point of view,
+disengaging himself front all terrestrial influences and entanglements,
+rising high enough to see the whole globe at a glance, his acutest
+vision would fail to discover the slightest indication of man, his
+free-will, or his works. In her resistless, onward sweep, in the
+clock-like precision of her daily and nightly revolution, in the
+well-known pictured forms of her continents and seas, now no longer dark
+and doubtful, but shedding forth a planetary light, well might he ask
+what had become of all the aspirations and anxieties, the pleasures and
+agony of life. As the voluntary vanished from his sight, and the
+irresistible remained, and each moment became more and more distinct,
+well might he incline to disbelieve his own experience, and to question
+whether the seat of so much undying glory could be the place of so much
+human uncertainty, whether beneath the vastness, energy, and immutable
+course of a moving world, there lay concealed the feebleness and
+imbecility of man. Yet it is none the less true that these contradictory
+conditions co-exist--Free-will and Fate, Uncertainty and Destiny, It is
+only the point of view that has changed, but on that how much has
+depended! A little nearer we gather the successive ascertainments of
+human inquiry, a little further off we realize the panoramic vision of
+the Deity. A Hindu philosopher has truly remarked, that he who stands by
+the banks of a flowing stream sees, in their order, the various parts as
+they successively glide by, but he who is placed on an exalted station
+views, at a glance, the whole as a motionless silvery thread among the
+fields. To the one there is the accumulating experience and knowledge of
+man in time, to the other there is the instantaneous the unsuccessive
+knowledge of God.
+
+[Sidenote: Changeability of forms and unchangeability of law.]
+
+Is there an object presented to us which does not bear the mark of
+ephemeral duration? As respects the tribes of life, they are scarcely
+worth a moment's thought, for the term of the great majority of them is
+so brief that we may say they are born and die before our eyes. If we
+examine them, not as individuals, but as races, the same conclusion
+holds good, only the scale is enlarged from a few days to a few
+centuries. If from living we turn to lifeless nature, we encounter again
+the evidence of brief continuance. The sea is unceasingly remoulding its
+shores; hard as they are, the mountains are constantly yielding to frost
+and to rain; here an extensive tract of country is elevated, there
+depressed. We fail to find any thing that is not undergoing change.
+
+Then forms are in their nature transitory, law is everlasting. If from
+visible forms we turn to directing law how vast is the difference. We
+pass from the finite, the momentary, the incidental, the conditioned--to
+the illimitable, the eternal, the necessary, the unshackled.
+
+[Sidenote: The object of this book is to assert the control of law in
+human affairs.]
+
+It is of law that I am to speak in this book. In a world composed of
+vanishing forms I am to vindicate the imperishability, the majesty of
+law, and to show how man proceeds, in his social march, in obedience to
+it. I am to lead my reader, perhaps in a reluctant path, from the
+outward phantasmagorial illusions which surround us, and so
+ostentatiously obtrude themselves on our attention, to something that
+lies in silence and strength behind. I am to draw his thoughts from the
+tangible to the invisible, from the limited to the universal, from the
+changeable to the invariable, from the transitory to the eternal; from
+the expedients and volitions so largely amusing the life of man, to the
+predestined and resistless issuing from the fiat of God.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+OF EUROPE: ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY.
+
+ITS PRIMITIVE MODES OF THOUGHT, AND THEIR PROGRESSIVE VARIATIONS,
+MANIFESTED IN THE GREEK AGE OF CREDULITY.
+
+ _Description of Europe: its Topography, Meteorology, and
+ secular Geological Movements.--Their Effect on its
+ Inhabitants._
+
+ _Its Ethnology determined through its Vocabularies._
+
+ _Comparative Theology of Greece; the Stage of Sorcery, the
+ Anthropocentric Stage.--Becomes connected with false Geography
+ and Astronomy.--Heaven, the Earth, the Under World.--Origin,
+ continuous Variation and Progress of Greek Theology.--It
+ introduces Ionic Philosophy._
+
+ _Decline of Greek Theology, occasioned by the Advance of
+ Geography and Philosophical Criticism.--Secession of Poets,
+ Philosophers, Historians.--Abortive public Attempts to sustain
+ it.--Duration of its Decline.--Its Fall._
+
+
+Europe is geographically a peninsula, and historically a dependency of
+Asia.
+
+[Sidenote: Description of Europe.]
+
+[Sidenote: The great path-zone.]
+
+It is constructed on the western third of a vast mountain axis, which
+reaches in a broken and irregular course from the Sea of Japan to the
+Bay of Biscay. On the flanks of this range, peninsular slopes are
+directed toward the south, and extensive plateaus to the north. The
+culminating point in Europe is Mont Blanc, 16,000 feet above the level
+of the sea. The axis of elevation is not the axis of figure; the incline
+to the south is much shorter and steeper than that to the north. The
+boundless plains of Asia are prolonged through Germany and Holland. An
+army may pass from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, a distance of more
+than six thousand miles, without encountering any elevation of more than
+a few hundred feet. The descent from Asia into Europe is indicated in a
+general manner by the mean elevation of the two continents above the
+level of the sea; that for Asia being 1132 feet, that for Europe 671.
+Through the avenue thus open to them, the Oriental hordes have again and
+again precipitated themselves on the West. With an abundance of springs
+and head-waters, but without any stream capable of offering a serious
+obstacle, this tract has a temperature well suited to military
+movements. It coincides generally with the annual isothermal line of
+50 deg., skirting the northern boundary beyond which the vine ceases to
+grow, and the limiting region beyond which the wild boar does not pass.
+
+[Sidenote: Exterior and interior accessibility.]
+
+Constructed thus, Europe is not only easily accessible from Asia, a fact
+of no little moment in its ancient history, but it is also singularly
+accessible interiorly, or from one of its parts to another. Still more,
+its sea-line is so broken, it has so many intrusive gulfs and bays,
+that, its surface considered, its maritime coast is greater than that of
+any other continent. In this respect it contrasts strikingly with
+Africa. Europe has one mile of coast-line for every 156 square miles of
+surface, Africa has only one for every 623. This extensive maritime
+contact adds, of course, greatly to its interior as well as exterior
+accessibility.
+
+[Sidenote: Distribution of heat in Europe.]
+
+The mean annual temperature of the European countries on the southern
+slope of the mountain axis is from 60 deg. to 70 deg. F., but of those to
+the north the heat gradually declines, until, at the extreme limit on the
+shores of Zembla, the ground is perpetually frozen. As on other parts of
+the globe, the climate does not correspond to the latitude, but is
+disturbed by several causes, among which may be distinguished the great
+Atlantic current--the Gulf Stream coming from America--and the Sahara
+Desert. The latter gives to the south of Europe an unduly high heat, and
+the former to Ireland, England, and the entire west a genial
+temperature. Together they press into higher latitudes the annual
+isothermal lines. If in Europe there are no deserts, there are none of
+those impenetrable forests seen in tropical countries. From the westerly
+shores of Portugal, France, and Ireland, the humidity diminishes as we
+pass to the east, and, indeed, if we advance into Asia, it disappears in
+the desert of Gobi. There are no vast homogeneous areas as in Asia, and
+therefore there is no widespread uniformity in the races of men.
+
+[Sidenote: And the quantity of rain.]
+
+But not only is the temperature of the European continent elevated by
+the Gulf Stream and the south-west wind, its luxuriance of vegetation
+depends on them; for luxuriance of vegetation is determined, among other
+things, by the supply of rain. A profusion of water gives to South
+America its amazing forests; a want inflicts on Australia its shadeless
+trees, with their shrunken and pointed leaves. With the diminished
+moisture the green gardens of France are replaced in Gobi by ligneous
+plants covered with a gray down. Physical circumstances control the
+vegetable as well as the animal world.
+
+The westerly regions of Europe, through the influence of the south-west
+wind, the Gulf Stream, and their mountain ranges, are supplied with
+abundant rains, and have a favourable mean annual temperature; but as we
+pass to the eastern confines the number of rainy days diminishes, the
+absolute annual quantity of rain and snow is less, and the mean annual
+temperature is lower. On the Atlantic face of the mountains of Norway it
+is perpetually raining: the annual depth of water is there 82 inches;
+but on the opposite side of those mountains is only 21 inches. For
+similar reasons, Ireland is moist and green, and in Cornwall the laurel
+and camellia will bear a winter exposure.
+
+There are six maximum points of rain--Norway, Scotland, South-western
+Ireland and England, Portugal, North-eastern Spain, Lombardy. They
+respectively correspond to mountains. In general, the amount of rain
+diminishes from the equator toward the poles; but it is greatly
+controlled by the disturbing influence of elevated ridges, which in many
+instances far more than compensate for the effects of latitude. The Alps
+exercise an influence over the meteorology of all Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: The number of rainy days;]
+
+Not only do mountains thus determine the absolute quantity of rain, they
+also affect the number of rainy days in a year. The occurrence of a
+rainy season depends on the amount of moisture existing in the air; and
+hence its frequency is greater at the Atlantic sea-board than in the
+interior, where the wind arrives in a drier state, much of its moisture
+having been precipitated by the mountains forcing it to a great
+elevation. Thus, on the eastern coast of Ireland it rains 208 days in a
+year; in England, about 150; at Kazan, 90; and in Siberia only 60 days.
+
+[Sidenote: and of snowy days.]
+
+When the atmospheric temperature is sufficiently low, the condensed
+water descends under the form of snow. In general, the annual depth of
+snow and the number of snowy days increase toward the north. In Rome the
+snowy days are 1-1/2; in Venice, 5-1/2; in Paris, 12; in St.
+Petersburgh, 171. Whatever causes interfere with the distribution of
+heat must influence the precipitation of snow; among such are the Gulf
+Stream and local altitude. Hence, on the coast of Portugal, snow is of
+infrequent occurrence; in Lisbon it never snowed from 1806 to 1811.
+
+Such facts teach us how many meteorological contrasts Europe presents,
+how many climates it contains. Necessarily it is full of modified men.
+
+[Sidenote: Vibrations of the isothermal lines.]
+
+If we examine the maps of monthly isothermals, we observe how strikingly
+those lines change, becoming convex to the north as summer approaches,
+and concave as winter. They by no means observe a parallelism to the
+mean, but change their flexures, assuming new sinuosities. In their
+absolute transfer they move with a variable velocity, and through spaces
+far from insignificant. The line of 50 deg. F., which in January passes
+through Lisbon and the south of the Morea, in July has travelled to the
+north shore of Lapland, and incloses the White Sea. As in some grand
+musical instrument, the strings of which vibrate, the isothermal lines
+of Europe and Asia beat to and fro, but it takes a year for them to
+accomplish one pulsation.
+
+[Sidenote: Europe is full of meteorological contrasts, and therefore of
+modified men.]
+
+All over the world physical circumstances control the human race. They
+make the Australian a savage; incapacitate the negro, who can never
+invent an alphabet or an arithmetic, and whose theology never passes
+beyond the stage of sorcery. They cause the Tartars to delight in a
+diet of milk, and the American Indian to abominate it. They make the
+dwarfish races of Europe instinctive miners and metallurgists. An
+artificial control over temperature by dwellings, warm for the winter
+and cool for the summer; variations of clothing to suit the season of
+the year, and especially the management of fire, have enabled man to
+maintain himself in all climates. The invention of artificial light has
+extended the available term of his life; by giving the night to his use,
+it has, by the social intercourse it encourages, polished his manners
+and refined his tastes, perhaps as much as any thing else has aided in
+his intellectual progress. Indeed, these are among the primary
+conditions that have occasioned his civilization. Variety of natural
+conditions gives rise to different national types, artificial inventions
+occasion renewed modifications. Where there are many climates there will
+be many forms of men. Herein, as we shall in due season discover, lies
+the explanation of the energy of European life, and the development of
+its civilization.
+
+Would any one deny the influence of rainy days on our industrial habits
+and on our mental condition even in a civilized state? With how much
+more force, then, must such meteorological incidents have acted on the
+ill-protected, ill-clad, and ill-housed barbarian! Would any one deny
+the increasing difficulty with which life is maintained as we pass from
+the southern peninsulas to the more rigorous climates of the north?
+There is a relationship between the mean annual heat of a locality and
+the instincts of its inhabitants for food. The Sicilian is satisfied
+with a light farinaceous repast and a few fruits; the Norwegian requires
+a strong diet of flesh; to the Laplander it is none the less acceptable
+if grease of the bear, or train oil, or the blubber of whales be added.
+Meteorology to no little extent influences the morals; the instinctive
+propensity to drunkenness is a function of the latitude. Food, houses,
+clothing, bear a certain relation to the isothermal lines.
+
+[Sidenote: But, through artificial inventions, it tends to
+homogeneousness in modern times.]
+
+For similar reasons, the inhabitants of Europe each year tend to more
+complete homogeneity. Climate and meteorological differences are more
+and more perfectly equalized by artificial inventions; nor is it alone
+a similarity of habits, a similarity of physiological constitution also
+ensues. The effect of such inventions is to equalize the influences to
+which men are exposed; they are brought more closely to the mean typical
+standard, and--especially is it to be remembered--with this closer
+approach to each other in conformation, comes a closer approach in
+feelings and habits, and even in the manner of thinking.
+
+[Sidenote: The Mediterranean peninsulas.]
+
+On the southern slope of the mountain axis project the historic
+peninsulas, Greece, Italy, Spain. To the former we trace unmistakably
+the commencement of European civilization. The first Greeks
+patriotically affirmed that their own climate was the best suited for
+man; beyond the mountains to the north there reigned a Cimmerian
+darkness, an everlasting winter. It was the realm of Boreas, the
+shivering tyrant. In the early ages man recognized cold as his mortal
+enemy. Physical inventions have enabled him to overcome it, and now he
+maintains a more difficult and doubtful struggle with heat.
+
+[Sidenote: The Mediterranean Sea.]
+
+Beyond these peninsulas, and bounding the continent on the south, is the
+Mediterranean, nearly two thousand miles in length, isolating Europe
+from Africa socially, but uniting them commercially. The Black Sea and
+that of Azof are dependencies of it. It has, conjointly with them, a
+shore-line of 13,000 miles, and exposes a surface of nearly a million
+and a quarter of square miles. It is subdivided into two basins, the
+eastern and western, the former being of high interest historically,
+since it is the scene of the dawn of European intelligence; the western
+is bounded by the Italian peninsula, Sicily, and the African promontory
+of Cape Bon on one side, and at the other has as its portal the Straits
+of Gibraltar. The temperature is ten or twelve degrees higher than the
+Atlantic, and, since much of the water is removed by evaporation, it is
+necessarily more saline than that ocean. Its colour is green where
+shallow, blue where deep.
+
+[Sidenote: Secular geological movement of Europe and Asia, and its
+social consequences.]
+
+For countless centuries Asia has experienced a slow upward movement, not
+only affecting her own topography, but likewise that of her European
+dependency. There was a time when the great sandy desert of Gobi was
+the bed of a sea which communicated through the Caspian with the Baltic,
+as may be proved not only by existing geographical facts, but also from
+geological considerations. It is only necessary, for this purpose, to
+inspect the imperfect maps that have been published of the Silurian and
+even tertiary periods. The vertical displacement of Europe, during and
+since the latter period, has indisputably been more than 2000 feet in
+many places. The effects of such movements on the flora and fauna of a
+region must, in the course of time, be very important, for an elevation
+of 350 feet is equal to one degree of cold in the mean annual
+temperature, or to sixty miles on the surface northward. Nor has this
+slow disturbance ended. Again and again, in historic times, have its
+results operated fearfully on Europe, by forcibly precipitating the
+Asiatic nomades along the great path-zone; again and again, through such
+changes of level, have they been rendered waterless, and thus driven
+into a forced emigration. Some of their rivers, as the Oxus and
+Jaxartes, have, within the records of history, been dry for several
+years. To these topographical changes, rather than to political
+influences, we must impute many of the most celebrated tribal invasions.
+It has been the custom to refer these events to an excessive
+overpopulation periodically occurring in Central Asia, or to the
+ambition of warlike chieftains. Doubtless those regions are well adapted
+to human life, and hence liable to overpopulation, considering the
+pursuits man there follows, and doubtless there have been occasions on
+which those nations have been put in motion by their princes; but the
+modern historian cannot too carefully bear in mind the laws which
+regulate the production of men, and also the body of evidence which
+proves that the crust of the earth is not motionless, but rising in one
+place and sinking in another. The grand invasions of Europe by Asiatic
+hordes have been much more violent and abrupt than would answer to a
+steady pressure resulting from overpopulation, and too extensive for
+mere warlike incitement; they answer more completely to the experience
+of some irresistible necessity arising from an insuperable physical
+cause, which could drive in hopeless despair from their homes the young
+and the old, the vigorous and feeble, with their cattle, and waggons,
+and flocks. Such a cause is the shifting of the soil and disturbance of
+the courses of water. The tribes compelled to migrate were forced along
+the path-zone, their track being, therefore, on a parallel of latitude,
+and not on a meridian; and hence, for the reasons set forth in the
+preceding chapter, their movements and journey of easier accomplishment.
+
+[Sidenote: Rate and extent of these movements.]
+
+These geological changes then enter as an element in human history, not
+only for Asia, of which the great inland sea has dwindled away to the
+Caspian, and lost its connection with the Baltic, but for Europe also.
+The traditions of ancient deluges, which are the primitive facts of
+Greek history, refer to such movements, perhaps the opening of the
+Thracian Bosphorus was one of them. In much later times we are
+perpetually meeting with incidents depending on geological disturbances;
+the caravan trade of Asia Minor was destroyed by changes of level and
+the accumulation of sands blown from the encroaching deserts; the Cimbri
+were impelled into Italy by the invasion of the sea on their
+possessions. There is not a shore in Europe which does not give similar
+evidence; the mouths of the Rhine, as they were in the Roman times, are
+obliterated; the eastern coast of England has been cut away for miles.
+In the Mediterranean the shore-line is altogether changed; towns, once
+on the coast, are far away inland; others have sunk beneath the sea.
+Islands, like Rhodes, have risen from the bottom. The North Adriatic,
+once a deep gulf, has now become shallow; there are leaning towers and
+inclining temples that have sunk with the settling of the earth. On the
+opposite extremity of Europe, the Scandinavian peninsula furnishes an
+instance of slow secular motion, the northern part rising gradually
+above the sea at the rate of about four feet in a century. This
+elevation is observed through a space of many hundred miles, increasing
+toward the north. The southern extremity, on the contrary, experiences a
+slow depression.
+
+These slow movements are nothing more than a continuation of what has
+been going on for numberless ages. Since the tertiary period two-thirds
+of Europe have been lifted above the sea. The Norway coast has been
+elevated 600 feet, the Alps have been upheaved 2000 or 3000, the
+Apennines 1000 to 2000 feet. The country between Mont Blanc and Vienna
+has been thus elevated since the adjacent seas were peopled with
+existing animals. Since the Neolithic age, the British Islands have
+undergone a great change of level, and, indeed, have been separated from
+the continent through the sinking of England and the rising of Scotland.
+
+[Sidenote: Early inhabitants of Europe.]
+
+At the earliest period Europe presents us with a double population. An
+Indo-Germanic column had entered it from the east, and had separated
+into two portions the occupants it had encountered, driving one to the
+north, the other to the south-west. These primitive tribes betray,
+physiologically, a Mongolian origin; and there are indications of
+considerable weight that they themselves had been, in ancient times,
+intruders, who, issuing from their seats in Asia, had invaded and
+dislocated the proper autochthons of Europe. In the Pleistocene age
+there existed in Central Europe a rude race of hunters and fishers,
+closely allied to the Esquimaux. Man was contemporary with the cave
+bear, the cave lion, the amphibious hippopotamus, the mammoth. Caves
+that have been examined in France or elsewhere have furnished for the
+stone age, axes, knives, lance and arrow points, scrapers, hammers. The
+change from what has been termed the chipped, to the polished stone
+period, was very gradual. It coincides with the domestication of the
+dog, an epoch in hunting life. The appearance of arrow heads indicates
+the invention of the bow, and the rise of man from a defensive to an
+offensive mode of life. The introduction of barbed arrows shows how
+inventive talent was displaying itself; bone and horn tips, that the
+huntsman was including smaller animals, and perhaps birds, in his chase;
+bone whistles, his companionship with other huntsmen, or with his dog.
+The scraping knives of flint, indicate the use of skin for clothing, and
+rude bodkins and needles, its manufacture. Shells perforated for
+bracelets and necklaces, prove how soon a taste for personal adornment
+was acquired, the implements necessary for the preparation of pigments
+suggest the painting of the body, and perhaps, tattooing; and batons of
+rank bear witness to the beginning of a social organization.
+
+We have thus as our starting-point a barbarian population, believers in
+sorcery, and, in some places, undoubtedly cannibals, maintaining, in the
+central and northern parts of Europe, their existence with difficulty by
+reason of the severity of the climate. In the southern, more congenial
+conditions permitted a form of civilization to commence, of which the
+rude Cyclopean structures here and there met with, such as the ruins of
+Orchomenos, the lion gate of Mycenae, the tunnel of Lake Copais, are
+perhaps the vestiges.
+
+[Sidenote: Their social condition.]
+
+At what period this intrusive Indo-Germanic column made its attack
+cannot be ascertained. The national vocabularies of Europe, to which we
+must resort for evidence, might lead us to infer that the condition of
+civilization of the conquering people was not very advanced. They were
+acquainted with the use of domestic animals, farming implements, carts,
+and yokes; they were also possessed of boats, the rudder, oars, but were
+unacquainted with the movement of vessels by sails. These conclusions
+seem to be established by the facts that words equivalent to boat,
+rudder, oar, are common to the languages of the offshoots of the stock,
+though located very widely asunder; but those for mast and sails are of
+special invention, and differ in adjacent nations.
+
+[Sidenote: Their civil state deduced from their vocabularies.]
+
+In nearly all the Indo-Germanic tongues, the family names, father,
+mother, brother, sister, daughter, are the same respectively. A similar
+equivalence may be observed in a great many familiar objects, house,
+door, town, path. It has been remarked, that while this holds good for
+terms of a peaceful nature, many of those connected with warfare and the
+chase are different in different languages. Such facts appear to prove
+that the Asiatic invaders followed a nomadic and pastoral life. Many of
+the terms connected with such an avocation are widely diffused. This is
+the case with ploughing, grinding, weaving, cooking, baking, sewing,
+spinning; with such objects as corn, flesh, meat, vestment; with wild
+animals common to Europe and Asia, as the bear and the wolf. So, too, of
+words connected with social organization, despot, rex, queen. The
+numerals from 1 to 100 coincide in Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian,
+Gothic; but this is not the case with 1000, a fact which has led
+comparative philologists to the conclusion that, though at the time of
+the emigration a sufficient intellectual advance had been made to invent
+the decimal system, perhaps from counting upon the fingers, yet that it
+was very far from perfection. To the inhabitants of Central Asia the sea
+was altogether unknown; hence the branches of the emigrating column, as
+they diverged north and south, gave it different names. But, though
+unacquainted with the sea, they were familiar with salt, as is proved by
+the recurrence of its name. Nor is it in the vocabularies alone that
+these resemblances are remarked; the same is to be said of the grammar.
+M. Max Mueller shows that in Sanscrit, Zend, Lithuanian, Doric, Slavonic,
+Latin, Gothic, the forms of the auxiliary verb _to be_ are all varieties
+of one common type, and that "the coincidences between the language of
+the Veda and the dialect spoken at the present day by the Lithuanian
+recruits at Berlin are greater by far than between French and Italian,
+and that the essential forms of grammar had been fully framed and
+established before the first separation of the Aryan family took place."
+
+But it should not be overlooked that such interesting deductions founded
+on language, its vocabularies and grammar, must not be pressed too
+closely. The state of civilization of the Indo-Germanic column, as thus
+ascertained, must needs have been inferior to that of the centre from
+which it issued forth. Such we observe to be the case in all migratory
+movements. It is not the more intellectual or civilized portions of a
+community which voluntarily participate therein, but those in whom the
+physical and animal character predominates. There may be a very rough
+offshoot from a very polished stock. Of course, the movement we are here
+considering must have taken place at a period chronologically remote,
+yet not so remote as might seem to be indicated by the state of
+civilization of the invaders, used as an indication of the state of
+civilization of the country from which they had come. In Asia, social
+advancement, as far back as we can discover, has ever been very slow;
+but, at the first moment that we encounter the Hindu race historically
+or philologically, it is dealing with philosophical and theological
+questions of the highest order, and settling, to its own satisfaction,
+problems requiring a cultivated intellect even so much as to propose.
+All this implies that in its social advancement there must have already
+been consumed a very long period of time.
+
+[Sidenote: Commingling of blood and of ideas.]
+
+But what chiefly interests us is the relation which must have been
+necessarily maintained between the intrusive people and those whom they
+thus displaced, the commingling of the ideas of the one with those of
+the other, arising from their commingling of blood. It is because of
+this that we find coexisting in the pre-Hellenic times the sorcery of
+the Celt and the polytheism of the Hindu. There can be no doubt that
+many of the philosophical lineaments displayed by the early European
+mythology are not due to indigenous thought, but were derived from an
+Asiatic source.
+
+[Sidenote: Climate-modification of Asiatic intruders.]
+
+Moreover, at the earliest historic times, notwithstanding the
+disturbance which must have lasted long after the successful and perhaps
+slow advance of the Asiatic column, things had come to a state of
+equilibrium or repose, not alone socially, but also physiologically. It
+takes a long time for the conqueror and conquered to settle together,
+without farther disturbance or question, into their relative positions;
+it takes a long time for the recollection of conflicts to die away. But
+far longer does it take for a race of invaders to come into unison with
+the climate of the countries they have seized, the system of man
+accommodating itself only through successive generations, and therefore
+very slowly, to new physical conditions. It takes long before the skin
+assumes its determinate hue, and the skull its destined form. A period
+amply sufficient for all such changes to be accomplished in Europe had
+transpired at the very dawn of history, and strands of population in
+conformity with meteorological and geographical influences, though of
+such origin as has been described, were already distributed upon it. A
+condition of ethnical equilibrium had been reached. Along each
+isothermal or climatic band were its correspondingly modified men,
+spending their lives in avocations dictated by their environment. These
+strands of population were destined to be dislocated, and some of them
+to become extinct, by inventing or originating among themselves new and
+unsuitable artificial physical conditions.
+
+[Sidenote: First gleams of civilization]
+
+Already Europe was preparing a repetition of those events of which Asia
+from time immemorial has been the scene. Already among the nations
+bordering on the Mediterranean, inhabitants of a pleasant climate, in
+which life could be easily maintained--where the isothermal of January
+is 41 deg. F., and of July 73-1/2 deg. F.--civilization was commencing.
+There was an improving agriculture, an increasing commerce, and, the
+necessary consequence thereof, germs of art, the accumulation of wealth.
+The southern peninsulas were offering to the warlike chieftains of
+middle Europe a tempting prize.
+
+[Sidenote: and first religious opinions.]
+
+Under such influences Europe may be considered as emerging from the
+barbarian state. It had lost all recollection of its ancient relations
+with India, which have only been disclosed to us by a study of the
+vocabularies and grammar of its diverse tongues. Upon its indigenous
+sorcery an Oriental star-worship had been ingrafted, the legends of
+which had lost their significance. What had at first been feigned of the
+heavenly bodies had now assumed an air of personality, and had become
+attributed to heroes and gods.
+
+The negro under the equinoctial line, the dwarfish Laplander beyond the
+Arctic Circle--man everywhere, in his barbarous state, is a believer in
+sorcery, witchcraft, enchantments; he is fascinated by the
+incomprehensible. Any unexpected sound or sudden motion he refers to
+invisible beings. Sleep and dreams, in which one-third of his life is
+spent, assure him that there is a spiritual world. He multiplies these
+unrealities; he gives to every grotto a genius; to every tree, spring,
+river, mountain, a divinity.
+
+[Sidenote: Localization of the invisible.]
+
+Comparative theology, which depends on the law of continuous variation
+of human thought, and is indeed one of its expressions, universally
+proves that the moment man adopts the idea of an existence of invisible
+beings, he recognizes the necessity of places for their residence, all
+nations assigning them habitations beyond the boundaries of the earth. A
+local heaven and a local hell are found in every mythology. In Greece,
+as to heaven, there was a universal agreement that it was situated above
+the blue sky; but as to hell, much difference of opinion prevailed.
+There were many who thought that it was a deep abyss in the interior of
+the earth, to which certain passages, such as the Acherusian cave in
+Bithynia, led. But those who with Anaximenes considered the earth to be
+like a broad leaf floating in the air, and who accepted the doctrine
+that hell was divided into a Tartarus, or region of night on the left,
+and an Elysium, or region of dawn on the right, and that it was equally
+distant from all parts of the upper surface, were nearer to the original
+conception, which doubtless placed it on the under or shadowy side of
+the earth. The portals of descent were thus in the west, where the sun
+and stars set, though here and there were passages leading through the
+ground to the other side, such as those by which Hercules and Ulysses
+had gone. The place of ascent was in the east, and the morning twilight
+a reflection from the Elysian Fields.
+
+[Sidenote: The anthropocentric stage of thought.]
+
+The picture of Nature thus interpreted has for its centre the earth; for
+its most prominent object, man. Whatever there is has been made for his
+pleasure, or to minister to his use. To this belief that every thing is
+of a subordinate value compared with himself, he clings with tenacity
+even in his most advanced mental state.
+
+Not without surprise do we trace the progress of the human mind. The
+barbarian, as a believer in sorcery, lives in incessant dread. All
+Nature seems to be at enmity with him and conspiring for his hurt. Out
+of the darkness he cannot tell what alarming spectre may emerge; he may,
+with reason, fear that injury is concealed in every stone, and hidden
+behind every leaf. How wide is the interval from this terror-stricken
+condition to that state in which man persuades himself of the human
+destiny of the universe! Yet, wonderful to be said, he passes that
+interval at a single step.
+
+In the infancy of the human race, geographical and astronomical ideas
+are the same all over the world, for they are the interpretation of
+things according to outward appearances, the accepting of phenomena as
+they are presented, without any of the corrections that reason may
+offer. This universality and homogeneity is nothing more than a
+manifestation of the uniform mode of action of human organization.
+
+[Sidenote: From homogeneous ideas the comparative sciences emerge.]
+
+But such homogeneous conclusions, such similar pictures, are strictly
+peculiar to the infancy of humanity. The reasoning faculty at length
+inevitably makes itself felt, and diversities of interpretation ensue.
+Comparative geography, comparative astronomy, comparative theology thus
+arise, homogeneous at first, but soon exhibiting variations.
+
+[Sidenote: Introduction of personified forms.]
+
+To that tendency for personification which marks the early life of man
+are due many of the mythologic conceptions. It was thus that the Hours,
+the Dawn, and Night with her black mantle bespangled with stars,
+received their forms. Many of the most beautiful legends were thus of a
+personified astronomical origin; many were derived from terrestrial or
+familiar phenomena. The clouds were thus made to be animated things; a
+moving spirit was given to the storm, the dew, the wind. The sun setting
+in the glowing clouds of the west became Hercules in the fiery pile; the
+morning dawn extinguished by the rising sun was embodied in the story of
+Orpheus and Eurydice. These legends still survive in India.
+
+[Sidenote: The gradual and affiliated advance of Greek theological
+ideas.]
+
+[Sidenote: The composite nature of the resulting mythology.]
+
+But it must not be supposed that all Greek mythology can be thus
+explained. It is enough for us to examine the circumstances under which,
+for many ages, the European communities had been placed, to understand
+that they had forgotten much that their ancestors had brought from Asia.
+Much that was new had also spontaneously arisen. The well-known
+variations of their theogony are not merely similar legends of different
+localities, they are more frequently the successive improvements of one
+place. The general theme upon which they are based requires the
+admission of a primitive chaotic disturbance of incomprehensible
+gigantic powers, brought into subjection by Divine agency, that agency
+dividing and regulating the empire it had thus acquired in a harmonious
+way. To this general conception was added a multitude of adventitious
+ornaments, some of which were of a rude astronomical, some of a moral,
+some, doubtless, of a historical kind. The primitive chaotic conflicts
+appear under the form of the war of the Titans; their end is the
+confinement of those giants in Tartarus; whose compulsory subjection is
+the commencement of order: thus Atlas, the son of Iapetos, is made to
+sustain the vault of heaven in its western verge. The regulation of
+empire is shadowed forth in the subdivision of the universe between Zeus
+and his brothers, he taking the heavens, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the
+under world, all having the earth as their common theatre of action. The
+moral is prefigured by such myths as those of Prometheus and Epimetheus,
+the fore-thinker and the after-thinker; the historical in the deluge of
+Deucalion, the sieges of Thebes and of Troy. A harmony with human nature
+is established through the birth and marriage of the gods, and likewise
+by their sufferings, passions, and labours. The supernatural is
+gratified by Centaurs, Gorgons, Harpies, and Cyclops.
+
+It would be in vain to attempt the reduction of such a patchwork system
+to any single principle, astronomical or moral, as some have tried to
+do--a system originating from no single point as to country or to time.
+The gradual growth of many ages, its diversities are due to many local
+circumstances. Like the romances of a later period, it will not bear an
+application of the ordinary rules of life. It recommended itself to a
+people who found pleasure in accepting without any question statements
+no matter how marvellous, impostures no matter how preposterous. Gods,
+heroes, monsters, and men might figure together without any outrage to
+probability when there was no astronomy, no geography, no rule of
+evidence, no standard of belief. But the downfall of such a system was
+inevitable as soon as men began to deal with facts; as soon as history
+commenced to record, and philosophy to discuss. Yet not without
+reluctance was the faith of so many centuries given up. The extinction
+of a religion is not the abrupt movement of a day, it is a secular
+process of many well-marked stages--the rise of doubt among the candid;
+the disapprobation of the conservative; the defence of ideas fast
+becoming obsolete by the well-meaning, who hope that allegory and new
+interpretations may give renewed probability to what is almost
+incredible. But dissent ends in denial at last.
+
+[Sidenote: Primitive astronomy and geography.]
+
+[Sidenote: The under world and its spectres.]
+
+Before we enter upon the history of that intellectual movement which
+thus occasioned the ruin of the ancient system, we must bring to
+ourselves the ideas of the Greek of the eighth century before Christ,
+who thought that the blue sky is the floor of heaven, the habitation of
+the Olympian gods; that the earth, man's proper abode, is flat and
+circularly extended like a plate beneath the starry canopy. On its rim
+is the circumfluous ocean, the source of the rivers, which all flow to
+the Mediterranean, appropriately in after ages so called, since it is in
+the midst, in the centre of the expanse of the land. "The sea-girt disk
+of the earth supports the vault of heaven." Impelled by a celestial
+energy, the sun and stars, issuing forth from the east, ascend with
+difficulty the crystalline dome, but down its descent they more readily
+hasten to their setting. No one can tell what they encounter in the land
+of shadows beneath, nor what are the dangers of the way. In the morning
+the dawn mysteriously appears in the east, and swiftly spreads over the
+confines of the horizon; in the evening the twilight fades gradually
+away. Besides the celestial bodies, the clouds are continually moving
+over the sky, for ever changing their colours and their shape. No one
+can tell whence the wind comes or whither it goes; perhaps it is the
+breath of that invisible divinity who launches the lightning, or of him
+who rests his bow against the cloud. Not without delight men
+contemplated the emerald plane, the sapphire dome, the border of silvery
+water, ever tranquil and ever flowing. Then, in the interior of the
+solid earth, or perhaps on the other side of its plane--under world, as
+it was well termed--is the realm of Hades or Pluto, the region of
+Night. From the midst of his dominion, that divinity, crowned with a
+diadem of ebony, and seated on a throne framed out of massive darkness,
+looks into the infinite abyss beyond, invisible himself to mortal eyes,
+but made known by the nocturnal thunder which is his weapon. The under
+world is also the realm to which spirits retire after death. At its
+portals, beneath the setting sun, is stationed a numerous tribe of
+spectres--Care, Sorrow, Disease, Age, Want, Fear, Famine, War, Toil,
+Death and her half-brother Sleep--Death, to whom it is useless for man
+to offer either prayers or sacrifice. In that land of forgetfulness and
+shadows there is the unnavigable lake Avernus, Acheron, Styx, the
+groaning Cocytus, and Phlegethon, with its waves of fire. There are all
+kinds of monsters and forms of fearful import: Cerberus, with his triple
+head; Charon, freighting his boat with the shades of the dead; the
+Fates, in their garments of ermine bordered with purple; the avenging
+Erinnys; Rhadamanthus, before whom every Asiatic must render his
+account; Aeacus, before whom every European; and Minos, the dread arbiter
+of the judgment-seat. There, too, are to be seen those great criminals
+whose history is a warning to us: the giants, with dragons' feet
+extended in the burning gulf for many a mile; Phlegyas, in perpetual
+terror of the stone suspended over him, which never falls; Ixion chained
+to his wheel; the daughters of Danaus still vainly trying to fill their
+sieve; Tantalus, immersed in water to his chin, yet tormented with
+unquenchable thirst; Sisyphus despairingly labouring at his
+ever-descending stone. Warned by such examples, we may learn not to
+contemn the gods. Beyond these sad scenes, extending far to the right,
+are the plains of pleasure, the Elysian Fields; and Lethe, the river of
+oblivion, of which whoever tastes, though he should ascend to the
+eastern boundary of the earth, and return again to life and day, forgets
+whatever he has seen.
+
+[Sidenote: The Argonautic voyage.]
+
+If the interior or the under side of the earth is thus occupied by
+phantoms and half-animated shades of the dead, its upper surface,
+inhabited by man, has also its wonders. In its centre is the
+Mediterranean Sea, as we have said, round which are placed all the known
+countries, each full of its own mysteries and marvels. Of these how
+many we might recount if we followed the wanderings of Odysseus, or the
+voyage of Jason and his heroic comrades in the ship _Argo_, when they
+went to seize the golden fleece of the speaking ram. We might tell of
+the Harpies, flying women-birds of obscene form; of the blind prophet;
+of the Symplegades, self-shutting rocks, between which, as if by
+miracle, the Argonauts passed, the cliffs almost entrapping the stern of
+their vessel, but destined by fate from that portentous moment never to
+close again; of the country of the Amazons, and of Prometheus groaning
+on the rock to which he was nailed, of the avenging eagle for ever
+hovering and for ever devouring; of the land of Aeetes, and of the bulls
+with brazen feet and flaming breath, and how Jason yoked and made them
+plough, of the enchantress Medea, and the unguent she concocted from
+herbs that grew where the blood of Prometheus had dripped; of the field
+sown with dragons' teeth, and the mail-clad men that leaped out of the
+furrows; of the magical stone that divided them into two parties, and
+impelled them to fight each other; of the scaly dragon that guarded the
+golden fleece, and how he was lulled with a charmed potion, and the
+treasure carried away; of the River Phasis, through whose windings the
+_Argo_ sailed into the circumfluous sea, of the circumnavigation round
+that tranquil stream to the sources of the Nile; of the Argonauts
+carrying their sentient, self-speaking ship on their shoulders through
+the sweltering Libyan deserts, of the island of Circe, the enchantress;
+of the rock, with its grateful haven, which in the height of a tempest
+rose out of the sea to receive them; of the arrow shot by Apollo from
+his golden bow; of the brazen man, the work of Hephaestos, who stood on
+the shore of Crete, and hurled at them as they passed vast fragments of
+stone; of their combat with him and their safe return to Iolcos; and of
+the translation of the ship _Argo_ by the goddess Athene to heaven.
+
+[Sidenote: Union of the geographical and the marvellous.]
+
+Such were some of the incidents of that celebrated voyage, the story of
+which enchanted all Greece before the Odyssey was written. I have not
+space to tell of the wonders that served to decorate the geography of
+those times. On the north there was the delicious country of the
+Hyperboreans, beyond the reach of winter; in the west the garden of the
+Hesperides, in which grew apples of gold; in the east the groves and
+dancing-ground of the sun; in the south the country of the blameless
+Ethiopians, whither the gods were wont to resort. In the Mediterranean
+itself the Sirens beguiled the passers-by with their songs near where
+Naples now stands; adjoining were Scylla and Charybdis; in Sicily were
+the one-eyed Cyclops and cannibal Laestrygons. In the island of Erytheia
+the three-headed giant Geryon tended his oxen with a double-headed dog.
+I need not speak of the lotus-eaters, whose food made one forget his
+native country; of the floating island of Aeolus; of the happy fields in
+which the horses of the sun were grazing; of bulls and dogs of immortal
+breed; of hydras, gorgons, and chimeras; of the flying man Daedalus, and
+the brazen chamber in which Danae was kept. There was no river, no
+grotto that had not its genius; no island, no promontory without its
+legend.
+
+[Sidenote: Earliest Greek theological ideas indicate a savage state.]
+
+It is impossible to recall these antique myths without being satisfied
+that they are, for the most part, truly indigenous, truly of European
+growth. The seed may have been brought, as comparative philologists
+assert, from Asia, but it had luxuriantly germinated and developed under
+the sky of Europe. Of the legends, many are far from answering to their
+reputed Oriental source; their barbarism and indelicacy represent the
+state of Europe. The outrage of Kronos on his father Uranos speaks of
+the savagism of the times; the story of Dionysos tells of man-stealing
+and piracy; the rapes of Europa and Helen, of the abduction of women.
+The dinner at which Itys was served up assures us that cannibalism was
+practised; the threat of Laomedon that he would sell Poseidon and Apollo
+for slaves shows how compulsory labour might be obtained. The polygamy
+of many heroes often appears in its worst form under the practice of
+sister-marriage, a crime indulged in from the King of Olympus downward.
+Upon the whole, then, we must admit that Greek mythology indicates a
+barbarian social state, man-stealing, piracy, human sacrifice,
+polygamy, cannibalism, and crimes of revenge that are unmentionable. A
+personal interpretation, such as man in his infancy resorts to, is
+embodied in circumstances suitable to a savage time. It was not until a
+later period that allegorical phantasms, such as Death, and Sleep, and
+Dreams were introduced, and still later when the whole system was
+affected by Lydian, Phrygian, Assyrian, and Egyptian ideas.
+
+[Sidenote: Their gradual improvement in the historic times.]
+
+[Sidenote: The inevitable tendency is to the Ionic philosophy.]
+
+Not only thus from their intrinsic nature, but also from their recorded
+gradual development, are we warranted in imputing to the greater part of
+the myths an indigenous origin. The theogony of Homer is extended by
+Hesiod in many essential points. He prefixes the dynasty of Uranos, and
+differs in minor conceptions, as in the character of the Cyclops. The
+Orphic theogony is again another advance, having new fictions and new
+personages, as in the case of Zagreus, the horned child of Jupiter by
+his own daughter Persephone. Indeed, there is hardly one of the great
+and venerable gods of Olympus whose character does not change with his
+age, and, seen from this point of view, the origin of the Ionic
+philosophy becomes a necessary step in the advance. That philosophy, as
+we shall soon find, was due not only to the expansion of the Greek
+intellect and the necessary improvement of Greek morals; an extraneous
+cause, the sudden opening of the Egyptian ports, 670 B.C., accelerated
+it. European religion became more mysterious and more solemn. European
+philosophy learned the error of its chronology, and the necessity of
+applying a more strict and correct standard of evidence for ancient
+events.
+
+It was an ominous circumstance that the Ionian Greeks, who first began
+to philosophize, commenced their labours by depersonifying the elements,
+and treating not of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, but of Air, Water, Fire.
+The destruction of theological conceptions led irresistibly to the
+destruction of religious practices. To divinities whose existence he
+denied, the philosopher ceased to pray. Of what use were sacrificial
+offerings and entreaties directed to phantasms of the imagination? but
+advantages might accrue from the physical study of the impersonal
+elements.
+
+[Sidenote: Inevitable destruction of Greek religious ideas]
+
+Greek religion contained within itself the principles of its own
+destruction. It is for the sake of thoroughly appreciating this that I
+have been led into a detail of what some of my readers may be disposed
+to regard as idle and useless myths. Two circumstances of inevitable
+occurrence insured the eventual overthrow of the whole system; they were
+geographical discovery and the rise of philosophical criticism. Our
+attention is riveted by the fact that, two thousand years later, the
+same thing again occurred on a greater scale.
+
+[Sidenote: by geographical discovery.]
+
+As to the geographical discovery, how was it possible that all the
+marvels of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, the sorcerers, enchanters,
+giants, and monsters of the deep, should survive when those seas were
+daily crossed in all directions? How was it possible that the notion of
+a flat earth, bounded by the horizon and bordered by the circumfluous
+ocean, could maintain itself when colonies were being founded in Gaul,
+and the Phoenicians were bringing tin from beyond the Pillars of
+Hercules? Moreover, it so happened that many of the most astounding
+prodigies were affirmed to be in the track which circumstances had now
+made the chief pathway of commerce. Not only was there a certainty of
+the destruction of mythical geography as thus presented on the plane of
+the earth looking upward to day; there was also an imminent risk, as
+many pious persons foresaw and dreaded, that what had been asserted as
+respects the interior, or the other face looking downward into night,
+would be involved in the ruin too. Well, therefore, might they make the
+struggle they did for the support of the ancient doctrine, taking the
+only course possible to them, of converting what had been affirmed to be
+actual events into allegories, under which, they said, the wisdom of
+ancient times had concealed many sacred and mysterious things. But it is
+apparent that a system forced to this necessity is fast hastening to its
+end.
+
+[Sidenote: Fictitious marvels replaced by grand actualities.]
+
+Nor was it maritime discovery only that thus removed fabulous prodigies
+and gave rise to new ideas. In due course of time the Macedonian
+expedition opened a new world to the Greeks and presented them with real
+wonders; climates in marvellous diversity, vast deserts, mountains
+covered with eternal snow, salt seas far from the ocean, colossal
+animals, and men of every shade of colour and every form of religion.
+The numerous Greek colonies founded all over Asia gave rise to an
+incessant locomotion, and caused these natural objects to make a
+profound and permanent impression on the Hellenic mind. If through the
+Bactrian empire European ideas were transmitted to the far East, through
+that and other similar channels Asiatic ideas found their way to Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Development of Mediterranean commerce.]
+
+At the dawn of trustworthy history, the Phoenicians were masters of
+the Mediterranean Sea. Europe was altogether barbarous. On the very
+verge of Asiatic civilization the Thracians scalped their enemies and
+tattooed themselves; at the other end of the continent the Britons
+daubed their bodies with ochre and woad. Contemporaneous Egyptian
+sculptures show the Europeans dressed in skins like savages. It was the
+instinct of the Phoenicians everywhere to establish themselves on
+islands and coasts, and thus, for a long time, they maintained a
+maritime supremacy. By degrees a spirit of adventure was engendered
+among the Greeks. In 1250 B.C. they sailed round the Euxine, giving rise
+to the myth of the Argonautic voyage, and creating a profitable traffic
+in gold, dried fish, and corn. They had also become infamous for their
+freebooting practices. From every coast they stole men, women, and
+children, thereby maintaining a considerable slave-trade, the relic of
+which endures to our time in the traffic for Circassian women. Minos,
+King of Crete, tried to suppress these piracies. His attempts to obtain
+the dominion of the Mediterranean were imitated in succession by the
+Lydians, Thracians, Rhodians, the latter being the inventors of the
+first maritime code, subsequently incorporated into Roman law. The
+manner in which these and the inhabitants of other towns and islands
+supplanted one another shows on what trifling circumstances the dominion
+of the eastern basin depended. Meantime Tyrian seamen stealthily sailed
+beyond the Pillars of Hercules, visiting the Canaries and Azores, and
+bringing tin from the British Islands. They used every precaution to
+keep their secret to themselves. The adventurous Greeks followed those
+mysterious navigators step by step; but in the time of Homer they were
+so restricted to the eastern basin that Italy may be said to have been
+to them an unknown land. The Phocaeans first explored the western basin;
+one of their colonies built Marseilles. At length Coleus of Samos passed
+through the frowning gateway of Hercules into the circumfluous sea, the
+Atlantic Ocean. No little interest attaches to the first colonial
+cities; they dotted the shores from Sinope to Saguntum, and were at once
+trading depots and foci of wealth. In the earliest times the merchant
+was his own captain, and sold his commodities by auction at the place to
+which he came. The primitive and profitable commerce of the
+Mediterranean was peculiar--it was for slaves, mineral products, and
+articles of manufacture; for, running coincident with parallels of
+latitude, its agricultural products were not very varied, and the wants
+of its populations the same. But tin was brought from the Cassiterides,
+amber from the Baltic, and dyed goods and worked metals from Syria.
+Wherever these trades centred, the germs of taste and intelligence were
+developed; thus the Etruscans, in whose hands was the amber trade across
+Germany, have left many relics of their love of art. Though a
+mysterious, they were hardly a gloomy race, as a great modern author has
+supposed, if we may judge from their beautiful remains.
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of philosophical criticism.]
+
+Added to the effect of geographical discovery was the development of
+philosophical criticism. It is observed that soon after the first
+Olympiad the Greek intellect very rapidly expanded. Whenever man reaches
+a certain point in his mental progress, he will not be satisfied with
+less than an application of existing rules to ancient events. Experience
+has taught him that the course of the world to-day is the same as it was
+yesterday; he unhesitatingly believes that this will also hold good for
+to-morrow. He will not bear to contemplate any break in the mechanism of
+history; he will not be satisfied with a mere uninquiring faith, but
+insists upon having the same voucher for an old fact that he requires
+for one that is new. Before the face of History Mythology cannot stand.
+
+[Sidenote: Secession of literary men from the public faith.]
+
+The operation of this principle is seen in all directions throughout
+Greek literature after the date that has been mentioned, and this the
+more strikingly as the time is later. The national intellect became more
+and more ashamed of the fables it had believed in its infancy. Of the
+legends, some are allegorized, some are modified, some are repudiated.
+The great tragedians accept the myths in the aggregate, but decline them
+in particulars; some of the poets transform or allegorize them; some use
+them ornamentally, as graceful decorations. It is evident that between
+the educated and the vulgar classes a divergence is taking place, that
+the best men of the times see the necessity of either totally abandoning
+these cherished fictions to the lower orders, or of gradually replacing
+them with something more suitable. Such a frittering away of sacred
+things was, however, very far from meeting with public approbation in
+Athens itself, although so many people in that city had reached that
+state of mental development in which it was impossible for them to
+continue to accept the national faith. They tried to force themselves to
+believe that there must be something true in that which had been
+believed by so many great and pious men of old, which had approved
+itself by lasting so many centuries, and of which it was by the common
+people asserted that absolute demonstration could be given. But it was
+in vain; intellect had outgrown faith. They had come into that condition
+to which all men are liable--aware of the fallacy of their opinions, yet
+angry that another should remind them thereof. When the social state no
+longer permitted them to take the life of a philosophical offender, they
+found means to put upon him such an invisible pressure as to present him
+the choice of orthodoxy or beggary. Thus they disapproved of Euripides
+permitting his characters to indulge in any sceptical reflections, and
+discountenanced the impiety so obvious in the 'Prometheus Bound' of
+Aeschylus. It was by appealing to this sentiment that Aristophanes added
+no little to the excitement against Socrates. They who are doubting
+themselves are often loudest in public denunciations of a similar state
+in others.
+
+[Sidenote: Secession of the philosophers.]
+
+If thus the poets, submitting to common sense, had so rapidly fallen
+away from the national belief, the philosophers pursued the same course.
+It soon became the universal impression that there was an intrinsic
+opposition between philosophy and religion, and herein public opinion
+was not mistaken; the fact that polytheism furnished a religious
+explanation for every natural event made it essentially antagonistic to
+science. It was the uncontrollable advance of knowledge that overthrew
+Greek religion. Socrates himself never hesitated to denounce physics for
+that tendency; and the Athenians extended his principles to his own
+pursuits, their strong common sense telling them that the philosophical
+cultivation of ethics must be equally bad. He was not loyal to science,
+but sought to support his own views by exciting a theological odium
+against his competitors--a crime that educated men ought never to
+forgive. In the tragedy that ensued the Athenians only paid him in his
+own coin. The immoralities imputed to the gods were doubtless strongly
+calculated to draw the attention of reflecting men, but the essential
+nature of the pursuit in which the Ionian and Italian schools were
+engaged bore directly on the doctrine of a providential government of
+the world. It not only turned into a fiction the time-honoured dogma of
+the omnipresence of the Olympian divinities--it even struck at their
+very existence, by leaving them nothing to do. For those
+personifications it introduced impersonal nature or the elements.
+Instead of uniting scientific interpretations to ancient traditions, it
+modified and moulded the old traditions to suit the apparent
+requirements of science. We shall subsequently see what was the
+necessary issue of this--the Divinity became excluded from the world he
+had made, the supernatural merged in natural agency; Zeus was superseded
+by the air, Poseidon by the water; and while some of the philosophers
+received in silence the popular legends, as was the case with Socrates,
+or, like Plato, regarded it as a patriotic duty to accept the public
+faith, others, like Xenophanes, denounced the whole as an ancient
+blunder, converted by time into a national imposture.
+
+[Sidenote: Antagonism of science and polytheism.]
+
+As I shall have occasion to speak of Greek philosophy in a detailed
+manner, it is unnecessary to enter into other particulars here. For the
+present purpose it is enough to understand that it was radically opposed
+to the national faith in all countries and at all times, from its origin
+with Thales down to the latest critic of the Alexandrian school.
+
+[Sidenote: Secession of historians.]
+
+As it was with philosophers, so it was with historians; the rise of true
+history brought the same result as the rise of true philosophy. In this
+instance there was added a special circumstance which gave to the
+movement no little force. Whatever might be the feigned facts of the
+Grecian foretime, they were altogether outdone in antiquity and wonder
+by the actual history of Egypt. What was a pious man like Herodotus to
+think when he found that, at the very period he had supposed a
+superhuman state of things in his native country, the ordinary passage
+of affairs was taking place on the banks of the Nile? And so indeed it
+had been for untold ages. To every one engaged in recording recent
+events, it must have been obvious that a chronology applied where the
+actors are superhuman is altogether without basis, and that it is a
+delusion to transfer the motives and thoughts of men to those who are
+not men. Under such circumstances there is a strong inducement to
+decline traditions altogether; for no philosophical mind will ever be
+satisfied with different tests for the present and the past, but will
+insist that actions and their sequences were the same in the foretime as
+now.
+
+[Sidenote: Universal disbelief of the learned.]
+
+Thus for many ages stood affairs. One after another, historians,
+philosophers, critics, poets, had given up the national faith, and lived
+under a pressure perpetually laid upon them by the public, adopting
+generally, as their most convenient course, an outward compliance with
+the religious requirements of the state. Herodotus cannot reconcile the
+inconsistencies of the Trojan War with his knowledge of human actions;
+Thucydides does not dare to express his disbelief of it; Eratosthenes
+sees contradictions between the voyage of Odysseus and the truths of
+geography; Anaxagoras is condemned to death for impiety, and only
+through the exertions of the chief of the state is his sentence
+mercifully commuted to banishment. Plato, seeing things from a very
+general point of view, thinks it expedient, upon the whole, to prohibit
+the cultivation of the higher branches of physics. Euripides tries to
+free himself from the imputation of heresy as best he may. Aeschylus is
+condemned to be stoned to death for blasphemy, and is only saved by his
+brother Aminias raising his mutilated arm--he had lost his hand in the
+battle of Salamis. Socrates stands his trial, and has to drink hemlock.
+Even great statesmen like Pericles had become entangled in the obnoxious
+opinions. No one has anything to say in explanation of the marvellous
+disappearance of demigods and heroes, why miracles are ended, or why
+human actions alone are now to be seen in the world. An ignorant public
+demands the instant punishment of every suspected man. In their
+estimation, to distrust the traditions of the past is to be guilty of
+treason to the present.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts at a reformation.]
+
+But all this confusion and dissent did not arise without an attempt
+among well-meaning men at a reformation. Some, and they were, perhaps,
+the most advanced intellectually, wished that the priests should abstain
+from working any more miracles; that relics should be as little used as
+was consistent with the psychical demands of the vulgar, and should be
+gradually abandoned; that philosophy should no longer be outraged with
+the blasphemous anthropomorphisms of the Olympian deities. Some, less
+advanced, were disposed to reconcile all difficulties by regarding the
+myths as allegorical; some wished to transform them so as to bring them
+into harmony with the existing social state; some would give them
+altogether new interpretations. With one, though the fact of a Trojan
+War is not to be denied, it was only the eidolon of Helen whom Paris
+carried away; with another expressions, perhaps once intended to
+represent actual events, are dwindled into mere forms of speech.
+Unwilling to reject the attributes of the Olympian divinities, their
+human passions and actions, another asserts that they must once have all
+existed as men. While one denounces the impudent atheists who find
+fault with the myths of the Iliad, ignorant of its allegorical meaning,
+another resolves all its heroes into the elements; and still another,
+hoping to reconcile to the improved moral sense of the times the
+indecencies and wickednesses of the gods, imputes them all to demons; an
+idea which found much favour at first, but became singularly fatal to
+polytheism in the end.
+
+[Sidenote: Inveterate superstition of the vulgar.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their jealous intolerance of doubts.]
+
+In apparent inconsistency with this declining state of belief in the
+higher classes, the multitude, without concern, indulged in the most
+surprising superstitions. With them it was an age of relics, of weeping
+statues, and winking pictures. The tools with which the Trojan horse was
+made might still be seen at Metapontum, the sceptre of Pelops was still
+preserved at Chaeroneia, the spear of Achilles at Phaselis, the sword of
+Memnon at Nicomedia; the Tegeates could still show the hide of the
+Calydonian boar, very many cities boasted their possession of the true
+palladium from Troy. There were statues of Athene that could brandish
+spears, paintings that could blush, images that could sweat, and
+numberless shrines and sanctuaries at which miracle-cures were
+performed. Into the hole through which the deluge of Deucalion receded
+the Athenians still poured a customary sacrifice of honey and meal. He
+would have been an adventurous man who risked any observation as to its
+inadequate size. And though the sky had been proved to be only space and
+stars, and not the firm floor of Olympus, he who had occasion to refer
+to the flight of the gods from mountain tops into heaven would find it
+to his advantage to make no astronomical remark. No adverse allusions to
+the poems of Homer, Arctinus, or Lesches were tolerated; he who
+perpetrated the blasphemy of depersonifying the sun went in peril of
+death. It was not permitted that natural phenomena should be substituted
+for Zeus and Poseidon; whoever was suspected of believing that Helios
+and Selene were not gods, would do well to purge himself to public
+satisfaction. The people vindicated their superstition in spite of all
+geographical and physical difficulties, and, far from concerning
+themselves with the contradictions which had exerted such an influence
+on the thinking classes, practically asserted the needlessness of any
+historical evidence.
+
+[Sidenote: Slowness of the decline and fall of Polytheism.]
+
+[Sidenote: The secondary causes of its downfall.]
+
+It is altogether erroneous to suppose that polytheism maintained its ground
+as a living force until the period of Constantine and Julian. Its downfall
+commenced at the time of the opening of the Egyptian ports. Nearly a
+thousand years were required for its consummation. The change first
+occurred among the higher classes, and made its way slowly through the
+middle ranks of society. For many centuries the two agencies--geographical
+discovery, arising from increasing commerce and the Macedonian expedition,
+and philosophical criticism--silently continued their incessant work, and
+yet it does not appear that they could ever produce a change in the lowest
+and most numerous division of the social grade. In process of time, a third
+influence was added to the preceding two, enabling them to address
+themselves even to the humblest rank of life; this influence was the rise
+of the Roman power. It produced a wonderful activity all over the
+Mediterranean Sea and throughout the adjoining countries. It insured
+perpetual movements in all directions. Where there had been only a single
+traveller there were now a thousand legionaries, merchants, government
+officials, with their long retinues of dependents and slaves. Where
+formerly it was only the historian or philosopher in his retirement who
+compared or contrasted the laws and creeds, habits and customs of different
+nations incorrectly reported, now the same things were vividly brought
+under the personal observation of multitudes. The crowd of gods and
+goddesses congregated in Rome served only to bring one another into
+disrepute and ridicule.
+
+[Sidenote: The alarm of good and religious men.]
+
+[Sidenote: Plato's remedy for the evil.]
+
+Long, therefore, previous to the triumph of Christianity, paganism must
+be considered as having been irretrievably ruined. Doubtless it was the
+dreadful social prospect before them--the apparent impossibility of
+preventing the whole world from falling into a totally godless state,
+that not only reconciled so many great men to give their support to the
+ancient system, but even to look without disapprobation on that
+physical violence to which the uneducated multitude, incapable of
+judging, were so often willing to resort. They never anticipated that
+any new system could be introduced which should take the place of the
+old, worn-out one; they had no idea that relief in this respect was so
+close at hand; unless, perhaps, it might have been Plato, who,
+profoundly recognizing that, though it is a hard and tedious process to
+change radically the ideas of common men, yet that it is easy to
+persuade them to accept new names if they are permitted to retain old
+things, proposed that a regenerated system should be introduced, with
+ideas and forms suited to the existing social state, prophetically
+asserting that the world would very soon become accustomed to it, and
+give to it an implicit adhesion.
+
+[Sidenote: The Greek movement has been repeated on a greater scale by
+all Europe.]
+
+In this description of the origin and decline of Greek religion I have
+endeavoured to bring its essential features into strong relief. Its fall
+was not sudden, as many have supposed, neither was it accomplished by
+extraneous violence. There was a slow, and, it must be emphatically
+added, a spontaneous decline. But, if the affairs of men pass in
+recurring cycles--if the course of events with one individual has a
+resemblance to the course of events with another--if there be analogies
+in the progress of nations, and circumstances reappear after due periods
+of time, the succession of events thus displayed before us in the
+intellectual history of Greece may perhaps be recognised again in
+grander proportions on the theatre of all Europe. If there is for the
+human mind a predetermined order of development, may we not reasonably
+expect that the phenomena we have thus been noticing on a small scale in
+a single nation will reappear on the great scale in a continent; that
+the philosophical study of this history of the past will not only serve
+as an interpretation of many circumstances in the history of Europe in
+the Dark and Middle Ages, but will also be a guide to us in pointing out
+future events as respects all mankind? For, though it is true that the
+Greek intellectual movement was anticipated, as respects its completion,
+by being enveloped and swallowed up in the slower but more gigantic
+movements of the southern European mind, just as a little expanding
+circle upon the sea may be obliterated and borne away by more imposing
+and impetuous waves, so even the movement of a continent may be lost in
+the movement of a world. It was criticism and physical discovery, and
+intellectual activity, arising from political concentration, that so
+profoundly affected the modes of Grecian thought, and criticism and
+discovery have within the last four hundred years done the same in all
+Europe. To one who forms his expectations of the future from the history
+of the past--who recalls the effect produced by the establishment of the
+Roman empire, in permitting free personal intercommunication among all
+the Mediterranean nations, and thereby not only destroying the ancient
+forms of thought which for centuries had resisted all other means of
+attack, but also replacing them by a homogeneous idea--it must be
+apparent that the wonderfully increased facilities for locomotion, the
+inventions of our own age, are the ominous precursors of a vast
+philosophical revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: The organization of hypocrisy.]
+
+Between that period during which a nation has been governed by its
+imagination and that in which it submits to reason, there is a
+melancholy interval. The constitution of man is such that, for a long
+time after he has discovered the incorrectness of the ideas prevailing
+around him, he shrinks from openly emancipating himself from their
+dominion, and, constrained by the force of circumstances, he becomes a
+hypocrite, publicly applauding what his private judgment condemns. Where
+a nation is making this passage, so universal do these practices become
+that it may be truly said hypocrisy is organized. It is possible that
+whole communities might be found living in this deplorable state. Such,
+I conceive, must have been the case in many parts of the Roman empire
+just before the introduction of Christianity. Even after ideas have
+given way in public opinion, their political power may outlive their
+intellectual vigour, and produce the disgraceful effect we here
+consider.
+
+It is not to be concealed, however, that, to some extent, this evil is
+incident to the position of things. Indeed, it would be unfortunate if
+national hypocrisy could not find a better excuse for itself than in
+that of the individual. In civilized life, society is ever under the
+imperious necessity of moving onward in legal forms, nor can such forms
+be avoided without the most serious disasters ensuing. To absolve
+communities too abruptly from the restraints of ancient ideas is not to
+give them liberty, but to throw them into political vagabondism, and
+hence it is that great statesmen will authorize and even compel
+observances the essential significance of which has disappeared, and the
+intellectual basis of which has been undermined. Truth reaches her full
+action by degrees, and not at once; she first operates upon the reason,
+the influence being purely intellectual and individual; she then extends
+her sphere, exerting a moral control, particularly through public
+opinion; at last she gathers for herself physical and political force.
+It is in the time consumed in this gradual passage that organized
+hypocrisy prevails. To bring nations to surrender themselves to new
+ideas is not the affair of a day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+DIGRESSION ON HINDU THEOLOGY AND EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION.
+
+ _Comparative Theology of India; its Phase of Sorcery; its
+ Anthropocentric Phase._
+
+ VEDAISM _the Contemplation of Matter, or Adoration of Nature,
+ set forth in the Vedas and Institutes of Menu.--The Universe
+ is God.--Transmutation of the World.--Doctrine of
+ Emanation.--Transmigration.--Absorption.--Penitential
+ Services.--Happiness in Absolute Quietude._
+
+ BUDDHISM _the Contemplation of Force.--The supreme impersonal
+ Power.--Nature of the World--of Man.--The Passage of every
+ thing to Nonentity.--Development of Buddhism into a vast
+ monastic System marked by intense Selfishness.--Its practical
+ Godlessness._
+
+ EGYPT _a mysterious Country to the old Europeans.--Its
+ History, great public Works, and foreign Relations.--Antiquity
+ of its Civilization and Art.--Its Philosophy, hieroglyphic
+ Literature, and peculiar Agriculture._
+
+ _Rise of Civilization in rainless Countries.--Geography,
+ Geology, and Topography of Egypt--The Inundations of the Nile
+ lead to Astronomy._
+
+ _Comparative Theology of Egypt.--Animal Worship, Star
+ Worship.--Impersonation of Divine Attributes--Pantheism.--The
+ Trinities of Egypt.--Incarnation.--Redemption.--Future
+ Judgment.--Trial of the Dead.--Rituals and Ceremonies._
+
+
+At this stage of our examination of European intellectual development,
+it will be proper to consider briefly two foreign influences--Indian and
+Egyptian--which affected it.
+
+[Sidenote: Of Hindu philosophy.]
+
+From the relations existing between the Hindu and European families, as
+described in the preceding chapter, a comparison of their intellectual
+progress presents no little interest. The movement of the elder branch
+indicates the path through which the younger is travelling, and the goal
+to which it tends. In the advanced condition under which we live we
+notice Oriental ideas perpetually emerging in a fragmentary way from the
+obscurities of modern metaphysics--they are the indications of an
+intellectual phase through which the Indo-European mind must pass. And
+when we consider the ready manner in which these ideas have been adopted
+throughout China and the entire East, we may, perhaps, extend our
+conclusion from the Indo-European family to the entire human race. From
+this we may also infer how unphilosophical and vain is the expectation
+of those who would attempt to restore the aged populations of Asia to
+our state. Their intellectual condition has passed onward, never more to
+return. It remains for them only to advance as far as they may in their
+own line and to die, leaving their place to others of a different
+constitution and of a renovated blood. In life there is no going back;
+the morose old man can never resume the genial confidence of maturity;
+the youth can never return to the idle and useless occupations, the
+frivolous amusements of boyhood; even the boy is parted by a long step
+from the innocent credulity of the nursery.
+
+[Sidenote: The phase of sorcery, and anthropocentric phase.]
+
+The earlier stages of the comparative theology of India are now
+inaccessible. At a time so remote as to be altogether prehistoric the
+phase of sorcery had been passed through. In the most ancient records
+remaining the Hindu mind is dealing with anthropocentric conceptions,
+not, however, so much of the physical as of the moral kind. Man had come
+to the conclusion that his chief concern is with himself. "Thou wast
+alone at the time of thy birth, thou wilt be alone in the moment of
+death; alone thou must answer at the bar of the inexorable Judge."
+
+[Sidenote: Comparative theology advances in two directions--Matter,
+Force.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vedaism contemplates matter, Buddhism force.]
+
+From this point there are two well-marked steps of advance. The first
+reaches the consideration of material nature; the second, which is very
+grandly and severely philosophical, contemplates the universe under the
+conceptions of space and force alone. The former is exemplified in the
+Vedas and Institutes of Menu, the latter in Buddhism. In neither of
+these stages do the ideas lie idle as mere abstractions; they introduce
+a moral plan, and display a constructive power not equalled even by the
+Italian papal system. They take charge not only of the individual, but
+regulate society, and show their influence in accomplishing political
+organizations, commanding our attention from their prodigious extent,
+and venerable for their antiquity.
+
+I shall, therefore, briefly refer, first, to the older, Vedaism, and
+then to its successor, Buddhism.
+
+[Sidenote: Vedaism is the adoration of Nature.]
+
+Among a people possessing many varieties of climate, and familiar with
+some of the grandest aspects of Nature--mountains the highest upon
+earth, noble rivers, a vegetation incomparably luxuriant, periodical
+rains, tempestuous monsoons, it is not surprising that there should have
+been an admiration for the material, and a tendency to the worship of
+Nature. These spectacles leave an indelible impression on the thoughts
+of man, and, the more cultivated the mind, the more profoundly are they
+appreciated.
+
+[Sidenote: The Vedas and their doctrines.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Veda doctrine of God,]
+
+[Sidenote: and of the world.]
+
+The Vedas, which are the Hindu Scriptures, and of which there are four,
+the Rig, Yagust, Saman and Atharvan, are asserted to have been revealed
+by Brahma. The fourth is, however, rejected by some authorities and
+bears internal evidence of a later composition, at a time when
+hierarchical power had become greatly consolidated. These works are
+written in an obsolete Sanscrit, the parent of the more recent idiom.
+They constitute the basis of an extensive literature, Upavedas, Angas,
+&c., of connected works and commentaries. For the most part they consist
+of hymns suitable for public and private occasions, prayers, precepts,
+legends, and dogmas. The Rig, which is the oldest, is composed chiefly
+of hymns, the other three of liturgical formulas. They are of different
+periods and of various authorship, internal evidence seeming to indicate
+that if the later were composed by priests, the earlier were the
+production of military chieftains. They answer to a state of society
+advanced from the nomad to the municipal condition. They are based upon
+an acknowledgment of a universal Spirit pervading all things. Of this
+God they therefore necessarily acknowledge the unity: "There is in truth
+but one Deity, the Supreme Spirit, the Lord of the universe, whose work
+is the universe." "The God above all gods, who created the earth, the
+heavens, the waters." The world, thus considered as an emanation of God,
+is therefore a part of him; it is kept in a visible state by his energy,
+and would instantly disappear if that energy were for a moment
+withdrawn. Even as it is, it is undergoing unceasing transformations,
+every thing being in a transitory condition. The moment a given phase is
+reached, it is departed from, or ceases. In these perpetual movements
+the present can scarcely be said to have any existence, for as the Past
+is ending the Future has begun.
+
+[Sidenote: Its transformation.]
+
+In such a never-ceasing career all material things are urged, their
+forms continually changing, and returning as it were, through revolving
+cycles to similar states. For this reason it is that we may regard our
+earth, and the various celestial bodies, as having had a moment of
+birth, as having a time of continuance, in which they are passing onward
+to an inevitable destruction, and that after the lapse of countless ages
+similar progresses will be made, and similar series of events will occur
+again and again.
+
+[Sidenote: It is the visi-semblance of God.]
+
+But in this doctrine of universal transformation there is something more
+than appears at first. The theology of India is underlaid with
+Pantheism. "God is One because he is All." The Vedas, in speaking of the
+relation of nature to God, make use of the expression that he is the
+Material as well as the Cause of the universe, "the Clay as well as the
+Potter." They convey the idea that while there is a pervading spirit
+existing everywhere of the same nature as the soul of man, though
+differing from it infinitely in degree, visible nature is essentially
+and inseparably connected therewith; that as in man the body is
+perpetually undergoing changes, perpetually decaying and being renewed,
+or, as in the case of the whole human species, nations come into
+existence and pass away, yet still there continues to exist what may be
+termed the universal human mind, so for ever associated and for ever
+connected are the material and the spiritual. And under this aspect we
+must contemplate the Supreme Being, not merely as a presiding intellect,
+but as illustrated by the parallel case of man, whose mental principle
+shows no tokens except through its connexion with the body; so matter,
+or nature, or the visible universe, is to be looked upon as the
+corporeal manifestation of God.
+
+[Sidenote: The nature of mundane changes.]
+
+Secular changes taking place invisible objects, especially those of an
+astronomical kind, thus stand as the gigantic counterparts both as to
+space and time of the microscopic changes which we recognize as
+occurring in the body of man. However, in adopting these views of the
+relations of material nature and spirit, we must continually bear in
+mind that matter "has no essence independent of mental perception; that
+existence and perceptibility are convertible terms; that external
+appearances and sensations are illusory, and would vanish into nothing
+if the divine energy which alone sustains them were suspended but for a
+moment."
+
+[Sidenote: Of the soul of man.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its final absorption in God.]
+
+[Sidenote: Of purifying penances,]
+
+[Sidenote: and transmigration of souls.]
+
+As to the relation between the Supreme Being and man, the soul is a
+portion or particle of that all-pervading principle, the Universal
+Intellect or Soul of the World, detached for a while from its primitive
+source, and placed in connexion with the bodily frame, but destined by
+an inevitable necessity sooner or later to be restored and rejoined--as
+inevitably as rivers run back to be lost in the ocean from which they
+arose. "That Spirit," says Varuna to his son, "from which all created
+beings proceed, in which, having proceeded, they live, toward which they
+tend, and in which they are at last absorbed, that Spirit study to know:
+it is the Great One." Since a multitude of moral considerations assure
+us of the existence of evil in the world, and since it is not possible
+for so holy a thing as the spirit of man to be exposed thereto without
+undergoing contamination, it comes to pass that an unfitness may be
+contracted for its rejoining the infinitely pure essence from which it
+was derived, and hence arises the necessity of its undergoing a course
+of purification. And as the life of man is often too short to afford the
+needful opportunity, and, indeed, its events, in many instances, tend
+rather to increase than to diminish the stain, the season of
+purification is prolonged by perpetuating a connexion of the sinful
+spirit with other forms, and permitting its transmigration to other
+bodies, in which, by the penance it undergoes, and the trials to which
+it is exposed, its iniquity may be washed away, and satisfactory
+preparation be made for its absorption in the ocean of infinite purity.
+Considering thus the relation in which all animated nature stands to us,
+being a mechanism for purification, this doctrine of the transmigration
+of the soul leads necessarily to other doctrines of a moral kind, more
+particularly to a profound respect for life under every form, human,
+animal, or insect.
+
+[Sidenote: The religious use of animal life.]
+
+The forms of animal life, therefore, furnish a grand penitential
+mechanism for man. Such, on these principles, is their teleological
+explanation. In European philosophy there is no equivalent or
+counterpart of this view. With us animal life is purposeless. Hereafter
+we shall find that in Egypt, though the doctrine of transmigration must
+of course have tended to similar suggestions, it became disturbed in its
+practical application by the base fetich notions of the indigenous
+African population. Hence the doctrine was cherished by the learned for
+philosophical reasons, and by the multitude for the harmony of its
+results with their idolatries.
+
+[Sidenote: Of proper modes of devotion.]
+
+From such theological dogmas a religious system obviously springs having
+for its object to hasten the purification of the soul, that it may the
+more quickly enter on absolute happiness, which is only to be found in
+absolute rest. The methods of shortening its wanderings and bringing it
+to repose are the exercises of a pious life, penance, and prayer, and
+more especially a profound contemplation of the existence and attributes
+of the Supreme Being. In this profound contemplation many holy men have
+passed their lives.
+
+[Sidenote: Minor Vedic doctrine.]
+
+Such is a brief statement of Vedic theology, as exhibited in the
+connected doctrines of the Nature of God, Universal Animation,
+Transmutation of the World, Emanation of the Soul, Manifestation of
+Visible Things, Transmigration, Absorption, the uses of Penitential
+Services, and Contemplation for the attainment of Absolute Happiness in
+Absolute Rest. The Vedas also recognize a series of creatures superior
+to man, the gods of the elements and stars; they likewise personify the
+attributes of the Deity. The three Vedic divinities, Agni, Indra, and
+Surya, are not to be looked upon as existing independently, for all
+spirits are comprehended in the Universal Soul. The later Hindu trinity,
+Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, is not recognized by them. They do not
+authorize the worship of deified men, nor of images, nor of any visible
+forms. They admit the adoration of subordinate spirits, as those of the
+planets, or of the demigods who inhabit the air, the waters, the woods;
+these demigods are liable to death. They inculcate universal
+charity--charity even to an enemy: "The tree doth not withdraw its shade
+from the woodcutter." Prayers are to be made thrice a day, morning,
+noon, evening; fasting is ordained, and ablution before meals; the
+sacrificial offerings consist of flowers, fruits, money. Considered as a
+whole their religious tendency is selfish: it puts in prominence the
+baser motives, and seeks the gratification of the animal appetites, as
+food, pleasure, good fortune. They suggest no proselyting spirit, but
+rather adopt the principle that all religions must be equally acceptable
+to God, since, if it were otherwise, he would have instituted a single
+one, and, considering his omnipotence, none other could have possibly
+prevailed. They contain no authorization of the division of castes,
+which probably had arisen in the necessities of antecedent conquests,
+but which have imposed a perpetual obstacle to any social progress,
+keeping each class of society in an immovable state, and concentrating
+knowledge and power in a hierarchy. Neither in them, nor, it is
+affirmed, in the whole Indian literature, is there a single passage
+indicating a love of liberty. The Asiatics cannot understand what value
+there is in it. They have balanced Freedom against Security; they have
+deliberately preferred the latter, and left the former for Europe to
+sigh for. Liberty is alone appreciated in a life of action; but the life
+of Asia is essentially passive, its desire is for tranquillity. Some
+have affirmed that this imbecility is due to the fact that that
+continent has no true temperate zone, and that thus, for ages, the weak
+nations have been in contact with the strong, and therefore the hopeless
+aspirations for personal freedom have become extinct. But nations that
+are cut off from the sea, or that have accepted the dogma that to
+travel upon it is unholy, can never comprehend liberty. From the general
+tenor of the Vedas, it would appear that the condition of women was not
+so much restrained as it became in later times, and that monogamy was
+the ordinary state. From the great extent of these works, their various
+dates and authorship, it is not easy to deduce from them consistent
+principles, and their parts being without any connexion, complete copies
+are very scarce. They have undergone mutilation and restoration, so that
+great discordances have arisen.
+
+[Sidenote: The Institutes of Menu.]
+
+In the Institutes of Menu, a code of civil and religious law, written
+about the ninth century before Christ, though, like the Vedas, betraying
+a gradual origin, the doctrine of the Divine unity becomes more
+distinctly mixed up with Pantheistic ideas. They present a description
+of creation, of the nature of God, and contain prescribed rules for the
+duty of man in every station of life from the moment of birth to death.
+Their imperious regulations in all these minute details are a sufficient
+proof of the great development and paramount power to which the
+priesthood had now attained, but their morality is discreditable. They
+indicate a high civilization and demoralization, deal with crimes and a
+policy such as are incident to an advanced social condition. Their
+arbitrary and all-reaching spirit reminds one of the papal system; their
+recommendations to sovereigns, their authorization of immoralities,
+recall the state of Italian society as reflected in the works of
+Machiavelli. They hold learning in the most signal esteem, but concede
+to the prejudices of the illiterate in a worship of the gods with
+burnt-offerings of clarified butter and libations of the juices of
+plants. As respects the constitution of man, they make a distinction
+between the soul and the vital principle, asserting that it is the
+latter only which expiates sin by transmigration. They divide society
+into four castes--the priests, the military, the industrial, the
+servile. They make a Brahmin the chief of all created things, and order
+that his life shall be divided into four parts, one to be spent in
+abstinence, one in marriage, one as an anchorite, and one in profound
+meditation; he may then "quit the body as a bird leaves the branch of a
+tree." They vest the government of society in an absolute monarch,
+having seven councillors, who direct the internal administration by a
+chain of officials, the revenue being derived from a share of
+agricultural products, taxes on commerce, imposts on shopkeepers, and a
+service of one day in the month from labourers.
+
+[Sidenote: Both the Vedas and Institutes are pantheistic.]
+
+In their essential principles the Institutes therefore follow the Vedas,
+though, as must be the case in every system intended for men in the
+various stages of intellectual progress from the least advanced to the
+highest, they show a leaning toward popular delusions. Both are
+pantheistic, for both regard the universe as the manifestation of the
+Creator; both accept the doctrine of Emanation, teaching that the
+universe lasts only for a definite period of time, and then, the Divine
+energy being withdrawn, absorption of everything, even of the created
+gods, takes place, and thus, in great cycles of prodigious duration,
+many such successive emanations and absorptions of universe occur.
+
+[Sidenote: Disappearance of the philosophical classes, and consequent
+prominence of anthropocentric ideas.]
+
+The changes that have taken place among the orthodox in India since the
+period of the Institutes are in consequence of the diminution or
+disappearance of the highly philosophical classes, and the comparative
+predominance of the vulgar. They are stated by Mr. Elphinstone as a
+gradual oblivion of monotheism, the neglect of the worship of some gods
+and the introduction of others, the worship of deified mortals. The
+doctrine of human deification is carried to such an extent that Indra
+and other mythological gods are said to tremble lest they should be
+supplanted by men. This introduction of polytheism and use of images has
+probably been connected with the fact that there have been no temples to
+the Invisible God, and the uneducated mind feels the necessity of some
+recognizable form. In this manner the Trinitarian conception of Brahma,
+Vishnu, and Siva, with fourteen other chief gods, has been introduced.
+Vishnu and Siva are never mentioned in the Institutes, but they now
+engross the public devotions; besides these there are angels, genii,
+penates, and lares, like the Roman. Brahma has only one temple in all
+India, and has never been much worshipped. Chrishna is the great
+favourite of the women. The doctrine of incarnation has also become
+prevalent; the incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable. The opinion has
+also been spread that faith in a particular god is better than
+contemplation, ceremonial, or good works. A new ritual, instead of the
+Vedas, has come into use, these scriptures being the eighteen Puranas,
+composed between the eighth and sixteenth centuries. They contain
+theogonies, accounts of the creation, philosophical speculations,
+fragmentary history, and may be brought to support any sectarian view,
+having never been intended as one general body, but they are received as
+incontrovertible authority. In former times great efficacy was attached
+to sacrifice and religious austerities, but the objects once
+accomplished in that way are now compassed by mere faith. In the
+Baghavat Gita, the text-book of the modern school, the sole essential
+for salvation is dependence on some particular teacher, which makes up
+for everything else. The efficacy which is thus ascribed to faith, and
+the facility with which sin may be expiated by penance, have led to
+great mental debility and superstition. Force has been added to the
+doctrine of a material paradise of trees, flowers, banquets, hymns; and
+to a hell, a dismal place of flames, thirst, torment, and horrid
+spectres.
+
+[Sidenote: The philosophical schools.]
+
+If such has been the gradual degradation of religion, through the
+suppression or disappearance of the most highly cultivated minds, the
+tendency of philosophy is not less strikingly marked. It is said that
+even in ancient times not fewer than six distinct philosophical schools
+may be recognized: 1, the prior Mimansa; 2, the later Mimansa, or
+Vedanta, founded by Vyasa about 1400 B.C. having a Vedanta literature of
+prodigious extent; 3, the Logical school, bearing a close resemblance to
+that of Aristotle, even in its details; 4, the Atomic school of Canade;
+5, the Atheistical school of Capila; 6, the Theistical school of
+Patanjali.
+
+[Sidenote: The rise of Buddhism.]
+
+This great theological system, enforced by a tyrannical hierarchy, did
+not maintain itself without a conflict. Buddhism arose as its
+antagonist. By an inevitable necessity, Vedaism must pass onward to
+Buddhism. The prophetic foresight of the great founder of this system
+was justified by its prodigious, its unparalleled and enduring
+success--a success that rested on the assertion of the dogma of the
+absolute equality of all men, and this in a country that for ages had
+been oppressed by castes. If the Buddhist admits the existence of God,
+it is not as a Creator, for matter is equally eternal; and since it
+possesses a property of inherent organization, even if the universe
+should perish, this quality would quickly restore it, and carry it on to
+new regenerations and new decays without any external agency. It also is
+endued with intelligence and consciousness. The Buddhists agree with the
+Brahmins in the doctrine of Quietism, in the care of animal life, in
+transmigration. They deny the Vedas and Puranas, have no castes, and,
+agreeably to their cardinal principle, draw their priests from all
+classes like the European monks. They live in monasteries, dress in
+yellow, go barefoot, their heads and beards being shaved; they have
+constant services in their chapels, chanting, incense, and candles;
+erect monuments and temples over the relics of holy men. They place an
+especial merit in celibacy; renounce all the pleasures of sense; eat in
+one hall; receive alms. To do these things is incident to a certain
+phase of human progress.
+
+[Sidenote: Life of Arddha Chiddi.]
+
+Buddhism arose about the tenth century before Christ, its founder being
+Arddha Chiddi, a native of Capila, near Nepaul. Of his epoch there are,
+however, many statements. The Avars, Siamese, and Cingalese fix it B.C.
+600; the Cashmerians, B.C. 1332; the Chinese, Mongols, and Japanese,
+B.C. 1000. The Sanscrit words occurring in Buddhism attest its Hindu
+origin, Buddha itself being the Sanscrit for intelligence. After the
+system had spread widely in India, it was carried by missionaries into
+Ceylon, Tartary, Thibet, China, Japan, Burmah, and is now professed by a
+greater portion of the human race than any other religion. Until quite
+recently, the history of Arddha Chiddi and the system he taught have,
+notwithstanding their singular interest, been very imperfectly known in
+Europe. He was born in affluence and of a royal family. In his
+twenty-ninth year he retired from the world, the pleasures of which he
+had tasted, and of which he had become weary. The spectacle of a
+gangrened corpse first arrested his thoughts. Leaving his numerous
+wives, he became a religious mendicant. It is said that he walked about
+in a shroud, taken from the body of a female slave. Profoundly impressed
+with the vanity of all human affairs, he devoted himself to
+philosophical meditation, by severe self-denial emancipating himself
+from all worldly hopes and cares. When a man has brought himself to this
+pass he is able to accomplish great things. For the name by which his
+parents had called him he substituted that of Gotama, or "he who kills
+the senses," and subsequently Chakia Mouni, or the Penitent of Chakia.
+Under the shade of a tree Gotama was born; under the shade of a tree he
+overcame the love of the world and the fear of death; under the shade of
+a tree he preached his first sermon in the shroud; under the shade of a
+tree he died. In four months after he commenced his ministry he had five
+disciples; at the close of the year they had increased to twelve
+hundred. In the twenty-nine centuries that have passed since that time,
+they have given rise to sects counting millions of souls, outnumbering
+the followers of all other religious teachers. The system still seems to
+retain much of its pristine vigour; yet religions are perishable. There
+is no country, except India, which has the same religion now that it had
+at the birth of Christ.
+
+[Sidenote: The organization of Buddhism.]
+
+Gotama died at the advanced age of eighty years; his corpse was burnt
+eight days subsequently. But several years before this event his system
+must be considered as thoroughly established. It shows how little
+depends upon the nature of a doctrine, and how much upon effective
+organization, that Buddhism, the principles of which are far above the
+reach of popular thought, should have been propagated with so much
+rapidity, for it made its converts by preaching, and not, like
+Mohammedanism, by the sword. Shortly after Gotama's death, a council of
+five hundred ecclesiastics assembled for the purpose of settling the
+religion. A century later a second council met to regulate the monastic
+institution; and in B.C. 241, a third council, for the expulsion of
+fire-worshippers. Under the auspices of King Asoka, whose character
+presents singular points of resemblance to that of the Roman emperor who
+summoned the Council of Nicea, for he, too, was the murderer of his own
+family, and has been handed down to posterity, because of the success of
+the policy of his party, as a great, a virtuous, and a pious
+sovereign--under his auspices missionaries were sent out in all
+directions, and monasteries richly endowed were everywhere established.
+The singular efficacy of monastic institutions was rediscovered in
+Europe many centuries subsequently.
+
+[Sidenote: Contest between the Brahmans and Buddhists.]
+
+In proclaiming the equality of all men in this life, the Buddhists, as
+we have seen, came into direct collision with the orthodox creed of
+India, long carried out into practice in the institution of castes--a
+collision that was embittered by the abhorrence the Buddhists displayed
+for any distinction between the clergy and laity. To be a Brahmin a man
+must be born one, but a Buddhist priest might voluntarily come from any
+rank--from the very dregs of society. In the former system marriage was
+absolutely essential to the ecclesiastical caste; in the latter it was
+not, for the priestly ranks could be recruited without it. And hence
+there followed a most important advantage, that celibacy and chastity
+might be extolled as the greatest of all the virtues. The experience of
+Europe, as well as of Asia, has shown how powerful is the control
+obtained by the hierarchy in that way. In India there was, therefore, no
+other course for the orthodox than to meet the danger with bloody
+persecutions, and in the end, the Buddhists, expelled from their native
+seats, were scattered throughout Eastern Asia. Persecution is the mother
+of proselytes.
+
+[Sidenote: Buddhism is founded on the conception of Power or Force.]
+
+[Sidenote: It does not recognize a personal God,]
+
+The fundamental principle of Buddhism is that there is a supreme power,
+but no Supreme Being. From this it might be inferred that they who adopt
+such a creed cannot be pantheists, but must be atheists. It is a
+rejection of the idea of Being, an acknowledgment of that of Force. If
+it admits the existence of God, it declines him as a Creator. It asserts
+an impelling power in the universe, a self-existent and plastic
+principle, but not a self-existent, an eternal, a personal God. It
+rejects inquiry into first causes as being unphilosophical, and
+considers that phenomena alone can be dealt with by our finite minds.
+Not without an air of intellectual majesty, it tolerates the Asiatic
+time-consecrated idea of a trinity, pointing out one not of a corporeal,
+but of an impersonal kind. Its trinity is the Past, the Present, the
+Future. For the sake of aiding our thoughts, it images the Past with his
+hands folded, since he has attained to rest, but the others with their
+right hands extended in token of activity. Since he has no God, the
+Buddhist cannot expect absorption; the pantheistic Brahmin looks forward
+to the return of his soul to the Supreme Being as a drop of rain returns
+to the sea. The Buddhist has no religion, but only a ceremonial. How can
+there be a religion where there is no God?
+
+[Sidenote: nor a providential government,]
+
+[Sidenote: but refers all events to resistless law.]
+
+[Sidenote: Doubts the actual existence of the visible world.]
+
+In all this it is plain that the impersonal and immaterial predominates,
+and that Gotama is contemplating the existence of pure Force without any
+association of Substance. He necessarily denies the immediate
+interposition of any such agency as Providence, maintaining that the
+system of nature, once arising, must proceed irresistibly according to
+the laws which brought it into being, and that from this point of view
+the universe is merely a gigantic engine. To the Brahman priesthood such
+ideas were particularly obnoxious; they were hostile to any
+philosophical system founded on the principle that the world is governed
+by law, for they suspected that its tendency would be to leave them
+without any mediatory functions, and therefore without any claims on the
+faithful. Equally does Gotama deny the existence of chance, saying that
+that which we call chance is nothing but the effect of an unknown,
+unavoidable cause. As to the external world, we cannot tell how far it
+is a phantasm, how far a reality, for our senses possess no trustworthy
+criterion of truth. They convey to the mind representations of what we
+consider to be external things, by which it is furnished with materials
+for its various operations; but, unless it acts in conjunction with the
+senses, the operation is lost, as in that absence which takes place in
+deep contemplation. It is owing to our inability to determine what share
+these internal and external conditions take in producing a result that
+the absolute or actual state of nature is incomprehensible by us.
+Nevertheless, conceding to our mental infirmity the idea of a real
+existence of visible nature, we may consider it as offering a succession
+of impermanent forms, and as exhibiting an orderly series of
+transmutations, innumerable universes in periods of inconceivable time
+emerging one after another, and creations and extinctions of systems of
+worlds taking place according to a primordial law.
+
+[Sidenote: Of the nature of man.]
+
+[Sidenote: Of transmigration and penance,]
+
+[Sidenote: and the passage to nonentity.]
+
+Such are his doctrines of a Supreme Force, and of the origin and
+progress of the visible world. With like ability Gotama deals with his
+inquiry into the nature of man. With Oriental imagery he bids us
+consider what becomes of a grain of salt thrown into the sea; but, lest
+we should be deceived herein, he tells us that there is no such thing as
+individuality or personality--that the Ego is altogether a nonentity. In
+these profound considerations he brings to bear his conception of force,
+in the light thereof asserting that all sentient beings are homogeneous.
+If we fail to follow him in these exalted thoughts, bound down to
+material ideas by the infirmities of the human constitution, and inquire
+of him how the spirit of man, which obviously displays so much energy,
+can be conceived of as being without form, without a past, without a
+future, he demands of us what has become of the flame of a lamp when it
+is blown out, or to tell him in what obscure condition it lay before it
+was kindled. Was it a nonentity? Has it been annihilated? By the aid of
+such imagery he tries to depict the nature of existence, and to convey a
+vivid idea of the metamorphoses it undergoes. Outward things are to him
+phantasms; the impressions they make on the mind are phantasms too. In
+this sense he receives the doctrine of transmigration, conceiving of it
+very much as we conceive of the accumulation of heat successively in
+different things. In one sense it may be the same heat which occupies
+such objects one after another, but in another, since heat is force and
+not matter, there can be no such individuality. Viewed, however, in the
+less profound way, he is not unwilling to adopt the doctrine of the
+transmigration of the soul through various forms, admitting that there
+may accumulate upon it the effect of all those influences, whether of
+merit or demerit, of good or of evil, to which it has been exposed. The
+vital flame is handed down from one generation to another, it is
+communicated from one animated form to another. He thinks it may carry
+with it in these movements the modifications which may have been
+impressed on it, and require opportunity for shaking them off and
+regaining its original state. At this point the doctrine of Gotama is
+assuming the aspect of a moral system, and is beginning to suggest means
+of deliverance from the accumulated evil and consequent demerit to which
+the spirit has been exposed. He will not, however, recognize any
+vicarious action. Each one must work out for himself his own salvation,
+remembering that death is not necessarily a deliverance from worldly
+ills, it may be only a passage to new miseries. But yet, as the light of
+the taper must come at last to an end, so there is at length, though it
+may be after many transmigrations, an end of life. That end he calls
+Nirwana, a word that has been for nearly three thousand years of solemn
+import to countless millions of men;--Nirwana, the end of successive
+existences, that state which has no relation to matter, or space, or
+time, to which the departing flame of the extinguished taper has gone.
+It is the supreme end, Nonentity. The attaining of this is the object to
+which we ought to aspire, and for that purpose we should seek to destroy
+within ourselves all cleaving to existence, weaning ourselves from every
+earthly object, from every earthly pursuit. We should resort to monastic
+life, to penance, to self-denial, self-mortification, and so gradually
+learn to sink into perfect quietude or apathy, in imitation of that
+state to which we must come at last, and to which, by such preparation,
+we may all the more rapidly approach. The pantheistic Brahman expects
+absorption in God; the Buddhist, having no God, expects extinction.
+
+[Sidenote: Philosophical estimate of Buddhism.]
+
+India has thus given to the world two distinct philosophical systems:
+Vedaism, which takes as its resting-point the existence of matter, and
+Buddhism, of which the resting-point is force. The philosophical ability
+displayed in the latter is very great; indeed it may be doubted whether
+Europe has produced its metaphysical equivalent. And yet, if I have
+correctly presented its principles, it will probably appear that its
+primary conception is not altogether consistently carried out in the
+development of the details. Great as was the intellectual ability of its
+author--so great as to extort our profoundest, though it may be
+reluctant admiration--there are nevertheless moments in which it appears
+that his movement is becoming wavering and unsteady--that he is failing
+to handle his ponderous weapon with self-balanced power. This is
+particularly the case in that point at which he is passing from the
+consideration of pure force to the unavoidable consideration of visible
+nature, the actual existence of which he seems to be obliged to deny.
+But then I am not sure that I have caught with precision his exact train
+of thought, or have represented his intention with critical correctness.
+Considering the extraordinary power he elsewhere displays, it is more
+probable that I have failed to follow his meaning, than that he has
+been, on the points in question, incompetent to deal with his task.
+
+The works of Gotama, under the title of "Verbal Instructions," are
+published by the Chinese government in four languages--Thibetan, Mongol,
+Mantchou, Chinese--from the imperial press at Pekin, in eight hundred
+large volumes. They are presented to the Lama monasteries--a magnificent
+gift.
+
+[Sidenote: Displacement of its higher ideas by base ones.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its anthropocentric phase remains, its philosophical
+declining.]
+
+In speaking of Vedaism, I have mentioned the manner in which its more
+elevated conceptions were gradually displaced by those of a base grade
+coming into prominence; and here it may be useful in like manner to
+speak of the corresponding debasement of Buddhism. Its practical working
+was the introduction of an immense monastic system, offering many points
+of resemblance to the subsequent one of Europe. Since its object was
+altogether of a personal kind, the attainment of individual happiness,
+it was not possible that it should do otherwise than engender extreme
+selfishness. It impressed on each man to secure his own salvation, no
+matter what became of all others. Of what concern to him were parents,
+wife, children, friends, country, so long as he attained Nirwana!
+
+[Sidenote: Its legends and miracles.]
+
+Long before Buddhism had been expelled from India by the victorious
+Brahmins, it had been overlaid with popular ornaments. It had its
+fables, legends, miracles. Its humble devotees implicitly believed that
+Mahamia, the mother of Gotama, an immaculate virgin, conceived him
+through a divine influence, and that thus he was of the nature of God
+and man conjoined; that he stood upon his feet and spoke at the moment
+of his birth; that at five months of age he sat unsupported in the air;
+that at the moment of his conversion he was attacked by a legion of
+demons, and that in his penance-fasting he reduced himself to the
+allowance of one pepper-pod a day; that he had been incarnate many times
+before, and that on his ascension through the air to heaven he left his
+footprint on a mountain in Ceylon; that there is a paradise of gems, and
+flowers, and feasts, and music for the good, and a hell of sulphur, and
+flames, and torment for the wicked; that it is lawful to resort to the
+worship of images, but that those are in error who deify men, or pay
+respect to relics; that there are spirits, and goblins, and other
+superhuman forms; that there is a queen of heaven; that the reading of
+the Scriptures is in itself an actual merit, whether its precepts are
+followed or not; that prayer may be offered by saying a formula by rote,
+or even by turning the handle of a mill from which invocations written
+on paper issue forth; that the revealer of Buddhism is to be regarded as
+the religious head of the world.
+
+The reader cannot fail to remark the resemblance of these ideas to some
+of those of the Roman Church. When a knowledge of the Oriental forms of
+religion was first brought into Europe, and their real origin was not
+understood, it was supposed that this coincidence had arisen through the
+labours of Nestorian, or other ancient missionaries from the West, and
+hopes were entertained that the conversion of Eastern Asia would be
+promoted thereby. But this expectation was disappointed, and that which
+many good men regarded as a preparation for Christianity proved to be a
+stumbling-block in its way. It is not improbable that the
+pseudo-Christianity of the Chinese revolters, of which so much has
+recently been said, is of the same nature, and will end with the same
+result.
+
+[Sidenote: The great diffusion of Buddhism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its practical godlessness.]
+
+Decorated with these extraneous but popular recommendations, Buddhism
+has been embraced by two-fifths of the human race. It has a prodigious
+literature, great temples, many monuments. Its monasteries are scattered
+from the north of Tartary almost to the equinoctial line. In these an
+education is imparted not unlike that of the European monasteries of the
+Middle Ages. It has been estimated that in Tartary one-third of the
+population are Lamas. There are single convents containing more than two
+thousand individuals; the wealth of the country voluntarily pours into
+them. Elementary education is more widely diffused than in Europe: it is
+rare to meet with a person who cannot read. Among the priests there are
+many who are devout, and, as might be expected, many who are impostors.
+It is a melancholy fact that, in China, Buddhism has led the entire
+population not only into indifferentism, but into absolute godlessness.
+They have come to regard religion as merely a fashion, to be followed
+according to one's own taste; that as professed by the state it is a
+civil institution necessary for the holding of office, and demanded by
+society, but not to be regarded as of the smallest philosophical
+importance; that a man is entitled to indulge his views on these matters
+just as he is entitled to indulge his taste in the colour and fashion of
+his garments; that he has no more right, however, to live without some
+religious profession than he has a right to go naked. The Chinese cannot
+comprehend how there should be animosities arising on matters of such
+doubtful nature and trivial concern. The formula under which they live
+is: "Religions are many; reason is one; we are brothers." They smile at
+the credulity of the good-natured Tartars, who believe in the wonders of
+miracle-workers, for they have miracle-workers who can perform the most
+supernatural cures, who can lick red-hot iron, who can cut open their
+bowels, and, by passing their hand over the wound, make themselves whole
+again--who can raise the dead. In China, these miracles, with all their
+authentications, have descended to the conjurer, and are performed for
+the amusement of children. The common expressions of that country betray
+the materialism and indifferentism of the people, and their consequent
+immorality. "The prisons," they say, "are locked night and day, but they
+are always full; the temples are always open, and yet there is nobody in
+them." Of the dead they say, with an exquisite refinement of euphemism,
+"He has saluted the world." The Lazarist Huc, on whose authority many of
+these statements are made, testifies that they die, indeed, with
+incomparable tranquillity, just as animals die; and adds, with a bitter,
+and yet profoundly true sarcasm, they are what many in Europe are
+wanting to be.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From the theology of India I turn, in the next place, to the
+civilization of Egypt.
+
+[Sidenote: Egypt a mysterious country to Europe.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its reported wonders.]
+
+The ancient system of isolation which for many thousand years had been
+the policy of Egypt was overthrown by Psammetichus about B.C. 670. Up to
+that time the inhabitants of that country had been shut out from all
+Mediterranean or European contact by a rigorous exclusion exceeding that
+until recently practised in China and Japan. As from the inmates of the
+happy valley, in Rasselas, no tidings escaped to the outer world, so, to
+the European, the valley of the Nile was a region of mysteries and
+marvels. At intervals of centuries, individuals, like Cecrops and
+Danaus, had fled to other countries, and had attached the gratitude of
+posterity to their memories for the religion, laws, or other
+institutions of civilization they had conferred. The traditions
+connected with them served only to magnify those uncertain legends met
+with all over Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Sicily, of the prodigies and
+miracles that adventurous pirates reported they had actually seen in
+their stealthy visits to the enchanted valley--great pyramids covering
+acres of land, their tops rising to the heavens, yet each pyramid
+nothing more than the tombstone of a king; colossi sitting on granite
+thrones, the images of Pharaohs who lived in the morning of the world,
+still silently looking upon the land which thousands of years before
+they had ruled; of these, some obedient to the sun, sainted his approach
+when touched by his morning rays; obelisks of prodigious height, carved
+by superhuman skill from a single block of stone, and raised by
+superhuman power erect on their everlasting pedestals, their faces
+covered with mysterious hieroglyphs, a language unknown to the vulgar,
+telling by whom and for what they had been constructed; temples, the
+massive leaning and lowering walls of which were supported by countless
+ranges of statues; avenues of sphinxes, through the shadows of which,
+grim and silent, the portals of fanes might be approached; catacombs
+containing the mortal remains of countless generations, each corpse
+awaiting, in mysterious embalmment, a future life; labyrinths of many
+hundred chambers and vaults, into which whoso entered without a clue
+never again escaped, but in the sameness and solitude of those endless
+windings found his sepulchre. It is impossible for us to appreciate the
+sentiment of religious awe with which the Mediterranean people looked
+upon the enchanted, the hoary, the civilized monarchy on the banks of
+the Nile. As Bunsen says, "Egypt was to the Greeks a sphinx with an
+intellectual human countenance."
+
+[Sidenote: Its history: the old empire; the Hycksos; the new empire.]
+
+[Sidenote: Opening of the Egyptian ports.]
+
+Her solitude, however, had not been altogether unbroken. After a
+duration of 1076 years, and the reign of thirty-eight kings, illustrated
+by the production of the most stupendous works ever accomplished by the
+hand of man, some of which, as the Pyramids, remain to our times, the
+old empire, which had arisen from the union of the upper and lower
+countries, had been overthrown by the Hycksos, or shepherd kings, a race
+of Asiatic invaders. These, in their turn, had held dominion for more
+than five centuries, when an insurrection put an end to their power, and
+gave birth to the new empire, some of the monarchs of which, for their
+great achievements, are still remembered. In the middle period of this
+new empire those events in early Hebrew history took place--the visit
+of Abram and the elevation of Joseph--which are related with such
+simplicity in the Holy Scriptures. With varied prosperity, the new
+empire continued until the time of Psammetichus, who, in a civil war,
+having attained supreme power by the aid of Greek mercenaries, overthrew
+the time-honoured policy of all the old dynasties, and occasioned the
+first grand impulse in the intellectual life of Europe by opening the
+ports of Egypt, and making that country accessible to the blue-eyed and
+red-haired barbarians of the North.
+
+[Sidenote: This compels Egypt to become a maritime state,]
+
+[Sidenote: and brings on collisions with the Babylonians.]
+
+[Sidenote: Opening of the Suez Canal.]
+
+[Sidenote: Circumnavigation of Africa.]
+
+[Sidenote: History of the Great Canal.]
+
+It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the influence of this event upon
+the progress of Europe. An immense extension of Greek commerce by the
+demand for the products of the Euxine as well as of the Mediterranean
+was the smallest part of the advantage. As to Egypt herself, it entailed
+a complete change in her policy, domestic and foreign. In the former
+respect, the employment of the mercenaries was the cause of the entire
+emigration of the warrior caste, and in the latter it brought things to
+such a condition, that, if Egypt would continue to exist, she must
+become a maritime state. Her geographical position for the purposes of
+commerce was excellent; with the Red Sea on the east and the
+Mediterranean on the north, she was the natural entrepot between Asia
+and Europe, as was shown by the prosperity of Alexandria in later ages.
+But there was a serious difficulty in the way of her becoming a naval
+power; no timber suitable for ship-building grew in the country--indeed,
+scarcely enough was to be found to satisfy the demands for the
+construction of houses and coffins for the dead. The early Egyptians,
+like the Hindus, had a religious dread of the sea, but their
+exclusiveness was, perhaps, not a little dependent on their want of
+material for ship-building. Egypt was therefore compelled to enter on a
+career of foreign conquest, and at all hazards possess herself of the
+timber-growing districts of Syria. It was this urgent necessity which
+led to her collisions with the Mesopotamian kings, and drew in its train
+of consequence the sieges, sacks, and captivities of Jerusalem, the
+metropolis of a little state lying directly between the contending
+powers, and alternately disturbed by each. Of the necessity of this
+course of policy in the opinion of the Egyptian kings, we can have no
+better proof than the fact that Psammetichus himself continued the siege
+of Azotus for twenty-nine years; that his son Necho reopened the canal
+between the Nile at Bubastes and the Red Sea at Suez--it was wide enough
+for two ships to pass--and on being resisted therein by the priests, who
+feared that it might weaken the country strategically, attempted the
+circumnavigation of Africa, and actually accomplished it. In those times
+such expeditions were not undertaken as mere matters of curiosity.
+Though this monarch also despatched investigators to ascertain the
+sources of the Nile, and determine the causes of its rise, it was
+doubtless in the hope of making such knowledge of use in a material or
+economical point of view, and therefore it may be supposed that the
+circumnavigation of Africa was undertaken upon the anticipated or
+experienced failure of the advantages expected to arise from the
+reopening of the canal; for the great fleets which Necho and his father
+had built could not be advantageously handled unless they could be
+transferred as circumstances required, either by the circumnavigation or
+by the canal, from one sea to the other. The time occupied in passing
+round the continent, which appears to have been three years, rendered
+the former method of little practical use. But the failure experienced,
+so far from detracting from the estimation in which we must hold those
+kings who could thus display such a breadth of conception and vigour of
+execution, must even enhance it. They resumed the policy of the
+conqueror Rameses II., who had many centuries before possessed the
+timber-growing countries, and whose engineers originally cut the canal
+from the Nile to the Red Sea, though the work cost 120,000 lives and
+countless treasuries of money. The canal of Rameses, which, in the
+course of so many centuries, has become filled up with sand, was thus
+cleaned out, as it was again in the reign of the Ptolemies, and again
+under the khalifs, and galleys passed from sea to sea. The Persians,
+under Darius Hystaspes, also either repaired it, or, as some say,
+attempted a new work of the kind; but their engineering must have been
+very defective, for they were obliged to abandon their enterprise after
+carrying it as far as the bitter lakes, finding that salt water would be
+introduced into the Delta. The Suez mouth of the canal of Rameses was
+protected by a system of hydraulic works, to meet difficulties arising
+from the variable levels of the water. It was reserved for the French
+engineer Lesseps in the nineteenth century to cut the direct canal from
+the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, an exploit which the Pharaohs and
+Ptolemies had considered to be impossible.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts of the Asiatics on the south Mediterranean shore.]
+
+[Sidenote: Egypt overthrown by Cambyses.]
+
+The Egyptian policy continued by Pharaoh Hophra, who succeeded in the
+capture of Sidon, brought on hostilities with the Babylonian kings, who
+were now thoroughly awakened to what was going on in Egypt--a collision
+which occasioned the expulsion of the Egyptians from Syria, and the
+seizure of the lower country by Nebuchadnezzar, who also took vengeance
+on King Zedekiah for the assistance Jerusalem had rendered to the
+Africans in their projects: that city was razed to the ground, the eyes
+of the king put out, and the people carried captive to Babylon, B.C.
+568. It is a striking exemplification of the manner in which national
+policy will endure through changes of dynasties, that after the
+overthrow of Babylon by the Medes, and the transference of power to the
+Persians, the policy of controlling the Mediterranean was never for an
+instant lost sight of. Attempts were continually made, by operating
+alternately on the southern and northern shores, to push westward. The
+subsequent history of Rome shows what would have been the consequences
+of an uncontrolled possession of the Mediterranean by a great maritime
+power. On the occasion of a revolt of Egypt, the Persian King Cambyses
+so utterly crushed and desolated it, that from that day to this, though
+twenty-four centuries have intervened, it has never been able to recover
+its independence. The Persian advance on the south shore toward Carthage
+failed because of the indisposition of the Phoenicians to assist in
+any operations against that city. We must particularly remark that the
+ravaging of Egypt by Cambyses was contemporaneous with the cultivation
+of philosophy in the southern Italian towns--somewhat more than five
+hundred years before Christ.
+
+[Sidenote: The Fall of Tyre.]
+
+Among the incidents occurring during the struggles between the Egyptian
+and Babylonian kings there is one deserving to be brought into
+conspicuous prominence, from the importance of its consequences in
+European history. It was the taking of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. So long
+as that city dominated in the Mediterranean, it was altogether
+impossible for Greek maritime power to be developed. The strength of
+Tyre is demonstrated by her resistance to the whole Babylonian power for
+thirteen years, "until every head was bald and every shoulder peeled."
+The place was, in the end, utterly destroyed. It was made as bare as the
+top of a rock on which the fisherman spreads his nets. The blow thus
+struck at the heart of Tyrian commerce could not but be felt at the
+utmost extremities. "The isles of the sea were troubled at her
+departure." It was during this time that Greece fairly emerged as a
+Mediterranean naval power. Nor did the inhabitants of New Tyre ever
+recover the ancient position. Their misfortunes had given them a rival.
+A re-establishment in an island on the coast was not a restoration of
+their supremacy. Carrying out what Greece instinctively felt to be her
+national policy, one of the first acts of Alexander's Asiatic campaign,
+two hundred and fifty years subsequently, was the siege of the new city,
+and, after almost superhuman exertions, its capture, by building a mole
+from the mainland. He literally levelled the place to the ground; a
+countless multitude was massacred, two thousand persons were crucified,
+and Tyrian influence disappeared for ever.
+
+[Sidenote: Foreign epochs in Greek history.]
+
+In early Greek history there are, therefore, two leading foreign events:
+1st, the opening of the Egyptian ports, B.C. 670; 2nd, the downfall of
+Old Tyre, 573. The effect of the first was chiefly intellectual; that of
+the second was to permit the commencement of commercial prosperity and
+give life to Athens.
+
+[Sidenote: Antiquity of civilization and art in Egypt.]
+
+At the dawn of European civilization, Egypt was, therefore, in process
+of decadence, gradually becoming less and less able to resist its own
+interior causes of destruction, or the attempts of its Asiatic rivals,
+who eventually brought it to ruin. At the first historical appearance of
+the country of the Nile it is hoary and venerable with age. The
+beautiful Scripture pictures of the journey of Abram and Sarai, in the
+famine, the going down of Joseph, the exodus of the Israelites, all
+point to a long-settled system, a tranquil and prosperous state. Do we
+ask any proof of the condition of art to which the Egyptians had
+attained at the time of their earliest monuments? The masonry of the
+Great Pyramid, built thirty-four hundred years before Christ, has never
+yet been surpassed. So accurately was that wonder of the world planned
+and constructed, that at this day the variation of the compass may
+actually be determined by the position of its sides; yet, when Jacob
+went into Egypt, that pyramid had been built as many centuries as have
+intervened from the birth of Christ to the present day. If we turn from
+the monuments to their inscriptions, there are renewed evidences of
+antiquity. The hieroglyphic writing had passed through all its stages of
+formation; its principles had become ascertained and settled long before
+we gain the first glimpse of it; the decimal and duodecimal systems of
+arithmetic were in use; the arts necessary in hydraulic engineering,
+massive architecture, and the ascertainment of the boundaries of land,
+had reached no insignificant degree of perfection. Indeed, there would
+be but very little exaggeration in affirming that we are practically as
+near the early Egyptian ages as was Herodotus himself. Well might the
+Egyptian priests say to the earliest Greek philosophers, "You Greeks are
+mere children, talkative and vain; you know nothing at all of the past."
+
+[Sidenote: Prehistoric life of Egypt.]
+
+Traces of the prehistoric, premonumental life of Egypt are still
+preserved in the relics of its language, and the well-known principles
+of its religion. Of the former, many of the words are referable to
+Indo-Germanic roots, an indication that the country at an early period
+must have been conquered from its indigenous African possessors by
+intrusive expeditions from Asia; and this is supported by the remarkable
+principles of Egyptian religion. The races of Central Asia had at a
+very early time attained to the psychical stage of monotheism. Africa is
+only now emerging from the basest fetichism; the negro priest is still a
+sorcerer and rain-maker. The Egyptian religion, as is well known,
+provided for the vulgar a suitable worship of complex idolatry, but for
+those emancipated from superstition it offered true and even noble
+conceptions. The coexistence of these apparent incompatibilities in the
+same faith seems incapable of any other explanation than that of an
+amalgamation of two distinct systems, just as occurred again many ages
+subsequently under Ptolemy Soter.
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of Egypt on the knowledge and art of Europe.]
+
+As a critical attention is being bestowed by modern scholars upon
+Egyptian remains, we learn more truly what is the place in history of
+that venerable country. It is their boast that the day is not distant
+when there will be no more difficulty in translating a page of
+hieroglyphics than in translating one of Latin or Greek. Even now, what
+a light has been thrown on all branches of ancient literature, science,
+art, mythology, domestic life, by researches which it may be said
+commenced only yesterday! From Egypt, it now appears, were derived the
+prototypes of the Greek architectural orders, and even their ornaments
+and conventional designs; thence came the models of the Greek and
+Etruscan vases; thence came many of the ante-Homeric legends--the
+accusation of the dead, the trial before the judges of hell; the reward
+and punishment of every man, from the Pharaoh who had descended from his
+throne to the slave who had escaped from his chain; the dog Cerberus,
+the Stygian stream, the Lake of Oblivion, the piece of money, Charon and
+his boat, the fields of Aahlu or Elysium, and the islands of the
+blessed; thence came the first ritual for the dead, litanies to the sun,
+and painted or illuminated missals; thence came the dogma of a queen of
+heaven. What other country can offer such noble and enduring edifices to
+the gods; temples with avenues of sphinxes; massive pylons adorned with
+obelisks in front, which even imperial Rome and modern Paris have not
+thought it beneath them to appropriate; porticoes and halls of columns,
+on which were carved the portraits of kings and effigies of the gods?
+On the walls of the tombs still remain Pthah, the creator, and Neph, the
+divine spirit, sitting at the potters wheel, turning clay to form men;
+and Athor, who receives the setting sun into her arms; and Osiris, the
+judge of the dead. The granite statues have outlived the gods!
+
+[Sidenote: The hieroglyphics.]
+
+Moreover, the hieroglyphics furnish intrinsic evidence that among this
+people arose the earliest attempts at the perpetuation and imparting of
+ideas by writing. Though doubtless it was in the beginning a mere
+picture-writing, like that of the Mexicans, it had already, at the first
+moment we meet with it, undergone a twofold development--ideographic and
+phonetic; the one expressing ideas, the other sounds. Under the
+Macedonian kings the hieroglyphics had become restricted to religious
+uses, showing conclusively that the old priesthood had never recovered
+the terrible blows struck against it by Cambyses and Ochus. From that
+time forth they were less and less known. It is said that one of the
+Roman emperors was obliged to offer a reward for the translation of an
+obelisk. To the early Christian the hieroglyphic inscription was an
+abomination, as full of the relics of idolatry, and indicating an
+inspiration of the devil. He defaced the monuments wherever he could
+make them yield; and in many cases has preserved them for us by
+plastering them over to hide them from his sight.
+
+In those enigmatical characters an extensive literature once existed, of
+which the celebrated books of Hermes were perhaps a corruption or a
+relic; a literature embracing compositions on music, astronomy,
+cosmogony, geography, medicine, anatomy, chemistry, magic, and many
+other subjects that have amused the curiosity of man. Yet of those
+characters the most singular misconceptions have been entertained almost
+to our own times. Thus, in 1802, Palin thought that the papyri were the
+Psalms of David done into Chinese, Lenoir that they were Hebrew
+documents; it was even asserted that the inscriptions in the temple of
+Denderah were the 100th Psalm, a pleasant ecclesiastical conceit,
+reminding one who has seen in Egyptian museums old articles of brass and
+glass, of the stories delivered down from hand to hand, that brass was
+first made at the burning of Corinth, and glass first discovered by
+shipwrecked mariners, who propped their kettle, while it boiled, on
+pieces of nitre.
+
+[Sidenote: Antiquity of the Egyptian monarchy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the rise of civilization.]
+
+Thousands of years have passed since the foundation of the first
+Egyptian dynasty. The Pyramids have seen the old empire, the Hycksos
+monarchs, the New Empire, the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman, the
+Mohammedan. They have stood while the heavens themselves have changed.
+They were already "five hundred years old when the Southern Cross
+disappeared from the horizon of the countries of the Baltic." The
+pole-star itself is a newcomer to them. Humboldt, referring to these
+incidents, remarks that "the past seems to be visibly nearer to us when
+we thus connect its measurement with great and memorable events." No
+country has had such a varied history as this birthplace of European
+civilization. Through the darkness of fifty centuries we may not be able
+to discern the motives of men, but through periods very much longer we
+can demonstrate the conditions of Nature. If nations, in one sense,
+depend on the former, in a higher sense they depend on the latter. It
+was not without reason that the Egyptians took the lead in Mediterranean
+civilization. The geographical structure of their country surpasses even
+its hoary monuments in teaching us the conditions under which that
+people were placed. Nature is a surer guide than the traces of man,
+whose works are necessarily transitory. The aspect of Egypt has changed
+again and again; its structure, since man has inhabited it, never. The
+fields have disappeared, but the land remains.
+
+Why was it that civilization thus rose on the banks of the Nile, and not
+upon those of the Danube or Mississippi? Civilization depends on climate
+and agriculture. In Egypt the harvests may ordinarily be foretold and
+controlled. Of few other parts of the world can the same be said. In
+most countries the cultivation of the soil is uncertain. From seed-time
+to harvest, the meteorological variations are so numerous and great,
+that no skill can predict the amount of yearly produce. Without any
+premonition, the crops may be cut off by long-continued droughts, or
+destroyed by too much rain. Nor is it sufficient that a requisite amount
+of water should fall; to produce the proper effect, it must fall at
+particular periods. The labour of the farmer is at the mercy of the
+winds and clouds.
+
+With difficulty, therefore, could a civilized state originate under such
+circumstances. So long as life is a scene of uncertainty, the hope of
+yesterday blighted by the realities of to day, man is the maker of
+expedients, but not of laws. In his solicitude as to his approaching
+lot, he has neither time nor desire to raise his eyes to the heavens to
+watch and record their phenomena; no leisure to look upon himself, and
+consider what and where he is. In the imperious demand for a present
+support, he dares not venture on speculative attempts at ameliorating
+his state; he is doomed to be a helpless, isolated, spell-bound savage,
+or, if not isolated, the companion of other savages as care-worn as
+himself. Under such circumstances, however, if once the preliminary
+conditions and momentum of civilization be imparted to him, the very
+things which have hitherto tended to depress him produce an opposite
+effect. Instead of remaining in sameness and apathy, the vicissitudes to
+which he is now exposed urge him onward; and thus it is that, though the
+civilization of Europe depended for its commencement on the sameness and
+stability of an African climate, the conquests of Nature which mark its
+more advanced stage have been made in the trying life of the temperate
+zone.
+
+[Sidenote: Agriculture in a rainless country.]
+
+There is a country in which man is not the sport of the seasons, in
+which he need have no anxieties for his future well-being--a country in
+which the sunshines and heats vary very little from year to year. In the
+Thebaid heavy rain is said to be a prodigy. But, at the time when the
+Dog-star rises with the sun, the river begins to swell; a tranquil
+inundation by degrees covering the land, at once watering and enriching
+it. If the Nilometer which measures the height of the flood indicates
+eight cubits, the crops will be scanty; but if it reaches fourteen
+cubits, there will be a plentiful harvest. In the spring of the year it
+may be known how the fields will be in the autumn. Agriculture is
+certain in Egypt, and there man first became civilized. The date-tree,
+moreover, furnishes to Africa a food almost without expense. The climate
+renders it necessary to use, for the most part, vegetable diet, and but
+little clothing is required.
+
+[Sidenote: Rainless countries of the West.]
+
+The American counterpart of Egypt in this physical condition is Peru,
+the coast of which is also a rainless district. Peru is the Egypt of
+civilization of the Western continent. There is also a rainless strand
+on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It is an incident full of meaning in the
+history of human progress, that, in regions far apart, civilization thus
+commenced in rainless countries.
+
+In Upper Egypt, the cradle of civilization, the influence of atmospheric
+water is altogether obliterated, for, in an agricultural point of view,
+the country is rainless. Variable meteorological conditions are there
+eliminated.
+
+[Sidenote: Inundations of the Nile.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual rise of the whole country.]
+
+Where the Nile breaks through the mountain gate at Essouan, it is
+observed that its waters begin to rise about the end of the month of
+May, and in eight or nine weeks the inundation is at its height. This
+flood in the river is due to the great rains which have fallen in the
+mountainous countries among which the Nile takes its rise, and which
+have been precipitated from the trade-winds that blow, except where
+disturbed by the monsoons, over the vast expanse of the tropical Indian
+Ocean. Thus dried, the east wind pursues its solemn course over the
+solitudes of Central Africa, a cloudless and a rainless wind, its track
+marked by desolation and deserts. At first the river becomes red, and
+then green, because the flood of its great Abyssinian branch, the Blue
+Nile, arrives first; but, soon after, that of the White Nile makes its
+appearance, and from the overflowing banks not only water, but a rich
+and fertilizing mud, is discharged. It is owing to the solid material
+thus brought down that the river in countless ages has raised its own
+bed, and has embanked itself with shelving deposits that descend on
+either side toward the desert. For this reason it is that the inundation
+is seen on the edge of the desert first, and, as the flood rises, the
+whole country up to the river itself is laid under water. By the middle
+of September the supply begins to fail and the waters abate; by the end
+of October the stream has returned to its usual limits. The fields are
+left covered with a fertile deposit, the maximum quantity of which is
+about six inches thick in a hundred years. It is thought that the bed of
+the river rises four feet in a thousand years, and the fertilized land
+in its width continually encroaches on the desert. Since the reign of
+Amenophis III. it has increased by one-third. He lived B.C. 1430. There
+have accumulated round the pedestal of his Colossus seven feet of mud.
+
+[Sidenote: Geological age of Egypt.]
+
+In the recent examinations made by the orders of the Viceroy of Egypt,
+close by the fallen statue of Rameses II., at Memphis, who reigned,
+according to Lepsius, from B.C. 1394 to B.C. 1328, a shaft was sunk to
+more than 24 feet. The water which then infiltrated compelled a resort
+to boring, which was continued until 41 feet 4-1/2 inches were reached.
+The whole consisted of Nile deposits, alternate layers of loam and sand
+of the same composition throughout. From the greatest depth a fragment
+of pottery was obtained. Ninety-five of these borings were made in
+various places, but on no occasion was solid rock reached. The organic
+remains were all recent; not a trace of an extinct fossil occurred, but
+an abundance of the residues of burnt bricks and pottery. In their
+examination from Essouan to Cairo, the French estimated the mud deposit
+to be five inches for each century. From an examination of the results
+at Heliopolis, Mr. Horner makes it 3.18 inches. The Colossus of Rameses
+II. is surrounded by a sediment nine feet four inches deep, fairly
+estimated. Its date of erection was about 3215 years ago, which gives
+3-1/2 inches per century. But beneath it similar layers continue to the
+depth of 30 feet, which, at the same rate, would give 13,500 years, to
+A.D. 1854, at which time the examination was made. Every precaution
+seems to have been taken to obtain accurate results.
+
+[Sidenote: Its geography and topography.]
+
+The extent of surface affected by the inundations of the Nile is, in a
+geographical point of view, altogether insignificant; yet, such as it
+was, it constituted Egypt. Commencing at the Cataract of Essouan, at
+the sacred island of Philae, on which to this day here and there the
+solitary palm-tree looks down, it reached to the Mediterranean Sea, from
+24 deg. 3' N. to 31 deg. 37' N. The river runs in a valley, bounded on
+one side by the eastern and on the other by the Libyan chain of mountains,
+and of which the average breadth is about seven miles, the arable land,
+however, not averaging more than five and a half. At the widest place it
+is ten and three-quarters, at the narrowest two. The entire surface of
+irrigated and fertile land in the Delta is 4500 square miles; the arable
+land of Egypt, 2255 square miles; and in the Fyoom, 340 square miles, an
+insignificant surface, yet it supported seven millions of people.
+
+Here agriculture was so precise that it might almost be pronounced a
+mathematical art. The disturbances arising from atmospheric conditions
+were eliminated, and the variations, as connected with the supply of
+river-water, ascertained in advance. The priests proclaimed how the
+flood stood on the Nilometer, and the husbandman made corresponding
+preparations for a scanty or an abundant harvest.
+
+In such a state of things, it was an obvious step to improve upon the
+natural conditions by artificial means; dykes, and canals, and
+flood-gates, with other hydraulic apparatus, would, even in the
+beginning of society, unavoidably be suggested, that in one locality the
+water might be detained longer; in another, shut off when there was
+danger of excess; in another, more abundantly introduced.
+
+[Sidenote: Control of agriculture by the government.]
+
+There followed, as a consequence of this condition of things, the
+establishment of a strong government, having a direct control over the
+agriculture of the state by undertaking and supporting these artificial
+improvements, and sustaining itself by a tax cheerfully paid, and
+regulated in amount by the quantity of water supplied from the river to
+each estate. Such, indeed, was the fundamental political system of the
+country. The first king of the old empire undertook to turn the river
+into a new channel he made for it, a task which might seem to demand
+very able engineering, and actually accomplished it. It is more than
+five thousand years since Menes lived. There must have preceded his
+times many centuries, during which knowledge and skill had been
+increasing, before such a work could even have been contemplated.
+
+[Sidenote: Topographical changes occasioned by the Nile.]
+
+I shall not indulge in any imaginary description of the manner in which,
+under such favourable circumstances, the powers of the human mind were
+developed and civilization arose. In inaccessible security, the
+inhabitants of this valley were protected on the west by a burning sandy
+desert, on the east by the Red Sea. Nor shall I say anything more of
+those remote geological times when the newly-made river first flowed
+over a rocky and barren desert on its way to the Mediterranean Sea; nor
+how, in the course of ages, it had by degrees laid down a fertile
+stratum, embanking itself in the rich soil it had borne from the
+tropical mountains. Yet it is none the less true that such was the slow
+construction of Egypt as a habitable country; such were the gradual
+steps by which it was fitted to become the seat of man. The pulse of its
+life-giving artery makes but one beat in a year; what, then, are a few
+hundreds of centuries in such a process?
+
+[Sidenote: The inundations lead to the study of astronomy.]
+
+The Egyptians had, at an early period, observed that the rising of the
+Nile coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, the Dog-star, and
+hence they very plausibly referred it to celestial agencies. Men are
+ever prone to mistake coincidences for causes; and thus it came to pass
+that the appearance of that star on the horizon at the rising of the sun
+was not only viewed as the signal, but as the cause of the inundations.
+Its coming to the desired position might, therefore, be well expected,
+and it was soon observed that this took place with regularity at periods
+of about 360 days. This was the first determination of the length of the
+year. It is worthy of remark, as showing how astronomy and religious
+rites were in the beginning connected, that the priests of the
+mysterious temple of Philae placed before the tomb of Osiris every
+morning 360 vases of milk, each one commemorating one day, thus showing
+that the origin of that rite was in those remote ages when it was
+thought that the year was 360 days long. It was doubtless such
+circumstances that led the Egyptians to the cultivation of historical
+habits. In this they differed from the Hindus, who kept no records.
+
+[Sidenote: The philosophy of star-worship.]
+
+The Dog-star Sirius is the most splendid star in the heavens; to the
+Egyptian the inundation was the most important event upon earth.
+Mistaking a coincidence for a cause, he was led to the belief that when
+that brilliant star emerged in the morning from the rays of the sun, and
+began to assert its own inherent power, the sympathetic river, moved
+thereby, commenced to rise. A false inference like this soon dilated
+into a general doctrine; for if one star could in this way manifest a
+direct control over the course of terrestrial affairs, why should not
+another--indeed, why should not all? Moreover, it could not have escaped
+notice that the daily tides of the Red Sea are connected with the
+movements and position of the sun and moon, following those luminaries
+in the time of their occurrence, and being determined by their
+respective position as to amount at spring and at neap. But the
+necessary result of such a view is no other than the admission of the
+astrological influence of the heavenly bodies; first, as respects
+inanimate nature, and then as respects the fortune and fate of men. It
+is not until the vast distance of the starry bodies is suspected that
+man begins to feel the necessity of a mediator between him and them, and
+star-worship passes to its second phase.
+
+To what part of the world could the Egyptian travel without seeing in
+the skies the same constellations? Far from the banks of the Nile, in
+the western deserts, in Syria, in Arabia, the stars are the same. They
+are omnipresent; for we may lose sight of the things of the earth, but
+not of those of the heavens. The air of fate-like precision with which
+their appointed movements are accomplished, their solemn silence, their
+incomprehensible distances, might satisfy an observer that they are far
+removed from the influences of all human power, though, perhaps, they
+may be invoked by human prayer.
+
+[Sidenote: Principles of Egyptian theology.]
+
+Thus star-worship found for itself a plausible justification. The
+Egyptian system, at its highest development, combined the adoration of
+the heavenly bodies--the sun, the moon, Venus, &c., with the deified
+attributes of God. The great and venerable divinities, as Osiris, Pthah,
+Amun, were impersonations of such attributes, just as we speak of the
+Creator, the Almighty. It was held that not only has God never appeared
+upon earth in the human form, but that such is altogether an
+impossibility, since he is the animating principle of the entire
+universe, visible nature being only a manifestation of him.
+
+[Sidenote: God. Trinities and their persons.]
+
+These impersonated attributes were arranged in various trinities, in
+each of which the third member is a procession from the other two, the
+doctrine and even expressions in this respect being full of interest to
+one who studies the gradual development of comparative theology in
+Europe. Thus from Amun by Maut proceeds Khonso, from Osiris by Isis
+proceeds Horus, from Neph by Sate proceeds Anouke. While, therefore, it
+was considered unlawful to represent God except by his attributes, these
+trinities and their persons offered abundant means of idolatrous worship
+for the vulgar. It was admitted that there had been terrestrial
+manifestations of these divine attributes for the salvation of men. Thus
+Osiris was incarnate in the flesh: he fell a sacrifice to the evil
+principle, and, after his death and resurrection, became the appointed
+judge of the dead. In his capacity of President of the West, or of the
+region of the setting stars, he dwells in the under world, which is
+traversed by the sun at night.
+
+[Sidenote: Incarnations; fall of man; redemption.]
+
+[Sidenote: The future judgment.]
+
+The Egyptian priests affirmed that nothing is ever annihilated; to die
+is therefore only to assume a new form. Herodotus says that they were
+the first to discover that the soul is immortal, their conception of it
+being that it is an emanation from or a particle of the universal soul,
+which in a less degree animates all animals and plants, and even
+inorganic things. Their dogma that there had been divine incarnations
+obliged them to assert that there had been a fall of man, this seeming
+to be necessary to obtain a logical argument in justification of
+prodigies so great. For the relief of the guilty soul, they prescribed
+in this life fasts and penances, and in the future a transmigration
+through animals for purification. At death, the merits of the soul were
+ascertained by a formal trial before Osiris in the shadowy region of
+Amenti--the under world--in presence of the four genii of that realm,
+and of forty-two assessors. To this judgment the shade was conducted by
+Horus, who carried him past Cerberus, a hippopotamus, the gaunt guardian
+of the gate. He stood by in silence while Anubis weighed his heart in
+the scales of justice. If his good works preponderated, he was dismissed
+to the fields of Aahlu--the Elysian Fields; if his evil, he was
+condemned to transmigration.
+
+[Sidenote: The trial of the dead.]
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of the Greek Hades.]
+
+But that this doctrine of a judgment in another world might not decline
+into an idle legend, it was enforced by a preparatory trial in this--a
+trial of fearful and living import. From the sovereign to the meanest
+subject, every man underwent a sepulchral inquisition. As soon as any
+one died, his body was sent to the embalmers, who kept it forty days,
+and for thirty-two in addition the family mourned, the mummy, in its
+coffin, was placed erect in an inner chamber of the house. Notice was
+then sent to the forty-two assessors of the district; and on an
+appointed day, the corpse was carried to the sacred lake, of which every
+nome, and, indeed, every large town, had one toward the west. Arrived on
+its shore, the trial commenced; any person might bring charges against
+the deceased, or speak in his behalf; but woe to the false accuser. The
+assessors then passed sentence according to the evidence before them: if
+they found an evil life, sepulture was denied, and, in the midst of
+social disgrace, the friends bore back the mummy to their home, to be
+redeemed by their own good works in future years; or, if too poor to
+give it a place of refuge, it was buried on the margin of the lake, the
+culprit ghost waiting and wandering for a hundred years. On these
+Stygian shores the bones of some are still dug up in our day: they have
+remained unsepulchred for more than thirty times their predestined
+century. Even to wicked kings a burial had thus been denied. But, if the
+verdict of the assessors was favourable, a coin was paid to the boatman
+Charon for ferriage; a cake was provided for the hippopotamus Cerberus;
+they rowed across the lake in the baris, or death-boat, the priest
+announcing to Osiris and the unearthly assessors the good deeds of the
+deceased. Arriving on the opposite shore, the procession walked in
+solemn silence, and the mummy was then deposited in its final
+resting-place--the catacombs.
+
+[Sidenote: Ceremonies, creeds, oracles, prophecy.]
+
+From this it may be gathered that the Egyptian religion did not remain a
+mere speculative subject, but was enforced on the people by the most
+solemn ceremonies. Moreover, in the great temples, grand processional
+services were celebrated, the precursors of some that still endure.
+There were sacrifices of meat-offerings, libations, incense. The
+national double creed, adapted in one branch to the vulgar, in the other
+to the learned, necessarily implied mysteries; some of these were
+avowedly transported to Greece. The machinery of oracles was resorted
+to. The Greek oracles were of Egyptian origin. So profound was the
+respect paid to their commands that even the sovereigns were obliged to
+obey them. It was thus that a warning from the oracle of Amun caused
+Necho to stop the construction of his canal. For the determination of
+future events, omens were studied, entrails inspected, and nativities
+were cast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+GREEK AGE OF INQUIRY.
+
+RISE AND DECLINE OF PHYSICAL SPECULATION.
+
+ IONIAN PHILOSOPHY, _commencing from Egyptian Ideas, identifies
+ in Water, or Air, or Fire, the First Principle.--Emerging from
+ the Stage of Sorcery, it founds Psychology, Biology,
+ Cosmogony, Astronomy, and ends in doubting whether there is
+ any Criterion of Truth._
+
+ ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY _depends on Numbers and Harmonies.--It
+ reproduces the Egyptian and Hindu Doctrine of Transmigration._
+
+ ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY _presents a great Advance, indicating a
+ rapid Approach to Oriental Ideas.--It assumes a Pantheistic
+ Aspect._
+
+ RISE OF PHILOSOPHY IN EUROPEAN GREECE.--_Relations and
+ Influence of the Mediterranean Commercial and Colonial
+ System.--Athens attains to commercial Supremacy.--Her vast
+ Progress in Intelligence and Art.--Her Demoralization.--She
+ becomes the Intellectual Centre of the Mediterranean._
+
+ _Commencement of the Athenian higher Analysis.--It is
+ conducted by_ THE SOPHISTS, _who reject Philosophy, Religion,
+ and even Morality, and end in Atheism._
+
+ _Political Dangers of the higher Analysis.--Illustration from
+ the Middle Ages._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of Greek philosophy.]
+
+In Chapter II. I have described the origin and decline of Greek
+Mythology; in this, I am to relate the first European attempt at
+philosophizing. The Ionian systems spring directly out of the
+contemporary religious opinions, and appear as a phase in Greek
+comparative theology.
+
+[Sidenote: Its imperfections.]
+
+Contrasted with the psychical condition of India, we cannot but be
+struck with the feebleness of these first European efforts. They
+correspond to that period in which the mind has shaken off its ideas of
+sorcery, but has not advanced beyond geocentral and anthropocentral
+conceptions. As is uniformly observed, as soon as man has collected
+what he considers to be trustworthy data, he forthwith applies them to a
+cosmogony, and develops pseudo-scientific systems. It is not until a
+later period that he awakens to the suspicion that we have no absolute
+knowledge of truth.
+
+The reader, who might, perhaps, be repelled by the apparent
+worthlessness of the succession of Greek opinions now to be described,
+will find them assume an interest, if considered in the aggregate, or
+viewed as a series of steps or stages of European approach to
+conclusions long before arrived at in Egypt and India. Far in advance of
+anything that Greece can offer, the intellectual history of India
+furnishes systems at once consistent and imposing--systems not remaining
+useless speculations, but becoming inwoven in social life.
+
+[Sidenote: Commences in Asia Minor.]
+
+Greek philosophy is considered as having originated with Thales, who,
+though of Phoenician descent, was born at Miletus, a Greek colony in
+Asia Minor, about B.C. 640. At that time, as related in the last
+chapter, the Egyptian ports had been opened to foreigners by
+Psammetichus. In the civil war which that monarch had been waging with
+his colleagues, he owed his success to Ionian and other Greek
+mercenaries whom he had employed; but, though proving victor in the
+contest, his political position was such as to compel him to depart from
+the maxims followed in his country for so many thousand years, and to
+permit foreigners to have access to it. Hitherto the Europeans had been
+only known to the Egyptians as pirates and cannibals.
+
+[Sidenote: Doctrine of Thales]
+
+[Sidenote: is derived from Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Importance of water in Egypt.]
+
+From the doctrine of Thales, it may be inferred that, though he had
+visited Egypt, he had never been in communication with its sources of
+learning, but had merely mingled among the vulgar, from whom he had
+gathered the popular notion that the first principle is water. The state
+of things in Egypt suggests that this primitive dogma of European
+philosophy was a popular notion in that country. With but little care on
+the part of men the fertilizing Nile-water yielded those abundant crops
+which made Egypt the granary of the Old World. It might therefore be
+said, both philosophically and facetiously, that the first principle of
+all things is water. The harvests depended on it, and, through them,
+animals and man. The government of the country was supported by it, for
+the financial system was founded on a tax paid by the proprietors of the
+land for the use of the public sluices and aqueducts. There was not a
+peasant to whom it was not apparent that water is the first principle of
+all things, even of taxation; and, since it was not only necessary to
+survey lands to ascertain the surface that had been irrigated, but to
+redetermine their boundaries after the subsidence of the flood, even the
+scribes and surveyors might concede that geometry itself was indebted
+for its origin to water.
+
+[Sidenote: Thales asserts that water is the first principle.]
+
+If, therefore, in any part of the Old World, this doctrine had both a
+vulgar and a philosophical significance, that country was Egypt. We may
+picture to ourselves the inquisitive but ill-instructed Thales carried
+in some pirate-ship or trading-bark to the mysterious Nile, respecting
+which Ionia was full of legends and myths. He saw the aqueducts, canals,
+flood-gates, the great Lake Moeris, dug by the hand of man as many
+ages before his day as have elapsed from his day to ours; he saw on all
+sides the adoration paid to the river, for it had actually become
+deified; he learned from the vulgar, with whom alone he came in contact,
+their universal belief that all things arise from water--from the vulgar
+alone, for, had he ever been taught by the priests, we should have found
+traces in his system of the doctrines of emanation, transmigration, and
+absorption, which were imported into Greece in later times. We may
+interpret the story of Thales on the principles which would apply in the
+case of some intelligent Indian who should find his way to the outposts
+of a civilized country. Imperfectly acquainted with the language, and
+coming in contact with the lower class alone, he might learn their
+vulgar philosophy, and carry back the fancied treasure to his home.
+
+As to the profound meaning which some have been disposed to extract from
+the dogma of Thales, we shall, perhaps, be warranted in rejecting it
+altogether. It has been affirmed that he attempted to concentrate all
+supernatural powers in one; to reduce all possible agents to unity; in
+short, out of polytheism to bring forth monotheism; to determine the
+invariable in the variable; and to ascertain the beginning of things:
+that he observed how infinite is the sea; how necessary moisture is to
+growth; nay, even how essential it was to the well-being of himself;
+"that without moisture his own body would not have been what it was, but
+a dry husk falling to pieces." Nor can we adopt the opinion that the
+intention of Thales was to establish a coincidence between philosophy
+and the popular theology as delivered by Hesiod, who affirms that
+Oceanus is one of the parent-gods of Nature. The imputation of
+irreligion made against him shows at what an early period the antagonism
+of polytheism and scientific inquiry was recognized. But it is possible
+to believe that all things are formed out of one primordial substance,
+without denying the existence of a creative power. Or, to use the Indian
+illustration, the clay may not be the potter.
+
+[Sidenote: Other doctrines of Thales.]
+
+Thales is said to have predicted the solar eclipse which terminated a
+battle between the Medes and Lydians, but it has been suggestively
+remarked that it is not stated that he predicted the day on which it
+should occur. He had an idea that warmth originates from or is nourished
+by humidity, and that even the sun and stars derived their aliment out
+of the sea at the time of their rising and setting. Indeed, he regarded
+them as living beings; obtaining an argument from the phenomena of amber
+and the magnet, supposed by him to possess a living soul, because they
+have a moving force. Moreover, he taught that the whole world is an
+insouled thing, and that it is full of daemons. Thales had, therefore,
+not completely passed out of the stage of sorcery.
+
+His system obtained importance not only from its own plausibility, but
+because it was introduced under favourable auspices and at a favourable
+time. It came into Asia Minor as a portion of the wisdom of Egypt, and
+therefore with a prestige sufficient to assure for it an attentive
+reception. But this would have been of little avail had not the mental
+culture of Ionia been advanced to a degree suitable for offering to it
+conditions of development. Under such circumstances the Egyptian dogma
+formed the starting-point for a special method of philosophizing.
+
+[Sidenote: They constitute the starting-point of Ionian philosophy.]
+
+The manner in which that development took place illustrates the vigour
+of the Grecian mind. In Egypt a doctrine might exist for thousands of
+years, protected by its mere antiquity from controversy or even
+examination, and hence sink with the lapse of time into an ineffectual
+and lifeless state; but the same doctrine brought into a young community
+full of activity would quickly be made productive and yield new results.
+As seeds taken from the coffins of mummies, wherein they have been shut
+up for thousands of years, when placed under circumstances favourable
+for development in a rich soil, and supplied with moisture, have
+forthwith, even in our own times, germinated, borne flowers, and matured
+new seeds, so the rude philosophy of Thales passed through a like
+development. Its tendency is shown in the attempt it at once made to
+describe the universe, even before the parts thereof had been
+determined.
+
+[Sidenote: Anaximenes asserts that air is the first principle.]
+
+[Sidenote: It is also the soul.]
+
+[Sidenote: The air is God.]
+
+But it is not alone the water or ocean that seems to be infinite, and
+capable of furnishing a supply for the origin of all other things. The
+air, also, appears to reach as far as the stars. On it, as Anaximenes of
+Miletus remarks, "the very earth itself floats like a broad leaf."
+Accordingly, this Ionian, stimulated doubtless by the hope of sharing in
+or succeeding to the celebrity that Thales had enjoyed for a century,
+proposed to substitute for water, as the primitive source of things,
+atmospheric air. And, in truth, there seem to be reasons for bestowing
+upon it such a pre-eminence. To those who have not looked closely into
+the matter, it would appear that water itself is generated from it, as
+when clouds are formed, and from them rain-drops, and springs, and
+fountains, and rivers, and even the sea. He also attributes infinity to
+it, a dogma scarcely requiring any exercise of the imagination, but
+being rather the expression of an ostensible fact; for who, when he
+looks upward, can discern the boundary of the atmosphere. Anaximenes
+also held that even the human soul itself is nothing but air, since life
+consists in inhaling and exhaling it, and ceases as soon as that
+process stops. He taught also that warmth and cold arise from mere
+rarefaction and condensation, and gave as a proof the fact that when we
+breathe with the lips drawn together the air is cold, but it becomes
+warm when we breathe through the widely-opened mouth. Hence he concluded
+that, with a sufficient rarefaction, air might turn into fire, and that
+this probably was the origin of the sun and stars, blazing comets, and
+other meteors; but if by chance it should undergo condensation, it would
+turn into wind and clouds, or, if that operation should be still more
+increased, into water, snow, hail, and, at last, even into earth itself.
+And since it is seen from the results of breathing that the air is a
+life-giving principle to man, nay, even is actually his soul, it would
+appear to be a just inference that the infinite air is God and that the
+gods and goddesses have sprung from it.
+
+Such was the philosophy of Anaximenes. It was the beginning of that
+stimulation of activity by rival schools which played so distinguished a
+part in the Greek intellectual movement. Its superiority over the
+doctrine of Thales evidently consists in this, that it not only assigns
+a primitive substance, but even undertakes to show by observation and
+experiment how others arise from it, and transformations occur. As to
+the discovery of the obliquity of the ecliptic by the aid of a gnomon
+attributed to Anaximenes, it was merely a boast of his vainglorious
+countrymen, and altogether beyond the scientific grasp of one who had no
+more exact idea of the nature of the earth than that it was "like a
+broad leaf floating in the air."
+
+[Sidenote: Diogenes asserts that air is the soul of the world.]
+
+The doctrines of Anaximenes received a very important development in the
+hands of Diogenes of Apollonia, who asserted that all things originate
+from one essence, which, undergoing continual changes, becoming
+different at different times, turns back again to the same state. He
+regarded the entire world as a living being, spontaneously evolving and
+transforming itself, and agreed with Anaximenes that the soul of man is
+nothing but air, as is also the soul of the world. From this it follows
+that the air must be eternal, imperishable, and endowed with
+consciousness. "It knows much; for without reason it would be impossible
+for all to be arranged so duly and proportionately as that all should
+maintain its fitting measure, winter and summer, night and day, the
+rain, the wind, and fair weather; and whatever object we consider will
+be found to have been ordered in the best and most beautiful manner
+possible." "But that which has knowledge is that which men call air; it
+is it that regulates and governs all, and hence it is the use of air to
+pervade all, and to dispose all, and to be in all, for there is nothing
+that has not part in it."
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulty of rising above fetichism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Astronomy and chemistry have passed beyond the fetich stage.]
+
+The early cultivator of philosophy emerges with difficulty from
+fetichism. The harmony observed among the parts of the world is easily
+explained on the hypothesis of a spiritual principle residing in things,
+and arranging them by its intelligent volition. It is not at once that
+he rises to the conception that all this beauty and harmony are due to
+the operation of law. We are so prone to judge of the process of
+external things from the modes of our own personal experience, our acts
+being determined by the exercise of our wills, that it is with
+difficulty we disentangle ourselves from such notions in the explanation
+of natural phenomena. Fetichism may be observed in the infancy of many
+of the natural sciences. Thus the electrical power of amber was imputed
+to a soul residing in that substance, a similar explanation being also
+given of the control of the magnet over iron. The movements of the
+planetary bodies, Mercury, Venus, Mars, were attributed to an
+intelligent principle residing in each, guiding and controlling the
+motions, and ordering all things for the best. It was an epoch in the
+history of the human mind when astronomy set an example to all other
+sciences of shaking off its fetichism, and showing that the intricate
+movements of the heavenly bodies are all capable not only of being
+explained, but even foretold, if once was admitted the existence of a
+simple, yet universal, invariable, and eternal law.
+
+Not without difficulty do men perceive that there is nothing
+inconsistent between invariable law and endlessly varying phenomena, and
+that it is a more noble view of the government of this world to impute
+its order to a penetrating primitive wisdom, which could foresee
+consequences throughout a future eternity, and provide for them in the
+original plan at the outset, than to invoke the perpetual intervention
+of an ever-acting spiritual agency for the purpose of warding off
+misfortunes that might happen, and setting things to rights. Chemistry
+furnishes us with a striking example--an example very opportune in the
+case we are considering--of the doctrine of Diogenes of Apollonia, that
+the air is actually a spiritual being; for, on the discovery of several
+of the gases by the earlier experimenters, they were not only regarded
+as of a spiritual nature, but actually received the name under which
+they pass to this day, gheist or gas, from a belief that they were
+ghosts. If a labourer descended into a well and was suffocated, as if
+struck dead by some invisible hand; if a lamp lowered down burnt for a
+few moments with a lurid flame, and was then extinguished; if, in a coal
+mine, when the unwary workman exposed a light, on a sudden the place was
+filled with flashing flames and thundering explosions, tearing down the
+rocks and destroying every living thing in the way, often, too, without
+leaving on the dead any marks of violence; what better explanation could
+be given of such catastrophes than to impute them to some supernatural
+agent? Nor was there any want, in those times, of well-authenticated
+stories of unearthly faces and forms seen in such solitudes.
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of psychology.]
+
+The modification made by Diogenes in the theory of Anaximenes, by
+converting it from a physical into a psychological system, is important,
+as marking the beginning of the special philosophy of Greece. The
+investigation of the intellectual development of the universe led the
+Greeks to the study of the intellect itself. In his special doctrine,
+Diogenes imputed the changeability of the air to its mobility; a
+property in which he thought it excelled all other substances, because
+it is among the rarest or thinnest of the elements. It is, however, said
+by some, who are disposed to transcendentalize his doctrine, that he did
+not mean the common atmospheric air, but something more attenuated and
+warm; and since, in its purest state, it constitutes the most perfect
+intellect, inferior degrees of reason must be owing to an increase of
+its density and moisture. Upon such a principle, the whole earth is
+animated by the breath of life; the souls of brutes, which differ from
+one another so much in intelligence, are only air in its various
+conditions of moisture and warmth. He explained the production of the
+world through condensation of the earth from air by cold, the warmth
+rising upward and forming the sun; in the stars he thought he recognized
+the respiratory organs of the world. From the preponderance of moist air
+in the constitution of brutes, he inferred that they are like the
+insane, incapable of thought, for thickness of the air impedes
+respiration, and therefore quick apprehension. From the fact that plants
+have no cavities wherein to receive the air, and are altogether
+unintelligent, he was led to the principle that the thinking power of
+man arises from the flowing of that substance throughout the body in the
+blood. He also explained the superior intelligence of men from their
+breathing a purer air than the beasts, which carry their nostrils near
+the ground. In these crude and puerile speculations we have the
+beginning of mental philosophy.
+
+[Sidenote: Modern discoveries as to the relations of the air.]
+
+[Sidenote: Inter-dependence of animals and plants.]
+
+[Sidenote: Agency of the sun.]
+
+I cannot dismiss the system of the Apollonian without setting in
+contrast with it the discoveries of modern science respecting the
+relations of the air. Toward the world of life it stands in a position
+of wonderful interest. Decomposed into its constituents by the skill of
+chemistry, it is no longer looked upon as a homogeneous body; its
+ingredients have not only been separated, but the functions they
+discharge have been ascertained. From one of these, carbonic acid, all
+the various forms of plants arise; that substance being decomposed by
+the rays of the sun, and furnishing to vegetables carbon, their chief
+solid ingredient. All those beautifully diversified organic productions,
+from the mosses of the icy regions to the palms characteristic of the
+landscapes of the tropics--all those we cast away as worthless weeds,
+and those for the obtaining of which we expend the sweat of our
+brow--all, without any exception, are obtained from the atmosphere by
+the influence of the sun. And since without plants the life of animals
+could not be maintained, they constitute the means by which the aerial
+material, vivified, as it may be said, by the rays of the sun, is
+conveyed even into the composition of man himself. As food, they serve
+to repair the waste of the body necessarily occasioned in the acts of
+moving and thinking. For a time, therefore, these ingredients, once a
+part of the structure of plants, enter as essential constituents in the
+structure of animals. Yet it is only in a momentary way, for the
+essential condition of animal activity is that there shall be unceasing
+interstitial death; not a finger can be lifted without the waste of
+muscular material; not a thought arise without the destruction of
+cerebral substance. From the animal system the products of decay are
+forthwith removed, often by mechanisms of the most exquisite
+construction; but their uses are not ended, for sooner or later they
+find their way back again into the air, and again serve for the
+origination of plants. It is needless to trace these changes in all
+their details; the same order or cycle of progress holds good for the
+water, the ammonia; they pass from the inorganic to the living state,
+and back to the inorganic again; now the same particle is found in the
+air next aiding in the composition of a plant, then in the body of an
+animal, and back in the air once more. In this perpetual revolution
+material particles run, the dominating influence determining and
+controlling their movement being in that great centre of our system, the
+sun. From him, in the summer days, plants receive, and, as it were,
+store up that warmth which, at a subsequent time, is to reappear in the
+glow of health of man, or to be rekindled in the blush of shame, or to
+consume in the burning fever. Nor is there any limit of time. The heat
+we derive from the combustion of stubble came from the sun as it were
+only yesterday; but that with which we moderate the rigour of winter
+when we burn anthracite or bituminous coal was also derived from the
+same source in the ultra-tropical climate of the secondary times,
+perhaps a thousand centuries ago.
+
+In such perpetually recurring cycles are the movements of material
+things accomplished, and all takes place under the dominion of
+invariable law. The air is the source whence all organisms have come; it
+is the receptacle to which they all return. Its parts are awakened into
+life, not by the influence of any terrestrial agency or principle
+concealed in itself, as Diogenes supposed, but by a star which is ninety
+millions of miles distant, the source, direct or indirect, of every
+terrestrial movement, and the dispenser of light and life.
+
+[Sidenote: Heraclitus asserts that fire is the first principle.]
+
+[Sidenote: The fictitious permanence of successive forms.]
+
+To Thales and Diogenes, whose primordial elements were water and air
+respectively, we must add Heraclitus of Ephesus, who maintained that the
+first principle is fire. He illustrated the tendency which Greek
+philosophy had already assumed of opposition to Polytheism and the
+idolatrous practices of the age. It is said that in his work, ethical,
+political, physical, and theological subjects were so confused, and so
+great was the difficulty of understanding his meaning, that he obtained
+the surname of "the Obscure." In this respect he has had among modern
+metaphysicians many successors. He founds his system, however, upon the
+simple axiom that "all is convertible into fire, and fire into all."
+Perhaps by the term fire he understood what is at present meant by heat,
+for he expressly says that he does not mean flame, but something merely
+dry and warm. He considered that this principle is in a state of
+perpetual activity, forming and absorbing every individual thing. He
+says, "All is, and is not; for though it does in truth come into being,
+yet it forthwith ceases to be." "No one has ever been twice on the same
+stream, for different waters are constantly flowing down. It dissipates
+its waters and gathers them again; it approaches and recedes, overflows
+and fails." And to teach us that we ourselves are changing and have
+changed, he says, "On the same stream we embark and embark not, we are
+and we are not." By such illustrations he implies that life is only an
+unceasing motion, and we cannot fail to remark that the Greek turn of
+thought is fast following that of the Hindu.
+
+But Heraclitus totally fails to free himself from local conceptions. He
+speaks of the motion of the primordial principle in the upward and
+downward directions, in the higher and lower regions. He says that the
+chief accumulation thereof is above, and the chief deficiency below: and
+hence he regards the soul of a man as a portion of fire migrated from
+heaven. He carries his ideas of the transitory nature of all phenomena
+to their last consequences, and illustrates the noble doctrine that all
+which appears to us to be permanent is only a regulated and
+self-renewing concurrence of similar and opposite motions by such
+extravagances as that the sun is daily destroyed and renewed.
+
+[Sidenote: Physical and physiological doctrines of Heraclitus.]
+
+In the midst of many wild physical statements many true axioms are
+delivered. "All is ordered by reason and intelligence, though all is
+subject to Fate." Already he perceived what the metaphysicians of our
+own times are illustrating, that "man's mind can produce no certain
+knowledge from its own interior resources alone." He regarded the organs
+of sense as being the channels through which the outer life of the
+world, and therewith truth, enters into the mind, and that in sleep,
+when the organs of sense are closed, we are shut out from all communion
+with the surrounding universal spirit. In his view every thing is
+animated and insouled, but to different degrees, organic objects being
+most completely or perfectly so. His astronomy may be anticipated from
+what has been said respecting the sun, which he moreover regarded as
+being scarcely more than a foot in diameter, and, like all other
+celestial objects, a mere meteor. His moral system was altogether based
+upon the physical, the fundamental dogma being the excellence of fire.
+Thus he accounted for the imbecility of the drunkard by his having a
+moist soul, and drew the inference that a warm or dry soul is the wisest
+and best; with justifiable patriotism asserting that the noblest souls
+must belong to a climate that is dry, intending thereby to indicate that
+Greece is man's fittest and truest country. There can be no doubt that
+in Heraclitus there is a strong tendency to the doctrine of a soul of
+the world. If the divinity is undistinguishable from heat, whither can
+we go to escape its influences? And in the restless activity and
+incessant changes it produces in every thing within our reach, do we not
+recognize the tokens of the illimitable and unshackled?
+
+[Sidenote: The puerility of Ionian philosophy.]
+
+I have lingered on the chief features of the early Greek philosophy as
+exhibited in the physical school of Ionia. They serve to impress upon
+us its intrinsic imperfection. It is a mixture of the physical,
+metaphysical, and mystical which, upon the whole, has no other value
+than this, that it shows how feeble were the beginnings of our
+knowledge--that we commenced with the importation of a few vulgar errors
+from Egypt. In presence of the utilitarian philosophy of that country
+and the theology of India, how vain and even childish are these germs of
+science in Greece! Yet this very imperfection is not without its use,
+since it warns us of the inferior position in which we stand as respects
+the time of our civilization when compared with those ancient states,
+and teaches us to reject the assertion which so many European scholars
+have wearied themselves in establishing, that Greece led the way to all
+human knowledge of any value. Above all, it impresses upon us more
+appropriate, because more humble views of our present attainments and
+position, and gives us to understand that other races of men not only
+preceded us in intellectual culture, but have equalled, and perhaps
+surpassed every thing that we have yet done in mental philosophy.
+
+[Sidenote: Anaximander's doctrine of the Infinite.]
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of cosmogony.]
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of biology.]
+
+Of the other founders of Ionic sects it may be observed that, though
+they gave to their doctrines different forms, the method of reasoning
+was essentially the same in them all. Of this a better illustration
+could not be given than in the philosophy of Anaximander of Miletus, who
+was contemporary with Thales. He started with the postulate that things
+arose by separation from a universal mixture of all: his primordial
+principle was therefore chaos, though he veiled it in the metaphysically
+obscure designation "The Infinite." The want of precision in this
+respect gave rise to much difference of opinion as to his tenets. To his
+chaos he imputed an internal energy, by which its parts spontaneously
+separated from each other; to those parts he imputed absolute
+unchangeability. He taught that the earth is of a cylindrical form, its
+base being one-third of its altitude; it is retained in the centre of
+the world by the air in an equality of distance from all the boundaries
+of the universe; that the fixed stars and planets revolved round it,
+each being fastened to a crystalline ring; and beyond them, in like
+manner, the moon, and, still farther off, the sun. He conceived of an
+opposition between the central and circumferential regions, the former
+being naturally cold, and the latter hot; indeed, in his opinion, the
+settling of the cold parts to the centre, and the ascending of the hot,
+gave origin, respectively, to the formation of the earth and shining
+celestial bodies, the latter first existing as a complete shell or
+sphere, which, undergoing destruction, broke up into stars. Already we
+perceive the tendency of Greek philosophy to shape itself into systems
+of cosmogony, founded upon the disturbance of the chaotic matter by heat
+and cold. Nay, more, Anaximander explained the origin of living
+creatures on like principles, for the sun's heat, acting upon the primal
+miry earth, produced filmy bladders or bubbles, and these, becoming
+surrounded with a prickly rind, at length burst open, and, as from an
+egg, animals came forth. At first they were ill-formed and imperfect,
+but subsequently elaborated and developed. As to man, so far from being
+produced in his perfect shape, he was ejected as a fish, and under that
+form continued in the muddy water until he was capable of supporting
+himself on dry land. Besides "the Infinite" being thus the cause of
+generation, it was also the cause of destruction: "things must all
+return whence they came, according to destiny, for they must all, in
+order of time, undergo due penalties and expiations of wrong-doing."
+This expression obviously contains a moral consideration, and is an
+exemplification of the commencing feeble interconnection between
+physical and moral philosophy.
+
+As to the more solid discoveries attributed to this philosopher, we may
+dispose of them in the same manner that we have dealt with the like
+facts in the biographies of his predecessors--they are idle inventions
+of his vainglorious countrymen. That he was the first to make maps is
+scarcely consistent with the well-known fact that the Egyptians had
+cultivated geometry for that express purpose thirty centuries before he
+was born. As to his inventing sun-dials, the shadow had gone back on
+that of Ahaz a long time before. In reality, the sun-dial was a very
+ancient Oriental invention. And as to his being the first to make an
+exact calculation of the size and distance of the heavenly bodies, it
+need only be remarked that those who have so greatly extolled his
+labours must have overlooked how incompatible such discoveries are with
+a system which assumes that the earth is cylindrical in shape, and kept
+in the midst of the heavens by the atmosphere; that the sun is farther
+off than the fixed stars; and that each of the heavenly bodies is made
+to revolve by means of a crystalline wheel.
+
+The philosopher whose views we have next to consider is Anaxagoras of
+Clazomene, the friend and master of Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates.
+Like several of his predecessors, he had visited Egypt. Among his
+disciples were numbered some of the most eminent men of those times.
+
+[Sidenote: Anaxagoras teaches the unchangeability of the universe.]
+
+[Sidenote: The primal intellect.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cosmogony of Anaxagoras.]
+
+The fundamental principle of his philosophy was the recognition of the
+unchangeability of the universe as a whole, the variety of forms that we
+see being produced by new arrangements of its constituent parts. Such a
+doctrine includes, of course, the idea of the eternity of matter.
+Anaxagoras says, "Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or
+ceases to be, for nothing comes into being or is destroyed, but all is
+an aggregation or secretion of pre-existent things, so that all becoming
+might more correctly be called becoming-mixed, and all corruption
+becoming-separate." In such a statement we cannot fail to remark that
+the Greek is fast passing into the track of the Egyptian and the Hindu.
+In some respects his views recall those of the chaos of Anaximander, as
+when he says, "Together were all things infinite in number and
+smallness; nothing was distinguishable. Before they were sorted, while
+all was together, there was no quality noticeable." To the first moving
+force which arranged the parts of things out of the chaos, he gave the
+designation of "the Intellect," rejecting Fate as an empty name, and
+imputing all things to Reason. He made no distinction between the Soul
+and Intellect. His tenets evidently include a dualism indicated by the
+moving force and the moved mass, an opposition between the corporeal and
+mental. This indicated that for philosophy there are two separate
+routes, the physical and intellectual. While Reason is thus the prime
+mover in his philosophy, he likewise employed many subordinate agents in
+the government of things--for instance, air, water, and fire, being
+evidently unable to explain the state of nature in a satisfactory way by
+the operation of the Intellect alone. We recognize in the details of his
+system ideas derived from former ones, such as the settling of the cold
+and dense below, and the rising of the warm and light above. In the
+beginning the action of Intellect was only partial; that which was
+primarily moved was only imperfectly sorted, and contained in itself the
+capability of many separations. From this point his system became a
+cosmogony, showing how the elements and fogs, stones, stars, and the
+sea, were produced. These explanations, as mighty be anticipated, have
+no exactness. Among his primary elements are many incongruous things,
+such as cold, colour, fire, gold, lead, corn, marrow, blood, &c. This
+doctrine implied that in compound things there was not a formation, but
+an arrangement. It required, therefore, many elements instead of a
+single one. Flesh is made of fleshy particles, bones of bony, gold of
+golden, lead of leaden, wood of wooden, &c. These analogous constituents
+are homoeomeriae. Of an infinite number of kinds, they composed the
+infinite all, which is a mixture of them. From such conditions
+Anaxagoras proves that all the parts of an animal body pre-exist in the
+food, and are merely collected therefrom. As to the phenomena of life,
+he explains it on his doctrine of dualism between mind and matter; he
+teaches that sleep is produced by the reaction of the latter on the
+former. Even plants he regards as only rooted animals, motionless, but
+having sensations and desires; he imputes the superiority of man to the
+mere fact of his having hands. He explains our mental perceptions upon
+the hypothesis that we have naturally within us the contraries of all
+the qualities of external things; and that, when we consider an object,
+we become aware of the preponderance of those qualities in our mind
+which are deficient in it. Hence all sensation is attended with pain.
+His doctrine of the production of animals was founded on the action of
+the sunlight on the miry earth. The earth he places in the centre of
+the world, whither it was carried by a whirlwind, the pole being
+originally in the zenith; but, when animals issued from the mud, its
+position was changed by the Intellect, so that there might be suitable
+climates. In some particulars his crude guesses present amusing
+anticipations of subsequent discoveries. Thus he maintained that the
+moon has mountains, and valleys like the earth; that there have been
+grand epochs in the history of our globe, in which it has been
+successively modified by fire and water; that the hills of Lampsacus
+would one day be under the sea, if time did not too soon fail.
+
+[Sidenote: Doubts whether we have any criterion of truth.]
+
+As to the nature of human knowledge, Anaxagoras, asserted that by the
+Intellect alone do we become acquainted with the truth, the senses being
+altogether untrustworthy. He illustrated this by putting a drop of
+coloured liquid into a quantity of clear water, the eye being unable to
+recognize any change. Upon such principles also he asserted that snow is
+not white, but black, since it is composed of water, of which the colour
+is black; and hence he drew such conclusions as that "things are to each
+man according as they seem to him." It was doubtless the recognition of
+the unreliability of the senses that extorted from him the well-known
+complaint: "Nothing can be known; nothing can be learned; nothing can be
+certain; sense is limited; intellect is weak; life is short."
+
+[Sidenote: Anaxagoras is persecuted.]
+
+The biography of Anaxagoras is not without interest. Born in affluence,
+he devoted all his means to philosophy, and in his old age encountered
+poverty and want. He was accused by the superstitious Athenian populace
+of Atheism and impiety to the gods, since he asserted that the sun and
+moon consist of earth and stone, and that the so-called divine miracles
+of the times were nothing more than common natural effects. For these
+reasons, and also because of the Magianism of his doctrine--for he
+taught the antagonism of mind and matter, a dogma of the detested
+Persians--he was thrown into prison, condemned to death, and barely
+escaped through the influence of Pericles. He fled to Lampsacus, where
+he ended his days in exile. His vainglorious countrymen, however,
+conferred honour upon his memory in their customary exaggerated way,
+boasting that he was the first to explain the phases of the moon, the
+nature of solar and lunar eclipses, that he had the power of foretelling
+future events, and had even predicted the fall of a meteoric stone.
+
+From the biography of Anaxagoras, as well as of several of his
+contemporaries and successors, we may learn that a popular opposition
+was springing up against philosophy, not limited to a mere social
+protest, but carried out into political injustice. The antagonism
+between learning and Polytheism was becoming every day more distinct. Of
+the philosophers, some were obliged to flee into exile, some suffered
+death. The natural result of such a state of things was to force them to
+practise concealment and mystification, as is strikingly shown in the
+history of the Pythagoreans.
+
+[Sidenote: Pythagoras, biography of.]
+
+Of Pythagoras, the founder of this sect, but little is known with
+certainty; even the date of his birth is contested, probably he was born
+at Samos about B.C. 540. If we were not expressly told so, we should
+recognize from his doctrines that he had been in Egypt and India. Some
+eminent scholars, who desire on all occasions to magnify the learning of
+ancient Europe, depreciate as far as they can the universal testimony of
+antiquity that such was the origin of the knowledge of Pythagoras,
+asserting that the constitution of the Egyptian priesthood rendered it
+impossible for a foreigner to become initiated. They forget that the
+ancient system of that country had been totally destroyed in the great
+revolution which took place more than a century before those times. If
+it were not explicitly stated by the ancients that Pythagoras lived for
+twenty-two years in Egypt, there is sufficient internal evidence in his
+story to prove that he had been there a long time. As a connoisseur can
+detect the hand of a master by the style of a picture, so one who has
+devoted attention to the old systems of thought sees, at a glance, the
+Egyptian in the philosophy of Pythagoras.
+
+He passed into Italy during the reign of Tarquin the Proud, and settled
+at Crotona, a Greek colonial city on the Bay of Tarentum. At first he
+established a school, but, favoured by local dissensions, he gradually
+organized from the youths who availed themselves of his instructions a
+secret political society. Already it had passed into a maxim among the
+learned Greeks that it is not advantageous to communicate knowledge too
+freely to the people--a bitter experience in persecutions seemed to
+demonstrate that the maxim was founded on truth. The step from a secret
+philosophical society to a political conspiracy is but short. Pythagoras
+appears to have taken it. The disciples who were admitted to his
+scientific secrets after a period of probation and process of
+examination constituted a ready instrument of intrigue against the
+state, the issue of which, after a time, appeared in the supplanting of
+the ancient senate and the exaltation of Pythagoras and his club to the
+administration of government. The actions of men in all times are
+determined by similar principles; and as it would be now with such a
+conspiracy, so it was then; for, though the Pythagorean influence spread
+from Crotona to other Italian towns, an overwhelming reaction soon set
+in, the innovators were driven into exile, their institutions destroyed,
+and their founder fell a victim to his enemies.
+
+The organization attempted by the Pythagoreans is an exception to the
+general policy of the Greeks. The philosophical schools had been merely
+points of reunion for those entertaining similar opinions; but in the
+state they can hardly be regarded as having had any political existence.
+
+[Sidenote: His miracles.]
+
+It is difficult, when the political or religious feelings of men have
+been engaged, to ascertain the truth of events in which they have been
+concerned; deception, and falsehood, seem to be licensed. In the midst
+of the troubles befalling Italy as the consequence of these Pythagorean
+machinations, it is impossible to ascertain facts with certainty. One
+party exalts Pythagoras to a superhuman state; it pictures him majestic
+and impassive, clothed in robes of white, with a golden coronet around
+his brows, listening to the music of the spheres, or seeking relaxation
+in the more humble hymns of Homer, Hesiod, and Thales; lost in the
+contemplation of Nature, or rapt in ecstasy in his meditations on God;
+manifesting his descent from Apollo or Hermes by the working of
+miracles, predicting future events, conversing with genii in the
+solitude of a dark cavern, and even surpassing the wonder of speaking
+simultaneously in different tongues, since it was established, by the
+most indisputable testimony, that he had accomplished the prodigy of
+being present with and addressing the people in several different places
+at the same time. It seems not to have occurred to his disciples that
+such preposterous assertions cannot be sustained by any evidence
+whatsoever; and that the stronger and clearer such evidence is, instead
+of supporting the fact for which it is brought forward, it the more
+serves to shake our confidence in the truth of man, or impresses on us
+the conclusion that he is easily lead to the adoption of falsehood, and
+is readily deceived by imposture.
+
+[Sidenote: His character.]
+
+By his opponents he was denounced as a quack, or, at the best, a
+visionary mystic, who had deluded the young with the mummeries of a
+free-masonry; had turned the weak-minded into shallow enthusiasts and
+grim ascetics; and as having conspired against a state which had given
+him an honourable refuge, and brought disorder and bloodshed upon it.
+Between such contradictory statements, it is difficult to determine how
+much we should impute to the philosopher and how much to the trickster.
+In this uncertainty, the Pythagoreans reap the fruit of one of their
+favourite maxims, "Not unto all should all be made known." Perhaps at
+the bottom of these political movements lay the hope of establishing a
+central point of union for the numerous Greek colonies of Italy, which,
+though they were rich and highly civilized, were, by reason of their
+isolation and antagonism, essentially weak. Could they have been united
+in a powerful federation by the aid of some political or religious bond,
+they might have exerted a singular influence on the rising fortunes of
+Rome, and thereby on humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: Pythagoras asserts that number is the first principle.]
+
+The fundamental dogma of the Pythagoreans was that "number is the
+essence or first principle of things." This led them at once to the
+study of the mysteries of figures and of arithmetical relations, and
+plunged them into the wildest fantasies when it took the absurd form
+that numbers are actually things.
+
+The approval of the doctrines of Pythagoras so generally expressed was
+doubtless very much due to the fact that they supplied an intellectual
+void. Those who had been in the foremost ranks of philosophy had come to
+the conclusion that, as regard external things, and even ourselves, we
+have no criterion of truth; but in the properties of numbers and their
+relations, such a criterion does exist.
+
+[Sidenote: Pythagorean philosophy.]
+
+It would scarcely repay the reader to pursue this system in its details;
+a very superficial representation of it is all that is necessary for our
+purpose. It recognizes two species of numbers, the odd and even; and
+since one, or unity, must be at once both odd and even, it must be the
+very essence of number, and the ground of all other numbers; hence the
+meaning of the Pythagorean expression, "All comes from one;" which also
+took form in the mystical allusion, "God embraces all and actuates all,
+and is but one." To the number ten extraordinary importance was imputed,
+since it contains in itself, or arises from the addition of, 1, 2, 3,
+4--that is, of even and odd numbers together; hence it received the name
+of the grand tetractys, because it so contains the first four numbers.
+Some, however, assert that that designation was imposed on the number
+thirty-six. To the triad the Pythagoreans likewise attached much
+significance, since it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. To unity,
+or one, they gave the designation of the even-odd, asserting that it
+contained the property both of the even and odd, as is plain from the
+fact that if one be added to an even number it becomes odd, but if to an
+odd number it becomes even. They arranged the primary elements of nature
+in a table of ten contraries, of which the odd and even are one, and
+light and darkness another. They said that "the nature and energy of
+number may be traced not only in divine and daemonish things, but in
+human works and words everywhere, and in all works of art and in music."
+They even linked their arithmetical views to morality, through the
+observation that numbers never lie; that they are hostile to falsehood;
+and that, therefore, truth belongs to their family: their fanciful
+speculations led them to infer that in the limitless or infinite,
+falsehood and envy must reign. From similar reasoning, they concluded
+that the number one contained not only the perfect, but also the
+imperfect; hence it follows that the most good, most beautiful, and most
+true are not at the beginning, but that they are in the process of time
+evolved. They held that whatever we know must have had a beginning, a
+middle, and an end, of which the beginning and end are the boundaries or
+limits; but the middle is unlimited, and, as a consequence, may be
+subdivided _ad infinitum_. They therefore resolved corporeal existence
+into points, as is set forth in their maxim that "all is composed of
+points or spacial units, which, taken together, constitute a number."
+Such being their ideas of the limiting which constitutes the extreme,
+they understood by the unlimited the intermediate space or interval. By
+the aid of these intervals they obtained a conception of space; for,
+since the units, or monads, as they were also called, are merely
+geometrical points, no number of them could produce a line, but by the
+union of monads and intervals conjointly a line can arise, and also a
+surface, and also a solid. As to the interval thus existing between
+monads, some considered it as being mere aerial breath, but the orthodox
+regarded it as a vacuum; hence we perceive the meaning of their absurd
+affirmation that all things are produced by a vacuum. As it is not to be
+overlooked that the monads are merely mathematical points, and have no
+dimensions or size, substances actually contain no matter, and are
+nothing more than forms.
+
+[Sidenote: Pythagorean cosmogony.]
+
+[Sidenote: Modern Pythagorisms in chemistry.]
+
+The Pythagoreans applied these principles to account for the origin of
+the world, saying that, since its very existence is an illusion, it
+could not have any origin in time, but only seemingly so to human
+thought. As to time itself, they regarded it as "existing only by the
+distinction of a series of different moments, which, however, are again
+restored to unity by the limiting moments." The diversity of relations
+we find in the world they supposed to be occasioned by the bond of
+harmony. "Since the principles of things are neither similar nor
+congenerous, it is impossible for them to be brought into order except
+by the intervention of harmony, whatever may have been the manner in
+which it took place. Like and homogeneous things, indeed, would not
+have required harmony; but, as to the dissimilar and unsymmetrical, such
+must necessarily be held together by harmony if they are to be contained
+in a world of order." In this manner they confused together the ideas of
+number and harmony, regarding the world not only as a combination of
+contraries, but as an orderly and harmonical combination thereof. To
+particular numbers they therefore imputed great significance, asserting
+that "there are seven chords or harmonies, seven pleiads, seven vowels,
+and that certain parts of the bodies of animals change in the course of
+seven years." They carried to an extreme the numerical doctrine,
+assigning certain numbers as the representatives of a bird, a horse, a
+man. This doctrine may be illustrated by facts familiar to chemists,
+who, in like manner, attach significant numbers to the names of things.
+Taking hydrogen as unity, 6 belongs to carbon, 8 to oxygen, 16 to
+sulphur. Carrying those principles out, there is no substance,
+elementary or compound, inorganic or organic, to which an expressive
+number does not belong. Nay, even an archetypal form, as of man or any
+other such composite structure, may thus possess a typical number, the
+sum of the numbers of its constituent parts. It signifies nothing what
+interpretation we give to these numbers, whether we regarded them as
+atomic weights, or, declining the idea of atoms, consider them as the
+representatives of force. As in the ancient philosophical doctrine, so
+in modern science, the number is invariably connected with the name of a
+thing, of whatever description the thing may be.
+
+[Sidenote: Pythagorean physics and psychology.]
+
+The grand standard of harmonical relation among the Pythagoreans was the
+musical octave. Physical qualities, such as colour and tone, were
+supposed to appertain to the surface of bodies. Of the elements they
+enumerated five--earth, air, fire, water, and ether, connecting
+therewith the fact that man has five organs of sense. Of the planets
+they numbered five, which, together with the sun, moon, and earth, are
+placed apart at distances determined by a musical law, and in their
+movements through space give rise to a sound, the harmony of the
+spheres, unnoticed by us because we habitually hear it. They place the
+sun in the centre of the system, round which, with the other planets,
+the earth revolves. At this point the geocentric doctrine is being
+abandoned and the heliocentric takes its place. As the circle is the
+most perfect of forms, the movements of the planets are circular. They
+maintained that the moon is inhabited, and like the earth, but the
+people there are taller than men, in the proportion as the moon's
+periodic rotation is greater than that of the earth. They explained the
+Milky Way as having been occasioned by the fall of a star, or as having
+been formerly the path of the sun. They asserted that the world is
+eternal, but the earth is transitory and liable to change, the universe
+being in the shape of a sphere. They held that the soul of man is merely
+an efflux of the universal soul, and that it comes into the body from
+without. From dreams and the events of sickness they inferred the
+existence of good and evil daemons. They supposed that souls can exist
+without the body, leading a kind of dream-life, and identified the motes
+in the sunbeam with them. Their heroes and daemons were souls not yet
+become embodied, or who had ceased to be so. The doctrine of
+transmigration which they had adopted was in harmony with such views,
+and, if it does not imply the absolute immortality of the soul, at least
+asserts its existence after the death of the body, for the disembodied
+spirit becomes incarnate again as soon as it finds a tenement which fits
+it. To their life after death the Pythagoreans added a doctrine of
+retributive rewards and punishments, and, in this respect, what has been
+said of animals forming a penitential mechanism in the theology of India
+and Egypt, holds good for the Pythagoreans too.
+
+Of their system of politics nothing can now with certainty be affirmed
+beyond the fact that its prime element was an aristocracy; of their rule
+of private life, but little beyond its including a recommendation of
+moderation in all things, the cultivation of friendship, the observance
+of faith, and the practice of self-denial, promoted by ascetic
+exercises. It was a maxim with them that a right education is not only
+of importance to the individual, but also to the interests of the state.
+Pythagoras himself, as is well known, paid much attention to the
+determination of extension and gravity, the ratios of musical tones,
+astronomy, and medicine. He directed his disciples, in their orgies or
+secret worship, to practise gymnastics, dancing, music. In
+correspondence with his principle of imparting to men only such
+knowledge as they were fitted to receive, he communicated to those who
+were less perfectly prepared exoteric doctrines, reserving the esoteric
+for the privileged few who had passed five years in silence, had endured
+humiliation, and been purged by self-denial and sacrifice.
+
+[Sidenote: The Eleatic philosophy.]
+
+We have now reached the consideration of the Eleatic philosophy. It
+differs from the preceding in its neglect of material things, and its
+devotion to the supra-sensible. It derives its name from Elea, a Greek
+colonial city of Italy, its chief authors being Xenophanes, Parmenides,
+and Zeno.
+
+[Sidenote: Xenophanes represents a great philosophical advance.]
+
+Xenophanes was a native of Ionia, from which having been exiled, he
+appears to have settled at last in Elea, after leading for many years
+the life of a wandering rhapsodist. He gave his doctrines a poetical
+form for the purpose of more easily diffusing them. To the multitude he
+became conspicuous from his opposition to Homer, Hesiod, and other
+popular poets, whom he denounced for promoting the base polytheism of
+the times, and degrading the idea of the divine by the immoralities they
+attributed to the gods. He proclaimed God as an all-powerful Being,
+existing from eternity, and without any likeness to man. A strict
+monotheist, he denounced the plurality of gods as an inconceivable
+error, asserting that of the all-powerful and all-perfect there could
+not, in the nature of things, be more than one; for, if there were only
+so many as two, those attributes could not apply to one of them, much
+less, then, if there were many. This one principle or power was to him
+the same as the universe, the substance of which, having existed from
+all eternity, must necessarily be identical with God; for, since it is
+impossible that there should be two Omnipresents, so also it is
+impossible that there should be two Eternals. It therefore may be said
+that there is a tincture of Orientalism in his ideas, since it would
+scarcely be possible to offer a more succinct and luminous exposition of
+the pantheism of India.
+
+[Sidenote: He approaches the Indian ideas.]
+
+The reader who has been wearied with the frivolities of the Ionian
+philosophy, and lost in the mysticisms of Pythagoras, cannot fail to
+recognize that here we have something of a very different kind. To an
+Oriental dignity of conception is added an extraordinary clearness and
+precision of reasoning.
+
+[Sidenote: Theology of Xenophanes.]
+
+To Xenophanes all revelation is a pure fiction; the discovery of the
+invisible is to be made by the intellect of man alone. The vulgar belief
+which imputes to the Deity the sentiments, passions, and crimes of man,
+is blasphemous and accursed. He exposes the impiety of those who would
+figure the Great Supreme under the form of a man, telling them that if
+the ox or the lion could rise to a conception of the Deity, they might
+as well embody him under their own shape; that the negro represents him
+with a flat nose and black face; the Thracian with blue eyes and a ruddy
+complexion. "There is but one God; he has no resemblance to the bodily
+form of man, nor are his thoughts like ours." He taught that God is
+without parts, and throughout alike; for, if he had parts, some would be
+ruled by others, and others would rule, which is impossible, for the
+very notion of God implies his perfect and thorough sovereignty.
+Throughout he must be Reason, and Intelligence, and Omnipotence, "ruling
+the universe without trouble by Reason and Insight." He conceived that
+the Supreme understands by a sensual perception, and not only thinks,
+but sees and hears throughout. In a symbolical manner he represented God
+as a sphere, like the heavens, which encompass man and all earthly
+things.
+
+[Sidenote: His physical views.]
+
+In his natural philosophy it is said that he adopted the four elements,
+Earth, Air, Fire, Water; though by some it is asserted that, from
+observing fossil fish, on the tops of mountains, he was led to the
+belief that the earth itself arose from water; and generally, that the
+phenomena of nature originate in combinations of the primary elements.
+From such views he inferred that all things are necessarily transitory,
+and that men, and even the earth itself, must pass away. As to the
+latter, he regarded it as a flat surface, the inferior region of which
+extends indefinitely downward, and so gives a solid foundation. His
+physical views he, however, held with a doubt almost bordering on
+scepticism: "No mortal man ever did, or ever shall know God and the
+universe thoroughly; for, since error is so spread over all things, it
+is impossible for us to be certain even when we utter the true and the
+perfect." It seemed to him hopeless that man could ever ascertain the
+truth, since he has no other aid than truthless appearances.
+
+[Sidenote: Some of his thoughts reappear in Newton.]
+
+I cannot dismiss this imperfect account of Xenophanes, who was,
+undoubtedly, one of the greatest of the Greek philosophers, without an
+allusion to his denunciation of Homer, and other poets of his country,
+because they had aided in degrading the idea of the Divinity; and also
+to his faith in human nature, his rejection of the principle of
+concealing truth from the multitude, and his self-devotion in diffusing
+it among all at a risk of liberty and life. He wandered from country to
+country, withstanding polytheism to its face, and imparting wisdom in
+rhapsodies and hymns, the form, above all others, calculated most
+quickly in those times to spread knowledge abroad. To those who are
+disposed to depreciate his philosophical conclusions, it may be remarked
+that in some of their most striking features they have been reproduced
+in modern times, and I would offer to them a quotation from the General
+Scholium at the end of the third book of the Principia of Newton: "The
+Supreme God exists necessarily, and by the same necessity he exists
+_always_ and _everywhere_. Whence, also, he is all similar, all eye, all
+ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to
+act, but in a manner not at all human, not at all corporeal; in a manner
+utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so have we
+no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and
+understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily
+figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched, nor
+ought to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal thing.
+We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of anything
+is we know not."
+
+[Sidenote: Parmenides on reason and opinion.]
+
+[Sidenote: Philosophy becoming Pantheism.]
+
+To the Eleatic system thus originating with Xenophanes is to be
+attributed the dialectic phase henceforward so prominently exhibited by
+Greek philosophy. It abandoned, for the most part, the pursuits which
+had occupied the Ionians--the investigation of visible nature, the
+phenomena of material things, and the laws presiding over them;
+conceiving such to be merely deceptive, and attaching itself to what
+seemed to be the only true knowledge--an investigation of Being and of
+God. By the Eleats, since all change appeared to be an impossibility,
+the phenomena of succession presented by the world were regarded as a
+pure illusion, and they asserted that Time, and Motion, and Space are
+phantasms of the imagination, or vain deceptions of the senses. They
+therefore separated reason from opinion, attributing to the former
+conceptions of absolute truth, and to the latter imperfections arising
+from the fictions of sense. It was on this principle that Parmenides
+divided his work on "Nature" into two books, the first on Reason, the
+second on Opinion. Starting from the nature of Being, the uncreated and
+unchangeable, he denied altogether the idea of succession in time, and
+also the relations of space, and pronounced change and motion, of
+whatever kind they may be, mere illusions of opinion. His pantheism
+appears in the declaration that the All is thought and intelligence; and
+this, indeed, constitutes the essential feature of his doctrine, for, by
+thus placing thought and being in parallelism with each other, and
+interconnecting them by the conception that it is for the sake of being
+that thought exists, he showed that they must necessarily be conceived
+of as one.
+
+Such profound doctrines occupied the first book of the poem of
+Parmenides; in the second he treated of opinion, which, as we have said,
+is altogether dependent on the senses, and therefore untrustworthy, not,
+however, that it must necessarily be absolutely false. It is scarcely
+possible for us to reconstruct from the remains of his works the details
+of his theory, or to show his approach to the Ionian doctrines by the
+assumption of the existence in nature of two opposite species--ethereal
+fire and heavy night; of an equal proportion of which all things
+consist, fire being the true, and night the phenomenal. From such an
+unsubstantial and delusive basis it would not repay us, even if we had
+the means of accomplishing it, to give an exposition of his physical
+system. In many respects it degenerated into a wild vagary; as, for
+example, when he placed an overruling daemon in the centre of the
+phenomenal world. Nor need we be detained by his extravagant
+reproduction of the old doctrine of the generation of animals from miry
+clay, nor follow his explanation of the nature of man, who, since he is
+composed of light and darkness, participates in both, and can never
+ascertain absolute truth. By other routes, and upon far less fanciful
+principles, modern philosophy has at last come to the same melancholy
+conclusion.
+
+[Sidenote: Doctrines of Parmenides carried out by Zeno;]
+
+The doctrines of Parmenides were carried out by Zeno the Eleatic, who is
+said to have been his adopted son. He brought into use the method of
+refuting error by the _reductio ad absurdum_. His compositions were in
+prose, and not in poetry, as were those of his predecessors. As it had
+been the object of Parmenides to establish the existence of "the One,"
+it was the object of Zeno to establish the non-existence of "the Many."
+Agreeably to such principles, he started from the position that only one
+thing really exists, and that all others are mere modifications or
+appearances of it. He denied motion, but admitted the appearance of it;
+regarding it as a name given to a series of conditions, each of which is
+necessarily rest. This dogma against the possibility of motion he
+maintained by four arguments; the second of them is the celebrated
+Achilles puzzle. It is thus stated: "Suppose Achilles to run ten times
+as fast as a tortoise, yet, if the tortoise has the start, Achilles can
+never overtake him; for, if they are separated at first by an interval
+of a thousand feet, when Achilles has run these thousand feet the
+tortoise will have run a hundred, and when Achilles has run these
+hundred the tortoise will have got on ten, and so on for ever; therefore
+Achilles may run for ever without overtaking the tortoise." Such were
+his arguments against the existence of motion; his proof of the
+existence of One, the indivisible and infinite, may thus be stated: "To
+suppose that the one is divisible is to suppose it finite. If divisible,
+it must be infinitely divisible. But suppose two things to exist, then
+there must necessarily be an interval between those two--something
+separating and limiting them. What is that something? It is some _other_
+thing. But then if not the _same_ thing, _it also_ must be separated and
+limited, and so on _ad infinitum_. Thus only one thing can exist as the
+substratum for all manifold appearances." Zeno furnishes us with an
+illustration of the fallibility of the indications of sense in his
+argument against Protagoras. It may be here introduced as a specimen of
+his method: "He asked if a grain of corn, or the ten thousandth part of
+a grain, would, when it fell to the ground, make a noise. Being answered
+in the negative, he further asked whether, then, would a measure of
+corn. This being necessarily affirmed, he then demanded whether the
+measure was not in some determinate ratio to the single grain; as this
+could not be denied, he was able to conclude, either, then, the bushel
+of corn makes no noise on falling, or else the very smallest portion of
+a grain does the same."
+
+[Sidenote: and by Melissus of Samos.]
+
+To the names already given as belonging to the Eleatic school may be
+added that of Melissus of Samos, who also founded his argument on the
+nature of Being, deducing its unity, unchangeability, and
+indivisibility. He denied, like the rest of his school, all change and
+motion, regarding them as mere illusions of the senses. From the
+indivisibility of being he inferred its incorporeality, and therefore
+denied all bodily existence.
+
+[Sidenote: Biography of Empedocles.]
+
+The list of Eleatic philosophers is doubtfully closed by the name of
+Empedocles of Agrigentum, who in legend almost rivals Pythagoras. In the
+East he learned medicine and magic, the art of working miracles, of
+producing rain and wind. He decked himself in priestly garments, a
+golden girdle, and a crown, proclaiming himself to be a god. It is said
+by some that he never died, but ascended to the skies in the midst of a
+supernatural glory. By some it is related that he leaped into the crater
+of Etna, that, the manner of his death being unknown, he might still
+continue to pass for a god--an expectation disappointed by an eruption
+which cast out one of his brazen sandals.
+
+[Sidenote: He mingles mysticism with philosophy.]
+
+Agreeably to the school to which he belonged, he relied on Reason and
+distrusted the Senses. From his fragments it has been inferred that he
+was sceptical of the guidance of the former as well as of the latter,
+founding his distrust on the imperfection the soul has contracted, and
+for which it has been condemned to existence in this world, and even to
+transmigration from body to body. Adopting the Eleatic doctrine that
+like can be only known by like, fire by fire, love by love, the
+recognition of the divine by man is sufficient proof that the Divine
+exists. His primary elements were four--Earth, Air, Fire, and Water; to
+these he added two principles, Love and Hate. The four elements he
+regarded as four gods, or divine eternal forces, since out of them all
+things are made. Love he regards as the creative power, the destroyer or
+modifier being Hate. It is obvious, therefore, that in him the strictly
+philosophical system of Xenophanes had degenerated into a mixed and
+mystical view, in which the physical, the metaphysical, and the moral
+were confounded together; and that, as the necessary consequence of such
+a state, the principles of knowledge were becoming unsettled, a
+suspicion arising that all philosophical systems were untrustworthy, and
+a general scepticism was already setting in.
+
+To this result also, in no small degree, the labours of Democritus of
+Abdera tended. He had had the advantages derived from wealth in the
+procurement of knowledge, for it is said that his father was rich enough
+to be able to entertain the Persian King Xerxes, who was so gratified
+thereby that he left several Magi and Chaldaeans to complete the
+education of the youth. On his father's death, Democritus, dividing with
+his brothers the estate, took as his portion the share consisting of
+money, leaving to them the lands, that he might be better able to devote
+himself to travelling. He passed into Egypt, Ethiopia, Persia, and
+India, gathering knowledge from all those sources.
+
+[Sidenote: Democritus asserts the untrustworthiness of knowledge.]
+
+According to Democritus, "Nothing is true, or, if so, is not certain to
+us." Nevertheless, as, in his system sensation constitutes thought, and,
+at the same time, is but a change in the sentient being, "sensations are
+of necessity true;" from which somewhat obscure passage we may infer
+that, in the view of Democritus, though sensation is true subjectively,
+it is not true objectively. The sweet, the bitter, the hot, the cold,
+are simply creations of the mind; but in the outer object to which we
+append them, atoms and space alone exist, and our opinion of the
+properties of such objects is founded upon images emitted by them
+falling upon the senses. Confounding in this manner sensation with
+thought, and making them identical, he, moreover, included Reflexion as
+necessary for true knowledge, Sensation by itself being untrustworthy.
+Thus, though Sensation may indicate to us that sweet, bitter, hot, cold,
+occur in bodies, Reflexion teaches us that this is altogether an
+illusion, and that, in reality, atoms and space alone exist.
+
+[Sidenote: He introduces the atomic theory.]
+
+[Sidenote: Destiny, Fate and resistless law.]
+
+Devoting his attention, then, to the problem of perception--how the mind
+becomes aware of the existence of external things--he resorted to the
+hypothesis that they constantly throw off images of themselves, which
+are assimilated by the air through which they have to pass, and enter
+the soul by pores in its sensitive organs. Hence such images, being
+merely of the superficial form, are necessarily imperfect and untrue,
+and so, therefore, must be the knowledge yielded by them. Democritus
+rejected the one element of the Eleatics, affirming that there must be
+many; but he did not receive the four of Empedocles, nor his principles
+of Love and Hate, nor the homoeomeriae of Anaxagoras. He also denied
+that the primary elements had any sensible qualities whatever. He
+conceived of all things as being composed of invisible, intangible, and
+indivisible particles or atoms, which, by reason of variation in their
+configuration, combination, or position, give rise to the varieties of
+forms: to the atom he imputed self-existence and eternal duration. His
+doctrine, therefore, explains how it is that the many can arise from the
+one, and in this particular he reconciled the apparent contradictions of
+the Ionians and Eleatics. The theory of chemistry, as it now exists,
+essentially includes his views. The general formative principle of
+Nature he regarded as being Destiny or Fate; but there are indications
+that by this he meant nothing more than irreversible law.
+
+[Sidenote: Is led to atheism.]
+
+A system thus based upon severe mathematical considerations, and taking
+as its starting-point a vacuum and atoms--the former actionless and
+passionless; which considers the production of new things as only new
+aggregations, and the decay of the old as separations; which recognizes
+in compound bodies specific arrangements of atoms to one another; which
+can rise to the conception that even a single atom may constitute a
+world--such a system may commend itself to our attention for its
+results, but surely not to our approval, when we find it carrying us to
+the conclusions that even mathematical cognition is a mere semblance;
+that the soul is only a finely-constituted form fitted into the grosser
+bodily frame; that even for reason itself there is an absolute
+impossibility of all certainty; that scepticism is to be indulged in to
+that degree that we may doubt whether, when a cone has been cut asunder,
+its two surfaces are alike; that the final result of human inquiry is
+the absolute demonstration that man is incapable of knowledge; that,
+even if the truth be in his possession, he can never be certain of it;
+that the world is an illusive phantasm, and that there is no God.
+
+[Sidenote: Legends of Democritus.]
+
+I need scarcely refer to the legendary stories related of Democritus, as
+that he put out his eyes with a burning-glass that he might no longer be
+deluded with their false indications, and more tranquilly exercise his
+reason--a fiction bearing upon its face the contemptuous accusation of
+his antagonists, but, by the stolidity of subsequent ages, received as
+an actual fact instead of a sarcasm. As to his habit of so constantly
+deriding the knowledge and follies of men that he universally acquired
+the epithet of the laughing philosopher, we may receive the opinion of
+the great physician Hippocrates, who being requested by the people of
+Abdera to cure him of his madness, after long discoursing with him,
+expressed himself penetrated with admiration, and even with the most
+profound veneration for him, and rebuked those who had sent him with the
+remark that they themselves were the more distempered of the two.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of philosophy in European Greece.]
+
+[Sidenote: Commercial communities favourable to new ideas.]
+
+Thus far European Greece had done but little in the cause of philosophy.
+The chief schools were in Asia Minor, or among the Greek colonies of
+Italy. But the time had now arrived when the mother country was to
+enter upon a distinguished career, though, it must be confessed, from a
+most unfavourable beginning. This was by no means the only occasion on
+which the intellectual activity of the Greek colonies made itself felt
+in the destinies of Europe. The mercantile character in a community has
+ever been found conducive to mental activity and physical adventure; it
+holds in light esteem prescriptive opinion, and puts things at the
+actual value they at the time possess. If the Greek colonies thus
+discharged the important function of introducing and disseminating
+speculative philosophy, we shall find them again, five hundred years
+later, occupied with a similar task on the advent of that period in
+which philosophical speculation was about to be supplanted by religious
+faith. For there can be no doubt that, humanly speaking, the cause of
+the rapid propagation of Christianity, in its first ages, lay in the
+extraordinary facilities existing among the commercial communities
+scattered all around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, from the ports
+of the Levant to those of France and Spain. An incessant intercourse was
+kept up among them during the five centuries before Christ; it became,
+under Roman influence, more and more active, and of increasing political
+importance. Such a state of things is in the highest degree conducive to
+the propagation of thought, and, indeed, to its origination, through the
+constant excitement it furnishes to intellectual activity. Commercial
+communities, in this respect, present a striking contrast to
+agricultural. By their aid speculative philosophy was rapidly
+disseminated everywhere, as was subsequently Christianity. But the
+agriculturists steadfastly adhered with marvellous stolidity to their
+ancestral traditions and polytheistic absurdities, until the very
+designation--paganism--under which their system passes was given as a
+nickname derived from themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: Philosophical influence of the Greek colonies.]
+
+The intellectual condition of the Greek colonies of Italy and Sicily has
+not attracted the attention of critics in the manner it deserves. For,
+though its political result may appear to those whose attention is fixed
+by mere material aggrandizement to have been totally eclipsed by the
+subsequent power of the Roman republic, to one who looks at things in a
+mere general way it may be a probable inquiry whether the philosophy
+cultivated in those towns has not, in the course of ages, produced as
+solid and lasting results as the military achievements of the Eternal
+City. The relations of the Italian peninsula to the career of European
+civilization are to be classified under three epochs, the first
+corresponding to the philosophy generated in the southern Greek towns:
+this would have attained the elevation long before reached in the
+advanced systems of India had it not been prevented by the rapid
+development of Roman power; the second presents the military influence
+of republican and imperial Rome; to the third belongs the agency of
+ecclesiastical Rome--for the production of the last we shall find
+hereafter that the preceding two conspire. The Italian effect upon the
+whole has therefore been philosophical, material, and mixed. We are
+greatly in want of a history of the first, for which doubtless many
+facts still remain to a painstaking and enlightened inquirer.
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of the Greek colonial system.]
+
+It was on account of her small territory and her numerous population
+that Greece was obliged to colonize. To these motives must be added
+internal dissensions, and particularly the consequences of unequal
+marriages. So numerous did these colonies and their offshoots become,
+that a great Greek influence pervaded all the Mediterranean shores and
+many of the most important islands, attention more particularly being
+paid to the latter, from their supposed strategical value; thus, in the
+opinion of Alexander the Great, the command of the Mediterranean lay in
+the possession of Cyprus. The Greek colonists were filibusters; they
+seized by force the women wherever they settled, but their children were
+taught to speak the paternal language, as has been the case in more
+recent times with the descendants of the Spaniards in America. The
+wealth of some of these Greek colonial towns is said to have been
+incredible. Crotona was more than twelve miles in circumference; and
+Sybaris, another of the Italiot cities, was so luxurious and dissipated
+as even to give rise to a proverb. The prosperity of these places was
+due to two causes: they were not only the centres of great agricultural
+districts, but carried on also an active commerce in all directions, the
+dense population of the mother country offering them a steady and
+profitable market; they also maintained an active traffic with all the
+Mediterranean cities; thus, if they furnished Athens with corn, they
+also furnished Carthage with oil. In the Greek cities connected with
+this colonial system, especially in Athens, the business of
+ship-building and navigation was so extensively prosecuted as to give a
+special character to public life. In other parts of Greece, as in
+Sparta, it was altogether different. In that state the laws of Lycurgus
+had abolished private property; all things were held in common; savage
+life was reduced to a system, and therefore there was no object in
+commerce. But in Athens, commerce was regarded as being so far from
+dishonourable that some of the most illustrious men, whose names have
+descended to us as philosophers, were occupied with mercantile pursuits.
+Aristotle kept a druggist's shop in Athens, and Plato sold oil in Egypt.
+
+[Sidenote: Carthaginian supremacy in the Mediterranean.]
+
+It was the intention of Athens, had she succeeded in the conquest of
+Sicily, to make an attempt upon Carthage, foreseeing therein the
+dominion of the Mediterranean, as was actually realized subsequently by
+Rome. The destruction of that city constituted the point of ascendancy
+in the history of the Great Republic. Carthage stood upon a peninsula
+forty-five miles round, with a neck only three miles across. Her
+territory has been estimated as having a sea-line of not less than 1400
+miles, and containing 300 towns; she had also possessions in Spain, in
+Sicily, and other Mediterranean islands, acquired, not by conquest, but
+by colonization. In the silver mines of Spain she employed not less than
+forty thousand men. In these respects she was guided by the maxims of
+her Phoenician ancestry, for the Tyrians had colonized for depots, and
+had forty stations of that kind in the Mediterranean. Indeed, Carthage
+herself originated in that way, owing her development to the position
+she held at the junction of the east and west basins. The Carthaginian
+merchants did not carry for hire, but dealt in their commodities. This
+implied an extensive system of depots and bonding. They had anticipated
+many of the devices of modern commerce. They effected insurances, made
+loans on bottomry, and it has been supposed that their leathern money
+may have been of the nature of our bank notes.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts of the Persians at dominion in the Mediterranean.]
+
+[Sidenote: Contest between them and the Greeks.]
+
+[Sidenote: The fifty years' war, and eventual supremacy of Athens.]
+
+In the preceding chapter we have spoken of the attempts of the Asiatics
+on Egypt and the south shore of the Mediterranean; we have now to turn
+to their operations on the north shore, the consequences of which are of
+the utmost interest in the history of philosophy. It appears that the
+cities of Asia Minor, after their contest with the Lydian kings, had
+fallen an easy prey to the Persian power. It remained, therefore, only
+for that power to pass to the European continent. A pretext is easily
+found where the policy is so clear. So far as the internal condition of
+Greece was concerned, nothing could be more tempting to an invader.
+There seemed to be no bond of union between the different towns, and,
+indeed, the more prominent ones might be regarded as in a state of
+chronic revolution. In Athens, since B.C. 622, the laws of Draco had
+been supplanted by those of Solon; and again and again the government
+had been seized by violence or gained through intrigue by one adventurer
+after another. Under these circumstances the Persian king passed an army
+into Europe. The military events of both this and the succeeding
+invasion under Xerxes have been more than sufficiently illustrated by
+the brilliant imagination of the lively Greeks. It was needless,
+however, to devise such fictions as the million of men who crossed into
+Europe, or the two hundred thousand who lay dead upon the field after
+the battle of Plataea. If there were not such stubborn facts as the
+capture and burning of Athens, the circumstance that these wars lasted
+for fifty years would be sufficient to inform us that all the advantages
+were not on one side. Wars do not last so long without bringing upon
+both parties disasters as well as conferring glories; and had these been
+as exterminating and overwhelming as classical authors have supposed,
+our surprise may well be excited that the Persian annals have preserved
+so little memory of them. Greece did not perceive that, if posterity
+must take her accounts as true, it must give the palm of glory to
+Persia, who could, with unfaltering perseverance, persist in attacks
+illustrated by such unparalleled catastrophes. She did not perceive that
+the annals of a nation may be more splendid from their exhibiting a
+courage which could bear up for half a century against continual
+disasters, and extract victory at last from defeat.
+
+In pursuance of their policy, the Persians extended their dominion to
+Cyrene and Barca on the south, as well as to Thrace and Macedonia on the
+north. The Persian wars gave rise to that wonderful development in Greek
+art which has so worthily excited the admiration of subsequent ages. The
+assertion is quite true that after those wars the Greeks could form in
+sculpture living men. On the part of the Persians, these military
+undertakings were not of the base kind so common in antiquity; they were
+the carrying out of a policy conceived with great ability, their object
+being to obtain countries for tribute and not for devastation. The great
+critic Niebuhr, by whose opinions I am guided in the views I express of
+these events, admits that the Greek accounts, when examined, present
+little that was possible. The Persian empire does not seem to have
+suffered at all; and Plato, whose opinion must be considered as of very
+great authority, says that, on the whole, the Persian wars reflect
+extremely little honour on the Greeks. It was asserted that only
+thirty-one towns, and most of them small ones, were faithful to Greece.
+Treason to her seems for years in succession to have infected all her
+ablest men. It was not Pausanias alone who wanted to be king under the
+supremacy of Persia. Such a satrap would have borne about the same
+relation to the great king as the modern pacha does to the grand
+seignior. However, we must do justice to those able men. A king was what
+Greece in reality required; had she secured one at this time strong
+enough to hold her conflicting interests in check, she would have become
+the mistress of the world. Her leading men saw this.
+
+[Sidenote: The consequence is her vast intellectual progress.]
+
+[Sidenote: Her progress in art.]
+
+The elevating effect of the Persian wars was chiefly felt in Athens. It
+was there that the grand development of pure art, literature, and
+science took place. As to Sparta, she remained barbarous as she had ever
+been; the Spartans continuing robbers and impostors, in their national
+life exhibiting not a single feature that can be commended. Mechanical
+art reached its perfection at Corinth; real art at Athens, finding a
+multitude not only of true, but also of new expressions. Before Pericles
+the only style of architecture was the Doric; his became at once the age
+of perfect beauty. It also became the age of freedom in thinking and
+departure from the national faith. In this respect the history of
+Pericles and of Aspasia is very significant. His, also, was the great
+age of oratory, but of oratory leading to delusion, the democratical
+forms of Athens being altogether deceptive, power ever remaining in the
+hands of a few leading men, who did everything. The true popular
+sentiment, as was almost always the case under those ancient republican
+institutions, could find for itself no means of expression. The great
+men were only too prone to regard their fellow-citizens as a rabble,
+mere things to be played off against one another, and to consider that
+the objects of life are dominion and lust, that love, self-sacrifice,
+and devotion are fictions; that oaths are only good for deception.
+
+[Sidenote: The treaty with Persia.]
+
+Though the standard of statesmanship, at the period of the Persian wars,
+was very low, there can be no doubt that among the Greek leaders were
+those who clearly understood the causes of the Asiatic attack; and
+hence, with an instinct of self-preservation, defensive alliances were
+continually maintained with Egypt. When their valour and endurance had
+given to the Greeks a glorious issue to the war, the articles contained
+in the final treaty manifest clearly the motives and understandings of
+both parties. No Persian vessel was to appear between the Cyanean Rocks
+and Chelidonian Islands; no Persian army to approach within three days'
+journey of the Mediterranean Sea, B.C. 449.
+
+[Sidenote: She becomes the centre of policy and philosophy.]
+
+To Athens herself the war had given political supremacy. We need only
+look at her condition fifty years after the battle of Plataea. She was
+mistress of more than a thousand miles of the coast of Asia Minor; she
+held as dependencies more than forty islands; she controlled the straits
+between Europe and Asia; her fleets ranged the Mediterranean and the
+Black Seas; she had monopolized the trade of all the adjoining
+countries; her magazines were full of the most valuable objects of
+commerce. From the ashes of the Persian fire she had risen up so
+supremely beautiful that her temples, her statues, her works of art, in
+their exquisite perfection, have since had no parallel in the world. Her
+intellectual supremacy equalled her political. To her, as to a focal
+point, the rays of light from every direction converged. The
+philosophers of Italy and Asia Minor directed their steps to her as to
+the acknowledged centre of mental activity. As to Egypt, an utter ruin
+had befallen her since she was desolated by the Persian arms. Yet we
+must not therefore infer that though, as conquerors, the Persians had
+trodden out the most aged civilization on the globe, as sovereigns they
+were haters of knowledge, or merciless as kings. We must not forget that
+the Greeks of Asia Minor were satisfied with their rule, or, at all
+events, preferred rather to remain their subjects than to contract any
+permanent political connexions with the conquering Greeks of Europe.
+
+In this condition of political glory, Athens became not only the
+birthplace of new and beautiful productions of art, founded on a more
+just appreciation of the true than had yet been attained to in any
+previous age of the world (which, it may be added, have never been
+surpassed, if, indeed, they have been equalled since), she also became
+the receptacle for every philosophical opinion, new and old. Ionian,
+Italian, Egyptian, Persian, all were brought to her, and contrasted and
+compared together. Indeed, the philosophical celebrity of Greece is
+altogether due to Athens. The rest of the country participated but
+little in the cultivation of learning. It is a popular error that
+Greece, in the aggregate, was a learned country.
+
+[Sidenote: State of philosophy at this juncture.]
+
+We have already seen how the researches of individual inquirers, passing
+from point to point, had conducted them, in many instances, to a
+suspicion of the futility of human knowledge; and looking at the
+results reached by the successive philosophical schools, we cannot fail
+to remark that there was a general tendency to scepticism. We have seen
+how, from the material and tangible beginnings of the Ionians, the
+Eleatics land us not only in a blank atheism, but in a disbelief of the
+existence of the world. And though it may be said that these were only
+the isolated results of special schools, it is not to be forgotten that
+they were of schools the most advanced. The time had now arrived when
+the name of a master was no more to usurp the place of reason, as had
+been hitherto the case; when these last results of the different methods
+of philosophizing were to be brought together, a criticism of a higher
+order established, and conclusions of a higher order deduced.
+
+[Sidenote: Commencement of the higher analysis.]
+
+Thus it will ever be with all human investigation. The primitive
+philosophical elements from which we start are examined, first by one
+and then by another, each drawing his own special conclusions and
+deductions, and each firmly believing in the truth of his inferences.
+Each analyst has seen the whole subject from a particular point of view,
+without concerning himself with the discordances, contradictions, and
+incompatibilities obvious enough when his conclusions come to be
+compared with those of other analysts as skilful as himself. In process
+of time, it needs must be that a new school of examiners will arise,
+who, taking the results at which their predecessors have arrived from an
+examination of the primary elements, will institute a secondary
+comparison; a comparison of results with results; a comparison of a
+higher order, and more likely to lead to absolute truth.
+
+[Sidenote: Illustration from subsequent Roman history.]
+
+Perhaps I cannot better convey what I here mean by this secondary and
+higher analysis of philosophical questions than by introducing, as an
+illustration, what took place subsequently in Rome, through her policy
+of universal religious toleration. The priests and followers of every
+god and of every faith were permitted to pursue without molestation
+their special forms of worship. Of these, it may be supposed that nearly
+all were perfectly sincere in their adherence to their special
+divinity, and, if the occasion had arisen, could have furnished
+unanswerable arguments in behalf of his supremacy and of the truth of
+his doctrines. Yet it is very clear that, by thus bringing these several
+primary systems into contact, a comparison of a secondary and of a
+higher order, and therefore far more likely to approach to absolute
+truth, must needs be established among them. It is very well known that
+the popular result of this secondary examination was the philosophical
+rejection of polytheism.
+
+[Sidenote: The Sophists.]
+
+[Sidenote: They reject philosophy, and even morality.]
+
+So, in Athens the result of the secondary examination of philosophical
+systems and deductions was scepticism as regards them all, and the rise
+of a new order of men--the Sophists--who not only rejected the validity
+of all former philosophical methods, but carried their infidelity to a
+degree plainly not warranted by the facts of the case, in this, that
+they not only denied that human reason had thus far succeeded in
+ascertaining anything, but even affirmed that it is incapable, from its
+very nature, as dependent on human organization, or the condition under
+which it acts, of determining the truth at all; nay, that even if the
+truth is actually in its possession, since it has no criterion by which
+to recognize it, it cannot so much as be certain that it is in such
+possession of it. From these principles it follows that, since we have
+no standard of the true, neither can we have any standard of the good,
+and that our ideas of what is good and what is evil are altogether
+produced by education or by convention. Or, to use the phrase adopted by
+the Sophists, "it is might that makes right." Right and wrong are hence
+seen to be mere fictions created by society, having no eternal or
+absolute existence in nature. The will of a monarch, or of a majority in
+a community, declares what the law shall be; the law defines what is
+right and what is wrong; and these, therefore, instead of having an
+actual existence, are mere illusions, owing their birth to the exercise
+of force. It is might that has determined and defined what is right. And
+hence it follows that it is needless for a man to trouble himself with
+the monitions of conscience, or to be troubled thereby, for conscience,
+instead of being anything real, is an imaginary fiction, or, at the
+best, owes its origin to education, and is the creation of our social
+state. Hence the wise will give himself no concern as to a meritorious
+act or a crime, seeing that the one is intrinsically neither better nor
+worse than the other; but he will give himself sedulous concern as
+respects his outer or external relations--his position in society;
+conforming his acts to that standard which it in its wisdom or folly,
+but in the exercise of its might, has declared shall be regarded as
+right. Or, if his occasions be such as to make it for his interest to
+depart from the social rule, let him do it in secrecy; or, what is far
+better, let him cultivate rhetoric, that noble art by which the wrong
+may be made to appear the right; by which he who has committed a crime
+may so mystify society as to delude it into the belief that he is worthy
+of praise; and by which he may prove that his enemy, who has really
+performed some meritorious deed, has been guilty of a crime. Animated by
+such considerations, the Sophists passed from place to place, offering
+to sell for a sum of money a knowledge of the rhetorical art, and
+disposed of their services in the instruction of the youth of wealthy
+and noble families.
+
+What shall we say of such a system and of such a state of things? Simply
+this: that it indicated a complete mental and social demoralization--mental
+demoralization, for the principles of knowledge were sapped, and man
+persuaded that his reason was no guide; social demoralization, for he was
+taught that right and wrong, virtue and vice, conscience, and law, and God,
+are imaginary fictions; that there is no harm in the commission of sin,
+though there may be harm, as assuredly there is folly, in being detected
+therein; that it is excellent for a man to sell his country to the Persian
+king, provided that the sum of money he receives is large enough, and that
+the transaction is so darkly conducted that the public, and particularly
+his enemies, can never find it out. Let him never forget that patriotism is
+the first delusion of a simpleton, and the last refuge of a knave.
+
+[Sidenote: They reject the national religion.]
+
+[Sidenote: Spread of their opinions among the highest classes.]
+
+[Sidenote: They end in blank atheism.]
+
+Such were the results of the first attempt to correct the partial
+philosophies, by submitting them to the measure of a more universal one;
+such the manner in which, instead of only losing their exclusiveness and
+imperfections by their contact with one another, they were wrested from
+their proper object, and made subservient to the purpose of deception.
+Nor was it science alone that was affected; already might be discerned
+the foreshadowings of that conviction which many centuries later
+occasioned the final destruction of polytheism in Rome. Already, in
+Athens, the voice of philosophers was heard, that among so many gods and
+so many different worships it was impossible for a man to ascertain what
+is true. Already, many even of the educated were overwhelmed with the
+ominous suggestion that, if ever it had been the will of heaven to
+reveal any form of faith to the world, such a revelation, considering
+its origin, must necessarily have come with sufficient power to override
+all opposition; that if there existed only as many as two forms of faith
+synchronous and successful in the world, that fact would of itself
+demonstrate that neither of them is true, and that there never had been
+any revelation from an all-wise and omnipotent God. Nor was it merely
+among the speculative men that these infidelities were cherished; the
+leading politicians and statesmen had become deeply infected with them.
+It was not Anaxagoras alone who was convicted of atheism; the same
+charge was made against Pericles, the head of the republic--he who had
+done so much for the glory of Athens--the man who, in practical life,
+was, beyond all question, the first of his age. With difficulty he
+succeeded, by the use of what influence remained to him, in saving the
+life of the guilty philosopher his friend, but in the public estimation
+he was universally viewed as a participator in his crime. If the
+foundations of philosophy and those of religion were thus sapped, the
+foundations of law experienced no better fate. The Sophists, who were
+wandering all over the world, saw that each nation had its own ideas of
+merit and demerit, and therefore its own system of law; that even in
+different towns there were contrary conceptions of right and wrong, and
+therefore opposing codes. It is evident that in such examinations they
+applied the same principles which had guided them in their analysis of
+philosophy and religion, and that the result could be no other than it
+was, to bring them to the conclusion that there is nothing absolute in
+justice or in law. To what an appalling condition society has arrived,
+when it reaches the positive conclusion that there is no truth, no
+religion, no justice, no virtue in the world; that the only object of
+human exertion is unrestrained physical enjoyment; the only standard of
+a man's position, wealth; that, since there is no possibility of truth,
+whose eternal principles might serve for an uncontrovertible and common
+guide, we should resort to deception and the arts of persuasion, that we
+may dupe others for our purposes; that there is no sin in undermining
+the social contract; no crime in blasphemy, or rather there is no
+blasphemy at all, since there are no gods; that "man is the measure of
+all things," as Protagoras teaches, and that "he is the criterion of
+existence;" that "thought is only the relation of the thinking subject
+to the object thought of, and that the thinking subject, the soul, is
+nothing more than the sum of the different moments of thinking." It is
+no wonder that that Sophist who was the author of such doctrines should
+be condemned to death to satisfy the clamours of a populace who had not
+advanced sufficiently into the depths of this secondary, this higher
+philosophy, and that it was only by flight that he could save himself
+from the punishment awaiting the opening sentiment of his book: "Of the
+gods I cannot tell whether they are or not, for much hinders us from
+knowing this--both the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of
+life." It is no wonder that the social demoralization spread apace, when
+men like Gorgias, the disciple of Empedocles, were to be found, who
+laughed at virtue, made an open derision of morality, and proved, by
+metaphysical demonstration, that nothing at all exists.
+
+[Sidenote: Political dangers of the higher analysis.]
+
+[Sidenote: Illustrations from the Middle Ages.]
+
+[Sidenote: Danger of intellect outgrowing formulas of faith.]
+
+[Sidenote: Absolute necessity of preparing communities for these
+changes.]
+
+From these statements respecting the crisis at which ancient philosophy
+had arrived, we might be disposed to believe that the result was
+unmitigated evil, for it scarcely deserves mention that the quibbles and
+disputes of the Sophists occasioned an extraordinary improvement of the
+Greek language, introducing precision into its terms, and a wonderful
+dialectical skill into its use. For us there may be extracted from these
+melancholy conclusions at least one instructive lesson--that it is not
+during the process of decomposition of philosophies, and especially of
+religions, that social changes occur, for such breakings-up commonly go
+on in an isolated, and therefore innocuous way; but if by chance the
+fragments and decomposed portions are brought together, and attempts are
+made by fusion to incorporate them anew, or to extract from them, by a
+secondary analysis, what truth they contain, a crisis is at once brought
+on, and--such is the course of events--in the catastrophe that ensues
+they are commonly all absolutely destroyed. It was doubtless their
+foresight of such consequences that inspired the Italian statesmen of
+the Middle Ages with a resolute purpose of crushing in the bud every
+encroachment on ecclesiastical authority, and every attempt at
+individual interpretation of religious doctrines. For it is not to be
+supposed that men of clear intellect should be insensible to the obvious
+unreasonableness of many of the dogmas that had been consecrated by
+authority. But if once permission were accorded to human criticism and
+human interpretation, what other issue could there be than that doctrine
+upon doctrine, and sect upon sect should arise; that theological
+principles should undergo a total decomposition, until two men could
+scarcely be found whose views coincided; nay, even more than that, that
+the same man should change his opinion with the changing incidents of
+the different periods of his life. No matter what might be the plausible
+guise of the beginning, and the ostensibly cogent arguments for its
+necessity, once let the decomposition commence, and no human power could
+arrest it until it had become thorough and complete. Considering the
+prestige, the authority, and the mass of fact to be dealt with, it might
+take many centuries for this process to be finished, but that that
+result would at length be accomplished no enlightened man could doubt.
+The experience of the ancient European world had shown that in the act
+of such decompositions there is but little danger, since, for the time
+being, each sect, and, indeed, each individual, has a guiding rule of
+life. But as soon as the period of secondary analysis is reached a
+crisis must inevitably ensue, in all probability involving not only
+religion, but also the social contract. And though, by the exercise of
+force on the part of the interests that are disturbed, aided by that
+popular sentiment which is abhorrent of anarchy, the crisis might, for a
+time, be put off, it could not be otherwise than that Europe should be
+left in that deplorable state which must result when the intellect of a
+people has outgrown its formulas of faith. A fearful condition to
+contemplate, for such a dislocation must also affect political
+relations, and necessarily implies revolt against existing law. Nations
+plunged in the abyss of irreligion must necessarily be nations in
+anarchy. For a time their tendency to explosion may be kept down by the
+firm application of the hand of power; but this is simply an antagonism,
+it is no cure. The social putrefaction proceeds, working its way
+downward into classes that are lower and lower, until at length it
+involves the institutions that are relied on for its arrest. Armies, the
+machinery of compression, once infected, the end is at hand, but no
+human foresight can predict what the event shall be, especially if the
+contemporaneous ruling powers have either ignorantly or wilfully
+neglected to prepare society for the inevitable trial it is about to
+undergo. It is the most solemn of all the duties of governments, when
+once they have become aware of such a momentous condition, to prepare
+the nations for its fearful consequences. For this it may, perhaps, be
+lawful for them to dissemble in a temporary manner, as it is sometimes
+proper for a physician to dissemble with his patient; it may be lawful
+for them even to resort to the use of force, but never should such
+measures of doubtful correctness be adopted without others directed to a
+preparation of the mass of society for the trials through which it is
+about to pass. Such, doubtless, were the profound views of the great
+Italian statesmen of the Middle Ages; such, doubtless, were the
+arguments by which they justified to themselves resistance against the
+beginning of the evil--a course for which Europe has too often and
+unfairly condemned them.
+
+[Sidenote: Summary of the preceding theories.]
+
+It remains for us now to review the details presented in the foregoing
+pages for the purpose of determining the successive phases of
+development through which the Greek mind passed. It is not with the
+truth or fallacy of these details that we have to do, but with their
+order of occurrence. They are points enabling us to describe graphically
+the curve of Grecian intellectual advance.
+
+The starting point of Greek philosophy is physical and geocentral. The
+earth is the grand object of the universe, and, as the necessary result,
+erroneous ideas are entertained as to the relations and dimensions of
+the sea and air. This philosophy was hardly a century old before it
+began to cosmogonize, using the principles it considered itself sure of.
+Long before it was able to get rid of local ideas, such as upward and
+downward in space, it undertook to explain the origin of the world.
+
+But, as advances were made, it was recognized that creation, in its
+various parts, displays intention and design, the adaptation of means to
+secure proposed ends. This suggested a reasoning and voluntary agency,
+like that of man, in the government of the world; and from a continual
+reference to human habits and acts, Greek philosophy passed through its
+stage of anthropoid conceptions.
+
+A little farther progress awakened suspicions that the mind of man can
+obtain no certain knowledge; and the opinion at last prevailed that we
+have no trustworthy criterion of truth. In the scepticism thus setting
+in, the approach to Oriental ideas is each successive instant more and
+more distinct.
+
+[Sidenote: Approach to Oriental ideas.]
+
+This period of doubt was the immediate forerunner of more correct
+cosmical opinions. The heliocentric mechanism of the planetary system
+was introduced, the earth deposed to a subordinate position. The
+doctrines, both physical and intellectual, founded on geocentric ideas,
+were necessarily endangered, and, since these had connected themselves
+with the prevailing religious views, and were represented by important
+material interests, the public began to practise persecution and the
+philosophers hypocrisy. Pantheistic notions of the nature of the world
+became more distinct, and, as their necessary consequence, the doctrines
+of Emanation, Transmigration, and Absorption were entertained. From this
+it is but a step to the suspicion that matter, motion, and time are
+phantasms of the imagination--opinions embodied in the atomic theory,
+which asserts that atoms and space alone exist; and which became more
+refined when it recognized that atoms are only mathematical points; and
+still more so when it considered them as mere centres of force. The
+brink of Buddhism was here approached.
+
+As must necessarily ever be the case where men are coexisting in
+different psychical stages of advance, some having made a less, some a
+greater intellectual progress, all these views which we have described
+successively, were at last contemporaneously entertained. At this point
+commenced the action of the Sophists, who, by setting the doctrines of
+one school in opposition to those of another, and representing them all
+as of equal value, occasioned the destruction of them all, and the
+philosophy founded on physical speculation came to an end.
+
+[Sidenote: Uniformity in the manner of intellectual progress.]
+
+Of this phase of Greek intellectual life, if we compare the beginning
+with the close, we cannot fail to observe how great is the improvement.
+The thoughts dealt with at the later period are intrinsically of a
+higher order than those at the outset. From the puerilities and errors
+with which we have thus been occupied, we learn that there is a definite
+mode of progress for the mind of man; from the history of later times we
+shall find that it is ever in the same direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE GREEK AGE OF FAITH.
+
+RISE AND DECLINE OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY.
+
+ SOCRATES _rejects Physical and Mathematical Speculations, and
+ asserts the Importance of Virtue and Morality, thereby
+ inaugurating an Age of Faith.--His Life and Death.--The
+ schools originating from his Movement teach the Pursuit of
+ Pleasure and Gratification of Self._
+
+ PLATO _founds the Academy.--His three primal Principles.--The
+ Existence of a personal God.--Nature of the World and the
+ Soul.--The ideal Theory, Generals or
+ Types.--Reminiscence.--Transmigration.--Plato's political
+ Institutions.--His Republic.--His Proofs of the Immortality of
+ the Soul.--Criticism on his Doctrines._
+
+ RISE OF THE SCEPTICS, _who conduct the higher Analysis of
+ Ethical Philosophy.--Pyrrho demonstrates the Uncertainty of
+ Knowledge.--Inevitable Passage into tranquil Indifference,
+ Quietude, and Irreligion, as recommended by
+ Epicurus.--Decomposition of the Socratic and Platonic Systems
+ in the later Academies.--Their Errors and Duplicities.--End
+ of the Greek Age of Faith._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Greek philosophy on the basis of ethics.]
+
+The Sophists had brought on an intellectual anarchy. It is not in the
+nature of humanity to be contented with such a state. Thwarted in its
+expectations from physics, the Greek mind turned its attention to
+morals. In the progress of life, it is but a step from the age of
+Inquiry to the age of Faith.
+
+[Sidenote: Socrates: his mode of teaching.]
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrines of Socrates.]
+
+[Sidenote: Opposes mathematics and physics.]
+
+Socrates, who led the way in this movement, was born B.C. 469. He
+exercised an influence in some respects felt to our times. Having
+experienced the unprofitable results arising from physical speculation,
+he set in contrast there with the solid advantages to be enjoyed from
+the cultivation of virtue and morality. His life was a perpetual combat
+with the Sophists. His manner of instruction was by conversation, in
+which, according to the uniform testimony of all who heard him, he
+singularly excelled. He resorted to definitions, and therefrom drew
+deductions, conveying his argument under the form of a dialogue. Unlike
+his predecessors, who sought for truth in the investigation of outward
+things, he turned his attention inward, asserting the supremacy of
+virtue and its identity with knowledge, and the necessity of an
+adherence to the strict principles of justice. Considering the depraved
+condition to which the Sophists had reduced society, he insisted on a
+change in the manner of education of youth, so as to bring it in
+accordance with the principle that happiness is only to be found in the
+pursuit of virtue and goodness. Thus, therefore, he completely
+substituted the moral for the physical, and in this essentially consists
+the philosophical revolution he effected. He had no school, properly
+speaking, nor did he elaborate any special ethical system; to those who
+inquired how they should know good from evil and right from wrong, he
+recommended the decisions of the laws of their country. It does not
+appear that he ever entered on any inquiry respecting the nature of God,
+simply viewing his existence as a fact of which there was abundant and
+incontrovertible proof. Though rejecting the crude religious ideas of
+his nation, and totally opposed to anthropomorphism, he carefully
+avoided the giving of public offence by improper allusions to the
+prevailing superstition; nay, even as a good citizen, he set an example
+of conforming to its requirements. In his judgment, the fault of the
+Sophists consisted in this, that they had subverted useless speculation,
+but had substituted for it no scientific evidence. Nevertheless, if man
+did not know, he might believe, and demonstration might be profitably
+supplanted by faith. He therefore insisted on the great doctrines of the
+immortality of the soul and the government of the world by Providence;
+but it is not to be denied that there are plain indications, in some of
+his sentiments, of a conviction that the Supreme Being is the soul of
+the world. He professed that his own chief wisdom consisted in the
+knowledge of his own ignorance, and dissuaded his friends from the
+cultivation of mathematics and physics, since he affirmed that the
+former leads to vain conclusions, the latter to atheism. In his system
+everything turns on the explanation of terms; but his processes of
+reasoning are often imperfect, his conclusions, therefore, liable to be
+incorrect. In this way, he maintained that no one would knowingly commit
+a wrong act, because he that knew a thing to be good would do it; that
+it is only involuntarily that the bad are bad; that he who knowingly
+tells a lie is a better man than he who tells a lie in ignorance; and
+that it is right to injure one's enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: Superficiality of his views.]
+
+From such a statement of the philosophy of Socrates, we cannot fail to
+remark how superficial it must have been; it perpetually mistakes
+differences of words for distinctions of things; it also possessed
+little novelty. The enforcement of morality cannot be regarded as
+anything new, since probably there has never been an age in which good
+men were not to be found, who observed, as their rule of life, the
+maxims taught by Socrates; and hence we may reasonably inquire what it
+was that has spread over the name of this great man such an unfading
+lustre, and why he stands out in such extraordinary prominence among the
+benefactors of his race.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the celebrity of Socrates.]
+
+Socrates was happy in two things: happy in those who recorded his life,
+and happy in the circumstances of his death. It is not given to every
+great man to have Xenophon and Plato for his biographers; it is not
+given to every one who has overpassed the limit of life, and, in the
+natural course of events, has but a little longer to continue, to attain
+the crown of martyrdom in behalf of virtue and morality. In an evil hour
+for the glory of Athens, his countrymen put him to death. It was too
+late when they awoke and saw that they could give no answer to the voice
+of posterity, demanding why they had perpetrated this crime. With truth
+Socrates said, at the close of his noble speech to the judges who had
+condemned him, "It is now time that we depart--I to die, you to live;
+but which has the better destiny is unknown to all except God." The
+future has resolved that doubt. For Socrates there was reserved the
+happier lot.
+
+[Sidenote: The ostensible accusations against him.]
+
+No little obscurity still remains as respects the true nature of this
+dark transaction. The articles of accusation were three: he rejects the
+gods of his country; he introduces new ones; he perverts the education
+of youth. With truth might his friends say it was wonderful that he
+should be accused of impiety, the whole tenor of whose life was
+reverence for God--a recognition not only of the divine existence, but
+of the divine superintendence. "It is only a madman," he would say, "who
+imputes success in life to human prudence;" and as to the necessity of a
+right education for the young, "It is only the wise who are fit to
+govern men." We must conclude that the accusations were only ostensible
+or fictitious, and that beneath them lay some reality which could
+reconcile the Athenians to the perpetration of so great a crime.
+
+Shall we find in his private life any explanation of this mystery?
+Unfortunately, the details of it which have descended to us are few. To
+the investigations of classical criticism we can scarcely look with any
+hope, for classical criticism has hitherto been in a state of singular
+innocence, so far as the actual affairs of life are concerned. It
+regards Athenians and Romans not as men and women like ourselves, but as
+the personages presented by fictitious literature, whose lives are
+exceptions to the common laws of human nature; who live in the midst of
+scenes of endless surprises and occurrences ever bordering on the
+marvellous.
+
+[Sidenote: The character of Socrates in Athens.]
+
+[Sidenote: Xantippe his wife.]
+
+[Sidenote: He is really the victim of political animosity.]
+
+If we examine the case according to everyday principles, we cannot fail
+to remark that the Socrates of our imagination is a very different man
+from the Socrates of contemporaneous Athenians. To us he appears a
+transcendent genius, to whom the great names of antiquity render their
+profound homage; a martyr in behalf of principles, of which, if society
+be devoid, life itself is scarcely of any worth, and for the defence of
+which it is the highest glory that a man should be called upon to die.
+To them Socrates was no more than an idle lounger in the public places
+and corners of the streets; grotesque, and even repulsive in his person;
+affecting in the oddities of his walking and in his appearance many of
+the manners of the mountebank. Neglecting the pursuit of an honest
+calling, for his trade seems to have been that of a stone-cutter, he
+wasted his time in discoursing with such youths as his lecherous
+countenance and satyr-like person could gather around him, leading them
+astray from the gods of his country, the flimsy veil of his hypocrisy
+being too transparent to conceal his infidelity. Nevertheless, he was a
+very brave soldier, as those who served with him testify. It does not
+appear that he was observant of those cares which by most men are
+probably considered as paramount, giving himself but little concern for
+the support of his children and wife. The good woman Xantippe is, to all
+appearance, one of those characters who are unfairly judged of by the
+world. Socrates married her because of her singular conversational
+powers; and though he himself, according to universal testimony,
+possessed extraordinary merits in that respect, he found to his cost,
+when too late, so commanding were her excellencies, that he was
+altogether her inferior. Among the amusing instances related of his
+domestic difficulties were the consequences of his invitations to
+persons to dine with him when there was nothing in the house wherewith
+to entertain them, a proceeding severely trying to the temper of
+Xantippe, whose cause would unquestionably be defended by the matrons of
+any nation. It was nothing but the mortification of a high-spirited
+woman at the acts of a man who was too shiftless to have any concern for
+his domestic honour. He would not gratify her urgent entreaties by
+accepting from those upon whom he lavished his time the money that was
+so greatly needed at home. After his condemnation, she carried her
+children with her to his prison, and was dismissed by him, as he told
+his friends, from his apprehension of her deep distress. To the last we
+see her bearing herself in a manner honourable to a woman and a wife.
+There is surely something wrong in a man's life when the mother of his
+children is protesting against his conduct, and her complaints are
+countenanced by the community. In view of all the incidents of the
+history of Socrates, we can come to no other conclusion than that the
+Athenians regarded him as an unworthy, and perhaps troublesome member of
+society. There can be no doubt that his trial and condemnation were
+connected with political measures. He himself said that he should have
+suffered death previously, in the affair of Leon of Salamis, had not the
+government been broken up. His bias was toward aristocracy, not toward
+democracy. In common with his party, he had been engaged in undertakings
+that could not do otherwise than entail mortal animosities; and it is
+not to be overlooked that his indictment was brought forward by Anytus,
+who was conspicuous in restoring the old order of things. The mistake
+made by the Athenians was in applying a punishment altogether beyond the
+real offence, and in adding thereto the persecution of those who had
+embraced the tenets of Socrates by driving them into exile. Not only
+admiration for the memory of their master, but also a recollection of
+their own wrongs, made these men eloquent eulogists. Had Socrates
+appeared to the Athenians as he appears to us, it is not consistent with
+human proceedings that they should have acted in so barbarous and
+totally indefensible a manner.
+
+[Sidenote: The Daemon of Socrates.]
+
+If by the Daemon to whose suggestions Socrates is said to have listened
+anything more was meant than conscience, we must infer that he laboured
+under that mental malady to which those are liable who, either through
+penury or designedly, submit to extreme abstinence, and, thereby
+injuring the brain, fall into hallucination. Such cases are by no means
+of infrequent occurrence. Mohammed was affected in that manner.
+
+[Sidenote: The Megaric school. The wise should be insensible to pain.]
+
+After the death of Socrates there arose several schools professing to be
+founded upon his principles. The divergences they exhibited when
+compared with one another prove how little there was of precision in
+those principles. Among these imitators is numbered Euclid of Megara,
+who had been in the habit of incurring considerable personal risk for
+the sake of listening to the great teacher, it being a capital offence
+for a native of Megara to be found in Athens. Upon their persecution,
+Plato and other disciples of Socrates fled to Euclid, and were well
+received by him. His system was a mixture of the Eleatic and Socratic,
+the ethical preponderating in his doctrine. He maintained the existence
+of one Being, the Good, having various aspects--Wisdom, God, Reason,
+and showed an inclination to the tendency afterward fully developed by
+the Cynical school in his dogma that the wise man should be insensible
+to pain.
+
+[Sidenote: The Cyrenaic school. Pleasure is the object of life.]
+
+With the Megaric school is usually classified the Cyrenaic founded by
+Aristippus. Like Socrates, he held in disdain physical speculations, and
+directed his attention to the moral. In his opinion, happiness consists
+in pleasure; and, indeed, he recognized in pleasure and pain the
+criteria of external things. He denied that we can know anything with
+certainty, our senses being so liable to deceive us; but, though we may
+not perceive things truly, it is true that we perceive. With the
+Cyrenaic school, pleasure was the great end and object of life.
+
+[Sidenote: The Cynical school: a contempt for others and gratification
+of self.]
+
+[Sidenote: Antisthenes.]
+
+To these may be added the Cynical school, founded by Antisthenes, whose
+system is personal and ferocious: it is a battle of the mind against the
+body; it is a pursuit of pleasure of a mental kind, corporeal enjoyment
+being utterly unworthy of a man. Its nature is very well shown in the
+character of its founder, who abandoned all the conveniences and
+comforts of life, voluntarily encountering poverty and exposure to the
+inclemency of the seasons. His garments were of the meanest kind, his
+beard neglected, his person filthy, his diet bordering on starvation. To
+the passers-by this ragged misanthrope indulged in contemptuous
+language, and offended them by the indecency of his gestures. Abandoned
+at last by every one except Diogenes of Sinope, he expired in extreme
+wretchedness. It had been a favourite doctrine with him that friendship
+and patriotism are altogether worthless; and in his last agony, Diogenes
+asking him whether he needed a friend, "Will a friend release me from
+this pain?" he inquired. Diogenes handed him a dagger, saying, "This
+will." "I want to be free from pain, but not from life." Into such
+degradation had philosophy, as represented by the Cynical school,
+fallen, that it may be doubted whether it is right to include a man like
+Antisthenes among those who derive their title from their love of
+wisdom--a man who condemned the knowledge of reading and writing, who
+depreciated the institution of marriage, and professed that he saw no
+other advantage in philosophy than that it enabled him to keep company
+with himself.
+
+[Sidenote: Diogenes of Sinope.]
+
+[Sidenote: His irreverence.]
+
+The wretched doctrines of Cynicism were carried to their utmost
+application by Diogenes of Sinope. In early life he had been accustomed
+to luxury and ease; but his father, who was a wealthy banker, having
+been convicted of debasing the coinage, Diogenes, who in some manner
+shared in the disgrace, was in a very fit state of mind to embrace
+doctrines implying a contempt for the goods of the world and for the
+opinions of men. He may be considered as the prototype of the hermits of
+a later period in his attempts at the subjugation of the natural
+appetites by means of starvation. Looking upon the body as a mere clog
+to the soul, he mortified it in every possible manner, feeding it on raw
+meat and leaves, and making it dwell in a tub. He professed that the
+nearer a man approaches to suicide the nearer he approaches to virtue.
+He wore no other dress than a scanty cloak; a wallet, a stick, and a
+drinking-cup completed his equipment: the cup he threw away as useless
+on seeing a boy take water in the hollow of his hand. It was his delight
+to offend every idea of social decency by performing all the acts of
+life publicly, asserting that whatever is not improper in itself ought
+to be done openly. It is said that his death, which occurred in his
+ninetieth year, was in consequence of devouring a neat's foot raw. From
+his carrying the Socratic notions to an extreme, he merits the
+designation applied to him, "the mad Socrates." His contempt for the
+opinions of others, and his religious disbelief, are illustrated by an
+incident related of him, that, having in a moment of weakness made a
+promise to some friends that he would offer a sacrifice to Diana, he
+repaired the next day to her temple, and, taking a louse from his head,
+cracked it upon her altar.
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of morality.]
+
+What a melancholy illustration of the tendency of the human mind do
+these facts offer. What a quick, yet inevitable descent from the
+morality of Socrates. Selfishness is enthroned; friendship and
+patriotism are looked upon as the affairs of a fool; happy is the man
+who stands in no need of a friend; still happier he who has not one. No
+action is intrinsically bad; even robbery, adultery, sacrilege, are
+only crimes by public agreement. The sage will take care how he indulges
+in the weakness of gratitude or benevolence, or any other such sickly
+sentiment. If he can find pleasure, let him enjoy it; if pain is
+inflicted on him, let him bear it; but, above all, let him remember that
+death is just as desirable as life.
+
+If the physical speculations of Greece had ended in sophistry and
+atheism, ethical investigations, it thus appears, had borne no better
+fruit. Both systems, when carried to their consequences, had been found
+to be not only useless to society, but actually prejudicial to its best
+interests. As far as could be seen, in the times of which we are
+speaking, the prospects for civilization were dark and discouraging; nor
+did it appear possible that any successful attempts could be made to
+extract from philosophy anything completely suitable to the wants of
+man. Yet, in the midst of these discreditable delusions, one of the
+friends and disciples of Socrates--indeed, it may be said, his chief
+disciple, Plato, was laying the foundation of another system, which,
+though it contained much that was false and more that was vain,
+contained also some things vigorous enough to descend to our times.
+
+[Sidenote: Birth of Plato.]
+
+Plato was born about B.C. 426. Antiquity has often delighted to cast a
+halo of mythical glory around its illustrious names. The immortal works
+of this great philosopher seemed to entitle him to more than mortal
+honours. A legend, into the authenticity of which we will abstain from
+inquiring, asserted that his mother Perictione, a pure virgin, suffered
+an immaculate conception through the influences of Apollo. The god
+declared to Ariston, to whom she was about to be married, the parentage
+of the child. The wisdom of this great writer may justify such a noble
+descent, and, in some degree, excuse the credulity of his admiring and
+affectionate disciples, who gave a ready ear to the impossible story.
+
+[Sidenote: His education and teaching.]
+
+To the knowledge acquired by Plato during the eight or ten years he had
+spent with Socrates, he added all that could be obtained from the
+philosophers of Egypt, Cyrene, Persia, and Tarentum. With every
+advantage arising from wealth and an illustrious parentage, if even it
+was only of an earthly kind, for he numbered Solon among his ancestors,
+he availed himself of the teaching of the chief philosophers of the age,
+and at length, returning to his native country, founded a school in the
+grove of Hecademus. Thrice during his career as a teacher he visited
+Sicily on each occasion returning to the retirement of his academy. He
+attained the advanced age of eighty-three years. It has been given to
+few men to exercise so profound an influence on the opinions of
+posterity, and yet it is said that during his lifetime Plato had no
+friends. He quarrelled with most of those who had been his
+fellow-disciples of Socrates; and, as might be anticipated from the
+venerable age to which he attained, and the uncertain foundation upon
+which his doctrines reposed, his opinions were very often contradictory,
+and his philosophy exhibited many variations. To his doctrines we must
+now attend.
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrines of Plato. The three primary principles.]
+
+It was the belief of Plato that matter is coeternal with God, and that,
+indeed, there are three primary principles--God, Matter, Ideas; all
+animate and inanimate things being fashioned by God from matter, which,
+being capable of receiving any impress, may be designated with propriety
+the Mother of Forms. He held that intellect existed before such forms
+were produced, but not antecedently to matter. To matter he imputed a
+refractory or resisting quality, the origin of the disorders and
+disturbances occurring in the world; he also regarded it us the cause of
+evil, accounting thereby for the preponderance of evil, which must
+exceed the good in proportion as matter exceeds ideas. It is not without
+reason, therefore, that Plato has been accused of Magianism. These
+doctrines are of an Oriental cast.
+
+[Sidenote: He asserts the existence of a personal God.]
+
+[Sidenote: Nature of the soul.]
+
+The existence of God, an independent and personal maker of the world, he
+inferred from proofs of intelligence and design presented by natural
+objects. "All in the world is for the sake of the rest, and the places
+of the single parts are so ordered as to subserve to the preservation
+and excellency of the whole; hence all things are derived from the
+operation of a Divine intellectual cause." From the marks of unity in
+that design he deduced the unity of God, the Supreme Intelligence,
+incorporeal, without beginning, end, or change. His god is the fashioner
+and father of the universe, in contradistinction to impersonal Nature.
+In one sense, he taught that the soul is immortal and imperishable; in
+another, he denied that each individual soul either has had or will
+continue to have an everlasting duration. From what has been said on a
+former page, it will be understood that this psychological doctrine is
+essentially Indian. His views of the ancient condition of and former
+relations of the soul enabled Plato to introduce the celebrated doctrine
+of Reminiscence, and to account for what have otherwise been termed
+innate ideas. They are the recollections of things with which the soul
+was once familiar.
+
+[Sidenote: Plato's Ideal theory.]
+
+[Sidenote: Exemplars or types.]
+
+The reason of God contemplates and comprehends the exemplars or original
+models of all natural forms, whatever they may be; for visible things
+are only fleeting shadows, quickly passing away; ideas or exemplars are
+everlasting. With so much power did he set forth this theory of ideas,
+and, it must be added, with so much obscurity, that some have asserted
+his belief in an extramundane space in which exist incorporeal beings,
+the ideas or original exemplars of all organic and inorganic forms. An
+illustration may remove some of the obscurity of these views. Thus all
+men, though they may present different appearances when compared with
+each other, are obviously fashioned upon the same model, to which they
+all more or less perfectly conform. All trees of the same kind, though
+they may differ from one another, are, in like manner, fashioned upon a
+common model, to which they more or less perfectly conform. To such
+models, exemplars, or types, Plato gave the designation of Ideas. Our
+knowledge thereof is clearly not obtained from the senses, but from
+reflection. Now Plato asserted that these ideas are not only conceptions
+of the mind, but actually perceptions or entities having a real
+existence; nay, more, that they are the only real existences. Objects
+are thus only material embodiments of ideas, and in representation are
+not exact; for correspondence between an object and its model is only so
+far as circumstances will permit. Hence we can never determine all the
+properties or functions of the idea from an examination of its imperfect
+material representation, any more than we can discover the character or
+qualities of a man from pictures of him, no matter how excellent those
+pictures may be.
+
+[Sidenote: Doctrine of Reminiscence.]
+
+[Sidenote: Recollections during transmigration.]
+
+The Ideal theory of Plato, therefore, teaches that, beyond this world of
+delusive appearances, this world of material objects, there is another
+world, invisible, eternal, and essentially true; that, though we cannot
+trust our senses for the correctness of the indications they yield,
+there are other impressions upon which we may fall back to aid us in
+coming to the truth, the reminiscences or recollections still abiding in
+the soul of the things it formerly knew, either in the realm of pure
+ideas, or in the states of former life through which it has passed. For
+Plato says that there are souls which, in periods of many thousand
+years, have successively transmigrated through bodies of various kinds.
+Of these various conditions they retain a recollection, more faintly or
+vividly, as the case may be. Ideas seeming to be implanted in the human
+mind, but certainly never communicated to us by the senses, are derived
+from those former states. If this recollection of ancient events and
+conditions were absolutely precise and correct, then man would have an
+innate means for determining the truth. But such reminiscences being, in
+their nature, imperfect and uncertain, we never can attain to absolute
+truth. With Plato, the Beautiful is the perfect image of the true. Love
+is the desire of the soul for Beauty, the attraction of like for like,
+the longing of the divinity within us for the divinity beyond us; and
+the Good, which is beauty, truth, justice, is God--God in his abstract
+state.
+
+[Sidenote: God is the sum of ideas.]
+
+[Sidenote: The nature of the world and of the gods.]
+
+[Sidenote: Triple constitution of the soul.]
+
+[Sidenote: Transmigration and future rewards and punishments.]
+
+[Sidenote: The physiology of Plato.]
+
+From the Platonic system it therefore followed that science is
+impossible to man, and possible only to God; that, however, recollecting
+our origin, we ought not to despair, but elevate our intellectual aim as
+high as we may; that all knowledge is not attributable to our present
+senses; for, if that were the case, all men would be equally wise, their
+senses being equal in acuteness; but a very large portion, and by far
+the surest portion, is derived from reminiscence of our former states;
+that each individual soul is an idea; and that, of ideas generally, the
+lower are held together by the higher, and hence, finally by one which
+is supreme; that God is the sum of ideas, and is therefore eternal and
+unchangeable, the sensuous conditions of time and space having no
+relation to him, and being inapplicable in any conception of his
+attributes; that he is the measure of all things, and not man, as
+Protagoras supposed; that the universe is a type of him; that matter
+itself is an absolute negation, and is the same as space; that the forms
+presented by our senses are unsubstantial shadows, and no reality; that,
+so far from there being an infinity of worlds, there is but one, which,
+as the work of God, is neither subject to age nor decay, and that it
+consists of a body and a soul; in another respect it may be said to be
+composed of fire and earth, which can only be made to cohere through the
+intermedium of air and water, and hence the necessity of the existence
+of the four elements; that of geometrical forms, the pyramid corresponds
+to fire, the cube to earth, the octahedron to air, these forms being
+produced from triangles connected by certain numerical ratios; that the
+entire sum of vitality is divided by God into seven parts, answering to
+the divisions of the musical octave, or to the seven planets; that the
+world is an animal having within it a soul; for man is warm, and so is
+the world; man is made of various elements, and so is the world; and, as
+the body of man has a soul, so too must the world have one; that there
+is a race of created, generated, and visible gods, who must be
+distinguished from the eternal, their bodies being composed for the most
+part of fire, their shape spherical; that the earth is the oldest and
+first of the starry bodies, its place being in the centre of the
+universe, or in the axis thereof, where it remains, balanced by its own
+equilibrium; that perhaps it is an ensouled being and a generated god;
+that the mortal races are three, answering to Earth, Air, and Water;
+that the male man was the first made of mortals, and that from him the
+female, and beasts, and birds, and fishes issued forth; that the
+superiority of man depends upon his being a religious animal; that each
+mortal consists of two portions, a soul and a body--their separation
+constitutes death; that of the soul there are two primitive component
+parts, a mortal and an immortal, the one being made by the created gods,
+and the other by the Supreme; that, for the purpose of uniting these
+parts together, it is necessary that there should be an intermedium, and
+that this is the daemonic portion or spirit; that our mental struggles
+arise from this triple constitution of Appetite, Spirit, and Reason;
+that Reason alone is immortal, and the others die; that the number of
+souls in the universe is invariable or constant; that the sentiment of
+pre-existence proves the soul to have existed before the body; that,
+since the soul is the cause of motion, it can neither be produced nor
+decay, else all motion must eventually cease; that, as to the condition
+of departed souls, they hover as shades around the graves, pining for
+restoration to their lifeless bodies, or migrating through various human
+or brute shapes, but that an unembodied life in God is reserved for the
+virtuous philosopher; that valour is nothing but knowledge, and virtue a
+knowledge of good; that the soul, on entering the body, is irrational or
+in a trance, and that the god, the star who formed its created part,
+influences its career, and hence its fortunes may be predicted by
+astrological computations; that there are future rewards and
+punishments, a residence being appointed for the righteous in his
+kindred star; for those whose lives have been less pure there is a
+second birth under the form of a woman, and, if evil courses are still
+persisted in, successive transmigrations through various brutes are in
+reserve--the frivolous passing into birds, the unphilosophical into
+beasts, the ignorant into fishes; that the world undergoes periodical
+revolutions by fire and water, its destructions and reproductions
+depending upon the coincidences of the stars. Of Plato's views of human
+physiology I can offer no better statement than the following from
+Ritter: "All in the human body is formed for the sake of the Reason,
+after certain determinate ends. Accordingly, first of all, a seat must
+be provided for the god-like portion of the soul, the head, viz., which
+is round, and similar to the perfect shape of the whole, furnished with
+the organs of cognition, slightly covered with flesh, which impedes the
+senses. To the head is given the direction of the whole frame, hence its
+position at the top; and, since the animal creation possesses all the
+six irregular motions, and the head ought not to roll upon the ground,
+the human form is long, with legs for walking and arms for serving the
+body, and the anterior part is fashioned differently from the posterior.
+Now, the reason being seated in the head, the spirit or irascible soul
+has its seat in the breast, under the head, in order that it may be
+within call and command of the Reason, but yet separated from the head
+by the neck, that it might not mix with it. The concupiscible has
+likewise its particular seat in the lower part of the trunk, the
+abdomen, separated by the diaphragm from that of the irascible, since it
+is destined, being separate from both, to be governed and held in order
+both by the spirit and the Reason. For this end God has given it a
+watch, the liver, which is dense, smooth, and shining, and, containing
+in combination both bitter and sweet, is fitted to receive and reflect,
+as a mirror, the images of thoughts. Whenever the Reason disapproves, it
+checks inordinate desires by its bitterness, and, on the other hand,
+when it approves, all is soothed into gentle repose by its sweetness;
+moreover, in sleep, in sickness, or in inspiration it becomes prophetic,
+so that even the vilest portion of the body is in a certain degree
+participant of truth. In other respects the lower portion of the trunk
+is fashioned with equal adaptation for the ends it has to serve. The
+spleen is placed on the left side of the liver, in order to secrete and
+carry off the impurities which the diseases of the body might produce
+and accumulate. The intestines are coiled many times, in order that the
+food may not pass too quickly through the body, and so occasion again an
+immoderate desire for more; for such a constant appetite would render
+the pursuit of philosophy impossible, and make man disobedient to the
+commands of the divinity within him."
+
+[Sidenote: His ethical ideas.]
+
+The reader will gather from the preceding paragraph how much of wisdom
+and of folly, of knowledge and of ignorance, the doctrines of Plato
+present. I may be permitted to continue this analysis of his writings a
+little farther, with the intention of exhibiting the manner in which he
+carried his views into practice; for Plato asserted that, though the
+supreme good is unattainable by our reason, we must try to resemble God
+as far as it is possible for the changeable to copy the eternal;
+remembering that pleasure is not the end of man, and, though the sensual
+part of the soul dwells on eating and drinking, riches and pleasure, and
+the spiritual on worldly honours and distinctions, the reason is devoted
+to knowledge. Pleasure, therefore, cannot be attributed to the gods,
+though knowledge may; pleasure, which is not a good in itself, but only
+a means thereto. Each of the three parts of the soul has its own
+appropriate virtue, that of reason being wisdom; that of the spirit,
+courage; that of the appetite, temperance; and for the sake of
+perfection, justice is added for the mutual regulation of the other
+three.
+
+[Sidenote: His proposed political institutions.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Republic of Plato.]
+
+In carrying his ethical conceptions into practice, Plato insists that
+the state is everything, and that what is in opposition to it ought to
+be destroyed. He denies the right of property; strikes at the very
+existence of the family, pressing his doctrines to such an extreme as to
+consider women as public property, to be used for the purposes of the
+state; he teaches that education should be a governmental duty, and that
+religion must be absolutely subjected to the politician; that children
+do not belong to their parents, but to the state; that the aim of
+government should not be the happiness of the individual, but that of
+the whole; and that men are to be considered not as men, but as elements
+of the state, a perfect subject differing from a slave only in this,
+that he has the state for his master. He recommends the exposure of
+deformed and sickly infants, and requires every citizen to be initiated
+into every species of falsehood and fraud. Distinguishing between mere
+social unions and true polities, and insisting that there should be an
+analogy between the state and the soul as respects triple constitution,
+he establishes a division of ruler, warriors, and labourers, preferring,
+therefore, a monarchy reposing on aristocracy, particularly of talent.
+Though he considers music essential to education, his opinion of the
+fine arts is so low that he would admit into his state painters and
+musicians only under severe restrictions, or not at all. It was for the
+sake of having this chimerical republic realized in Sicily that he made
+a journey to Dionysius; and it may be added that it was well for those
+whom he hoped to have subjected to the experiment that his wild and
+visionary scheme was never permitted to be carried into effect. In our
+times extravagant social plans have been proposed, and some have been
+attempted; but we have witnessed nothing so absurd as this vaunted
+republic of Plato. It shows a surprising ignorance of the acts and wants
+of man in his social condition.
+
+Some of the more important doctrines of Plato are worthy of further
+reflection. I shall therefore detain the reader a short time to offer a
+few remarks upon them.
+
+[Sidenote: Grandeur of Plato's conceptions of God]
+
+It was a beautiful conception of this philosophy that ideas are
+connected together by others of a higher order, and these, in their
+turn, by others still higher, their generality and power increasing as
+we ascend, until finally a culminating point is reached--a last, a
+supreme, an all-ruling idea, which is God. Approaching in this elevated
+manner to the doctrine of an Almighty Being, we are free from those
+fallacies we are otherwise liable to fall into when we mingle notions
+derived from time and space with the attributes of God; we also avoid
+those obscurities necessarily encountered when we attempt the
+consideration of the illimitable and eternal.
+
+[Sidenote: and of the soul.]
+
+[Sidenote: The sentiment of pre-existence.]
+
+Plato's views of the immortality of the soul offer a striking contrast
+to those of the popular philosophy and superstition of his time. They
+recall, in many respects, the doctrines of India. In Greece, those who
+held the most enlarged views entertained what might be termed a doctrine
+of semi-immortality. They looked for a continuance of the soul in an
+endless futurity, but gave themselves no concern about the eternity
+which is past. But Plato considered the soul as having already eternally
+existed, the present life being only a moment in our career; he looked
+forward with an undoubting faith to the changes through which we must
+hereafter pass. As sparks issue forth from a flame, so doubtless to his
+imagination did the soul of man issue forth from the soul of the world.
+Innate ideas and the sentiment of pre-existence indicate our past life.
+By the latter is meant that on some occasion perhaps of trivial concern,
+or perhaps in some momentous event, it suddenly occurs to us that we
+have been in like circumstances, and surrounded by the things at that
+instant present on some other occasion before; but the recollection,
+though forcibly impressing us with surprise, is misty and confused. With
+Plato shall we say it was in one of our prior states of existence, and
+the long-forgotten transactions are now suddenly flashing upon us?
+
+[Sidenote: But this arises from the anatomical construction of the
+brain.]
+
+But Plato did not know the double structure and the double action of the
+brain of man; he did not remember that the mind may lose all recognition
+of the lapse of time, and, with equal facility, compress into the
+twinkling of an eye events so numerous that for their occurrence days
+and even years would seem to be required; or, conversely, that it can
+take a single, a simple idea, which one would suppose might be disposed
+of in a moment, and dwell upon it, dilating or swelling it out, until
+all the hours of a long night are consumed. Of the truth of these
+singular effects we have not only such testimony as that offered by
+those who have been restored from death by drowning, who describe the
+flood of memory rushing upon them in the last moment of their mortal
+agony, the long train of all the affairs in which they have borne a part
+seen in an instant, as we see the landscape, with all its various
+objects, by a flash of lightning at night, and that with appalling
+distinctness, but also from our own experience in our dreams. It is
+shown in my Physiology how the phenomena of the sentiment of
+pre-existence may, upon these principles, be explained, each hemisphere
+of the brain thinking for itself, and the mind deluded as respects the
+lapse of time, mistaking these simultaneous actions for successive ones,
+and referring one of the two impressions to an indistinct and misty
+past. To Plato such facts as these afforded copious proofs of the prior
+existence of the soul, and strong foundations for a faith in its future
+life.
+
+[Sidenote: The double immortality, past and future.]
+
+Thus Plato's doctrine of the immortality of the soul implies a double
+immortality; the past eternity, as well as that to come, falls within
+its scope. In the national superstition of his time, the spiritual
+principle seemed to arise without author or generator, finding its
+chance residence in the tabernacle of the body, growing with its growth
+and strengthening with its strength, acquiring for each period of life a
+correspondence of form and of feature with its companion the body,
+successively assuming the appearance of the infant, the youth, the
+adult, the white-bearded patriarch. The shade who wandered in the
+Stygian fields, or stood before the tribunal of Minos to receive his
+doom, was thought to correspond in aspect with the aspect of the body at
+death. It was thus that Ulysses recognized the forms of Patroclus and
+Achilles, and other heroes of the ten years' siege; it was thus that the
+peasant recognized the ghost of his enemy or friend. As a matter of
+superstition, these notions had their use, but in a philosophical sense
+it is impossible to conceive anything more defective.
+
+[Sidenote: Relations of the past and future to man.]
+
+Man differs from a lifeless body or a brute in this, that it is not with
+the present moment alone that he has to deal. For the brute the past,
+when gone, is clean gone for ever; and the future, before it approaches,
+is as if it were never to be. Man, by his recollection, makes the past a
+part of the present, and his foreknowledge adds the future thereto,
+thereby uniting the three in one.
+
+[Sidenote: Criticism on the Ideal theory.]
+
+Some of the illustrations commonly given of Plato's Ideal theory may
+also be instructively used for showing the manner in which his facts are
+dealt with by the methods of modern science. Thus Plato would say that
+there is contained in every acorn the ideal type of an oak, in
+accordance with which as soon as suitable circumstances occur, the acorn
+will develop itself into an oak, and into no other tree. In the act of
+development of such a seed into its final growth there are, therefore,
+two things demanding attention, the intrinsic character of the seed and
+the external forces acting upon it. The Platonic doctrine draws such a
+distinction emphatically; its essential purpose is to assert the
+absolute existence and independence of that innate type and its
+imperishability. Though it requires the agency of external circumstances
+for its complete realization, its being is altogether irrespective of
+them. There are, therefore, in such a case, two elements concerned--an
+internal and an external. A like duality is perceived in many other
+physiological instances, as in the relationship of mind and matter,
+thought and sensation. It is the aim of the Platonic philosophy to
+magnify the internal at the expense of the external in the case of man,
+thereby asserting the absolute supremacy of intellect; this being the
+particular in which man is distinguished from the brutes and lower
+organisms, in whom the external relatively predominates. The development
+of any such organism, be it plant or animal, is therefore nothing but a
+manifestation of the Divine idea of Platonism. Many instances of natural
+history offer striking illustrations, as when that which might have been
+a branch is developed into a flower, the parts thereof showing a
+disposition to arrange themselves by fives or by threes. The persistency
+with which this occurs in organisms of the same species, is, in the
+Platonic interpretation, a proof that, though individuals may perish,
+the idea is immortal. How else, in this manner, could the like extricate
+itself from the unlike; the one deliver itself from, and make itself
+manifest among the many?
+
+Such is an instance of Plato's views; but the very illustration, thus
+serving to bring them so explicitly before us, may teach us another,
+and, perhaps, a more correct doctrine. For, considering the duality
+presented by such cases, the internal and external, the immortal hidden
+type and the power acting upon it without, the character and the
+circumstances, may we not pertinently inquire by what authority does
+Plato diminish the influence of the latter and enhance the value of the
+former? Why are facts to be burdened with such hypothetical creations,
+when it is obvious that a much simpler explanation is sufficient? Let us
+admit, as our best physiological views direct, that the starting-point
+of every organism, low or high, vegetable or animal, or whatever else,
+is a simple cell, the manner of development of which depends altogether
+on the circumstances and influences to which it is exposed; that, so
+long as those circumstances are the same the resulting form will be the
+same, and that as soon as those circumstances differ the resulting form
+differs too. The offspring is like its parent, not because it includes
+an immortal typical form, but because it is exposed in development to
+the same conditions as was its parent. Elsewhere I have endeavoured to
+show that we must acknowledge this absolute dominion of physical agents
+over organic forms as the fundamental principle in all the sciences of
+organization; indeed, the main object of my work on Physiology was to
+enforce this very doctrine. But such a doctrine is altogether
+inconsistent with the Ideal theory of Platonism. It is no latent
+imperishable type existing from eternity that is dominating in such
+developments, but they take place as the issue of a resistless law,
+variety being possible under variation of environment. Hence we may
+perhaps excuse ourselves from that suprasensual world in which reside
+typical forms, universals, ideas of created things, declining this
+complex machinery of Platonism, and substituting for it a simple notion
+of law. Nor shall we find, if from this starting-point we direct our
+thoughts upward, as Plato did from subordinate ideas to the first idea,
+anything incompatible with the noble conclusion to which he eventually
+came, anything incompatible with the majesty of God, whose existence and
+attributes may be asserted with more precision and distinctness from
+considerations of the operation of immutable law than they can be from
+the starting-point of fantastic, imaginary, ideal forms.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of the Sceptics.]
+
+We have seen how the pre-Socratic philosophy ended in the Sophists; we
+have now to see how the post-Socratic ended in the Sceptics. Again was
+repeated the same result exhibited in former times, that the doctrines
+of the different schools, even those supposed to be matters of absolute
+demonstration, were not only essentially different, but in contradiction
+to one another. Again, therefore, the opinion was resumed that the
+intellect of man possesses no criterion of truth, being neither able to
+distinguish among the contradictions of the impressions of the senses,
+nor to judge of the correctness of philosophical deductions, nor even
+to determine the intrinsic morality of acts. And, if there be no
+criterion of truth, there can be no certain ground of science, and there
+remains nothing for us but doubt. Such was the conclusion to which
+Pyrrho, the founder of the Sceptics, came. He lived about B.C. 300. His
+philosophical doctrine of the necessity of suspending or refusing our
+assent from want of a criterion of judgment led by a natural transition
+to the moral doctrine that virtue and happiness consist in perfect
+quiescence or freedom from all mental perturbation. This doctrine, it is
+said, he had learned in India from the Brahmans, whither he had been in
+the expedition of Alexander. On his return to Europe he taught these
+views in his school at Elis; but Greek philosophy, in its own order of
+advancement, was verging on the discovery of these conclusions.
+
+[Sidenote: Secondary analysis of ethical philosophy.]
+
+The Sceptical school was thus founded on the assertion that man can
+never ascertain the true among phenomena, and therefore can never know
+whether things are in accordance or discordance with their appearances,
+for the same object appears differently to us in different positions and
+at different times. Doubtless it also appears differently to various
+individuals. Among such appearances, how shall we select the true one,
+and, if we make a selection, how shall we be absolutely certain that we
+are right? Moreover, the properties we impute to things, such as colour,
+smell, taste, hardness, and the like, are dependent upon our senses; but
+we very well know that our senses are perpetually yielding to us
+contradictory indications, and it is in vain that we expect Reason to
+enable us to distinguish with correctness, or furnish us a criterion of
+the truth. The Sceptical school thus made use of the weapon which the
+Sophists had so destructively employed, directing it, however, chiefly
+against ethics. But let us ascend a step higher. If we rely upon Reason,
+how do we know that Reason itself is trustworthy? Do we not want some
+criterion for it? And, even if such a criterion existed, must we not
+have for it, in its turn, some higher criterion? The Sceptic thus
+justified his assertion that to man there is no criterion of truth.
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrines of Pyrrho.]
+
+[Sidenote: No certainty in knowledge.]
+
+In accordance with these principles, the Sceptics denied that we can
+ever attain to a knowledge of existence from a knowledge of phenomena.
+They carried their doubt to such an extreme as to assert that we can
+never know the truth of anything that we have asserted, no, not even the
+truth of this very assertion itself. "We assert nothing," said they;
+"no, not even that we assert nothing." They declared that the system of
+induction is at best only a system of probability, for an induction can
+only be certain when every one and all of the individual things have
+been examined and demonstrated to agree with the universal. If one
+single exception among myriads of examples be discovered, the induction
+is destroyed. But how shall we be sure, in any one case, that we have
+examined all the individuals? therefore we must ever doubt. As to the
+method of definitions, it is clear that it is altogether useless; for,
+if we are ignorant of a thing, we cannot define it, and if we know a
+thing, a definition adds nothing to our knowledge. In thus destroying
+definitions and inductions they destroyed all philosophical method.
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrines of Epicurus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Tranquil indifference is best for man.]
+
+But if there be this impossibility of attaining knowledge, what is the
+use of man giving himself any trouble about the matter? Is it not best
+to accept life as it comes, and enjoy pleasure while he may? And this is
+what Epicurus, B.C. 342, had already advised men to do. Like Socrates,
+he disparages science, and looks upon pleasure as the main object of
+life and the criterion of virtue. Asserting that truth cannot be
+determined by Reason alone, he gives up philosophy in despair, or
+regards it as an inferior or ineffectual means of contributing to
+happiness. In his view the proper division of philosophy is into Ethics,
+Canonic, and Physics, the two latter being of very little importance
+compared with the first. The wise man or sage must seek in an Oriental
+quietism for the chief happiness of life, indulging himself in a
+temperate manner as respects his present appetite, and adding thereto
+the recollection of similar sensual pleasures that are past, and the
+expectation of new ones reserved for the future. He must look on
+philosophy as the art of enjoying life. He should give himself no
+concern as to death or the power of the gods, who are only a delusion;
+none as respects a future state, remembering that the soul, which is
+nothing more than a congeries of atoms, is resolved into those
+constituents at death. There can be no doubt that such doctrines were
+very well suited to the times in which they were introduced; for so
+great was the social and political disturbance, so great the uncertainty
+of the tenure of property, that it might well be suggested what better
+could a man do than enjoy his own while it was yet in his possession?
+nor was the inducement to such a course lessened by extravagant
+dissipations when courtesans and cooks, jesters and buffoons, splendid
+attire and magnificent appointments had become essential to life.
+Demetrius Poliorcetes, who understood the condition of things
+thoroughly, says, "There was not, in my time, in Athens, one great or
+noble mind." In such a social state, it is not at all surprising that
+Epicurus had many followers, and that there were many who agreed with
+him in thinking that happiness is best found in a tranquil indifference,
+and in believing that there is nothing in reality good or bad; that it
+is best to decide upon nothing, but to leave affairs to chance; that
+there is, after all, little or no difference between life and death:
+that a wise man will regard philosophy as an activity of ideas and
+arguments which may tend to happiness; that its physical branch is of no
+other use than to correct superstitious fancies as to death, and remove
+the fear of meteors, prodigies, and other phenomena by explaining their
+nature; that the views of Democritus and Aristotle may be made to some
+extent available for the procurement of pleasure; and that we may learn
+from the brutes, who pursue pleasure and avoid pain, what ought to be
+our course. Upon the whole, it will be found that there is a connexion
+between pleasure and virtue, especially if we enlarge our views and seek
+for pleasure, not in the gratification of the present moment, but in the
+aggregate offered by existence. The pleasures of the soul all originate
+in the pleasures of the flesh; not only those of the time being, but
+also those recollected in the past and anticipated in the future. The
+sage will therefore provide for all these, and, remembering that pain is
+in its nature transient, but pleasure is enduring, he will not hesitate
+to encounter the former if he can be certain that it will procure him
+the latter; he will dismiss from his mind all idle fears of the gods and
+of destiny, for these are fictions beneficial only to women and the
+vulgar; yet, since they are the objects of the national superstition, it
+is needless to procure one's self disfavour by openly deriding them. It
+will therefore be better for the sage to treat them with apparent
+solemnity, or at least with outward respect, though he may laugh at the
+imposition in his heart. As to the fear of death, he will be especially
+careful to rid himself from it, remembering that death is only a
+deliverer from the miseries of life.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperfections of the Canonic of Epicurus,]
+
+Under the title of Canonic Epicurus delivers his philosophical views;
+they are, however, of a very superficial kind. He insists that our
+sensuous impressions are the criterion of truth, and that even the
+sensations of a lunatic and a dreamer are true. But, besides the
+impressions of the moment, memory is also to be looked upon as a
+criterion--memory, which is the basis of experience.
+
+[Sidenote: and contradictions of his Physics.]
+
+[Sidenote: His irreligion.]
+
+In his Physics he adopts the Atomic theory of Democritus, though in many
+respects it ill accords with his Ethics or Canonic; but so low is his
+esteem of its value that he cares nothing for that. Though atoms and a
+void are in their nature imperceptible to the senses, he acknowledges
+their existence, asserting the occurrence of an infinite number of atoms
+of different kinds in the infinite void, which, because of their weight,
+precipitate themselves perpendicularly downward with an equable motion;
+but some of them, through an unaccountable internal force, have deviated
+from their perpendicular path, and, sticking together after their
+collision, have given rise to the world. Not much better than these
+vague puerilities are his notions about the size of the sun, the nature
+of eclipses, and other astronomical phenomena; but he justifies his
+contradictions and superficiality by asserting that it is altogether
+useless for a man to know such things, and that the sage ought to give
+himself no trouble about them. As to the soul, he says that it must be
+of a material or corporeal nature, for this simple reason, that there is
+nothing incorporeal but a vacuum; he inclines to the belief that it is
+a rarefied body, easily movable, and somewhat of the nature of a vapour;
+he divides it into four activities, corresponding to the four elements
+entering into its constitution; and that, so far from being immortal, it
+is decomposed into its integral atoms, dying when the body dies. With
+the atomic doctrines of Democritus, Epicurus adopts the notions of that
+philosopher respecting sensation, to the effect that eidola or images
+are sloughed off from all external objects, and find access to the brain
+through the eye. In his theology he admits, under the circumstances we
+have mentioned, anthropomorphic gods, pretending to account for their
+origin in the chance concourse of atoms, and suggesting that they
+display their quietism and blessedness by giving themselves no concern
+about man or his affairs. By such derisive promptings does Epicurus mock
+at the religion of his country--its rituals, sacrifices, prayers, and
+observances. He offers no better evidence of the existence of God than
+that there is a general belief current among men in support of such a
+notion; but, when brought to the point, he does not hesitate to utter
+his disbelief in the national theology, and to declare that, in his
+judgment, it is blind chance that rules the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Epicureans of modern times.]
+
+Such are the opinions to which the name of Epicurus has been attached;
+but there were Epicureans ages before that philosopher was born, and
+Epicureans there will be in all time to come. They abound in our own
+days, ever characterized by the same features--an intense egoism in
+their social relations, superficiality in their philosophical views, if
+the term philosophical can be justly applied to intellects so narrow;
+they manifest an accordance often loud and particular with the religion
+of their country, while in their hearts and in their lives they are
+utter infidels. These are they who constitute the most specious part of
+modern society, and are often the self-proclaimed guardians of its
+interests. They are to be found in every grade of life; in the senate,
+in the army, in the professions, and especially in commercial pursuits,
+which, unhappily, tend too frequently to the development of selfishness.
+It is to them that society is indebted for more than half its
+corruptions, all its hypocrisy, and more than half its sins. It is they
+who infuse into it falsehood as respects the past, imposture as respects
+the present, fraud as respects the future; who teach it by example that
+the course of a man's life ought to be determined upon principles of
+selfishness; that gratitude and affection are well enough if displayed
+for effect, but that they should never be felt; that men are to be
+looked upon not as men, but as things to be used; that knowledge and
+integrity, patriotism and virtue, are the delusions of simpletons; and
+that wealth is the only object which is really worthy of the homage of
+man.
+
+[Sidenote: The Middle Academy of Arcesilaus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The New Academy of Carneades.]
+
+[Sidenote: The duplicity of the later Academicians.]
+
+[Sidenote: The fourth and fifth Academies.]
+
+It now only remains in this chapter to speak of the later Platonism. The
+Old Academy, of which Plato was the founder, limited its labours to the
+illustration and defence of his doctrines. The Middle Academy,
+originating with Arcesilaus, born B.C. 316, maintained a warfare with
+the Stoics, developed the doctrine of the uncertainty of sensual
+impressions and the nothingness of human knowledge. The New Academy was
+founded by Carneades, born B.C. 213, and participated with the preceding
+in many of its fundamental positions. On the one side Carneades leans to
+scepticism, on the other he accepts probability as his guide. This
+school so rapidly degenerated that at last it occupied itself with
+rhetoric alone. The gradual increase of scepticism and indifference
+throughout this period is obvious enough; thus Arcesilaus said that he
+knew nothing, not even his own ignorance, and denied both intellectual
+and sensuous knowledge. Carneades, obtaining his views from the old
+philosophy, found therein arguments suitable for his purpose against
+necessity, God, soothsaying; he did not admit that there is any such
+thing as justice in the abstract, declaring that it is a purely
+conventional thing; indeed, it was his rhetorical display, alternately
+in praise of justice and against it, on the occasion of his visit to
+Rome, that led Cato to have him expelled from the city. Though Plato had
+been the representative of an age of faith, a secondary analysis of all
+his works, implying an exposition of their contradictions, ended in
+scepticism. If we may undertake to determine the precise aim of a
+philosophy whose representatives stood in such an attitude of rhetorical
+duplicity, it may be said to be the demonstration that there is no
+criterion of truth in this world. Persuaded thus of the impossibility of
+philosophy, Carneades was led to recommend his theory of the probable.
+"That which has been most perfectly analyzed and examined, and found to
+be devoid of improbability, is the most probable idea." The degeneration
+of philosophy now became truly complete, the labours of so many great
+men being degraded to rhetorical and artistic purposes. It was seen by
+all that Plato had destroyed all trust in the indications of the senses,
+and substituted for it the Ideal theory. Aristotle had destroyed that,
+and there was nothing left to the world but scepticism. A fourth Academy
+was founded by Philo of Larissa, a fifth by Antiochus of Ascalon. It was
+reserved for this teacher to attach the Porch to the Academy, and to
+merge the doctrines of Plato in those of the Stoics. Such a
+heterogeneous mixture demonstrates the pass to which speculative
+philosophy had come, and shows us clearly that her disciples had
+abandoned her in despair.
+
+[Sidenote: End of the Greek age of Faith.]
+
+So ends the Greek age of Faith. How strikingly does its history recall
+the corresponding period of individual life--the trusting spirit and the
+disappointment of youth. We enter on it full of confidence in things and
+men, never suspecting that the one may disappoint, the other deceive.
+Our early experiences, if considered at all, afford only matter of
+surprise that we could ever have been seriously occupied in such folly,
+or actuated by motives now seeming so inadequate. It never occurs to us
+that, in our present state, though the pursuits may have changed, they
+are none the less vain, the objects none the less delusive.
+
+The second age of Greek philosophy ended in sophism, the third in
+scepticism. Speculative philosophy strikes at last upon a limit which it
+can not overpass. This is its state even in our own times. It
+reverberates against the wall that confines it without the least chance
+of making its way through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE GREEK AGE OF REASON.
+
+RISE OF SCIENCE.
+
+ THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN.--_Disastrous in its political Effects
+ to Greece, but ushering in the Age of Reason._
+
+ ARISTOTLE _founds the Inductive Philosophy.--His Method the
+ Inverse of that of Plato.--Its great power.--In his own hands
+ it fails for want of Knowledge, but is carried out by the
+ Alexandrians._
+
+ ZENO.--_His Philosophical Aim is the Cultivation of Virtue and
+ Knowledge.--He is in the Ethical Branch the Counterpart of
+ Aristotle in the Physical._
+
+ FOUNDATION OF THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA.--_The great Libraries,
+ Observatories, Botanical Gardens, Menageries, Dissecting
+ Houses.--Its Effect on the rapid Development of exact
+ Knowledge.--Influence of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes,
+ Apollonius, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, on Geometry, Natural
+ Philosophy, Astronomy, Chronology, Geography._
+
+ _Decline of the Greek Age of Reason._
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Greek invasion of Persia.]
+
+The conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great is a most important event
+in European history. That adventurer, carrying out the intentions of his
+father Philip, commenced his attack with apparently very insignificant
+means, having, it is said, at the most, only thirty-four thousand
+infantry, four thousand cavalry, and seventy talents in money. The
+result of his expedition was the ruin of the Persian empire, and also
+the ruin of Greece. It was not without reason that his memory was cursed
+in his native country. Her life-blood was drained away by his successes.
+In view of the splendid fortunes to be made in Asia, Greece ceased to be
+the place for an enterprising man. To such an extent did military
+emigration go, that Greek recruits were settled all over the Persian
+empire; their number was sufficient to injure irreparably the country
+from which they had parted, but not sufficient to Hellenize the dense
+and antique populations among whom they had settled.
+
+[Sidenote: Its ruinous effect on Greece.]
+
+[Sidenote: Injury to Athens from the founding of Alexandria.]
+
+Not only was it thus by the drain of men that the Macedonian expedition
+was so dreadfully disastrous to Greece, the political consequences
+following those successful campaigns added to the baneful result.
+Alexander could not have more effectually ruined Athens had he treated
+her as he did Thebes, which he levelled with the ground, massacring six
+thousand of her citizens, and selling thirty thousand for slaves. The
+founding of Alexandria was the commercial end of Athens, the finishing
+stroke to her old colonial system. It might have been well for her had
+he stopped short in his projects with the downfall of Tyre, destroyed,
+not from any vindictive reasons, as is sometimes said, but because he
+discovered that that city was an essential part of the Persian system.
+It was never his intention that Athens should derive advantage from the
+annihilation of her Phoenician competitor; his object was effectually
+carried out by the building and prosperity of Alexandria.
+
+[Sidenote: Scientific tendency of the Macedonian campaigns.]
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of the influence of Aristotle through Alexander.]
+
+Though the military celebrity of this great soldier may be diminished by
+the history of the last hundred years, which shows a uniform result of
+victory when European armies are brought in contact with Asiatic, even
+under the most extraordinary disadvantages, there cannot be denied to
+him a profound sagacity and statesmanship excelled by no other
+conqueror. Before he became intoxicated with success, and,
+unfortunately, too frequently intoxicated with wine, there was much that
+was noble in his character. He had been under the instruction of
+Aristotle for several years, and, on setting out on his expedition, took
+with him so many learned men as almost to justify the remark applied to
+it, that it was as much a scientific as a military undertaking. Among
+those who thus accompanied him was Callisthenes, a relative and pupil of
+Aristotle, destined for an evil end. Perhaps the assertion that
+Alexander furnished to his master 250,000_l._ and the services of
+several thousand men, for the purpose of obtaining and examining the
+specimens required in the composition of his work on the "History of
+Animals" may be an exaggeration, but there can be no doubt that in these
+transactions was the real beginning of that policy which soon led to the
+institution of the Museum at Alexandria. The importance of this event,
+though hitherto little understood, admits of no exaggeration, so far as
+the intellectual progress of Europe is concerned. It gave to the works
+of Aristotle their wonderful duration; it imparted to them not only a
+Grecian celebrity, but led to their translation into Syriac by the
+Nestorians in the fifth century, and from Syriac by the Arabs into their
+tongue four hundred years later. They exercised a living influence over
+Christians and Mohammedans indifferently, from Spain to Mesopotamia.
+
+[Sidenote: Scientific training and undertakings of Alexander.]
+
+[Sidenote: His unbridled passions and iniquities.]
+
+If the letter quoted by Plutarch as having been written by Alexander to
+Aristotle be authentic, it not only shows how thoroughly the pupil had
+been indoctrinated into the wisdom of the master, but warns us how
+liable we are to be led astray in the exposition we are presently to
+give of the Aristotelian philosophy. There was then, as unfortunately
+there has been too often since, a private as well as a public doctrine.
+Alexander upbraids the philosopher for his indiscretion in revealing
+things that it was understood should be concealed. Aristotle defends
+himself by asserting that the desired concealment had not been broken.
+By many other incidents of a trifling kind the attachment of the
+conqueror to philosophy is indicated; thus Harpalus and Nearchus, the
+companions of his youth, were the agents employed in some of his
+scientific undertakings, the latter being engaged in sea explorations,
+doubtless having in the main a political object, yet full of interest to
+science. Had Alexander lived, Nearchus was to have repeated the
+circumnavigation of Africa. Harpalus, while governor of Babylon, was
+occupied in the attempt to exchange the vegetation of Europe and Asia;
+he intertransplanted the productions of Persia and Greece, succeeding,
+as is related, in his object of making all European plants that he
+tried, except the ivy, grow in Mesopotamia. The journey to the Caspian
+Sea, the expedition into the African deserts, indicate Alexander's
+personal taste for natural knowledge; nor is it without significance
+that, while on his death-bed, and, indeed, within a few days of his
+decease, he found consolation and amusement in having Nearchus by his
+side relating the story of his voyages. Nothing shows more strikingly
+how correct was his military perception than the intention he avowed of
+equipping a thousand ships for the conquest of Carthage, and thus
+securing his supremacy in the Mediterranean. Notwithstanding all this,
+there were many points of his character, and many events of his life,
+worthy of the condemnation with which they have been visited; the
+drunken burning of Persepolis, the prisoners he slaughtered in honour of
+Hephaestion, the hanging of Callisthenes, were the results of
+intemperance and unbridled passion. Even so steady a mind as his was
+incapable of withstanding the influence of such enormous treasures as
+those he seized at Susa; the plunder of the Persian empire; the
+inconceivable luxury of Asiatic life; the uncontrolled power to which he
+attained. But he was not so imbecile as to believe himself the
+descendant of Jupiter Ammon; that was only an artifice he permitted for
+the sake of influencing those around him. We must not forget that he
+lived in an age when men looked for immaculate conceptions and celestial
+descents. These Asiatic ideas had made their way into Europe. The
+Athenians themselves were soon to be reconciled to the appointment of
+divine honours to such as Antigonus and Demetrius, adoring them as
+gods--saviour gods--and instituting sacrifices and priests for their
+worship.
+
+[Sidenote: The Greek age of Reason ushered in.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its inability to accomplish the civilization of Europe.]
+
+Great as were the political results of the Macedonian expedition, they
+were equalled by the intellectual. The times were marked by the ushering
+in of a new philosophy. Greece had gone through her age of Credulity,
+her age of Inquiry, her age of Faith; she had entered on her age of
+Reason, and, had freedom of action been permitted to her, she would have
+given a decisive tone to the forthcoming civilization of Europe. As
+will be seen in the following pages, that great destiny did not await
+her. From her eccentric position at Alexandria she could not civilize
+Europe. In her old age, the power of Europe, concentrated in the Roman
+empire, overthrew her. There are very few histories of the past of more
+interest to modern times, and none, unfortunately, more misunderstood,
+than this Greek age of Reason manifested at Alexandria. It illustrates,
+in the most signal manner, that affairs control men more than men
+control affairs. The scientific associations of the Macedonian conqueror
+directly arose from the contemporaneous state of Greek philosophy in the
+act of reaching the close of its age of faith, and these influences
+ripened under the Macedonian captain who became King of Egypt. As it
+was, the learning of Alexandria, though diverted from its most
+appropriate and desirable direction by the operation of the Byzantine
+system, in the course of a few centuries acting forcibly upon it, was
+not without an influence on the future thought of Europe. Even at this
+day Europe will not bear to be fully told how great that influence has
+been.
+
+[Sidenote: The writings of Aristotle are its prelude.]
+
+The age of Reason, to which Aristotle is about to introduce us, stands
+in striking contrast to the preceding ages. It cannot escape the reader
+that what was done by the men of science in Alexandria resembles what is
+doing in our own times; their day was the foreshadowing of ours. And yet
+a long and dreary period of almost twenty centuries parts us from them.
+Politically, Aristotle, through his friendship with Alexander and the
+perpetuation of the Macedonian influence in Ptolemy, was the connecting
+link between the Greek age of Faith and that of Reason, as he was also
+philosophically by the nature of his doctrines. He offers us an easy
+passage from the speculative methods of Plato to the scientific methods
+of Archimedes and Euclid. The copiousness of his doctrines, and the
+obscurity of many of them, might, perhaps, discourage a superficial
+student, unless he steadily bears in mind the singular authority they
+maintained for so many ages, and the brilliant results in all the exact
+parts of human knowledge to which they so quickly led. The history of
+Aristotle and his philosophy is therefore our necessary introduction to
+the grand, the immortal achievements of the Alexandrian school.
+
+[Sidenote: Biography of Aristotle.]
+
+Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Thrace, B.C. 384. His father was an
+eminent author of those times on subjects of Natural History; by
+profession he was a physician. Dying while his son was yet quite young,
+he bequeathed to him not only very ample means, but also his own tastes.
+Aristotle soon found his way to Athens, and entered the school of Plato,
+with whom it is said he remained for nearly twenty years. During this
+period he spent most of his patrimony, and in the end was obliged to
+support himself by the trade of a druggist. At length differences arose
+between them, for, as we shall soon find, the great pupil was by no
+means a blind follower of the great master. In a fortunate moment,
+Philip, the King of Macedon, appointed him preceptor to his son
+Alexander, an incident of importance in the intellectual history of
+Europe. It was to the friendship arising through this relation that
+Aristotle owed the assistance he received from the conqueror during his
+Asiatic expedition for the composition of "the Natural History," and
+also gained that prestige which gave his name such singular authority
+for more than fifteen centuries. He eventually founded a school in the
+Lyceum at Athens, and, as it was his habit to deliver his lectures while
+walking, his disciples received the name of Peripatetics, or walking
+philosophers. These lectures were of two kinds, esoteric and exoteric,
+the former being delivered to the more advanced pupils only. He wrote a
+very large number of works, of which about one-fourth remain.
+
+[Sidenote: He founds the inductive philosophy.]
+
+The philosophical method of Aristotle is the inverse of that of Plato,
+whose starting-point was universals, the very existence of which was a
+matter of faith, and from these he descended to particulars or details.
+Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from particulars to universals,
+advancing to them by inductions; and his system, thus an inductive
+philosophy, was in reality the true beginning of science.
+
+[Sidenote: His method compared with that of Plato.]
+
+Plato therefore trusts to the Imagination, Aristotle to Reason. The
+contrast between them is best seen by the attitude in which they stand
+as respects the Ideal theory. Plato regards universals, types, or
+exemplars as having an actual existence; Aristotle declares that they
+are mere abstractions of reasoning. For the fanciful reminiscences
+derived from former experience in another life by Plato, Aristotle
+substitutes the reminiscences of our actual experience in this. These
+ideas of experience are furnished by the memory, which enables us not
+only to recall individual facts and events witnessed by ourselves, but
+also to collate them with one another, thereby discovering their
+resemblances and their differences. Our induction becomes the more
+certain as our facts are more numerous, our experience larger. "Art
+commences when, from a great number of experiences, one general
+conception is formed which will embrace all similar cases." "If we
+properly observe celestial phenomena, we may demonstrate the laws which
+regulate them." With Plato, philosophy arises from faith in the past;
+with Aristotle, reason alone can constitute it from existing facts.
+Plato is analytic, Aristotle synthetic. The philosophy of Plato arises
+from the decomposition of a primitive idea into particulars, that of
+Aristotle from the union of particulars into a general conception. The
+former is essentially an idealist, the latter a materialist.
+
+[Sidenote: The results of Platonism and Aristotelism.]
+
+From this it will be seen that the method of Plato was capable of
+producing more splendid, though they were necessarily more unsubstantial
+results; that of Aristotle was more tardy in its operation, but much
+more solid. It implied endless labour in the collection of facts, the
+tedious resort to experiment and observation, the application of
+demonstration. In its very nature it was such that it was impossible for
+its author to carry by its aid the structure of science to completion.
+The moment that Aristotle applies his own principles we find him
+compelled to depart from them through want of a sufficient experience
+and sufficient precision in his facts. The philosophy of Plato is a
+gorgeous castle in the air, that of Aristotle is a solid structure,
+laboriously, and, with many failures, founded on the solid rock.
+
+[Sidenote: Aristotle's logic]
+
+Under Logic, Aristotle treats of the methods of arriving at general
+propositions, and of reasoning from them. His logic is at once the art
+of thinking and the instrument of thought. The completeness of our
+knowledge depends on the extent and completeness of our experience. His
+manner of reasoning is by the syllogism, an argument consisting of three
+propositions, such that the concluding one follows of necessity from the
+two premises, and of which, indeed, the whole theory of demonstration is
+only an example. Regarding logic as the instrument of thought, he
+introduces into it, as a fundamental feature, the ten categories. These
+predicaments are the genera to which everything may be reduced, and
+denote the most general of the attributes which may be assigned to a
+thing.
+
+[Sidenote: and metaphysics.]
+
+His metaphysics overrides all the branches of the physical sciences. It
+undertakes an examination of the postulates on which each one of them is
+founded, determining their truth or fallacy. Considering that all
+science must find a support for its fundamental conditions in an
+extensive induction from facts, he puts at the foundation of his system
+the consideration of the individual; in relation to the world of sense,
+he regards four causes as necessary for the production of a fact--the
+material cause, the substantial cause, the efficient cause, the final
+cause.
+
+[Sidenote: Temporary failure of his system.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Peripatetic philosophy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Substance, Motion, Space, Time.]
+
+[Sidenote: The world.]
+
+[Sidenote: Organic beings.]
+
+[Sidenote: Physiological conclusions.]
+
+But as soon as we come to the Physics of Aristotle we see at once his
+weakness. The knowledge of his age does not furnish him facts enough
+whereon to build, and the consequence is that he is forced into
+speculation. It will be sufficient for our purpose to allude to a few of
+his statements, either in this or in his metaphysical branch, to show
+how great is his uncertainty and confusion. Thus he asserts that matter
+contains a triple form--simple substance, higher substance, which is
+eternal, and absolute substance, or God himself; that the universe is
+immutable and eternal, and, though in relation with the vicissitudes of
+the world, it is unaffected thereby; that the primitive force which
+gives rise to all the motions and changes we see is Nature; it also
+gives rise to Rest; that the world is a living being, having a soul;
+that, since every thing is for some particular end, the soul of man is
+the end of his body; that Motion is the condition of all nature; that
+the world has a definite boundary and a limited magnitude; that Space
+is the immovable vessel in which whatever is may be moved; that Space,
+as a whole, is without motion, though its parts may move; that it is not
+to be conceived of as without contents; that it is impossible for a
+vacuum to exist, and hence there is not beyond and surrounding the world
+a void which contains the world; that there could be no such thing as
+Time unless there is a soul, for time being the number of motion, number
+is impossible except there be one who numbers; that, perpetual motion in
+a finite right line being impossible, but in a curvilinear path
+possible, the world, which is limited and ever in motion, must be of a
+spherical form; that the earth is its central part, the heavens the
+circumferential: hence the heaven is nearest to the prime cause of
+motion; that the orderly, continuous, and unceasing movement of the
+celestial bodies implies an unmoved mover, for the unchangeable alone
+can give birth to uniform motion; that unmoved existence is God; that
+the stars are passionless beings, having attained the end of existence,
+and worthy above other things of human adoration; that the fixed stars
+are in the outermost heaven, and the sun, moon, and planets beneath: the
+former receive their motion from the prime moving cause, but the planets
+are disturbed by the stars; that there are five elements--earth, air,
+fire, water, and ether; that the earth is in the centre of the world,
+since earthy matter settles uniformly round a central point; that fire
+seeks the circumferential region, and intermediately water floats upon
+the earth, and air upon water; that the elements are transmutable into
+one another, and hence many intervening substances arise; that each
+sphere is in interconnection with the others; the earth is agitated and
+disturbed by the sea, the sea by the winds, which are movements of the
+air, the air by the sun, moon, and planets. Each inferior sphere is
+controlled by its outlying or superior one, and hence it follows that
+the earth, which is thus disturbed by the conspiring or conflicting
+action of all above it, is liable to the most irregularities; that,
+since animals are nourished by the earth, it needs must enter into their
+composition, but that water is required to hold the earthy matters
+together; that every element must be looked upon as living, since it is
+pervaded by the soul of the world; that there is an unbroken chain from
+the simple element through the plant and animal up to man, the different
+groups merging by insensible shades into one another: thus zoophytes
+partake partly of the vegetable and partly of the animal, and serve as
+an intermedium between them; that plants are inferior to animals in
+this, that they do not possess a single principle of life or soul, but
+many subordinate ones, as is shown by the circumstance that, when they
+are cut to pieces, each piece is capable of perfect or independent
+growth or life. Their inferiority is likewise betrayed by their
+belonging especially to the earth to which they are rooted, each root
+being a true mouth; and this again displays their lowly position, for
+the place of the mouth is ever an indication of the grade of a creature:
+thus in man, who is at the head of the scale, it is in the upper part of
+the body; that in proportion to the heat of an animal is its grade
+higher; thus those that are aquatic are cold, and therefore of very
+little intelligence, and the same maybe said of plants; but of man,
+whose warmth is very great, the soul is much more excellent; that the
+possession of locomotion by an organism always implies the possession of
+sensation; that the senses of taste and touch indicate the qualities of
+things in contact with the organs of the animal, but that those of
+smell, hearing, and sight extend the sphere of its existence, and
+indicate to it what is at a distance: that the place of reception of the
+various sensations is the soul, from which issue forth the motions; that
+the blood, as the general element of nutrition, is essential to the
+support of the body, though insensible itself: it is also essential to
+the activity of the soul; that the brain is not the recipient of
+sensations: that function belongs to the heart; all the animal
+activities are united in the last; it contains the principle of life,
+being the principle of motion: it is the first part to be formed and the
+last to die; that the brain is a mere appendix to the heart, since it is
+formed after the heart, is the coldest of the organs and is devoid of
+blood; that the soul is the reunion of all the functions of the body: it
+is an energy or active essence; being neither body nor magnitude, it
+cannot have extension, for thought has no parts, nor can it be said to
+move in space; it is as a sailor, who is motionless in a ship which is
+moving; that, in the origin of the organism, the male furnishes the soul
+and the female the body; that the body being liable to decay, and of a
+transitory nature, it is necessary for its well-being that its
+disintegration and nutrition should balance one another; that sensation
+may be compared to the impression of a seal on wax, the wax receiving
+form only, but no substance or matter; that imagination arises from
+impressions thus made, which endure for a length of time, and that this
+is the origin of memory; that man alone possesses recollection, but
+animals share with him memory--memory being unintentional or
+spontaneous, but recollection implying voluntary exertion or a search;
+that recollection is necessary for acting with design. It is doubtful
+whether Aristotle believed in the immortality of the soul, no decisive
+passage to that effect occurring in such of his works as are extant.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of Aristotle's success and failure.]
+
+Aristotle, with a correct and scientific method, tried to build up a
+vast system when he was not in possession of the necessary data. Though
+a very learned man, he had not sufficient knowledge; indeed, there was
+not sufficient knowledge at that time in the world. For many of the
+assertions I have quoted in the preceding paragraph there was no kind of
+proof; many of them also, such as the settling of the heavy and the rise
+of the light, imply very poor cosmic ideas. It is not until he deals
+with those branches, such as comparative anatomy and natural history, of
+which he had a personal and practical knowledge, that he begins to write
+well. Of his physiological conclusions, some are singularly felicitous;
+his views of the connected chain of organic forms, from the lowest to
+the highest, are very grand. His metaphysical and physical
+speculations--for in reality they are nothing but speculations--are of
+no kind of value. His successful achievements, and also his failures,
+conspicuously prove the excellence of his system. He expounded the true
+principles of science, but failed to apply them merely for want of
+materials. His ambition could not brook restraint. He would rather
+attempt to construct the universe without the necessary means than not
+construct it at all.
+
+Aristotle failed when he abandoned his own principles, and the magnitude
+of his failure proves how just his principles were; he succeeded when he
+adhered to them. If anything were wanting to vindicate their correctness
+and illustrate them, it is supplied by the glorious achievements of the
+Alexandrian school, which acted in physical science as Aristotle had
+acted in natural history, laying a basis solidly in observation and
+experiment, and accomplishing a like durable and brilliant result.
+
+[Sidenote: Biography of Zeno.]
+
+From Aristotle it is necessary to turn to Zeno, for the Peripatetics and
+Stoics stand in parallel lines. The social conditions existing in Greece
+at the time of Epicurus may in some degree palliate his sentiments, but
+virtue and honour will make themselves felt at last. Stoicism soon
+appeared as the antagonist of Epicureanism, and Epicurus found in Zeno
+of Citium a rival. The passage from Epicurus to Zeno is the passage from
+sensual gratification to self-control.
+
+The biography of Zeno may be dismissed in a few words. Born about B.C.
+300, he spent the early part of his life in the vocation of his father,
+who was a merchant, but, by a fortunate shipwreck, happily losing his
+goods during a voyage he was making to Athens, he turned to philosophy
+for consolation. Though he had heretofore been somewhat acquainted with
+the doctrines of Socrates, he became a disciple of the Cynics,
+subsequently studying in the Megaric school, and then making himself
+acquainted with Platonism. After twenty years of preparation, he opened
+a school in the stoa or porch in Athens, from which his doctrine and
+disciples have received their name. He presided over his school for
+fifty-eight years, numbering many eminent men among his disciples. When
+nearly a hundred years old he chanced to fall and break his finger, and,
+receiving this as an admonition that his time was accomplished, he
+forthwith strangled himself. The Athenians erected to his memory a
+statue of brass. His doctrines long survived him, and, in times when
+there was no other consolation for man, offered a support in their hour
+of trial, and an unwavering guide in the vicissitudes of life, not only
+to many illustrious Greeks, but also to some of the great philosophers,
+statesmen, generals, and emperors of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: Intention of Stoicism.]
+
+It was the intention of Zeno to substitute for the visionary
+speculations of Platonism a system directed to the daily practices of
+life, and hence dealing chiefly with morals. To make men virtuous was
+his aim. But this is essentially connected with knowledge, for Zeno was
+persuaded that if we only know what is good we shall be certain to
+practise it. He therefore rejected Plato's fancies of Ideas and
+Reminiscences, leaning to the common-sense doctrines of Aristotle, to
+whom he approached in many details. With him Sense furnishes the data of
+knowledge, and Reason combines them: the soul being modified by external
+things, and modifying them in return, he believed that the mind is at
+first, as it were, a blank tablet, on which sensation writes marks, and
+that the distinctness of sensuous impressions is the criterion of their
+truth. The changes thus produced in the soul constitute ideas; but, with
+a prophetic inspiration, he complained that man will never know the true
+essence of things.
+
+[Sidenote: The Physics of Zeno.]
+
+In his Physics Zeno adopted the doctrine of Strato, that the world is a
+living being. He believed that nothing incorporeal can produce an
+effect, and hence that the soul is corporeal. Matter and its properties
+he considered to be absolutely inseparable, a property being actually a
+body. In the world there are two things, matter and God, who is the
+Reason of the world. Essentially, however, God and matter are the same
+thing, which assumes the aspect of matter from the passive point of
+view, and God from the active; he is, moreover, the prime moving force,
+Destiny, Necessity, a life-giving Soul, evolving things as the vital
+force evolves a plant out of a seed; the visible world is thus to be
+regarded as the material manifestation of God. The transitory objects
+which it on all sides presents will be reabsorbed after a season of
+time, and reunited in him. The Stoics pretended to indicate, even in a
+more definite manner, the process by which the world has arisen, and
+also its future destiny; for, regarding the Supreme as a vital heat,
+they supposed that a portion of that fire, declining in energy, became
+transmuted into matter, and hence the origin of the world; but that that
+fire, hereafter resuming its activity, would cause a universal
+conflagration, the end of things. During the present state everything
+is in a condition of uncertain mutation, decays being followed by
+reproductions, and reproductions by decays; and, as a cataract shows
+from year to year an invariable form, though the water composing it is
+perpetually changing, so the objects around us are nothing more than a
+flux of matter offering a permanent form. Thus the visible world is only
+a moment in the life of God, and after it has vanished away like a
+scroll that is burned, a new period shall be ushered in, and a new
+heaven and a new earth, exactly like the ancient ones, shall arise.
+Since nothing can exist without its contrary, no injustice unless there
+was justice, no cowardice unless there was courage, no lie unless there
+was truth, no shadow unless there was light, so the existence of good
+necessitates that of evil. The Stoics believed that the development of
+the world is under the dominion of paramount law, supreme law, Destiny,
+to which God himself is subject, and that hence he can only develop the
+world in a predestined way, as the vital warmth evolves a seed into the
+predestined form of a plant.
+
+[Sidenote: Exoteric philosophy of the Stoics.]
+
+The Stoics held it indecorous to offend needlessly the religious ideas
+of the times, and, indeed, they admitted that there might be created
+gods like those of Plato; but they disapproved of the adoration of
+images and the use of temples, making amends for their offences in these
+particulars by offering a semi-philosophical interpretation of the
+legends, and demonstrating that the existence, and even phenomenal
+display of the gods was in accordance with their principles. Perhaps to
+this exoteric philosophy we must ascribe the manner in which they
+expressed themselves as to final causes--expressions sometimes of
+amusing quaintness--thus, that the peacock was formed for the sake of
+his tail, and that a soul was given to the hog instead of salt, to
+prevent his body from rotting; that the final cause of plants is to be
+food for brutes, of brutes to be food for men, though they discreetly
+checked their irony in its ascending career, and abstained from saying
+that men are food for the gods, and the gods for all.
+
+[Sidenote: Their opinions of the nature of the soul.]
+
+The Stoics concluded that the soul is mere warm breath, and that it and
+the body mutually interpervade one another. They thought that it might
+subsist after death until the general conflagration, particularly if its
+energy were great, as in the strong spirits of the virtuous and wise.
+Its unity of action implies that it has a principle of identity, the I,
+of which the physiological seat is the heart. Every appetite, lust, or
+desire is an imperfect knowledge. Our nature and properties are forced
+upon us by Fate, but it is our duty to despise all our propensities and
+passions, and to live so that we may be free, intelligent, and virtuous.
+
+[Sidenote: Their ethical rules of wisdom.]
+
+This sentiment leads us to the great maxim of Stoical Ethics, "Live
+according to Reason;" or, since the world is composed of matter and God,
+who is the Reason of the world, "Live in harmony with Nature." As Reason
+is supreme in Nature, it ought to be so in man. Our existence should be
+intellectual, and all bodily pains and pleasures should be despised. A
+harmony between the human will and universal Reason constitutes virtue.
+The free-will of the sage should guide his actions in the same
+irresistible manner in which universal Reason controls nature. Hence the
+necessity of a cultivation of physics, without which we cannot
+distinguish good from evil. The sage is directed to remember that
+Nature, in her operations, aims at the universal, and never spares
+individuals, but uses them as means for accomplishing her ends. It is
+for him, therefore, to submit to his destiny, endeavouring continually
+to establish the supremacy of Reason, and cultivating, as the things
+necessary to virtue, knowledge, temperance, fortitude, justice. He is at
+liberty to put patriotism at the value it is worth when he remembers
+that he is a citizen of the world; he must train himself to receive in
+tranquillity the shocks of Destiny, and to be above all passion and all
+pain. He must never relent and never forgive. He must remember that
+there are only two classes of men, the wise and the fools, as "sticks
+can only either be straight or crooked, and very few sticks in this
+world are absolutely straight."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Greek science.]
+
+[Sidenote: Political position of the Ptolemies.]
+
+[Sidenote: They co-ordinate Egyptian idolatry and Greek scepticism.]
+
+From the account I have given of Aristotle's philosophy, it may be seen
+that he occupied a middle ground between the speculation of the old
+philosophy and the strict science of the Alexandrian school. He is the
+true connecting link, in the history of European intellectual progress,
+between philosophy and science. Under his teaching, and the material
+tendencies of the Macedonian campaigns, there arose a class of men in
+Egypt who gave to the practical a development it had never before
+attained; for that country, upon the breaking up of Alexander's
+dominion, B.C. 323, falling into the possession of Ptolemy, that general
+found himself at once the depositary of spiritual and temporal power. Of
+the former, it is to be remembered that, though the conquest by Cambyses
+had given it a severe shock, it still not only survived, but displayed
+no inconsiderable tokens of strength. Indeed, it is well known that the
+surrender of Egypt to Alexander was greatly accelerated by hatred to the
+Persians, the Egyptians welcoming the Macedonians as their deliverers.
+In this movement we perceive at once the authority of the old
+priesthood. It is hard to tear up by the roots an ancient religion, the
+ramifications of which have solidly insinuated themselves among a
+populace. That of Egypt had already been the growth of more than three
+thousand years. The question for the intrusive Greek sovereigns to solve
+was how to co-ordinate this hoary system with the philosophical
+scepticism that had issued as the result of Greek thought. With singular
+sagacity, they saw that this might be accomplished by availing
+themselves of Orientalism, the common point of contact of the two
+systems; and that, by its formal introduction and development, it would
+be possible not only to enable the philosophical king, to whom all the
+pagan gods were alike equally fictitious and equally useful, to manifest
+respect even to the ultra-heathenish practices of the Egyptian populace,
+but, what was of far more moment, to establish an apparent concord
+between the old sacerdotal Egyptian party--strong in its unparalleled
+antiquity; strong in its reminiscences; strong in its recent
+persecutions; strong in its Pharaonic relics, regarded by all men with a
+superstitious or reverent awe--and the free-thinking and versatile
+Greeks. The occasion was like some others in history, some even in our
+own times; a small but energetic body of invaders was holding in
+subjection an ancient and populous country.
+
+[Sidenote: The Museum of Alexandria.]
+
+[Sidenote: Establishment of the worship of Serapis.]
+
+To give practical force to this project, a grand state institution was
+founded at Alexandria. It became celebrated as the Museum. To it, as to
+a centre, philosophers from all parts of the world converged. It is said
+that at one time not less than fourteen thousand students were assembled
+there. Alexandria, in confirmation of the prophetic foresight of the
+great soldier who founded it, quickly became an immense metropolis,
+abounding in mercantile and manufacturing activity. As is ever the case
+with such cities, its higher classes were prodigal and dissipated, its
+lower only to be held in restraint by armed force. Its public amusements
+were such as might be expected--theatrical shows, music, horse-racing.
+In the solitude of such a crowd, or in the noise of such dissipation,
+anyone could find a retreat--atheists who had been banished from Athens,
+devotees from the Ganges, monotheistic Jews, blasphemers from Asia
+Minor. Indeed, it has been said that in this heterogeneous community
+blasphemy was hardly looked upon as a crime; at the worst, it was no
+more than an unfortunate, and, it might be, an innocent mistake. But,
+since uneducated men need some solid support on which their thoughts may
+rest, mere abstract doctrines not meeting their wants, it became
+necessary to provide a corporeal representation for this eclectic
+philosophical Pantheism, and hence the Ptolemies were obliged to
+restore, or, as some say, to import the worship of the god Serapis.
+Those who affirm that he was imported say that he was brought from
+Sinope; modern Egyptian scholars, however, give a different account. As
+setting forth the Pantheistic doctrine of which he was the emblem, his
+image, subsequently to attain world-wide fame, was made of all kinds of
+metals and stones. "All is God." But still the people, with that
+instinct which other nations and ages have displayed, hankered after a
+female divinity, and this led to the partial restoration of the worship
+of Isis. It is interesting to remark how the humble classes never shake
+off the reminiscences of early life, leaning rather to the maternal than
+to the paternal attachment. Perhaps it is for that reason that they
+expect a more favourable attention to their supplications from a female
+divinity than a god. Accordingly, the devotees of Isis soon out-numbered
+those of Serapis, though a magnificent temple had been built for him at
+Rhacotis, in the quarter adjoining the Museum, and his worship was
+celebrated with more than imperial splendour. In subsequent ages the
+worship of Serapis diffused itself throughout the Roman empire, though
+the authorities--consuls, senate, emperors--knowing well the idea it
+foreshadowed, and the doctrine it was meant to imply, used their utmost
+power to put it down.
+
+[Sidenote: The Alexandrian libraries.]
+
+
+[Sidenote: Botanical gardens; menageries; dissecting-houses;
+observatories.]
+
+[Sidenote: Life in the Museum.]
+
+The Alexandrian Museum soon assumed the character of a University. In it
+those great libraries were collected, the pride and boast of antiquity.
+Demetrius Phalareus was instructed to collect all the writings in the
+world. So powerfully were the exertions of himself and his successors
+enforced by the government that two immense libraries were procured.
+They contained 700,000 volumes. In this literary and scientific retreat,
+supported in ease and even in luxury--luxury, for allusions to the
+sumptuous dinners have descended to our times--the philosophers spent
+their time in mental culture by study, or mutual improvement by debates.
+The king himself conferred appointments to these positions; in later
+times, the Roman emperors succeeded to the patronage, the government
+thereby binding in golden chains intellect that might otherwise have
+proved troublesome. At first, in honour of the ancient religion, the
+presidency of the establishment was committed to an Egyptian priest; but
+in the course of time that policy was abandoned. It must not, however,
+be imagined that the duties of the inmates were limited to reading and
+rhetorical display; a far more practical character was imparted to them.
+A botanical garden, in connection with the Museum, offered an
+opportunity to those who were interested in the study of the nature of
+plants; a zoological menagerie afforded like facilities to those
+interested in animals. Even these costly establishments were made to
+minister to the luxury of the times: in the zoological garden pheasants
+were raised for the royal table. Besides these elegant and fashionable
+appointments, another, of a more forbidding and perhaps repulsive kind,
+was added; an establishment which, in the light of our times, is
+sufficient to confer immortal glory on those illustrious and high-minded
+kings, and to put to shame the ignorance and superstition of many modern
+nations: it was an anatomical school, suitably provided with means for
+the dissection of the human body, this anatomical school being the basis
+of a medical college for the education of physicians. For the
+astronomers Ptolemy Euergetes placed in the Square Porch an equinoctial
+and a solstitial armil, the graduated limbs of these instruments being
+divided into degrees and sixths. There were in the observatory stone
+quadrants, the precursors of our mural quadrants. On the floor a
+meridian line was drawn for the adjustment of the instruments. There
+were also astrolabes and dioptras. Thus, side by side, almost in the
+king's palace, were noble provisions for the cultivation of exact
+science and for the pursuit of light literature. Under the same roof
+were gathered together geometers, astronomers, chemists, mechanicians,
+engineers. There were also poets, who ministered to the literary wants
+of the dissipated city--authors who could write verse, not only in
+correct metre, but in all kinds of fantastic forms--trees, hearts, and
+eggs. Here met together the literary dandy and the grim theologian. At
+their repasts occasionally the king himself would preside, enlivening
+the moment with the condescensions of royal relaxation. Thus, of
+Philadelphus it is stated that he caused to be presented to the Stoic
+Sphaerus a dish of fruit made of wax, so beautifully coloured as to be
+undistinguishable from the natural, and on the mortified philosopher
+detecting too late the fraud that had been practised upon him, inquired
+what he now thought of the maxim of his sect that "the sage is never
+deceived by appearances." Of the same sovereign it is related that he
+received the translators of the Septuagint Bible with the highest
+honours, entertaining them at his table. Under the atmosphere of the
+place their usual religious ceremonial was laid aside, save that the
+king courteously requested one of the aged priests to offer an extempore
+prayer. It is naively related that the Alexandrians present, ever quick
+to discern rhetorical merit, testified their estimation of the
+performance with loud applause. But not alone did literature and the
+exact sciences thus find protection. As if no subjects with which the
+human mind has occupied itself can be unworthy of investigation, in the
+Museum were cultivated the more doubtful arts, magic and astrology.
+Philadelphus, who, toward the close of his life, was haunted with an
+intolerable dread of death, devoted himself with intense assiduity to
+the discovery of the elixir of life and to alchemy. Such a comprehensive
+organization for the development of human knowledge never existed in the
+world before, and, considering the circumstances, never has since. To be
+connected with it was the passport to the highest Alexandrian society
+and to court favour.
+
+[Sidenote: The Septuagint translators.]
+
+To the Museum, and, it has been asserted, particularly to Ptolemy
+Philadelphus, the Christian world is thus under obligation for the
+ancient version of the Hebrew Scriptures--the Septuagint. Many idle
+stories have been related respecting the circumstances under which that
+version was made, as that the seventy-two translators by whom it was
+executed were confined each in a separate cell, and, when their work was
+finished, the seventy-two copies were found identically the same, word
+for word, from this it was supposed that the inspiration of this
+translation was established. If any proof of that kind were needed, it
+would be much better found in the fact that whenever occasion arises in
+the New Testament of quoting from the Old, it is usually done in the
+words of the Septuagint. The story of the cells underwent successive
+improvements among the early fathers, but is now rejected as a fiction;
+and, indeed, it seems probable that the translation was not made under
+the splendid circumstances commonly related, but merely by the
+Alexandrian Jews for their own convenience. As the Septuagint grew into
+credit among the Christians, it lost favour among the Jews, who made
+repeated attempts in after years to supplant it by new versions, such as
+those of Aquila, of Theodotion, of Symmachus, and others. From the first
+the Syrian Jews had looked on it with disapproval; they even held the
+time of its translation as a day of mourning, and with malicious grief
+pointed out its errors, as, for instance, they affirmed that it made
+Methusaleh live until after the Deluge. Ptolemy treated all those who
+were concerned in providing books for the library with consideration,
+remunerating his translators and transcribers in a princely manner.
+
+[Sidenote: Lasting influence of the Museum, theological and scientific.]
+
+But the modern world is not indebted to these Egyptian kings only in the
+particular here referred to. The Museum made an impression upon the
+intellectual career of Europe so powerful and enduring that we still
+enjoy its results. That impression was twofold, theological and
+physical. The dialectical spirit and literary culture diffused among the
+Alexandrians prepared that people, beyond all others, for the reception
+of Christianity. For thirty centuries the Egyptians had been familiar
+with the conception of a triune God. There was hardly a city of any note
+without its particular triad. Here it was Amun, Maut, and Khonso; there
+Osiris, Isis, and Horus. The apostolic missionaries, when they reached
+Alexandria, found a people ready to appreciate the profoundest
+mysteries. But with these advantages came great evils. The Trinitarian
+disputes, which subsequently deluged the world with blood, had their
+starting-point and focus in Alexandria. In that city Arius and
+Athanasius dwelt. There originated that desperate conflict which
+compelled Constantine the Great to summon the Council of Nicea, to
+settle, by a formulary or creed, the essentials of our faith.
+
+But it was not alone as regards theology that Alexandria exerted a power
+on subsequent ages; her influence was as strongly marked in the
+impression it gave to science. Astronomical observatories, chemical
+laboratories, libraries, dissecting-houses, were not in vain. There went
+forth from them a spirit powerful enough to tincture all future times.
+Nothing like the Alexandrian Museum was ever called into existence in
+Greece or Rome, even in their palmiest days. It is the unique and noble
+memorial of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, who have thereby laid the
+whole human race under obligations, and vindicated their title to be
+regarded as a most illustrious line of kings. The Museum was, in truth,
+an attempt at the organization of human knowledge, both for its
+development and its diffusion. It was conceived and executed in a
+practical manner worthy of Alexander. And though, in the night through
+which Europe has been passing--a night full of dreams and delusions--men
+have not entertained a right estimate of the spirit in which that great
+institution was founded, and the work it accomplished, its glories being
+eclipsed by darker and more unworthy things, the time is approaching
+when its action on the course of human events will be better understood,
+and its influences on European civilization more clearly discerned.
+
+[Sidenote: The Museum was the issue of the Macedonian campaigns.]
+
+Thus, then, about the beginning of the third century before Christ, in
+consequence of the Macedonian campaign, which had brought the Greeks
+into contact with the ancient civilization of Asia, a great degree of
+intellectual activity was manifested in Egypt. On the site of the
+village of Rhacotis, once held as an Egyptian post to prevent the
+ingress of strangers, the Macedonians erected that city which was to be
+the entrepot of the commerce of the East and West, and to transmit an
+illustrious name to the latest generations. Her long career of
+commercial prosperity, her commanding position as respects the material
+interests of the world, justified the statesmanship of her founder, and
+the intellectual glory which has gathered round her has given an
+enduring lustre to his name.
+
+There can be no doubt that the philosophical activity here alluded to
+was the direct issue of the political and military event to which we
+have referred it. The tastes and genius of Alexander were manifested by
+his relations to Aristotle, whose studies in natural history he promoted
+by the collection of a menagerie; and in astronomy, by transmitting to
+him, through Callisthenes, the records of Babylonian observations
+extending over 1903 years. His biography, as we have seen, shows a
+personal interest in the cultivation of such studies. In this particular
+other great soldiers have resembled him; and perhaps it may be inferred
+that the practical habit of thought and accommodation of theory to the
+actual purposes of life pre-eminently required by their profession,
+leads them spontaneously to decline speculative uncertainties, and to be
+satisfied only with things that are real and exact.
+
+[Sidenote: The great men it produced.]
+
+Under the inspiration of the system of Alexander, and guided by the
+suggestions of certain great men who had caught the spirit of the times,
+the Egyptian kings thus created, under their own immediate auspices, the
+Museum. State policy, operating in the manner I have previously
+described, furnished them with an additional theological reason for
+founding this establishment. In the Macedonian campaign a vast amount of
+engineering and mathematical talent had been necessarily stimulated into
+existence, for great armies cannot be handled, great marches cannot be
+made, nor great battles fought without that result. When the period of
+energetic action was over, and to the military operations succeeded
+comparative repose and temporary moments of peace, the talent thus
+called forth found occupation in the way most congenial to it by
+cultivating mathematical and physical studies. In Alexandria, itself a
+monument of engineering and architectural skill, soon were to be found
+men whose names were destined for futurity--Apollonius, Eratosthenes,
+Manetho. Of these, one may be selected for the remark that, while
+speculative philosophers were occupying themselves with discussions
+respecting the criterion of truth, and, upon the whole, coming to the
+conclusion that no such thing existed, and that, if the truth was
+actually in the possession of man, he had no means of knowing it, Euclid
+of Alexandria was writing an immortal work, destined to challenge
+contradiction from the whole human race, and to make good its title as
+the representative of absolute and undeniable truth--truth not to be
+gainsaid in any nation or at any time. We still use the geometry of
+Euclid in our schools.
+
+[Sidenote: The writings of Euclid.]
+
+It is said that Euclid opened a geometrical school in Alexandria about
+B.C. 300. He occupied himself not only with mathematical, but also with
+physical investigation. Besides many works of the former class supposed
+to have been written by him, as on Fallacies, Conic Sections, Divisions,
+Porisms, Data, there are imputed to him treatises on Harmonics, Optics,
+and Catoptrics, the two latter subjects being discussed, agreeably to
+the views of those times, on the hypothesis of rays issuing from the eye
+to the object, instead of passing, as we consider them to do, from the
+object to the eye. It is, however, on the excellencies of his Elements
+of Geometry that the durable reputation of Euclid depends; and though
+the hypercriticism of modern mathematicians has perhaps successfully
+maintained such objections against them as that they might have been
+more precise in their axioms, that they sometimes assume what might be
+proved, that they are occasionally redundant, and their arrangement
+sometimes imperfect, yet they still maintain their ground as a model of
+extreme accuracy, of perspicuity, and as a standard of exact
+demonstration. They were employed universally by the Greeks, and, in
+subsequent ages, were translated and preserved by the Arabs.
+
+[Sidenote: The writings and works of Archimedes.]
+
+Great as is the fame of Euclid, it is eclipsed by that of Archimedes the
+Syracusan, born B.C. 287, whose connection with Egyptian science is not
+alone testified by tradition, but also by such facts as his acknowledged
+friendship with Conon of Alexandria, and his invention of the screw
+still bearing his name, intended for raising the waters of the Nile.
+Among his mathematical works, the most interesting, perhaps, in his own
+estimation, as we may judge from the incident that he directed the
+diagram thereof to be engraved on his tombstone, was his demonstration
+that the solid content of a sphere is two-thirds that of its
+circumscribing cylinder. It was by this mark that Cicero, when Quaestor
+of Sicily, discovered the tomb of Archimedes grown over with weeds. This
+theorem was, however, only one of a large number of a like kind, which
+he treated of in his two books on the sphere and cylinder in an equally
+masterly manner, and with equal success. His position as a geometer is
+perhaps better understood from the assertion made respecting him by a
+modern mathematician, that he came as near to the discovery of the
+Differential Calculus as can be done without the aid of algebraic
+transformations. Among the special problems he treated of may be
+mentioned the quadrature of the circle, his determination of the ratio
+of the circumference to the diameter being between: 3.1428 and 3.1408,
+the true value, as is now known, being 3.1416 nearly. He also wrote on
+Conoids and Spheroids, and upon that spiral still passing under his
+name, the genesis of which had been suggested to him by Conon. In his
+work entitled "Psammites" he alludes to the astronomical system
+subsequently established by Copernicus, whose name has been given to it.
+He also mentions the attempts which had been made to measure the size of
+the earth; the chief object of the work being, however, to prove not
+only that the sands upon the sea-shore can be numbered, but even those
+required to fill the entire space within the sphere of the fixed stars;
+the result being, according to our system of arithmetic, a less number
+than is expressed by unity followed by 63 ciphers. Such a book is the
+sport of a geometrical giant wantonly amusing himself with his strength.
+Among his mathematical investigations must not be omitted the quadrature
+of the parabola. His fame depends, however, not so much on his
+mathematical triumphs as upon his brilliant discoveries in physics and
+his mechanical inventions. How he laid the foundation of Hydrostatics is
+familiar to everyone, through the story of Hiero's crown. A certain
+artisan having adulterated the gold given him by King Hiero to form a
+crown, Archimedes discovered while he was accidentally stepping into a
+bath, that the falsification might be detected, and thereby invented the
+method for the determination of specific gravity. From these
+investigations he was naturally led to the consideration of the
+equilibrium of floating bodies; but his grand achievement in the
+mechanical direction was his discovery of the true theory of the lever:
+his surprising merit in these respects is demonstrated by the fact that
+no advance was made in theoretical mechanics during the eighteen
+centuries intervening between him and Leonardo da Vinci. Of minor
+matters not fewer than forty mechanical inventions have been attributed
+to him. Among these are the endless screw, the screw pump, a hydraulic
+organ, and burning mirrors. His genius is well indicated by the saying
+popularly attributed to him, "Give me whereon to stand, and I will move
+the earth," and by the anecdotes told of his exertions against Marcellus
+during the siege of Syracuse; his invention of catapults and other
+engines for throwing projectiles, as darts and heavy stones, claws
+which, reaching over the walls, lifted up into the air ships and their
+crews, and then suddenly dropped them into the sea; burning mirrors, by
+which, at a great distance, the Roman fleet was set on fire. It is
+related that Marcellus, honouring his intellect, gave the strictest
+orders that no harm should be done to him at the taking of the town, and
+that he was killed, unfortunately, by an ignorant soldier--unfortunately,
+for Europe was not able to produce his equal for nearly two thousand years.
+
+[Sidenote: The writings and works of Eratosthenes.]
+
+Eratosthenes was contemporary with Archimedes. He was born at Cyrene,
+B.C. 276. The care of the library appears to have been committed to him
+by Euergetes; but his attention was more specially directed to
+mathematical, astronomical, geographical, and historical pursuits. The
+work entitled "Catasterisms," doubtfully imputed to him, is a catalogue
+of 475 of the principal stars; but it was probably intended for nothing
+more than a manual. He also is said to have written a poem upon
+terrestrial zones. Among his important geographical labours may be
+mentioned his determination of the interval between the tropics. He
+found it to be eleven eighty-thirds of the circumference. He also
+attempted the measurement of the size of the earth by ascertaining the
+distance between Alexandria and Syene, the difference of latitude
+between which he had found to be one-fiftieth of the earth's
+circumference. It was his object to free geography from the legends with
+which the superstition of ages had adorned and oppressed it. In
+effecting this he well deserves the tribute paid to him by Humboldt, the
+modern who of all others could best appreciate his labours. He
+considered the articulation and expansion of continents; the position of
+mountain chains; the action of clouds; the geological submersion of
+lands; the elevation of ancient sea-beds; the opening of the Dardanelles
+and of the Straits of Gibraltar; the relations of the Euxine Sea; the
+problem of the equal level of the circumfluous ocean; and the necessary
+existence of a mountain chain running through Asia in the diaphragm of
+Dicaearchus. What an advance is all this beyond the meditations of
+Thales! Herein we see the practical tendencies of the Macedonian wars.
+In his astronomical observations he had the advantage of using the
+armils and other instruments in the Observatory. He ascertained that
+the direction of terrestrial gravity is not constant, but that the
+verticals converge. He composed a complete systematic description of the
+earth in three books--physical, mathematical, historical--accompanied by
+a map of all the parts then known. Of his skill as a geometer, his
+solution of the problem of two mean proportionals, still extant, offers
+ample evidence; and it is only of late years that the fragments
+remaining of his Chronicles of the Theban Kings have been properly
+appreciated. He hoped to free history as well as geography from the
+myths that deform it, a task which the prejudices and interests of man
+will never permit to be accomplished. Some amusing anecdotes of his
+opinions in these respects have descended to us. He ventured to doubt
+the historical truth of the Homeric legends. "I will believe in it when
+I have been shown the currier who made the wind-bags which Ulysses on
+his homeward voyage received from Aeolus." It is said that, having
+attained the age of eighty years, he became weary of life, and put an
+end to himself by voluntary starvation.
+
+[Sidenote: Chronology of Eratosthenes.]
+
+I shall here pause to make a few remarks suggested by the chronological
+and astronomical works of Eratosthenes. Our current chronology was the
+offspring of erroneous theological considerations, the nature of which
+required not only a short historical term for the various nations of
+antiquity, but even for the existence of man upon the globe. This
+necessity appears to have been chiefly experienced in the attempt to
+exalt certain facts in the history of the Hebrews from their subordinate
+position in human affairs, and, indeed, to give the whole of that
+history an exaggerated value. This was done in a double way: by
+elevating Hebrew history from its true grade, and depreciating or
+falsifying that of other nations. Among those who have been guilty of
+this literary offence, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop
+of Caesarea in the time of Constantine, should be designated, since in
+his chronography and synchronal tables he purposely "perverted
+chronology for the sake of making synchronisms" (Bunsen). It is true, as
+Niebuhr asserts, "He is a very dishonest writer." To a great extent,
+the superseding of the Egyptian annals was brought about by his
+influence. It was forgotten, however, that of all things chronology is
+the least suited to be an object of inspiration; and that, though men
+may be wholly indifferent to truth for its own sake, and consider it not
+improper to wrest it unscrupulously to what they may suppose to be a
+just purpose, yet that it will vindicate itself at last. It is
+impossible to succeed completely in perverting the history of a nation
+which has left numerous enduring records. Egypt offers us testimonials
+reaching over five thousand years. As Bunsen remarks, from the known
+portion of the curve of history we may determine the whole. The
+Egyptians, old as they are, belong to the middle ages of mankind, for
+there is a period antecedent to monumental history, or indeed, to
+history of any kind, during which language and mythology are formed, for
+these must exist prior to all political institutions, all art, all
+science. Even at the first moment that we gain a glimpse of the state of
+Egypt she had attained a high intellectual condition, as is proved by
+the fact that her system of hieroglyphics was perfected before the
+fourth dynasty. It continued unchanged until the time of Psammetichus. A
+stationary condition of language and writing for thousands of years
+necessarily implies a long and very remote period of active improvement
+and advance. It was doubtless such a general consideration, rather than
+a positive knowledge of the fact, which led the Greeks to assert that
+the introduction of geometry into Egypt must be attributed to kings
+before the times of Menes. Not alone do her artificial monuments attest
+for that country an extreme antiquity; she is herself her own witness;
+for, though the Nile raises its bed only four feet in a thousand years,
+all the alluvial portion of Egypt has been deposited from the waters of
+that river. A natural register thus re-enforces the written records, and
+both together compose a body of evidence not to be gainsaid. Thus the
+depth of muddy silt accumulated round the pedestals of monuments is an
+irreproachable index of their age. In the eminent position he occupied,
+Eusebius might succeed in perverting the received book-chronology; but
+he had no power to make the endless trade-wind that sweeps over the
+tropical Pacific blow a day more or a day less; none to change the
+weight of water precipitated from it by the African mountains; none to
+arrest the annual mass of mud brought down by the river. It is by
+collating such different orders of evidence together--the natural and
+the monumental, the latter gaining strength every year from the
+cultivation of hieroglyphic studies--that we begin to discern the true
+Egyptian chronology, and to put confidence in the fragments that remain
+of Eratosthenes and Manetho.
+
+[Sidenote: Astronomy of Eratosthenes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts of Aristarchus to find the distance of the sun.]
+
+At the time of which we are speaking--the time of Eratosthenes--general
+ideas had been attained to respecting the doctrine of the sphere, its
+poles, axis, the equator, arctic and antarctic circles, equinoctial
+points, solstices, colures, horizon, etc. No one competent to form an
+opinion any longer entertained a doubt respecting the globular form of
+the earth, the arguments adduced in support of that fact being such as
+are still popularly resorted to--the different positions of the horizon
+at different places, the changes in elevation of the pole, the phenomena
+of eclipses, and the gradual disappearance of ships as they sail from
+us. As to eclipses, once looked upon with superstitious awe, their true
+causes had not only been assigned, but their periodicities so well
+ascertained that predictions of their occurrence could be made. The
+Babylonians had thus long known that after a cycle of 223 lunations the
+eclipses of the moon return. The mechanism of the phases of that
+satellite was clearly understood. Indeed, Aristarchus of Samos attempted
+to ascertain the distance of the sun from the earth on the principle of
+observing the moon when she is dichotomized, a method quite significant
+of the knowledge of the time, though in practice untrustworthy;
+Aristarchus thus finding that the sun's distance is eighteen times that
+of the moon, whereas it is in reality 400. In like manner, in a general
+way, pretty clear notions were entertained of the climatic distribution
+of heat upon the earth, exaggerated, however, in this respect, that the
+torrid zone was believed to be too hot for human life, and the frigid
+too cold. Observations, as good as could be made by simple instruments,
+had not only demonstrated in a general manner the progressions,
+retrogradations and stations of the planets, but attempts had been made
+to account for, or rather to represent them, by the aid of epicycles.
+
+[Sidenote: Biography of the Ptolemies.]
+
+It was thus in Alexandria, under the Ptolemies, that modern astronomy
+arose. Ptolemy Soter, the founder of this line of kings, was not only a
+patron of science, but likewise an author. He composed a history of the
+campaigns of Alexander. Under him the collection of the library was
+commenced, probably soon after the defeat of Antigonus at the battle of
+Ipsus, B.C. 301. The museum is due to his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, who
+not only patronized learning in his own dominions, but likewise
+endeavoured to extend the boundaries of human knowledge in other
+quarters. Thus he sent an expedition under his admiral Timosthenes as
+far as Madagascar. Of the succeeding Ptolemies, Euergetes and Philopator
+were both very able men, though the later was a bad one; he murdered his
+father, and perpetrated many horrors in Alexandria. Epiphanes,
+succeeding his father when only five years old, was placed by his
+guardians under the protection of Rome, thus furnishing to the ambitious
+republic a pretence for interfering in the affairs of Egypt. The same
+policy was continued during the reign of his son Philometor, who, upon
+the whole, was an able and good king. Even Physcon, who succeeded in
+B.C. 146, and who is described as sensual, corpulent, and cruel--cruel,
+for he cut off the head, hands, and feet of his son, and sent them to
+Cleopatra his wife--could not resist the inspirations to which the
+policy of his ancestors, continued for nearly two centuries, had given
+birth, but was an effective promoter of literature and the arts, and
+himself the author of an historical work. A like inclination was
+displayed by his successors, Lathyrus and Auletes, the name of the
+latter indicating his proficiency in music. The surnames under which all
+these Ptolemies pass were nicknames, or titles of derision imposed upon
+them by their giddy and satirical Alexandrian subjects. The political
+state of Alexandria was significantly said to be a tyranny tempered by
+ridicule. The dynasty ended in the person of the celebrated Cleopatra,
+who, after the battle of Actium, caused herself, as is related in the
+legends, to be bitten by an asp. She took poison that she might not fall
+captive to Octavianus, and be led in his triumph through the streets of
+Rome.
+
+If we possessed a complete and unbiased history of these Greek kings, it
+would doubtless uphold their title to be regarded as the most
+illustrious of all ancient sovereigns. Even after their political power
+had passed into the hands of the Romans--a nation who had no regard to
+truth and to right--and philosophy, in its old age, had become
+extinguished or eclipsed by the faith of the later Caesars, enforced by
+an unscrupulous use of their power, so strong was the vitality of the
+intellectual germ they had fostered, that, though compelled to lie
+dormant for centuries, it shot up vigorously on the first occasion that
+favouring circumstances allowed.
+
+[Sidenote: They patronize literature as well as science.]
+
+This Egyptian dynasty extended its protection and patronage to
+literature as well as to science. Thus Philadelphus did not consider it
+beneath him to count among his personal friends the poet Callimachus,
+who had written a treatise on birds, and honourably maintained himself
+by keeping a school in Alexandria. The court of that sovereign was,
+moreover, adorned by a constellation of seven poets, to which the gay
+Alexandrians gave the nickname of the Pleiades. They are said to have
+been Lycophron, Theocritus, Callimachus, Aratus, Apollonius Rhodius,
+Nicander, and Homer the son of Macro. Among them may be distinguished
+Lycophron, whose work, entitled Cassandra, still remains; and
+Theocritus, whose exquisite bucolics prove how sweet a poet he was.
+
+[Sidenote: The writings of Apollonius.]
+
+To return to the scientific movement. The school of Euclid was worthily
+represented in the time of Euergetes by Apollonius Pergaeus, forty years
+later than Archimedes. He excelled both in the mathematical and physical
+department. His chief work was a treatise on Conic Sections. It is said
+that he was the first to introduce the words ellipse and hyperbola. So
+late as the eleventh century his complete works were extant in Arabic.
+Modern geometers describe him as handling his subjects with less power
+than his great predecessor Archimedes, but nevertheless displaying
+extreme precision and beauty in his methods. His fifth book, on Maxima
+and Minima, is to be regarded as one of the highest efforts of Greek
+geometry. As an example of his physical inquiries may be mentioned his
+invention of a clock.
+
+[Sidenote: The writings of Hipparchus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The theory of epicycles and eccentrics.]
+
+Fifty years after Apollonius, B.C. 160-125, we meet with the great
+astronomer Hipparchus. He does not appear to have made observations
+himself in Alexandria, but he uses those of Aristyllus and Timochares of
+that place. Indeed, his great discovery of the precession of the
+equinoxes was essentially founded on the discussion of the Alexandrian
+observations on Spica Virginis made by Timochares. In pure mathematics
+he gave methods for solving all triangles plane and spherical: he also
+constructed a table of chords. In astronomy, besides his capital
+discovery of the precession of the equinoxes just mentioned, he also
+determined the first inequality of the moon, the equation of the centre,
+and all but anticipated Ptolemy in the discovery of the evection. To him
+also must be attributed the establishment of the theory of epicycles and
+eccentrics, a geometrical conception for the purpose of resolving the
+apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, on the principle of circular
+movement. In the case of the sun and moon, Hipparchus succeeded in the
+application of that theory, and indicated that it might be adapted to
+the planets. Though never intended as a representation of the actual
+motions of the heavenly bodies, it maintained its ground until the era
+of Kepler and Newton, when the heliocentric doctrine, and that of
+elliptic motions, were incontestably established. Even Newton himself,
+in the 37th proposition of the third book of the "Principia," availed
+himself of its aid. Hipparchus also undertook to make a register of the
+stars by the method of alineations--that is, by indicating those which
+were in the same apparent straight line. The number of stars catalogued
+by him was 1,080. If he thus depicted the aspect of the sky for his
+times, he also endeavoured to do the same for the surface of the earth
+by marking the position of towns and other places by lines of latitude
+and longitude.
+
+[Sidenote: The writings of Ptolemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: His great work: the mechanical construction of the heavens.]
+
+Subsequently to Hipparchus, we find the astronomers Geminus and
+Cleomedes; their fame, however, is totally eclipsed by that of Ptolemy,
+A.D. 138, the author of the great work "Syntaxis," or the mathematical
+construction of the heavens--a work fully deserving the epithet which
+has been bestowed upon it, "a noble exposition of the mathematical
+theory of epicycles and eccentrics." It was translated by the Arabians
+after the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt; and, under the title of
+Almagest, was received by them as the highest authority on the mechanism
+and phenomena of the universe. It maintained its ground in Europe in the
+same eminent position for nearly fifteen hundred years, justifying the
+encomium of Synesius on the institution which gave it birth, "the divine
+school of Alexandria." The Almagest commences with the doctrine that the
+earth is globular and fixed in space; it describes the construction of a
+table of chords and instruments for observing the solstices, and deduces
+the obliquity of the ecliptic. It finds terrestrial latitudes by the
+gnomon; describes climates; shows how ordinary may be converted into
+sidereal time; gives reasons for preferring the tropical to the sidereal
+year; furnishes the solar theory on the principle of the sun's orbit
+being a simple eccentric; explains the equation of time; advances to the
+discussion of the motions of the moon; treats of the first inequality,
+of her eclipses, and the motion of the node. It then gives Ptolemy's own
+great discovery--that which has made his name immortal--the discovery of
+the moon's evection or second inequality, reducing it to the epicyclic
+theory. It attempts the determination of the distances of the sun and
+moon from the earth, with, however, only partial success, since it makes
+the sun's distance but one-twentieth of the real amount. It considers
+the precession of the equinoxes, the discovery of Hipparchus, the full
+period for which is twenty-five thousand years. It gives a catalogue of
+1,022 stars; treats of the nature of the Milky Way; and discusses, in
+the most masterly manner, the motions of the planets. This point
+constitutes Ptolemy's second claim to scientific fame. His determination
+of the planetary orbits was accomplished by comparing his own
+observations with those of former astronomers, especially with those of
+Timochares on Venus.
+
+[Sidenote: His geography.]
+
+To Ptolemy we are also indebted for a work on Geography used in European
+schools as late as the fifteenth century. The known world to him was
+from the Canary Islands eastward to China, and from the equator
+northward to Caledonia. His maps, however, are very erroneous; for, in
+the attempt to make them correspond to the spherical figure of the
+earth, the longitudes are too much to the east; the Mediterranean Sea is
+twenty degrees too long. Ptolemy's determinations are, therefore,
+inferior in accuracy to those of his illustrious predecessor
+Eratosthenes, who made the distance from the sacred promontory in Spain
+to the eastern mouth of the Ganges to be seventy thousand stadia.
+Ptolemy also wrote on Optics, the Planisphere, and Astrology. It is not
+often given to an author to endure for so many ages; perhaps, indeed,
+few deserve it. The mechanism of the heavens, from his point of view,
+has however, been greatly misunderstood. Neither he nor Hipparchus ever
+intended that theory as anything more than a geometrical fiction. It is
+not to be regarded as a representation of the actual celestial motions.
+And, as might be expected, for such is the destiny of all unreal
+abstractions, the theory kept advancing in complexity as facts
+accumulated, and was on the point of becoming altogether unmanageable,
+when it was supplanted by the theory of universal gravitation, which has
+ever exhibited the inalienable attribute of a true theory--affording an
+explanation of every new fact as soon as it was discovered, without
+requiring to be burdened with new provisions, and prophetically
+foretelling phenomena which had not as yet been observed.
+
+[Sidenote: The later Alexandrian geometers.]
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of the Greek age of Reason.]
+
+From the time of the Ptolemies the scientific spirit of the Alexandrian
+school declined; for though such mathematicians as Theodosius, whose
+work on Spherical Geometry was greatly valued by the Arab geometers; and
+Pappus, whose mathematical collections, in eight books, still for the
+most part remain; and Theon, doubly celebrated for his geometrical
+attainments, and as being the father of the unfortunate Hypatia, A.D.
+415, lived in the next three centuries, they were not men like their
+great predecessors. That mental strength which gives birth to original
+discovery had passed away. The commentator had succeeded to the
+philosopher. No new development illustrated the physical sciences; they
+were destined long to remain stationary. Mechanics could boast of no
+trophy like the proposition of Archimedes on the equilibrium of the
+lever; no new and exact ideas like those of the same great man on
+statical and hydrostatical pressure; no novel and clear views like those
+developed in his treatise on floating bodies; no mechanical invention
+like the first of all steam-engines--that of Hero. Natural Philosophy
+had come to a stop. Its great, and hitherto successfully cultivated
+department, Astronomy, exhibited no farther advance. Men were content
+with what had been done, and continued to amuse themselves with
+reconciling the celestial phenomena to a combination of equable circular
+motions. To what are we to attribute this pause? Something had occurred
+to enervate the spirit of science. A gloom had settled on the Museum.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of that decline.]
+
+There is no difficulty in giving an explanation of this unfortunate
+condition. Greek intellectual life had passed the period of its
+maturity, and was entering on old age. Moreover, the talent which might
+have been devoted to the service of science was in part allured to
+another pursuit, and in part repressed. Alexandria had sapped Athens,
+and in her turn Alexandria was sapped by Rome. From metropolitan
+pre-eminence she had sunk to be a mere provincial town. The great prizes
+of life were not so likely to be met with in such a declining city as in
+Italy or, subsequently, in Constantinople. Whatever affected these chief
+centres of Roman activity, necessarily influenced her; but, such is the
+fate of the conquered, she must await their decisions. In the very
+institutions by which she had once been glorified, success could only be
+attained by a conformity to the manner of thinking fashionable in the
+imperial metropolis, and the best that could be done was to seek
+distinction in the path so marked out. Yet even with all this restraint
+Alexandria asserted her intellectual power, leaving an indelible impress
+on the new theology of her conquerors. During three centuries the
+intellectual atmosphere of the Roman empire had been changing. Men were
+unable to resist the steadily increasing pressure. Tranquillity could
+only be secured by passiveness. Things had come to such a state that the
+thinking of men was to be done for them by others, or, if they thought
+at all, it must be in accordance with a prescribed formula or rule.
+Greek intellect was passing into decrepitude, and the moral condition of
+the European world was in antagonism to scientific progress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE GREEK AGE OF INTELLECTUAL DECREPITUDE.
+
+THE DEATH OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
+
+ _Decline of Greek Philosophy: it becomes Retrospective, and in
+ Philo the Jew and Apollonius of Tyana leans on Inspiration,
+ Mysticism, Miracles._
+
+ NEO-PLATONISM _founded by Ammonius Saccas, followed by
+ Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblicus, Proclus.--The Alexandrian
+ Trinity.--Ecstasy.--Alliance with Magic, Necromancy._
+
+ _The Emperor Justinian closes the philosophical Schools._
+
+ _Summary of Greek Philosophy.--Its four Problems: 1. Origin of
+ the World; 2. Nature of the Soul; 3. Existence of God; 4.
+ Criterion of Truth.--Solution of these Problems in the Age of
+ Inquiry--in that of Faith--in that of Reason--in that of
+ Decrepitude._
+
+ _Determination of the Law of Variation of Greek Opinion.--The
+ Development of National Intellect is the same as that of
+ Individual._
+
+ _Determination of the final Conclusions of Greek Philosophy as
+ to God, the World, the Soul, the Criterion of
+ Truth.--Illustrations and Criticisms on each of these Points._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of Greek philosophy.]
+
+In this chapter it is a melancholy picture that I have to present--the
+old age and death of Greek philosophy. The strong man of Aristotelism
+and Stoicism is sinking into the superannuated dotard; he is settling
+
+ "Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
+ With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
+ His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
+ For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
+ Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
+ And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
+ That ends this strange, eventful history,
+ Is second childishness and mere oblivion--
+ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
+
+He is full of admiration for the past and of contemptuous disgust at the
+present; his thoughts are wandering to the things that occupied him in
+his youth, and even in his infancy. Like those who are ready to die, he
+delivers himself up to religious preparation, without any farther
+concern whether the things on which he is depending are intrinsically
+true or false.
+
+In this, the closing scene, no more do we find the vivid faith of Plato,
+the mature intellect of Aristotle, the manly self-control of Zeno. Greek
+philosophy is ending in garrulity and mysticism. It is leaning for help
+on the conjurer, juggler, and high-priest of Nature.
+
+There are also new-comers obtruding themselves on the stage. The Roman
+soldier is about to take the place of the Greek thinker, and assert his
+claim to the effects of the intestate--to keep what suits him, and to
+destroy what he pleases. The Romans, advancing towards their age of
+Faith, are about to force their ideas on the European world.
+
+Under the shadow of the Pyramids Greek philosophy was born; after many
+wanderings for a thousand years round the shores of the Mediterranean,
+it came back to its native place, and under the shadow of the Pyramids
+it died.
+
+[Sidenote: It becomes retrospective.]
+
+[Sidenote: Has arrived at Oriental ideas.]
+
+From the period of the New Academy the decline of Greek philosophy was
+uninterrupted. Inventive genius no longer existed; its place was
+occupied by the commentator. Instead of troubling themselves with
+inquiries after absolute truth, philosophers sought support in the
+opinions of the ancient times, and the real or imputed views of
+Pythagoras, Plato, or Aristotle were received as a criterion. In this,
+the old age of philosophy, men began to act as though there had never
+been such things as original investigation and discovery among the human
+race, and that whatever truth there was in the world was not the product
+of thought, but the remains of an ancient and now all but forgotten
+revelation from heaven--forgotten through the guilt and fall of man.
+There is something very melancholy in this total cessation of inquiry.
+The mental impetus, which one would have expected to continue for a
+season by reason of the momentum that had been gathered in so many
+ages, seems to have been all at once abruptly lost. So complete a pause
+is surprising: the arrow still flies on after it has parted from the
+bow; the potter's wheel runs round though all the vessels are finished.
+In producing this sudden stoppage, the policy of the early Caesars
+greatly assisted. The principle of liberty of thought, which the very
+existence of the divers philosophical schools necessarily implied, was
+too liable to make itself manifest in aspirations for political liberty.
+While through the emperors the schools of Greece, of Alexandria, and
+Rome were depressed from that supremacy to which they might have
+aspired, and those of the provinces, as Marseilles and Rhodes, were
+relatively exalted, the former, in a silent and private way, were
+commencing those rivalries, the forerunners of the great theological
+struggles between them in after ages for political power. Christianity
+in its dawn was attended by a general belief that in the East there had
+been preserved a purer recollection of the ancient revelation, and that
+hence from that quarter the light would presently shine forth. Under the
+favouring influence of such an expectation, Orientalism, to which, as we
+have seen, Grecian thought had spontaneously arrived, was greatly
+re-enforced.
+
+[Sidenote: Philo the Jew thinks he is inspired.]
+
+[Sidenote: His mystical philosophy.]
+
+In this final period of Greek philosophy, the first to whom we must turn
+is Philo the Jew, who lived in the time of the Emperor Caligula. In
+harmony with the ideas of his nation, he derives all philosophy and
+useful knowledge from the Mosaic record, not hesitating to wrest
+Scripture to his use by various allegorical interpretations, asserting
+that man has fallen from his primitive wisdom and purity; that physical
+inquiry is of very little avail, but that an innocent life and a burning
+faith are what we must trust to. He persuaded himself that a certain
+inspiration fell upon him while he was in the act of writing, somewhat
+like that of the penmen of the Holy Scriptures. His readers may,
+however, be disposed to believe that herein he was self-deceived,
+judging both from the character of his composition and the nature of his
+doctrine. As respects the former, he writes feebly, is vacillating in
+his views, and, when watched in his treatment of a difficult point, is
+seen to be wavering and unsteady. As respects the latter, among other
+extraordinary things he teaches that the world is the chief angel or
+first son of God; he combines all the powers of God into one force, the
+Logos or holy Word, the highest powers being creative wisdom and
+governing mercy. From this are emitted all the mundane forces; and,
+since God cannot do evil, the existence of evil in the world must be
+imputed to these emanating forces. It is very clear, therefore, that
+though Philo declined Oriental pantheism, he laid his foundation on the
+Oriental theory of Emanation.
+
+[Sidenote: Apollonius of Tyana.]
+
+[Sidenote: Is a miracle-worker and prophet.]
+
+As aiding very greatly in the popular introduction of Orientalism,
+Apollonius of Tyana must be mentioned. Under the auspices of the Empress
+Julia Domna, in a biographical composition, Philostratus had the
+audacity to institute a parallel between this man and our Saviour. He
+was a miracle-worker, given to soothsaying and prophesying, led the life
+of an ascetic, his raiment and food being of the poorest. He attempted a
+reformation of religious rites and morals; denied the efficacy of
+sacrifice, substituting for it a simple worship and a pure prayer,
+scarce even needing words. He condemned the poets for propagating
+immoral fables of the gods, since they had thereby brought impurity into
+religion. He maintained the doctrine of transmigration.
+
+[Sidenote: Plutarch leans to patronizing Orientalism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Numenius inclines to a trinitarian philosophy.]
+
+Plutarch, whose time reaches to the Emperor Hadrian, has exercised an
+influence, through certain peculiarities of his style, which has
+extended even to us. As a philosopher he is to be classed among the
+Platonists, yet with a predominance of the prevailing Orientalism. His
+mental peculiarities seem to have unfitted him for an acceptance of the
+national faith, and his works commend themselves rather by the pleasant
+manner in which he deals with the topic on which he treats than by a
+deep philosophy. In some respects an analogy may be discerned between
+his views and those of Philo, the Isis of the one corresponding to the
+Word of the other. This disposition to Orientalism occurs still more
+strongly in succeeding writers; for example, Lucius Apuleius the
+Numidian, and Numenius: the latter embracing the opinion that had now
+become almost universal--that all Greek philosophy was originally
+brought from the East. In his doctrine a trinity is assumed, the first
+person of which is reason; the second the principle of becoming, which
+is a dual existence, and so gives rise to a third person, these three
+persons constituting, however, only one God. Having indicated the
+occurrence of this idea, it is not necessary for us to inquire more
+particularly into its details. As philosophical conceptions, none of the
+trinities of the Greeks will bear comparison with those of ancient
+Egypt, Amun, Maut, and Khonso, Osiris, Isis, and Horus; nor with those
+of India, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, Preserver, and
+Destroyer, or, the Past, the Present, and the Future of the Buddhists.
+
+[Sidenote: Ammonius Saccas founds Neo-Platonism.]
+
+The doctrines of Numenius led directly to those of Neo-Platonism, of
+which, however, the origin is commonly imputed to Ammonius Saccas of
+Alexandria, toward the close of the second century after Christ. The
+views of this philosopher do not appear to have been committed to
+writing. They are known to us through his disciples Longinus and
+Plotinus chiefly. Neo-Platonism, assuming the aspect of a philosophical
+religion, is distinguished for the conflict it maintained with the
+rising power of Christianity. Alexandria was the scene of this contest.
+The school which there arose lasted for about 300 years. Its history is
+not only interesting to us from its antagonism to that new power which
+soon was to conquer the Western world, but also because it was the
+expiring effort of Grecian philosophy.
+
+[Sidenote: Plotinus, a Mystic. Reunion with God.]
+
+Plotinus, an Egyptian, was born about A.D. 204. He studied at
+Alexandria, and is said to have spent eleven years under Ammonius
+Saccas. He accompanied the expedition of the Emperor Gordian to Persia
+and India, and, escaping from its disasters, opened a philosophical
+school in Rome. In that city he was held in the highest esteem by the
+Emperor Gallienus; the Empress Salonina intended to build a city, in
+which Plotinus might inaugurate the celebrated Republic of Plato. The
+plan was not, however, carried out. With the best intention for
+promoting the happiness of man, Plotinus is to be charged with no little
+obscurity and mysticism. Eunapius says truly that the heavenly elevation
+of his mind and his perplexed style make him very tiresome and
+unpleasant. His repulsiveness is, perhaps, in a measure due to his want
+of skill in the art of composition, for he did not learn to write till
+he was fifty years old. He professed a contempt for the advantages of
+life and for its pursuits. He disparaged patriotism. An ascetic in his
+habits, eating no flesh and but little bread, he held his body in utter
+contempt, saying that it was only a phantom and a clog to his soul. He
+refused to remember his birthday. As has frequently been the case with
+those who have submitted to prolonged fasting and meditation, he
+believed that he had been privileged to see God with his bodily eye, and
+on six different occasions had been reunited to him. In such a mental
+condition, it may well be supposed that his writings are mysterious,
+inconsequent and diffuse. An air of Platonism mingled with many Oriental
+ideas and ancient Egyptian recollections, pervades his works.
+
+[Sidenote: The trinity of Plotinus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ecstasy; communion with the invisible.]
+
+Like many of his predecessors, Plotinus recognized a difference between
+the mental necessities of the educated and the vulgar, justifying
+mythology on the ground that it was very useful to those who were not
+yet emancipated from the sensible. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics,
+referring to mythology and the gods in human form, had remarked, "Much
+has been mythically added for the persuasion of the multitude, and also
+on account of the laws and for other useful ends." But Plotinus also
+held that the gods are not to be moved by prayer, and that both they and
+the daemons occasionally manifest themselves visibly; that incantations
+may be lawfully practised, and are not repugnant to philosophy. In the
+body he discerns a penitential mechanism for the soul. He believes that
+the external world is a mere phantom--a dream--and the indications of
+the senses altogether deceptive. The union with the divinity of which he
+speaks he describes as an intoxication of the soul which, forgetting all
+external things, becomes lost in the contemplation of "the One." The
+doctrinal philosophy of Plotinus presents a trinity in accordance with
+the Platonic idea. (1.) The One, or Prime essence. (2.) The Reason. (3.)
+The Soul. Of the first he declares that it is impossible to speak fully,
+and in what he says on this point there are many apparent
+contradictions, as when he denies oneness to the one. His ideas of the
+trinity are essentially based on the theory of emanation. He describes
+how the second principle issues by emanation out of the first, and the
+third out of the second. The mechanism of this process may be
+illustrated by recalling how from the body of the sun issues forth
+light, and from light emerges heat. In the procession of the third from
+the second principle it is really Thought arising from Reason; but
+Thought is the Soul. The mundane soul he considers as united to nothing;
+but on these details he falls into much mysticism, and it is often
+difficult to see clearly his precise meaning, as when he says that
+Reason is surrounded by Eternity, but the Soul is surrounded by Time. He
+carries Idealism to its last extreme, and, as has been said, looks upon
+the visible world as a semblance only, deducing from his doctrine moral
+reflections to be a comfort in the trials of life. Thus he says that
+"sensuous life is a mere stage-play; all the misery in it is only
+imaginary, all grief a mere cheat of the players." "The soul is not in
+the game; it looks on, while nothing more than the external phantom
+weeps and laments." "Passive affections and misery light only on the
+outward shadow of man." The great end of existence is to draw the soul
+from external things and fasten it in contemplation on God. Such
+considerations teach us a contempt for virtue as well as for vice: "Once
+united with God, man leaves the virtues, as on entering the sanctuary he
+leaves the images of the gods in the ante-temple behind." Hence we
+should struggle to free ourselves from everything low and mean: to
+cultivate truth, and devote life to intimate communion with God,
+divesting ourselves of all personality, and passing into the condition
+of ecstasy, in which the soul is loosened from its material prison,
+separated from individual consciousness, and absorbed in the infinite
+intelligence from which it emanated. "In ecstasy it contemplates real
+existence; it identifies itself with that which it contemplates." Our
+reminiscence passes into intuition. In all these views of Plotinus the
+tincture of Orientalism predominates; the principles and practices are
+altogether Indian. The Supreme Being of the system is the "unus qui est
+omnia;" the intention of the theory of emanation is to find a
+philosophical connexion between him and the soul of man; the process for
+passing into ecstasy by sitting long in an invariable posture, by
+looking steadfastly at the tip of the nose, or by observing for a long
+time an unusual or definite manner of breathing, had been familiar to
+the Eastern devotees, as they are now to the impostors of our own times;
+the result is not celestial, but physiological. The pious Hindus were,
+however, assured that, as water will not wet the lotus, so, though sin
+may touch, it can never defile the soul after a full intuition of God.
+
+[Sidenote: Porphyry--his writings destroyed;]
+
+[Sidenote: resorts to magic and necromancy.]
+
+The opinions of Plotinus were strengthened and diffused by his
+celebrated pupil Porphyry, who was born at Tyre A.D. 233. After the
+death of Plotinus he established a school in Rome, attaining great
+celebrity in astronomy, music, geography, and other sciences. His
+treatise against Christianity was answered by Eusebius, St. Jerome, and
+others; the Emperor Theodosius the Great, however, silenced it more
+effectually by causing all the copies to be burned. Porphyry asserts his
+own unworthiness when compared with his master, saying that he had been
+united to God but once in eighty-six years, whereas Plotinus had been so
+united six times in sixty years. In him is to be seen all the mysticism,
+and, it may be added, all the piety of Plotinus. He speaks of daemons
+shapeless, and therefore invisible; requiring food, and not immortal;
+some of which rule the air, and may be propitiated or restrained by
+magic: he admits also the use of necromancy. It is scarcely possible to
+determine how much this inclination of the Neo-Platonists to the
+unlawful art is to be regarded as a concession to the popular sentiment
+of the times, for elsewhere Porphyry does not hesitate to condemn
+soothsaying and divination, and to dwell upon the folly of invoking the
+gods in making bargains, marriages, and such-like trifles. He
+strenuously enjoins a holy life in view of the fact that man has fallen
+both from his ancient purity and knowledge. He recommends a worship in
+silence and pure thought, the public worship being of very secondary
+importance. He also insists on an abstinence from animal food.
+
+[Sidenote: Iamblicus a wonder-worker.]
+
+The cultivation of magic and the necromantic art was fully carried out
+in Iamblicus, a Coelo-Syrian, who died in the reign of Constantine the
+Great. It is scarcely necessary to relate the miracles and prodigies he
+performed, though they received full credence in those superstitious
+times; how, by the intensity of his prayers, he raised himself
+unsupported nine feet above the ground; how he could make rays of a
+blinding effulgence play round his head; how, before the bodily eyes of
+his pupils, he evoked two visible daemonish imps. Nor is it necessary to
+mention the opinions of Aedesius, Chrysanthus, or Maximus.
+
+[Sidenote: Proclus unites emanation with mysticism.]
+
+For a moment, however, we may turn to Proclus, who was born in
+Constantinople A.D. 412. When Vitalian laid siege to Constantinople,
+Proclus is said to have burned his ships with a polished brass mirror.
+It is scarcely possible for us to determine how much truth there is in
+this, since similar authority affirms that he could produce rain and
+earthquakes. His theurgic propensities are therefore quite distinct.
+Yet, notwithstanding these superhuman powers, together with special
+favours displayed to him by Apollo, Athene, and other divinities, he
+found it expedient to cultivate his rites in secret, in terror of
+persecution by the Christians, whose attention he had drawn upon himself
+by writing a work in opposition to them. Eventually they succeeded in
+expelling him from Athens, thereby teaching him a new interpretation of
+the moral maxim he had adopted, "Live concealed." It was the aim of
+Proclus to construct a complete theology, which should include the
+theory of emanation, and be duly embellished with mysticism. The Orphic
+poems and Chaldaean oracles were the basis upon which he commenced; his
+character may be understood from the dignity he assumed as "high priest
+of the universe." He recommended to his disciples the study of
+Aristotle for the sake of cultivating the reason, but enjoined that of
+Plato, whose works he found to be full of sublime allegories suited to
+his purpose. He asserted that to know one's own mind is to know the
+whole universe, and that that knowledge is imparted to us by revelations
+and illuminations of the gods.
+
+[Sidenote: Justinian puts an end to philosophy.]
+
+He speculates on the manner in which absorption is to take place;
+whether the last form can pass at once into the primitive, or whether it
+is needful for it to resume, in a returning succession, the intervening
+states of its career. From such elevated ideas, considering the mystical
+manner in which they were treated, there was no other prospect for
+philosophy than to end as Neo-Platonism did under Damasius. The final
+days were approaching. The Emperor Justinian prohibited the teaching of
+philosophy, and closed its schools in Athens A.D. 529. Its last
+representatives, Damasius, Simplicius, and Isidorus, went as exiles to
+Persia, expecting to find a retreat under the protection of the great
+king, who boasted that he was a philosopher and a Platonist.
+Disappointed, they were fain to return to their native land; and it must
+be recorded to the honour of Chosroes that, in his treaty of peace with
+the Romans, he stipulated safety and toleration for these exiles, vainly
+hoping that they might cultivate their philosophy and practise their
+rites without molestation.
+
+So ends Greek philosophy. She is abandoned, and preparation made for
+crowning Faith in her stead. The inquiries of the Ionians, the reasoning
+of the Eleatics, the labours of Plato, of Aristotle, have sunk into
+mysticism and the art of the conjurer. As with the individual man, so
+with philosophy in its old age: when all else had failed it threw itself
+upon devotion, seeking consolation in the exercises of piety--a frame of
+mind in which it was ready to die. The whole period from the New Academy
+shows that the grand attempt, every year becoming more and more urgent,
+was to find a system which should be in harmony with that feeling of
+religious devotion into which the Roman empire had fallen--a feeling
+continually gathering force. An air of piety, though of a most delusive
+kind, had settled upon the whole pagan world.
+
+[Sidenote: Summary of Greek philosophy.]
+
+From the long history of Greek philosophy presented in the foregoing
+pages, we turn, 1st, to an investigation of the manner of progress of
+the Greek mind; and, 2nd, to the results to which it attained.
+
+The period occupied by the events we have been considering extends over
+almost twelve centuries. It commences with Thales, B.C. 636, and ends
+A.D. 529.
+
+[Sidenote: Age of Inquiry--its solutions.]
+
+[Sidenote: First problem. Origin of the world.]
+
+1st. Greek philosophy commenced on the foundation of physical
+suggestions. Its first object was the determination of the origin and
+manner of production of the world. The basis upon which it rested was in
+its nature unsubstantial, for it included intrinsic errors due to
+imperfect and erroneous observations. It diminished the world and
+magnified man, accepting the apparent aspect of Nature as real, and
+regarding the earth as a flat surface, on which the sky was sustained
+like a dome. It limited the boundaries of the terrestrial plane to an
+insignificant extent, and asserted that it was the special and exclusive
+property of man. The stars and other heavenly bodies it looked upon as
+mere meteors or manifestations of fire. With superficial simplicity, it
+received the notions of absolute directions in space, up and down, above
+and below. In a like spirit is adopted, from the most general
+observation, the doctrine of four elements, those forms of substance
+naturally presented to us in a predominating quantity--earth, water,
+air, fire. From these slender beginnings it made its first attempt at a
+cosmogony, or theory of the mode of creation, by giving to one of these
+elements a predominance or superiority over the other three, and making
+them issue from it. With one teacher the primordial element was water;
+with another, air; with another, fire. Whether a genesis had thus taken
+place, or whether all four elements were co-ordinate and equal, the
+production of the world was of easy explanation; for, by calling in the
+aid of ordinary observation, which assures us that mud will sink to the
+bottom of water, that water will fall through air, that it is the
+apparent nature of fire to ascend, and, combining these illusory facts
+with the erroneous notion of up and down in space, the arrangement of
+the visible world became clear--the earth down below, the water floating
+upon it, the air above, and, still higher, the region of fire. Thus it
+appears that the first inquiry made by European philosophy was, Whence
+and in what manner came the world?
+
+[Sidenote: Its irreligious solution thereof.]
+
+The principles involved in the solution of this problem evidently led to
+a very important inference, at this early period betraying what was
+before long to become a serious point of dispute. It is natural for man
+to see in things around him visible tokens of divinity, continual
+providential dispensations. But in this, its very first act, Greek
+philosophy had evidently excluded God from his own world. This settling
+of the heavy, this ascending of the light, was altogether a purely
+physical affair; the limitless sea, the blue air, and the unnumbered
+shining stars, were set in their appropriate places, not at the pleasure
+or by the hand of God, but by innate properties of their own. Popular
+superstition was in some degree appeased by the localization of deities
+in the likeness of men in a starry Olympus above the sky, a region
+furnishing unsubstantial glories and a tranquil abode. And yet it is not
+possible to exclude altogether the spiritual from this world. The soul,
+ever active and ever thinking, asserts its kindred with the divine. What
+is that soul? Such was the second question propounded by Greek
+philosophy.
+
+[Sidenote: Second problem. What is the soul?]
+
+[Sidenote: Its material solution thereof.]
+
+A like course of superficial observation was resorted to in the solution
+of this inquiry. To breathe is to live; then the breath is the life. If
+we cease to breathe we die. Man only becomes a living soul when the
+breath of life enters his nostrils; he is a senseless and impassive form
+when the last breath is expired. In this life-giving principle, the air,
+must therefore exist all those noble qualities possessed by the soul. It
+must be the source from which all intellect arises, the store to which
+all intellect again returns. The philosophical school whose fundamental
+principle was that the air is the primordial element thus brought back
+the Deity into the world, though under a material form. Yet still it was
+in antagonism to the national polytheism, unless from that one god, the
+air, the many gods of Olympus arose.
+
+[Sidenote: Third problem. What is God?]
+
+But who is that one God? This is the third question put forth by Greek
+philosophy. Its answer betrays that in this, its beginning, it is
+tending to Pantheism.
+
+In all these investigations the starting-point had been material
+conceptions, depending on the impressions or information of the senses.
+Whatever the conclusion arrived at, its correctness turned on the
+correctness of that information. When we put a little wine into a
+measure of water, the eye may no longer see it, but the wine is there.
+When a rain-drop falls on the leaves of a distant forest, we cannot hear
+it, but the murmur of many drops composing a shower is audible enough.
+But what is that murmur except the sum of the sounds of all the
+individual drops?
+
+[Sidenote: Fourth problem. Has man a criterion of truth?]
+
+And so it is plain our senses are prone to deceive us. Hence arises the
+fourth great question of Greek philosophy: Have we any criterion of
+truth?
+
+[Sidenote: Importance of the views of Pythagoras.]
+
+The moment a suspicion that we have not crosses the mind of man, he
+realizes what may be truly termed intellectual despair. Is this world an
+illusion, a phantasm of the imagination? If things material and
+tangible, and therefore the most solid props of knowledge, are thus
+abruptly destroyed, in what direction shall we turn? Within a single
+century Greek philosophy had come to this pass, and it was not without
+reason that intelligent men looked on Pythagoras almost as a divinity
+upon earth when he pointed out to them a path of escape; when he bid
+them reflect on what it was that had thus taught them the fallibility of
+sense. For what is it but reason that has been thus warning us, and, in
+the midst of delusions, has guided us to the truth--reason, which has
+objects of her own, a world of her own? Though the visible and audible
+may deceive, we may nevertheless find absolute truth in things
+altogether separate from material nature, particularly in the relations
+of numbers and properties of geometrical forms. There is no illusion in
+this, that two added to two make four; or in this, that any two sides of
+a triangle taken together are greater than the third. If, then, we are
+living in a region of deceptions, we may rest assured that it is
+surrounded by a world of truth.
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of the Eleatic school and the Sophists.]
+
+From the material basis speculative philosophy gradually disengaged
+itself through the labours of the Eleatic school, the controversy as to
+the primary element receding into insignificance, and being replaced by
+investigations as to Time, Motion, Space, Thought, Being, God. The
+general result of these inquiries brought into prominence the suspicion
+of the untrustworthiness of the senses, the tendency of the whole period
+being manifested in the hypothesis at last attained, that atoms and
+space alone exist; and, since the former are mere centres of force,
+matter is necessarily a phantasm. When, therefore, the Athenians
+themselves commenced the cultivation of philosophy, it was with full
+participation in the doubt and uncertainty thus overspreading the whole
+subject. As Sophists, their action closed this speculative period, for,
+by a comparison of all the partial sciences thus far known, they arrived
+at the conclusion that there is no conscience, no good or evil, no
+philosophy, no religion, no law, no criterion of truth.
+
+[Sidenote: Age of faith--its solutions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its continuation by Plato, and its end by the Sceptics.]
+
+But man cannot live without some guiding rule. If his speculations in
+Nature will yield him nothing on which he may rely, he will seek some
+other aid. If there be no criterion of truth for him in philosophy, he
+will lean on implicit, unquestioning faith. If he cannot prove by
+physical arguments the existence of God, he will, with Socrates, accept
+that great fact as self evident and needing no demonstration. He will,
+in like manner, take his stand upon the undeniable advantages of virtue
+and good morals, defending the doctrine that pleasure should be the
+object of life--pleasure of that pure kind which flows from a
+cultivation of ennobling pursuits, or instinctive, as exhibited in the
+life of brutes. But when he has thus cast aside demonstration as
+needless for his purposes, and put his reliance in this manner on faith,
+he has lost the restraining, the guiding principle that can set bounds
+to his conduct. If he considers, with Socrates, who opens the third age
+of Greek development--its age of faith--the existence of God as not
+needing any proof, he may, in like manner, add thereto the existence of
+matter and ideas. To faith there will be no difficulty in such
+doctrines as those of Reminiscence, the double immortality of the soul,
+the actual existence of universals; and, if such faith, unrestrained and
+unrestricted, be directed to the regulation of personal life, there is
+nothing to prevent a falling into excess and base egoism. For ethics, in
+such an application, ends either in the attempt at the procurement of
+extreme personal sanctity or the obtaining of individual pleasure--the
+foundation of patriotism is sapped, the sentiment of friendship is
+destroyed. So it was with the period of Grecian faith inaugurated by
+Socrates, developed by Plato, and closed by the Sceptics. Antisthenes
+and Diogenes of Sinope, in their outrages on society and their
+self-mortifications, show to what end a period of faith, unrestrained by
+reason, will come; and Epicurus demonstrated its tendency when guided by
+self.
+
+Thus closes the third period of Greek philosophical development.
+
+[Sidenote: Age of Reason--its solutions.]
+
+In introducing us to a fourth, Aristotle insists that, though we must
+rely on reason, Reason itself must submit to be guided by Experience;
+and Zeno, taking up the same thought, teaches us that we must appeal to
+the decisions of common sense. He disposes of all doubt respecting the
+criterion of truth by proclaiming that the distinctness of our sensuous
+impressions is a sufficient guide. In all this, the essential condition
+involved is altogether different from that of the speculative ages, and
+also of the age of faith. Yet, though under the ostensible guidance of
+reason, the human mind ever seeks to burst through such self-imposed
+restraints, attempting to ascertain things for which it possesses no
+suitable data. Even in the age of Aristotle, the age of Reason in
+Greece, philosophy resumed such questions as those of the creation of
+the world, the emanation of matter from God, the existence and nature of
+evil, the immortality, or, alas! it might perhaps be more truly said,
+judging from its conclusions, the death of the soul, and this even after
+the Sceptics had, with increased force, denied that we have any
+criterion of truth, and showed to their own satisfaction that man, at
+the best, can do nothing but doubt; and, in view of his condition here
+upon earth, since it has not been permitted him to know what is right
+and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, his wisest course is
+to give himself no concern about the matter, but tranquilly sink into a
+state of complete indifference and quietism.
+
+How uniformly do we see that through such variations of opinion
+individual man approaches his end. For Greek philosophy, what other
+prospect was there but decrepitude, with its contempt for the present,
+its attachment to the past, its distrust of man, its reliance on the
+mysterious--the unknown? And this imbecility how plainly we witness
+before the scene finally is closed.
+
+[Sidenote: Duration of these ages.]
+
+If now we look back upon this career of the Grecian mind, we find that
+after the legendary prehistoric period--the age of credulity--there came
+in succession an age of speculative inquiry, an age of faith, an age of
+reason, an age of decrepitude--the first, the age of credulity, was
+closed by geographical discovery; the second by the criticism of the
+Sophists; the third by the doubts of the Sceptics; the fourth, eminently
+distinguished by the greatness of its results, gradually declined into
+the fifth, an age of decrepitude, to which the hand of the Roman put an
+end. In the mental progress of this people we therefore discern the
+foreshadowing of a course like that of individual life, its epochs
+answering to Infancy, Childhood Youth, Manhood, Old Age; and which, on a
+still grander scale, as we shall hereafter find, has been repeated by
+all Europe in its intellectual development.
+
+[Sidenote: Boundaries of these ages.]
+
+In a space of 1150 years, ending about A.D. 529, the Greek mind had
+completed its philosophical career. The ages into which we have divided
+that course pass by insensible gradations into each other. They overlap
+and intermingle, like a gradation of colours, but the characteristics of
+each are perfectly distinct.
+
+[Sidenote: Determination of the law of variations of opinions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Philosophical conclusions finally arrived at by the Greeks.]
+
+2nd. Having thus determined the general law of the variation of
+opinions, that it is the same in this nation as in an individual, I
+shall next endeavour to disentangle the final results attained,
+considering Greek philosophy as a whole. To return to the illustration,
+to us more than an empty metaphor, though in individual life there is a
+successive passage through infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood to
+old age, a passage in which the characteristics of each period in their
+turn disappear, yet, nevertheless, there are certain results in another
+sense permanent, giving to the whole progress its proper individuality.
+A critical eye may discern in the successive stages of Greek
+philosophical development decisive and enduring results. These it is for
+which we have been searching in this long and tedious discussion.
+
+There are four grand topics in Greek philosophy: 1st, the existence and
+attributes of God; 2nd, the origin and destiny of the world; 3rd, the
+nature of the human soul; 4th, the possibility of a criterion of truth.
+I shall now present what appear to me to be the results at which the
+Greek mind arrived on each of these points.
+
+[Sidenote: As to God--His unity.]
+
+(1.) Of the existence and attributes of God. On this point the decision
+of the Greek mind was the absolute rejection of all anthropomorphic
+conceptions, even at the risk of encountering the pressure of the
+national superstition. Of the all-powerful, all-perfect, and eternal
+there can be but one, for such attributes are absolutely opposed to
+anything like a participation, whether of a spiritual or material
+nature; and hence the conclusion that the universe itself is God, and
+that all animate and inanimate things belong to his essence. In him they
+live, and move, and have their being. It is conceivable that God may
+exist without the world, but it is inconceivable that the world should
+exist without God. We must not, however, permit ourselves to be deluded
+by the varied aspect of things; for, though the universe is thus God, we
+know it not as it really is, but only as it appears. God has no
+relations to space and time. They are only the fictions of our finite
+imagination.
+
+[Sidenote: But their solution is Pantheism.]
+
+But this ultimate effort of the Greek mind is Pantheism. It is the same
+result which the more aged branch of the Indo-European family had long
+before reached. "There is no God independent of Nature; no other has
+been revealed by tradition, perceived by the sense, or demonstrated by
+argument."
+
+Yet never will man be satisfied with such a conclusion. It offers him
+none of that aspect of personality which his yearnings demand. This
+infinite, and eternal, and universal is no intellect at all. It is
+passionless, without motive, without design. It does not answer to those
+lineaments of which he catches a glimpse when he considers the
+attributes of his own soul. He shudderingly turns from Pantheism, this
+final result of human philosophy, and, voluntarily retracing his steps,
+subordinates his reason to his instinctive feelings; declines the
+impersonal as having nothing in unison with him, and asserts a personal
+God, the Maker of the universe and the Father of men.
+
+[Sidenote: As to the world--a manifestation of God.]
+
+(2.) Of the origin and destiny of the world. In an examination of the
+results at which the Greek mind arrived on this topic, our labour is
+rendered much lighter by the assistance we receive from the decision of
+the preceding inquiry. The origin of all things is in God, of whom the
+world is only a visible manifestation. It is evolved by and from him,
+perhaps, as the Stoics delighted to say, as the plant is evolved by and
+from the vital germ in the seed. It is an emanation of him. On this
+point we may therefore accept as correct the general impression
+entertained by philosophers, Greek, Alexandrian, and Roman after the
+Christian era, that, at the bottom, the Greek and Oriental philosophies
+were alike, not only as respects the questions they proposed for
+solution, but also in the decisions they arrived at. As we have said,
+this impression led to the belief that there must have been in the
+remote past a revelation common to both, though subsequently obscured
+and vitiated by the infirmities and wickedness of man. This doctrine of
+emanation, reposing on the assertion that the world existed eternally in
+God, that it came forth into visibility from him, and will be hereafter
+absorbed into him, is one of the most striking features of Veda
+theology. It is developed with singular ability by the Indian
+philosophers as well as by the Greeks, and is illustrated by their
+poets.
+
+[Sidenote: This solution identical with the Oriental.]
+
+The following extract from the Institutes of Menu will convey the
+Oriental conclusion: "This universe existed only in the first divine
+idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness; imperceptible,
+undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered by revelation,
+as if it were wholly immersed in sleep. Then the sole self-existing
+power, himself undiscerned, but making this world discernible, with five
+elements and other principles of nature, appeared with undiminished
+glory, expanding his idea, or dispelling the gloom. He whom the mind
+alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no
+visible parts, who exists from eternity--even He, the soul of all
+beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person. He, having
+willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first
+with a thought created the waters. The waters are so called (nara)
+because they were the production of _Nara_, or the spirit of God; and,
+since they were his first _ayana_ or place of motion, he thence is named
+Narayana, or moving on the waters. From that which is the first cause,
+not the object of sense existing everywhere in substance, not existing
+to our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine
+male. He framed the heaven above, the earth beneath, and in the midst
+placed the subtle ether, the light regions, and the permanent receptacle
+of waters. He framed all creatures. He gave being to time and the
+divisions of time--to the stars also and the planets. For the sake of
+distinguishing actions, he made a total difference between right and
+wrong. He whose powers are incomprehensible, having created this
+universe, was again absorbed in the spirit, changing the time of energy
+for the time of repose."
+
+[Sidenote: Illustrations of the origins, duration, and absorption of the
+world.]
+
+From such extracts from the sacred writings of the Hindus we might turn
+to their poets, and find the same conceptions of the emanation,
+manifestation, and absorption of the world illustrated. "The Infinite
+being is like the clear crystal, which receives into itself all the
+colours and emits them again, yet its transparency or purity is not
+thereby injured or impaired." "He is like the diamond, which absorbs the
+light surrounding it, and glows in the dark from the emanation thereof."
+In similes of a less noble nature they sought to convey their idea to
+the illiterate "Thou hast seen the spider spin his web, thou hast seen
+its excellent geometrical form, and how well adapted it is to its use;
+thou hast seen the play of tinted colours making it shine like a
+rainbow in the rays of the morning sun. From his bosom the little
+artificer drew forth the wonderful thread, and into his bosom, when it
+pleases him, he can withdraw it again. So Brahm made, and so will he
+absorb the world." In common the Greek and Indian asserted that being
+exists for the sake of thought, and hence they must be one; that the
+universe is a thought in the mind of God, and is unaffected by the
+vicissitudes of the worlds of which it is composed. In India this
+doctrine of emanation had reached such apparent precision that some
+asserted it was possible to demonstrate that the entire Brahm was not
+transmuted into mundane phenomena, but only a fourth part; that there
+occur successive emanations and absorptions, a periodicity in this
+respect being observed; that, in these considerations, we ought to guard
+ourselves from any deception arising from the visible appearance of
+material things, for there is reason to believe that matter is nothing
+more than forces filling space. Democritus raised us to the noble
+thought that, small as it is, a single atom may constitute a world.
+
+The doctrine of Emanation has thus a double interpretation. It sets
+forth the universe either as a part of the substance of God, or as an
+unsubstantial something proceeding from him: the former a conception
+more tangible and readily grasped by the mind; the latter of
+unapproachable sublimity, when we recall the countless beautiful and
+majestic forms which Nature on all sides presents. This visible world is
+only the shadow of God.
+
+In the further consideration of this doctrine of the issue forthcoming,
+or emanation of the universe from God, and its return into or absorption
+by him, an illustration may not be without value. Out of the air, which
+may be pure and tranquil, the watery vapour often comes forth in a
+visible form, a misty fleece, perhaps no larger than the hand of a man
+at first, but a great cloud in the end. The external appearance the
+forthcoming form presents is determined by the incidents of the times;
+it may have a pure whiteness or a threatening blackness; its edges may
+be fringed with gold. In the bosom of such a cloud the lightning may be
+pent up, from it the thunder may be heard; but, even if it should not
+offer these manifestations of power, if its disappearance should be as
+tranquil as its formation, it has not existed in vain. No cloud ever yet
+formed on the sky without leaving an imperishable impression on the
+earth, for while it yet existed there was not a plant whose growth was
+not delayed, whose substance was not lessened. And of such a cloud the
+production of which we have watched, how often has it happened to us to
+witness its melting away into the untroubled air. From the untroubled
+air it came, and to the pure untroubled air it has again returned.
+
+Now such a cloud is made up of countless hosts of microscopic drops,
+each maintaining itself separate from the others, and each, small though
+it may be, having an individuality of its own. The grand aggregate may
+vary its colour and shape; it may be the scene of unceasing and rapid
+interior movements of many kinds, yet it presents its aspect unchanged,
+or changes tranquilly and silently, still glowing in the light that
+falls on it, still casting its shadow on the ground. It is an emblem of
+the universe according to the ancient doctrine, showing us how the
+visible may issue from the invisible, and return again thereto; that a
+drop too small for the unassisted eye to see may be the representative
+of a world. The spontaneous emergence and disappearance of a cloud is
+the emblem of a transitory universe issuing forth and disappearing,
+again to be succeeded by other universes, other like creations in the
+long lapse of time.
+
+[Sidenote: As to the soul--a part of the divinity.]
+
+(3.) Of the nature of the soul. From the material quality assigned to
+the soul by the early Ionian schools, as that it was air, fire, or the
+like, there was a gradual passage to the opinion of its immateriality.
+To this, precision was given by the assertion that it had not only an
+affinity with, but even is a part of God. Whatever were the views
+entertained of the nature and attributes of the Supreme Being, they
+directly influenced the conclusions arrived at respecting the nature of
+the soul.
+
+[Sidenote: Its immortality and final absorption.]
+
+Greek philosophy, in its highest state of development, regarded the soul
+as something more than the sum of the moments of thinking. It held it to
+be a portion of the Deity himself. This doctrine is the necessary
+corollary of Pantheism. It contemplated a past eternity, a future
+immortality. It entered on such inquiries as whether the number of souls
+in the universe is constant. As upon the foregoing point, so upon this:
+there was a complete analogy between the decision arrived at in Grecian
+and that in Indian philosophy. Thus the latter says, "I am myself an
+irradiated manifestation of the supreme BRAHM." "Never was there a time
+in which I was not, nor thou, nor these princes of the people, and never
+shall I not be; henceforth we all are." Viewing the soul as merely a
+spectator and stranger in this world, they regarded it as occupying
+itself rather in contemplation than in action, asserting that in its
+origin it is an immediate emanation from the Divinity--not a
+modification nor a transformation of the Supreme, but a portion of him;
+"its relation is not that of a servant to his master, but of a part to
+the whole." It is like a spark separated from a flame; it migrates from
+body to body, sometimes found in the higher, then in the lower, and
+again in the higher tribes of life, occupying first one, then another
+body, as circumstances demand. And, as a drop of water pursues a devious
+career in the cloud, in the rain, in the river, a part of a plant, or a
+part of an animal, but sooner or later inevitably finds its way back to
+the sea from which it came, so the soul, however various its fortunes
+may have been, sinks back at last into the divinity from which it
+emanated.
+
+Both Greeks and Hindus turned their attention to the delusive phenomena
+of the world. Among the latter many figuratively supposed that what we
+call visible nature is a mere illusion befalling the soul, because of
+its temporary separation from God. In the Buddhist philosophy the world
+is thus held to be a creature of the imagination. But among some in
+those ancient, as among others in more modern times, it was looked upon
+as having a more substantial condition, and the soul as a passive mirror
+in which things reflected themselves, or perhaps it might, to some
+extent, be the partial creator of its own forms. However that may be,
+its final destiny is a perfect repose after its absorption in the
+Supreme.
+
+[Sidenote: Illustration of the nature of the soul.]
+
+On this third topic of ancient philosophy an illustration may not be
+without use. As a bubble floats upon the sea, and, by reason of its
+form, reflects whatever objects may be present, whether the clouds in
+the sky, or the stationary and moving things on the shore, nay, even to
+a certain extent depicts the sea itself on which it floats, and from
+which it arose, offering these various forms not only in shapes
+resembling the truth in the proper order of light and shade, the proper
+perspective, the proper colours, but, in addition thereto, tincturing
+them all with a play of hues arising from itself, so it is with the
+soul. From a boundless and unfathomable sea the bubble arose. It does
+not in any respect differ in nature from its source. From water it came,
+and mere water it ever is. It gathers its qualities, so far as external
+things are concerned, only from its form, and from the environment in
+which it is placed. As the circumstances to which it is exposed vary, it
+floats here and there, merging into other bubbles it meets, and emerging
+from the collected foam again. In such migrations it is now larger, now
+smaller; at one moment passing into new shapes, at another lost in a
+coalescence with those around it. But whatever these its migrations,
+these its vicissitudes, there awaits it an inevitable destiny, an
+absorption, a re-incorporation with the ocean. In that final moment,
+what is it that is lost? what is it that has come to an end? Not the
+essential substance, for water it was before it was developed, water it
+was during its existence, and water it still remains, ready to be
+re-expanded.
+
+Nor does the resemblance fail when we consider the general functions
+discharged while the bubble maintained its form. In it were depicted in
+their true shapes and relative magnitudes surrounding things. It hence
+had a relation to Space. And, if it was in motion, it reflected in
+succession the diverse objects as they passed by. Through such
+successive representations it maintained a relation to Time. Moreover,
+it imparted to the images it thus produced a coloration of its own, and
+in all this was an emblem of the Soul. For Space and Time are the
+outward conditions with which it is concerned, and it adds thereto
+abstract ideas, the product of its own nature.
+
+[Sidenote: Its continued existence--its Nirwana.]
+
+But when the bubble bursts there is an end of all these relations. No
+longer is there any reflection of external forms, no longer any motion,
+no longer any innate qualities to add. In one respect the bubble is
+annihilated, in another it still exists. It has returned to that
+infinite expanse in comparison with which it is altogether insignificant
+and imperceptible. Transitory, and yet eternal: transitory, since all
+its relations of a special and individual kind have come to an end;
+eternal in a double sense--the sense of Platonism--since it was
+connected with a past of which there was no beginning, and continues in
+a future to which there is no end.
+
+[Sidenote: As to the criterion of truth--sense-delusions.]
+
+(4.) Of the possibility of a criterion of truth. An absolute criterion
+of truth must at once accredit itself, as well as other things. At a
+very early period in philosophy the senses were detected as being
+altogether untrustworthy. On numberless occasions, instead of
+accrediting, they discredit themselves. A stick, having a spark of fire
+at one end, gives rise to the appearance of a circle of light when it is
+turned round quickly. The rainbow seems to be an actually existing arch
+until the delusion is detected by our going to the place over which it
+seems to rest. Nor is it alone as respects things for which there is an
+exterior basis or foundation, such as the spark of fire in one of these
+cases, and the drops of water in the other. Each of our organs of sense
+can palm off delusions of the most purely fictitious kind. The eye may
+present apparitions as distinct as the realities among which they place
+themselves; the ear may annoy us with the continual repetition of a
+murmuring sound, or parts of a musical strain, or articulate voices,
+though we well know that it is all a delusion; and in like manner, in
+their proper way, in times of health, and especially in those of
+sickness, will the other senses of taste, and touch, and smell practise
+upon us their deceptions.
+
+This being the case, how shall we know that any information derived from
+such unfaithful sources is true? Pythagoras rendered a great service in
+telling us to remember that we have within ourselves a means of
+detecting fallacy and demonstrating truth. What is it that assures us of
+the unreality of the fiery circle, the rainbow, the spectre, the voices,
+the crawling of insects upon the skin? Is it not reason? To reason may
+we not then trust?
+
+[Sidenote: Uncertainties in philosophizing.]
+
+With such facts before us, what a crowd of inquiries at once presses
+upon our attention--inquiries which even in modern times have occupied
+the thoughts of the greatest metaphysicians. Shall we begin our studies
+by examining sensations or by examining ideas? Shall we say with
+Descartes that all clear ideas are true? Shall we inquire with Spinoza
+whether we have any ideas independent of experience? With Hobbes, shall
+we say that all our thoughts are begotten by and are the representatives
+of objects exterior to us; that our conceptions arise in material
+motions pressing on our organs, producing motion in them, and so
+affecting the mind; that our sensations do not correspond with outward
+qualities; that sound and noise belong to the bell and the air, and not
+to the mind, and, like colour, are only agitations occasioned by the
+object in the brain; that imagination is a conception gradually dying
+away after the act of sense, and is nothing more than a decaying
+sensation; that memory is the vestige of former impressions, enduring
+for a time; that forgetfulness is the obliteration of such vestiges;
+that the succession of thought is not indifferent, at random, or
+voluntary, but that thought follows thought in a determinate and
+predestined sequence; that whatever we imagine is finite, and hence we
+cannot conceive of the infinite, nor think of anything not subject to
+sense? Shall we say with Locke that there are two sources of our ideas,
+sensation and reflection; that the mind cannot know things directly, but
+only through ideas? Shall we suggest with Leibnitz that reflection is
+nothing more than attention to what is passing in the mind, and that
+between the mind and the body there is a sympathetic synchronism? With
+Berkeley shall we assert that there is no other reason for inferring the
+existence of matter itself than the necessity of having some synthesis
+for its attributes; that the objects of knowledge are ideas and nothing
+else; and that the mind is active in sensation? Shall we listen to the
+demonstration of Hume, that, if matter be an unreal fiction, the mind
+is not less so, since it is no more than a succession of impressions and
+ideas; that our belief in causation is only the consequence of habit;
+and that we have better proof that night is the cause of day, than of
+thousands of other cases in which we persuade ourselves that we know the
+right relation of cause and effect; that from habit alone we believe the
+future will resemble the past? Shall we infer with Condillac that memory
+is only transformed sensation, and comparison double attention; that
+every idea for which we cannot find an exterior object is destitute of
+significance; that our innate ideas come by development, and that
+reasoning and running are learned together. With Kant shall we conclude
+that there is but one source of knowledge, the union of the object and
+the subject--but two elements thereof, space and time; and that they are
+forms of sensibility, space being a form of internal sensibility, and
+time both of internal and external, but neither of them having any
+objective reality; and that the world is not known to us as it is, but
+only as it appears?
+
+[Sidenote: Remarks on the criterion.]
+
+I admit the truth of the remark of Posidonius that a man might as well
+be content to die as to cease philosophizing; for, if there are
+contradictions in philosophy, there are quite as many in life. In the
+light of this remark, I shall therefore not hesitate to offer a few
+suggestions respecting the criterion of human knowledge, undiscouraged
+by the fact that so many of the ablest men have turned their attention
+to it. In this there might seem to be presumption, were it not that the
+advance of the sciences, and especially of human physiology has brought
+us to a more elevated point of view, and enabled us to see the state of
+things much more distinctly than was possible for our predecessors.
+
+[Sidenote: Defective information of the old philosophy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity of a more general conception as to man.]
+
+[Sidenote: The whole cycle must be included,]
+
+[Sidenote: and also his race connexions.]
+
+I think that the inability of ancient philosophers to furnish a true
+solution of this problem was altogether owing to the imperfect, and,
+indeed, erroneous idea they had of the position of man. They gave too
+much weight to his personal individuality. In the mature period of his
+life they regarded him as isolated, independent, and complete in
+himself. They forgot that this is only a momentary phase in his
+existence, which, commencing from small beginnings, exhibits a
+continuous expansion or progress. From a single cell, scarcely more than
+a step above the inorganic state, not differing, as we may infer both
+from the appearance it offers and the forms through which it runs in the
+earlier stages of life, from the cell out of which any other animal or
+plant, even the humblest, is derived, a passage is made through form
+after form in a manner absolutely depending upon surrounding physical
+conditions. The history is very long, and the forms are very numerous,
+between the first appearance of the primitive trace and the hoary aspect
+of seventy years. It is not correct to take one moment in this long
+procession and make it a representative of the whole. It is not correct
+to say, even if the body of the mature man undergoes unceasing changes
+to an extent implying the reception, incorporation, and dismissal of
+nearly a ton and a half of material in the course of a year, that in
+this flux of matter there is not only a permanence of form, but, what is
+of infinitely more importance, an unchangeableness in his intellectual
+powers. It is not correct to say this; indeed, it is wholly untrue. The
+intellectual principle passes forward in a career as clearly marked as
+that in which the body runs. Even if we overlook the time antecedent to
+birth, how complete is the imbecility of his early days! The light
+shines upon his eyes, he sees not; sounds fall upon his ear, he hears
+not. From these low beginnings we might describe the successive
+re-enforcements through infancy, childhood, and youth to maturity. And
+what is the result to which all this carries us? Is it not that, in the
+philosophical contemplation of man, we are constrained to reject the
+idea of personality, of individuality, and to adopt that of a cycle of
+progress; to abandon all contemplation of his mere substantial form, and
+consider his abstract relation? All organic forms, if compared together
+and examined from one common point of view, are found to be constructed
+upon an identical scheme. It is as in some mathematical expression
+containing constants and variables; the actual result changes
+accordingly as we assign successively different values to the variables,
+yet in those different results, no matter how numerous they may be, the
+original formula always exists. From such a universal conception of the
+condition and career of man, we rise at once to the apprehension of his
+relations to others like himself--that is to say, his relations as a
+member of society. We perceive, in this light, that society must run a
+course the counterpart of that we have traced for the individual, and
+that the appearance of isolation presented by the individual is
+altogether illusory. Each individual man drew his life from another, and
+to another man he gives rise, losing, in point of fact, his aspect of
+individuality when these his race connexions are considered. One epoch
+in life is not all life. The mature individual cannot be disentangled
+from the multitudinous forms through which he has passed; and,
+considering the nature of his primitive conception and the issue of his
+reproduction, man cannot be separated from his race.
+
+By the aid of these views of the nature and relationship of man, we can
+come to a decision respecting his possession of a criterion of truth. In
+the earliest moments of his existence he can neither feel nor think, and
+the universe is to him as though it did not exist. Considering the
+progress of his sensational powers--his sight, hearing, touch,
+etc.--these, as his cycle advances to its maximum, become, by nature or
+by education, more and more perfect; but never, at the best, as the
+ancient philosophers well knew, are they trustworthy. And so of his
+intellectual powers. They, too, begin in feebleness and gradually
+expand. The mind alone is no more to be relied on than the organs of
+sense alone. If any doubt existed on this point, the study of the
+phenomena of dreaming is sufficient to remove it, for dreaming manifests
+to us how wavering and unsteady is the mind in its operations when it is
+detached from the solid support of the organs of sense. How true is the
+remark of Philo the Jew, that the mind is like the eye; for, though it
+may see all other objects, it cannot see itself, and therefore cannot
+judge of itself. And thus we may conclude that neither are the senses to
+be trusted alone, nor is the mind to be trusted alone. In the conjoint
+action of the two, by reason of the mutual checks established, a far
+higher degree of certainty is attained to, yet even in this, the utmost
+vouchsafed to the individual, there is not, as both Greeks and Indians
+ascertained, an absolute sureness. It was the knowledge of this which
+extorted from them so many melancholy complaints, which threw them into
+an intellectual despair, and made them, by applying the sad
+determination to which they had come to the course of their daily life,
+sink down into indifference and infidelity.
+
+But yet there is something more in reserve for man. Let him cast off the
+clog of individuality, and remember that he has race connexions--connexions
+which, in this matter of a criterion of truth, indefinitely increase his
+chances of certainty. If he looks with contempt on the opinions of his
+childhood, with little consideration on those of his youth, with distrust
+on those of his manhood, what will he say about the opinions of his race?
+Do not such considerations teach us that, through all these successive
+conditions, the criterion of truth is ever advancing in precision and
+power, and that its maximum is found in the unanimous opinion of the whole
+human race?
+
+[Sidenote: Though no absolute criterion exists, a practical one does.]
+
+[Sidenote: The maximum of certainty in the human race.]
+
+Upon these principles I believe that, though we have not philosophically
+speaking, any absolute criterion of truth, we rise by degrees to higher
+and higher certainties along an ascending scale which becomes more and
+more exact. I think that metaphysical writers who have treated of this
+point have been led into error from an imperfect conception of the true
+position of man; they have limited their thoughts to a single epoch of
+his course, and have not taken an enlarged and philosophical view. In
+thus declining the Oriental doctrine that the individual is the centre
+from which the universe should be regarded, and transferring our
+stand-point to a more comprehensive and solid foundation, we imitate, in
+metaphysics, the course of astronomy when it substituted the
+heliocentric for the geocentric point of view, and the change promises
+to be equally fertile in sure results. If it were worth while, we might
+proceed to enforce this doctrine by an appeal to the experience of
+ordinary life. How often, when we distrust our own judgment, do we seek
+support in the advice of a friend. How strong is our persuasion that we
+are in the right when public opinion is with us. For this even the
+Church has not disdained to call together Councils, aiming thereby at a
+surer means of arriving at the truth. The Council is more trustworthy
+than an individual, whoever he may be. The probabilities increase with
+the number of consenting intellects, and hence I come to the conclusion
+that in the unanimous consent of the entire human race lies the human
+criterion of truth--a criterion, in its turn, capable of increased
+precision with the diffusion of enlightenment and knowledge. For this
+reason, I do not look upon the prospects of humanity in so cheerless a
+light as they did of old. On the contrary, ever thing seems full of
+hope. Good auguries may be drawn for philosophy from the great
+mechanical and material inventions which multiply the means of
+intercommunication, and, it may be said, annihilate terrestrial
+distances. In the intellectual collisions that must ensue, in the
+melting down of opinions, in the examinations and analyses of nations,
+truth will come forth. Whatever cannot stand that ordeal must submit to
+its fate. Lies and imposture, no matter how powerfully sustained, must
+prepare to depart. In that supreme tribunal man may place implicit
+confidence. Even though, philosophically, it is far from absolute, it is
+the highest criterion vouchsafed to him, and from its decision he has no
+appeal.
+
+In delivering thus emphatically my own views on this profound topic
+perhaps I do wrong. It is becoming to speak with humility on that which
+has been glorified by the great writers of Greece, of India, of
+Alexandria, and, in later times, of Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Complete analogy between Greek and Indian process of
+thought.]
+
+In conclusion, I would remark that the view here presented of the
+results of Greek philosophy is that which offers itself to me after a
+long and careful study of the subject. It is, however, the affirmative,
+not the negative result; for we must not forget that if, on the one
+hand, the pantheistic doctrines of the Nature of God, Universal
+Animation, the theory of Emanation, Transmutation, Absorption,
+Transmigration, etc., were adopted, on the other there was by no means
+an insignificant tendency to atheism and utter infidelity. Even of this
+negative state a corresponding condition occurred in the Buddhism of
+India, of which I have previously spoken; and, indeed, so complete is
+the parallel between the course of mental evolution in Asia and Europe,
+that it is difficult to designate a matter of minor detail in the
+philosophy of the one which cannot be pointed out in that of the other.
+It was not without reason, therefore, that the Alexandrian philosophers,
+who were profoundly initiated in the detail of both systems, came to the
+conclusion that such surprising coincidences could only be accounted for
+upon the admission that there had been an ancient revelation, the
+vestiges of which had descended to their time. In this, however, they
+judged erroneously; the true explanation consisting in the fact that the
+process of development of the intellect of man, and the final results to
+which he arrives in examining similar problems, are in all countries the
+same.
+
+[Sidenote: Variation of practical application explained.]
+
+It does not fall within my plan to trace the application of these
+philosophical principles to practice in daily life, yet the subject is
+of such boundless interest that perhaps the reader will excuse a single
+paragraph. It may seem to superficial observation that, whatever might
+be the doctrinal resemblances of these philosophies, their application
+was very different. In a general way, it may be asserted that the same
+doctrines which in India led to the inculcation of indifference and
+quietism, led to Stoic activity in Greece and Italy. If the occasion
+permitted, I could, nevertheless, demonstrate in this apparent
+divergence an actual coincidence; for the mode of life of man is chiefly
+determined by geographical conditions, his instinctive disposition to
+activity increasing with the latitude in which he lives. Under the
+equinoctial line he has no disposition for exertion, his physiological
+relations with the climate making quietism most agreeable to him. The
+philosophical formula which, in the hot plains of India, finds its issue
+in a life of tranquillity and repose, will be interpreted in the more
+bracing air of Europe by a life of activity. Thus, in later ages, the
+monk of Africa, willingly persuading himself that any intervention to
+improve Nature is a revolt against the providence of God, spent his
+worthless life in weaving baskets and mats, or in solitary meditation in
+the caves of the desert of Thebais; but the monk of Europe encountered
+the labours of agriculture and social activity, and thereby aided, in no
+insignificant manner, in the civilization of England, France, and
+Germany. These things, duly considered, lead to the conclusion that
+human life, in its diversities, is dependent upon and determined by
+primary conditions in all countries and climates essentially the same.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DIGRESSION ON THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES OF ROME.
+
+PREPARATION FOR RESUMING THE EXAMINATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS OF
+EUROPE.
+
+ _Religious Ideas of the primitive Europeans.--The Form of
+ their Variations is determined by the Influence of
+ Rome.--Necessity of Roman History in these Investigations._
+
+ _Rise and Development of Roman Power, its successive Phases,
+ territorial Acquisitions.--Becomes Supreme in the
+ Mediterranean.--Consequent Demoralization of
+ Italy.--Irresistible Concentration of Power.--Development of
+ Imperialism.--Eventual Extinction of the true Roman Race._
+
+ _Effect on the intellectual, religious, and social Condition
+ of the Mediterranean Countries.--Produces homogeneous
+ Thought.--Imperialism prepares the Way for
+ Monotheism.--Momentous Transition of the Roman World in its
+ religious Ideas._
+
+ _Opinions of the Roman Philosophers.--Coalescence of the new
+ and old Ideas.--Seizure of Power by the Illiterate, and
+ consequent Debasement of Christianity in Rome._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Transition from Greece to Europe.]
+
+From the exposition of the intellectual progress of Greece given in the
+preceding pages, we now turn, agreeably to the plan laid down, to an
+examination of that of all Europe. The movement in that single nation is
+typical of the movement of the entire continent.
+
+[Sidenote: European age of Inquiry.]
+
+The first European intellectual age--that of Credulity--has already, in
+part, been considered in Chapter II., more especially so far as Greece
+is concerned. I propose now, after some necessary remarks in conclusion
+of that topic, to enter on the description of the second European
+age--that of Inquiry.
+
+For these remarks, what has already been said of Greece prepares the
+way. Mediterranean Europe was philosophically and socially in advance of
+the central and northern countries. The wave of civilization passed from
+the south to the north; in truth, it has hardly yet reached its extreme
+limit. The adventurous emigrants who in remote times had come from Asia
+left to the successive generations of their descendants a legacy of
+hardship. In the struggle for life, all memory of an Oriental parentage
+was lost; knowledge died away; religious ideas became debased; and the
+diverse populations sank into the same intellectual condition that they
+would have presented had they been proper autochthons of the soil.
+
+[Sidenote: Religion of the old Europeans.]
+
+The religion of the barbarian Europeans was in many respects like that
+of the American Indians. They recognized a Great Spirit--omniscient,
+omnipotent, omnipresent. In the earliest times they made no
+representation of him under the human form, nor had they temples; but
+they propitiated him by sacrifices, offering animals, as the horse, and
+even men, upon rude altars. Though it was believed that this Great
+Spirit might sometimes be heard in the sounds of the forests at night,
+yet, for the most part, he was too far removed from human supplication,
+and hence arose, from the mere sorcerous ideas of a terrified fancy, as
+has been the case in so many other countries, star worship--the second
+stage of comparative theology. The gloom and shade of dense forests, a
+solitude that offers an air of sanctity, and seems a fitting resort for
+mysterious spirits, suggested the establishment of sacred groves and
+holy trees. Throughout Europe there was a confused idea that the soul
+exists after the death of the body; as to its particular state there was
+a diversity of belief. As among other people, also, the offices of
+religion were not only directed to the present benefit of individuals,
+but also to the discovery of future events by various processes of
+divination and augury practised among the priests.
+
+[Sidenote: Their priesthood,]
+
+Although the priests had thus charge of the religious rites, they do not
+seem to have been organized in such a manner as to be able to act with
+unanimity or to pursue a steady system of policy. A class of female
+religious officials--prophetesses--joined in the ceremonials. These
+holy women, who were held in very great esteem, prepared the way for the
+reception of Mariolatry. Instead of temples--rock-altars, cromlechs, and
+other rustic structures were used among the Celtic nations by the
+Druids, who were at the same time priests, magicians, and medicine-men.
+Their religious doctrines, which recall in many particulars those of the
+Rig-Veda, were perpetuated from generation to generation by the aid of
+songs.
+
+[Sidenote: and objects of adoration.]
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of Roman Christianity upon them.]
+
+The essential features of this system were its purely local form and its
+want of a well-organized hierarchy. Even the Celts offer no exception,
+though they had a subordination from the Arch-Druid downward. This was
+the reason of the weakness of the old faith and eventually the cause of
+its fall. When the German nations migrated to the south in their warlike
+expeditions, they left behind them their consecrated groves and sacred
+oaks, hallowed by immemorial ages. These objects the devotee could not
+carry with him, and no equivalent substitute could be obtained for them.
+In the civilized countries to which they came they met with a very
+different state of things; a priesthood thoroughly organized and
+modelled according to the ancient Roman political system; its objects of
+reverence tied to no particular locality; its institutions capable of
+universal action; its sacred writings easy of transportation anywhere;
+its emblems moveable to all countries--the cross on the standards of its
+armies, the crucifix on the bosom of its saints. In the midst of the
+noble architecture of Italy and the splendid remains of those Romans who
+had once given laws to the world, in the midst of a worship
+distinguished by the magnificence of its ceremonial and the solemnity of
+its mysteries, they found a people whose faith taught them to regard the
+present life as offering only a transitory occupation, and not for a
+moment to be weighed against the eternal existence hereafter--an
+existence very different from that of the base transmigration of
+Druidism or the Drunken Paradise of Woden, where the brave solace
+themselves with mead from cups made of the skulls of their enemies
+killed in their days upon earth.
+
+[Sidenote: Importance of Roman history in this investigation.]
+
+The European age of inquiry is therefore essentially connected with
+Roman affairs. It is distinguished by the religious direction it took.
+In place of the dogmas of rival philosophical schools, we have now to
+deal with the tenets of conflicting sects. The whole history of those
+unhappy times displays the organizing and practical spirit
+characteristic of Rome. Greek democracy, tending to the decomposition of
+things, led to the Sophists and Sceptics. Roman imperialism, ever
+constructive, sought to bring unity out of discords, and draw the line
+between orthodoxy and heresy by the authority of councils like that of
+Nicea. Following the ideas of St. Augustine in his work, "The City of
+God," I adopt, as the most convenient termination of this age, the sack
+of Rome by Alaric. This makes it overlap the age of Faith, which had, as
+its unmistakable beginning, the foundation of Constantinople.
+
+Greek intellectual life displays all its phases completely, but not so
+was it with that of the Romans, who came to an untimely end. They were
+men of violence, who disappeared in consequence of their own conquests
+and crimes. The consumption of them by war bore, however, an
+insignificant proportion to that fatal diminution, that mortal
+adulteration occasioned by their merging in the vast mass of humanity
+with which they came in contact.
+
+[Sidenote: Great difficulty of treating it.]
+
+I approach the consideration of Roman affairs, which is thus the next
+portion of my task, with no little diffidence. It is hard to rise to a
+point of view sufficiently elevated and clear, where the extent of
+dominion is so great geographically, and the reasons of policy are
+obscured by the dimness and clouds of so many centuries. Living in a
+social state the origin of which is in the events now to be examined,
+our mental vision can hardly free itself from the illusions of
+historical perspective, or bring things into their just proportions and
+position. Of a thousand acts, all of surpassing interest and importance,
+how shall we identify the master ones? How shall we discern with
+correctness the true relation of the parts of this wonderful phenomenon
+of empire, the vanishing events of which glide like dissolving views
+into each other? Warned by the example of those who have permitted the
+shadows of their own imagination to fall upon the scene, and have
+mistaken them for a part of it, I shall endeavour to apply the test of
+common sense to the facts of which it will be necessary to treat; and,
+believing that man has ever been the same in his modes of thought and
+motives of action, I shall judge of past occurrences in the same way as
+of those of our own times.
+
+[Sidenote: Triple form of Roman power.]
+
+In its entire form the Roman power consists of two theocracies, with a
+military domination intercalated. The first of these theocracies
+corresponds to the fabulous period of the kings; the military domination
+to the time of the republic and earlier Caesars; the second theocracy to
+that of the Christian emperors and the Popes.
+
+[Sidenote: The first theocracy and legendary times.]
+
+[Sidenote: Early Roman history.]
+
+The first theocracy is so enveloped in legends and fictions that it is
+impossible to give a satisfactory account of it. The biographies of the
+kings offer such undeniable evidence of being mere romances, that, since
+the time of Niebuhr, they have been received by historians in that
+light. But during the reigns of the pagan emperors it was not safe in
+Rome to insinuate publicly any disbelief in such honoured legends as
+those of the wolf that suckled the foundlings; the ascent of Romulus
+into heaven; the nymph Egeria; the duel of the Horatii and Curiatii; the
+leaping of Curtius into the gulf on his horse; the cutting of a flint
+with a razor by Tarquin; the Sibyl and her books. The modern historian
+has, therefore, only very little reliable material. He may admit that
+the Romans and Sabines coalesced; that they conquered the Albans and
+Latins; that thousands of the latter were transplanted to Mount Aventine
+and made plebeians; these movements being the origin of the castes which
+long afflicted Rome, the vanquished people constituting a subordinate
+class; that at first the chief occupation was agriculture, the nature of
+which is not only to accustom men to the gradations of rank, such as the
+proprietor of the land, the overseer, the labourer, but also to the
+cultivation of religious sentiment, and even the cherishing of
+superstition; that, besides the more honourable occupations in which the
+rising state was engaged, she had, from the beginning, indulged in
+aggressive war, and was therefore perpetually liable to reprisal--one of
+her first acts was the founding of the town of Ostia, at the mouth of
+the Tiber, on account of piracy; that, through some conspiracy in the
+army, indicated in the legend of Lucretia, since armies have often been
+known to do such things, the kings were expelled, and a military
+domination fancifully called a republic, but consisting of a league of
+some powerful families, arose.
+
+Throughout the regal times, and far into the republican, the chief
+domestic incidents turn on the strife of the upper caste or patricians
+with the lower or plebeians, manifesting itself by the latter asserting
+their right to a share in the lands conquered by their valour; by the
+extortion of the Valerian law; by the admission of the Latins and
+Hernicans to conditions of equality; by the transference of the election
+of tribunes from the centuries to the tribes; by the repeal of the law
+prohibiting the marriage of plebeians with patricians and by the
+eventual concession to the former of the offices of consul, dictator,
+censor, and praetor.
+
+[Sidenote: The domestic necessity for foreign war.]
+
+In these domestic disputes we see the origin of the Roman necessity for
+war. The high caste is steadily diminishing in number, the low caste as
+steadily increasing. In imperious pride, the patrician fills his private
+jail with debtors and delinquents; he usurps the lands that have been
+conquered. Insurrection is the inevitable consequence, foreign war the
+only relief. As the circle of operations extends, both parties see their
+interest in a cordial coalescence on equal terms, and jointly tyrannize
+exteriorly.
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual spread of Roman influence to the south.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rome builds a navy,]
+
+[Sidenote: and invades Africa.]
+
+[Sidenote: Results of the first Punic War.]
+
+[Sidenote: Results of the second Punic War.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rome invades Greece,]
+
+[Sidenote: and compels the cession of all the European provinces of
+Antiochus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt of Perses.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dreadful social effects on Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: Plunder of Greece and annexation of Spain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Seizure of Asia Minor.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Servile and Social wars.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual convergence of power.]
+
+[Sidenote: Caesar the master of the world.]
+
+The geographical dominion of Rome was extended at first with infinite
+difficulty. Up to the time of the capture of the city by the Gauls a
+doubtful existence was maintained in perpetual struggles with the
+adjacent towns and chieftains. There is reason to believe that in the
+very infancy of the republic, in the contest that ensued upon the
+expulsion of the kings, the city was taken by Porsenna. The direction in
+which her influence first spread was toward the south of the peninsula.
+Tarentum, one of the southern states, brought over to its assistance
+Pyrrhus the Epirot. He did little in the way of assisting his allies--he
+only saw Rome from the Acropolis of Praeneste; but from him the Romans
+learned the art of fortifying camps, and caught the idea of invading
+Sicily. Here the rising republic came in contact with the Carthaginians,
+and in the conflict that ensued discovered the military value of Spain
+and Gaul, from which the Carthaginians drew an immense supply of
+mercenaries and munitions of war. The advance to greatness which Rome
+now made was prodigious. She saw that everything turned on the
+possession of the sea, and with admirable energy built a navy. In this
+her expectations were more than realized. The assertion is quite true
+that she spent more time in acquiring a little earth in Italy than was
+necessary for subduing the world after she had once obtained possession
+of the Mediterranean. From the experience of Agathocles she learned that
+the true method of controlling Carthage was by invading Africa. The
+principles involved in the contest, and the position of Rome at its
+close, are shown by the terms of the treaty of the first Punic War--that
+Carthage should evacuate every island in the Mediterranean, and pay a
+war-fine of six hundred thousand pounds. In her devotion to the
+acquisition of wealth Carthage had become very rich; she had reached a
+high state of cultivation of art; yet her prosperity, or rather the mode
+by which she had attained it, had greatly weakened her, as also had the
+political anomaly under which she was living, for it is an anomaly that
+an Asiatic people should place itself under democratic forms. Her
+condition in this respect was evidently the consequence of her original
+subordinate position as a Tyrian trading station, her rich men having
+long been habituated to look to the mother city for distinction. As in
+other commercial states, her citizens became soldiers with reluctance,
+and hence she had often to rely on mercenary troops. From her the Romans
+received lessons of the utmost importance. She confirmed them in the
+estimate they had formed of the value of naval power; taught them how to
+build ships properly and handle them; how to make military roads. The
+tribes of Northern Italy were hardly included in the circle of Roman
+dominion when a fleet was built in the Adriatic, and, under the pretence
+of putting down piracy, the sea power of the Illyrians was
+extinguished. From time immemorial the Mediterranean had been infested
+with pirates; man-stealing had been a profitable occupation, great gains
+being realized by ransoms of captives, or by selling them at Delos or
+other slave-markets. At this time it was clear that the final mastery of
+the Mediterranean turned on the possession of Spain, the great
+silver-producing country. The rivalry for Spain occasioned the second
+Punic War. It is needless to repeat the well-known story of Hannibal,
+how he brought Rome to the brink of ruin. The relations she maintained
+with surrounding communities had been such that she could not trust to
+them. Her enemy found allies in many of the Greek towns in the south of
+Italy. It is enough for us to look at the result of that conflict in the
+treaty that closed it. Carthage had to give up all her ships of war
+except ten triremes, to bind herself to enter into no war without the
+consent of the Roman people, and to pay a war-fine of two millions of
+pounds. Rome now entered, on the great scale, on the policy of
+disorganizing states for the purpose of weakening them. Under pretext of
+an invitation from the Athenians to protect them from the King of
+Macedon, the ambitious republic secured a footing in Greece, the
+principle developed in the invasion of Africa of making war maintain war
+being again resorted to. There may have been truth in the Roman
+accusation that the intrigues of Hannibal with Antiochus, king of Syria,
+occasioned the conflict between Rome and that monarch. Its issue was a
+prodigious event in the material aggrandizement of Rome--it was the
+cession of all his possessions in Europe and those of Asia north of
+Mount Taurus, with a war-fine of three millions of pounds. Already were
+seen the effects of the wealth that was pouring into Italy in the
+embezzlement of the public money by the Scipios. The resistance of
+Perses, king of Macedon, could not restore independence to Greece; it
+ended in the annexation of that country, Epirus and Illyricum. The
+results of this war were to the last degree pernicious to the victors
+and the vanquished; the moral greatness of the former is truly affirmed
+to have disappeared, and the social ruin of the latter was so complete
+that for long marriage was replaced by concubinage. The policy and
+practices of Rome now literally became infernal; she forced a quarrel
+upon her old antagonist Carthage, and the third Punic War resulted in
+the utter destruction of that city. Simultaneously her oppressions in
+Greece provoked revolt, which was ended by the sack and burning of
+Corinth, Thebes, Chalcis, and the transference of the plundered statues,
+paintings, and works of art to Italy. There was nothing now in the way
+of the conquest of Spain except the valour of its inhabitants. After the
+assassination of Viriatus, procured by the Consul Caepio, and the
+horrible siege of Numantia, that country was annexed as a province. Next
+we see the gigantic republic extending itself over the richest parts of
+Asia Minor, through the insane bequest of Attalus, king of Pergamus. The
+wealth of Africa, Spain, Greece, and Asia, was now concentrating in
+Italy, and the capital was becoming absolutely demoralized. In vain the
+Gracchi attempted to apply a remedy. The Roman aristocracy was
+intoxicated, insatiate, irresistible. The middle class was gone; there
+was nothing but profligate nobles and a diabolical populace. In the
+midst of inconceivable corruption, the Jugurthine War served only to
+postpone for a moment an explosion which was inevitable. The Servile
+rebellion in Sicily broke out; it was closed by the extermination of a
+million of those unhappy wretches: vast numbers of them were exposed,
+for the popular amusement, to the wild beasts in the arena. It was
+followed closely by the revolt of the Italian allies, known as the
+Social War--this ending, after the destruction of half a million of men,
+with a better result, in the extortion of the freedom of the city by
+several of the revolting states. Doubtless it was the intrigues
+connected with these transactions that brought the Cimbri and Teutons
+into Italy, and furnished an opening for the rivalries of Marius and
+Sylla, who, in turn, filled Rome with slaughter. The same spirit broke
+out under the gladiator Spartacus: it was only checked for a time by
+resorting to the most awful atrocities, such as the crucifixion of
+prisoners, to appear under another form in the conspiracy of Catiline.
+And now it was plain that the contest for supreme power lay between a
+few leading men. It found an issue in the first triumvirate--a union of
+Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, who usurped the whole power of the senate
+and people, and bound themselves by oath to permit nothing to be done
+without their unanimous consent. Affairs then passed through their
+inevitable course. The death of Crassus and the battle of Pharsalia left
+Caesar the master of the world. At this moment nothing could have
+prevented the inevitable result. The dagger of Brutus merely removed a
+man, but it left the fact. The battle of Actium reaffirmed the destiny
+of Rome, and the death of the republic was illustrated by the annexation
+of Egypt. The circle of conquest around the Mediterranean was complete;
+the function of the republic was discharged: it did not pass away
+prematurely.
+
+[Sidenote: Ancient necessity for slave-wars.]
+
+From this statement of the geographical career of Rome, we may turn to
+reflect on the political principles which inspired her. From a remote
+antiquity wars had been engaged in for the purpose of obtaining a supply
+of labour, the conqueror compelling those whom he had spared to
+cultivate his fields and serve him as slaves. Under a system of
+transitory military domination, it was more expedient to exhaust a
+people at once by the most unsparing plunder than to be content with a
+tribute periodically paid, but necessarily uncertain in the vicissitudes
+of years. These elementary principles of the policy of antiquity were
+included by the Romans in their system with modifications and
+improvements.
+
+[Sidenote: Depopulation of countries after Roman conquest.]
+
+[Sidenote: Atrocity of the Roman slave-laws.]
+
+[Sidenote: Social effects of the Roman slave-system.]
+
+The republic, during its whole career, illustrates the observation that
+the system on which it was founded included no conception of the actual
+relations of man. It dealt with him as a thing, not as a being endowed
+with inalienable rights. Recognizing power as its only measure of value,
+it could never accept the principle of the equality of all men in the
+eye of the law. The subjugation of Sicily, Africa, Greece, was quickly
+followed by the depopulation of those countries, as Livy, Plutarch,
+Strabo, and Polybius testify. Can there be a more fearful instance than
+the conduct of Paulus Aemilius, who, at the conquest of Epirus, murdered
+or carried into slavery 150,000 persons? At the taking of Thebes whole
+families were thus disposed of, and these not of the lower, but of the
+respectable kind, of whom it has been significantly said that they were
+transported into Italy to be melted down. In Italy itself the
+consumption of life was so great that there was no possibility of the
+slaves by birth meeting the requirement, and the supply of others by war
+became necessary. To these slaves the laws were atrociously unjust.
+Tacitus has recorded that on the occasion of the murder of Pedanius,
+after a solemn debate in the senate, the particulars of which he
+furnishes, the ancient laws were enforced, and four hundred slaves of
+the deceased were put to death, when it was obvious to every one that
+scarcely any of them had known of the crime. The horrible maxim that not
+only the slaves within a house in which a master was murdered, but even
+those within a circle supposed to be measured by the reach of his voice,
+should be put to death, shows us the small value of the life of these
+unfortunates, and the facility with which they could be replaced. Their
+vast numbers necessarily made every citizen a soldier; the culture of
+the land and the manufacturing processes, the pursuits of labour and
+industry, were assigned to them with contempt. The relation of the slave
+in such a social system is significantly shown by the fact that the
+courts estimated the amount of any injury he had received by the damage
+his master had thereby sustained. To such a degree had this system been
+developed, that slave labour was actually cheaper than animal labour,
+and, as a consequence, much of the work that we perform by cattle was
+then done by men. The class of independent hirelings, which should have
+constituted the chief strength of the country, disappeared, labour
+itself becoming so ignoble that the poor citizen could not be an
+artisan, but must remain a pauper--a sturdy beggar, expecting from the
+state bread and amusements. The personal uncleanness and shiftless
+condition of these lower classes were the true causes of the prevalence
+of leprosy and other loathsome diseases. Attempts at sanitary
+improvement were repeatedly made, but they so imperfectly answered the
+purpose that epidemics, occurring from time to time, produced a dreadful
+mortality. Even under the Caesars, after all that had been done, there
+was no essential amendment. The assertion is true that the Old World
+never recovered from the great plague in the time of M. Antoninus,
+brought by the army from the Parthian War. In the reign of Titus ten
+thousand persons died in one day in Rome.
+
+The slave system bred that thorough contempt for trade which animated
+the Romans. They never grudged even the Carthaginians a market. It threw
+them into the occupation of the demagogue, making them spend their
+lives, when not engaged in war, in the intrigues of political factions,
+the turbulence of public elections, the excitement of lawsuits. They
+were the first to discover that the privilege of interpreting laws is
+nearly equal to that of making them; and to this has been rightly
+attributed their turn for jurisprudence, and the prosperity of advocates
+among them. The disappearance of the hireling class was the immediate
+cause of the downfall of the republic and the institution of the empire,
+for the aristocracy were left without any antagonist, and therefore
+without any restraint. They broke up into factions, involving the
+country in civil war by their struggles with each other for power.
+
+[Sidenote: The war system.]
+
+The political maxims of the republic, for the most part, rejected the
+ancient system of devastating a vanquished state by an instant,
+unsparing, and crushing plunder, which may answer very well where the
+tenure is expected to be brief, but does not accord with the formula
+subdue, retain, advance. Yet depopulation was the necessary incident.
+Italy, Sicily, Asia Minor, Gaul, Germany, were full of people, but they
+greatly diminished under Roman occupation. Her maxims were capable of
+being realized with facility through her military organization,
+particularly that of the legion. In some nations colonies are founded
+for commercial purposes, in others for getting rid of an excess of
+population: the Roman colony implies the idea of a garrison and an
+active military intent. Each legion was, in fact, so constructed as to
+be a small but complete army. In whatever country it might be encamped,
+it was in quick communication with the head-quarters at Rome; and this
+not metaphorically, but materially, as was shown by the building of the
+necessary military roads. The idea of permanent occupation, which was
+thus implied, did not admit the expediency of devastating a country,
+but, on the contrary, led to the encouragement of provincial prosperity,
+because the greater the riches the greater the capacity for taxation.
+Such principles were in harmony with the conditions of solidity and
+security of the Roman power, which proverbially had not risen in a
+single day--was not the creation of a single fortunate soldier, but
+represented the settled policy of many centuries. In the act of conquest
+Rome was inhuman; she tried to strike a blow that there would never be
+any occasion to repeat; no one was spared who by possibility might
+inconvenience her; but, the catastrophe once over, as a general thing,
+the vanquished had no occasion to complain of her rule. Of course, in
+the shadow of public justice, private wrong and oppression were often
+concealed. Through injustice and extortion, her officers accumulated
+enormous fortunes, which have never since been equalled in Europe.
+Sometimes the like occurred in times of public violence; thus Brutus
+made Asia Minor pay five years' tribute at once, and shortly after
+Antony compelled it to do it again. The extent to which recognized and
+legitimate exactions were carried is shown by the fact that upon the
+institution of the empire the annual revenues were about forty millions
+of pounds sterling.
+
+[Sidenote: Value of gold and silver.]
+
+The comparative value of metals in Rome is a significant political
+indication. Bullion rapidly increased in amount during the Carthaginian
+wars. At the opening of the first Punic War silver and copper were as 1
+to 960; at the second Punic War the ratio had fallen, and was 1 to 160;
+soon after there was another fall, and it became 1 to 128. The republic
+debased the coinage by reducing its weight, the empire by alloying it.
+
+[Sidenote: Connexion between debasement of coinage and political
+decline.]
+
+The science, art, and political condition of nations are often
+illustrated by their coinage. An interesting view of the progress of
+Europe might be obtained from a philosophical study of its numismatic
+remains. The simplicity of the earlier ages is indicated by the pure
+silver, such as that coined at Crotona, B.C. 600--that of the reign of
+Philip of Macedon by the native unalloyed gold. A gradual decline in
+Roman prosperity is more than shadowed forth by the gradual
+deterioration of its money; for, as evil times befell the state, the
+emperors were compelled to utter a false coinage. Thus, under Vespasian,
+A.D. 69, the silver money contained about one fourth of its weight of
+copper; under Antoninus Pius, A.D. 138, more than one third; under
+Commodus, A.D. 180, nearly one half; under Gordian, A.D. 236, there was
+added to the silver more than twice its weight of copper. Nay, under
+Gallienus, a coinage was issued of copper, tin and silver, in which the
+first two metals exceed the last by more than two hundred times its
+weight. It shows to what a hopeless condition the state had come.
+
+The Roman demagogues, as is the instinct of their kind, made political
+capital by attacking industrial capital. They lowered the rate of
+interest, prohibited interest, and often attempted the abolition of
+debts.
+
+[Sidenote: Indescribable depravity in the Roman decline.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dissoluteness of the women, and avoidance of marriage.]
+
+The concentration of power and increase of immorality proceeded with an
+equal step. In its earlier ages, the Roman dominion was exercised by a
+few thousand persons; then it passed into the hands of some score
+families; then it was sustained for a moment by individuals, and at last
+was seized by one man, who became the master of 120 millions. As the
+process went on, the virtues which had adorned the earlier times
+disappeared, and in the end were replaced by crimes such as the world
+had never before witnessed and never will again. An evil day is
+approaching when it becomes recognized in a community that the only
+standard of social distinction is wealth. That day was soon followed in
+Rome by its unavoidable consequence, a government founded upon two
+domestic elements, corruption and terrorism. No language can describe
+the state of that capital after the civil wars. The accumulation of
+power and wealth gave rise to a universal depravity. Law ceased to be of
+any value. A suitor must deposit a bribe before a trial could be had.
+The social fabric was a festering mass of rottenness. The people had
+become a populace; the aristocracy was demoniac; the city was a hell. No
+crime that the annals of human wickedness can show was left
+unperpetrated--remorseless murders; the betrayal of parents, husbands,
+wives, friends; poisoning reduced to a system; adultery degenerating
+into incests, and crimes that cannot be written. Women of the higher
+class were so lascivious, depraved, and dangerous, that men could not be
+compelled to contract matrimony with them; marriage was displaced by
+concubinage; even virgins were guilty of inconceivable immodesties;
+great officers of state and ladies of the court, of promiscuous bathings
+and naked exhibitions. In the time of Caesar it had become necessary for
+the government to interfere, and actually put a premium on marriage. He
+gave rewards to women who had many children; prohibited those who were
+under forty-five years of age, and who had no children, from wearing
+jewels and riding in litters, hoping by such social disabilities to
+correct the evil. It went on from bad to worse, so that Augustus, in
+view of the general avoidance of legal marriage and resort to
+concubinage with slaves, was compelled to impose penalties on the
+unmarried--to enact that they should not inherit by will except from
+relations. Not that the Roman women refrained from the gratification of
+their desires; their depravity impelled them to such wicked practices as
+cannot be named in a modern book. They actually reckoned the years, not
+by the consuls, but by the men they had lived with. To be childless, and
+therefore without the natural restraint of a family, was looked upon as
+a singular felicity. Plutarch correctly touched the point when he said
+that the Romans married to be heirs and not to have heirs. Of offences
+that do not rise to the dignity of atrocity, but which excite our
+loathing, such as gluttony and the most debauched luxury, the annals of
+the times furnish disgusting proofs. It was said, "They eat that they
+may vomit, and vomit that they may eat." At the taking of Perusium,
+three hundred of the most distinguished citizens were solemnly
+sacrificed at the altar of Divus Julius by Octavian! Are these the deeds
+of civilized men, or the riotings of cannibals drunk with blood?
+
+[Sidenote: The whole system is past cure.]
+
+The higher classes on all sides exhibited a total extinction of moral
+principle; the lower were practical atheists. Who can peruse the annals
+of the emperors without being shocked at the manner in which men died,
+meeting their fate with the obtuse tranquillity that characterizes
+beasts? A centurion with a private mandate appears, and forthwith the
+victim opens his veins and dies in a warm bath. At the best, all that
+was done was to strike at the tyrant. Men despairingly acknowledged that
+the system itself was utterly past cure.
+
+[Sidenote: Testimony of Tacitus.]
+
+That in these statements I do not exaggerate, hear what Tacitus says:
+"The holy ceremonies of religion were violated; adultery reigning
+without control; the adjacent islands filled with exiles; rocks and
+desert places stained with clandestine murders, and Rome itself a
+theatre of horrors, where nobility of descent and splendour of fortune
+marked men out for destruction; where the vigour of mind that aimed at
+civil dignities, and the modesty that declined them, were offences
+without distinction; where virtue was a crime that led to certain ruin;
+where the guilt of informers and the wages of their iniquity were alike
+detestable; where the sacerdotal order, the consular dignity, the
+government of provinces, and even the cabinet of the prince, were seized
+by that execrable race as their lawful prey; where nothing was sacred,
+nothing safe from the hand of rapacity; where slaves were suborned, or
+by their own malevolence excited against their masters; where freemen
+betrayed their patrons, and he who had lived without an enemy died by
+the treachery of a friend."
+
+[Sidenote: Effects in the provinces. Free trade.]
+
+[Sidenote: Intellectual advancements.]
+
+But, though these were the consequences of the concentration of power
+and wealth in the city of Rome, it was otherwise in the expanse of the
+empire. The effect of Roman domination was the cessation of all the
+little wars that had heretofore been waged between adjacent peoples.
+They exchanged independence for peace. Moreover, and this, in the end,
+was of the utmost importance to them all, unrestricted commerce ensued,
+direct trade arising between all parts of the empire. The Mediterranean
+nations were brought closer to each other, and became common inheritors
+of such knowledge as was then in the world. Arts, sciences, improved
+agriculture, spread among them; the most distant countries could boast
+of noble roads, aqueducts, bridges, and great works of engineering. In
+barbarous places, the legions that were intended as garrisons proved to
+be foci of civilization. For the provinces, even the wickedness of Rome
+was not without some good. From one quarter corn had to be brought; from
+another, clothing; from another, luxuries; and Italy had to pay for it
+all in coin. She had nothing to export in return. By this there was a
+tendency to equalization of wealth in all parts of the empire, and a
+perpetual movement of money. Nor was the advantage altogether material;
+there were conjoined intellectual results of no little value.
+Superstition and the amazing credulity of the old times disappeared. In
+the first Punic War, Africa was looked upon as a land of monsters; it
+had serpents large enough to stop armies, it had headless men. Sicily
+had its Cyclops, giants, enchantresses; golden apples grew in Spain; the
+mouth of Hell was on the shores of the Euxine. The marches of the
+legions and the voyages of merchants made all these phantasms vanish.
+
+[Sidenote: Disappearance of the Roman ethnical element.]
+
+It was the necessary consequence of her military aggrandizement that the
+ethnical element which really constituted Rome should expire. A small
+nucleus of men had undertaken to conquer the Mediterranean world, and
+had succeeded. In doing this they had diffused themselves over an
+immense geographical surface, and necessarily became lost in the mass
+with which they mingled. On the other hand, the deterioration of Italy
+was insured by the slave system, and the ruin of Rome was accomplished
+before the barbarians touched it. Whoever inquires the cause of the fall
+of the Roman empire will find his answer in ascertaining what had become
+of the Romans.
+
+[Sidenote: Roman conquest produces homogeneous thought,]
+
+The extinction of prodigies and superstitious legends was occasioned by
+increased travel, through the merging of many separate nations into one
+great empire. Intellectual communication attends material communication.
+The spread of Roman influence around the borders of the Mediterranean
+produced a tendency to homogeneous thought eminently dangerous to the
+many forms of faith professed by so many different people.
+
+[Sidenote: and revolutionizes religious ideas.]
+
+After Tarquin was expelled the sacerdotal class became altogether
+subordinate to the military, whose whole history shows that they
+regarded religion as a mere state institution, without any kind of
+philosophical significance, and chiefly to be valued for the control it
+furnished over vulgar minds. It presented itself to them in the light of
+a branch of industry, from which profit might be made by those who
+practised it. They thought no more of concerning themselves individually
+about it than in taking an interest in any other branch of lucrative
+trade. As to any examination of its intellectual basis, they were not
+sophists, but soldiers, blindly following the prescribed institutions of
+their country with as little question as its military commands. For
+these reasons, throughout the time of the republic, and also under the
+early emperors, there never was much reluctance to the domestication of
+any kind of worship in Rome. Indeed, the gods of the conquered countries
+were established there to the gratification of the national vanity. From
+this commingling of worship in the city, and intercommunication of ideas
+in the provinces, the most important events arose.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperialism prepares the way for monotheism.]
+
+For it very soon was apparent that the political unity which had been
+established over so great a geographical surface was the forerunner of
+intellectual, and therefore religious unity. Polytheism became
+practically inconsistent with the Roman empire, and a tendency arose for
+the introduction of some form of monotheism. Apart from the operations
+of Reason, it is clear that the recognition by so many nations of one
+emperor must soon be followed by the acknowledgment of one God. There is
+a disposition to uniformity among people who are associated by a common
+political bond. Moreover, the rivalries of a hundred priesthoods
+imparted to polytheism an intrinsic weakness; but monotheism implies
+centralization, an organized hierarchy, and therefore concentration of
+power. The different interests and collisions of multitudinous forms of
+religion sapped individual faith; a diffusion of practical atheism,
+manifested by a total indifference to all ceremonies, except so far as
+they were shows, was the result, the whole community falling into an
+unbelieving and godless state. The form of superstition through which
+the national mind had passed was essentially founded upon the
+recognition of an incessant intervention of many divinities determining
+human affairs; but such a faith became extinct by degrees among the
+educated. How was it possible that human reason should deal otherwise
+with all the contradictions and absurdities of a thousand indigenous and
+imported deities, each asserting his inconsistent pretensions. A god who
+in his native grove or temple has been paramount and unquestioned, sinks
+into insignificance when he is brought into a crowd of compeers. In this
+respect there is no difference between gods and men. Great cities are
+great levellers of both. He who has stood forth in undue proportions in
+the solitude of the country, sinks out of observation in the solitude of
+a crowd.
+
+[Sidenote: Roman philosophy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Varro. Lucretius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cicero.]
+
+The most superficial statement of philosophy among the Romans, if
+philosophy it can be called, shows us how completely religious sentiment
+was effaced. The presence of sceptical thought is seen in the
+explanations of Terentius Varro, B.C. 110, that the anthropomorphic gods
+are to be received as mere emblems of the forces of matter; and the
+general tendency of the times may be gathered from the poem of
+Lucretius: his recommendations that the mind should be emancipated from
+the fear of the gods; his arguments against the immortality of the soul;
+his setting forth Nature as the only God to be worshipped. In Cicero we
+see how feeble and wavering a guide to life in a period of trouble
+philosophy had become, and how one who wished to stand in the attitude
+of chief thinker of his times was no more than a servile copyist of
+Grecian predecessors, giving to his works not an air of masculine and
+independent thought, but aiming at present effect rather than a solid
+durability; for Cicero addresses himself more to the public than to
+philosophers, exhibiting herein his professional tendency as an
+advocate. Under a thin veil he hides an undisguised scepticism, and,
+with the instinct of a placeman, leans rather to the investigation of
+public concerns than to the profound and abstract topics of philosophy.
+As is the case with superficial men, he sees no difference between the
+speculative and the exact, confusing them together. He feels that it is
+inexpedient to communicate truth publicly, especially that of a
+religious kind. Doubtless herein we shall agree when we find that he
+believes God to be nothing more than the soul of the world; discovers
+many serious objections to the doctrine of Providence; insinuates that
+the gods are only poetical creations; is uncertain whether the soul be
+immortal, but is clear that popular doctrine of punishment in the world
+to come is only an idle fable.
+
+[Sidenote: Quintus Sextius. Seneca.]
+
+[Sidenote: Epictetus. Antoninus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Maximus Tyrius].
+
+[Sidenote: Alexander of Aphrodisias.]
+
+It was the attribute of the Romans to impress upon every thing a
+practical character. In their philosophy we continually see this
+displayed, along with a striking inferiority in original thought.
+Quintus Sextius admonishes us to pursue a virtuous life, and, as an aid
+thereto, enjoins an abstinence from meat. In this opinion many of the
+Cynical school acquiesced, and some it is said, even joined the
+Brahmans. In the troublous times of the first Caesars, men had occasion
+to derive all the support they could from philosophy; there was no
+religion to sustain them. Among the Stoics there were some, as Seneca,
+to whom we can look back with pleasure. Through his writings he
+exercised a considerable influence on subsequent ages, though, when we
+attentively read his works, we must attribute this not so much to their
+intrinsic value as to their happening to coincide with the prevalent
+tone of religious thought. He enforces the necessity of a cultivation of
+good morals, and yet he writes against the religion of his country, its
+observances, and requirements. Of a far higher grade was Epictetus, at
+once a slave and a philosopher, though scarcely to be classed as a true
+Stoic. He considers man as a mere spectator of God and his works, and
+teaches that every one who can no longer bear the miseries of life is
+upon just deliberation, and a conscientious belief that the gods will
+not disapprove, free to commit suicide. His maxim is that all have a
+part to play, and he has done well who has done his best--that he must
+look to conscience as his guide. If Seneca said that time alone is our
+absolute and only possession, and that nothing else belongs to man,
+Epictetus taught that his thoughts are all that man has any power over,
+every thing else being beyond his control. M. Aurelius Antoninus, the
+emperor, did not hesitate to acknowledge his thankfulness to Epictetus,
+the slave, in his attempt to guide his life according to the principles
+of the Stoics. He recommends every man to preserve his daemon free from
+sin, and prefers religious devotions to the researches of physics, in
+this departing to some extent from the original doctrines of the sect;
+but the evil times on which men had fallen led them to seek support in
+religious consolations rather than in philosophical inquiries. In
+Maximus Tyrius, A.D. 146, we discover a corresponding sentiment,
+enveloped, it is true, in an air of Platonism, and countenancing an
+impression that image worship and sanctuaries are unnecessary for those
+who have a lively remembrance of the view they once enjoyed of the
+divine, though excellent for the vulgar, who have forgotten their past.
+Alexander of Aphrodisias exhibits the tendency, which was becoming very
+prevalent, to combine Plato and Aristotle. He treats upon Providence,
+both absolute and contingent; considers its bearings upon religion, and
+shows a disposition to cultivate the pious feelings of the age.
+
+[Sidenote: Ancient Physicians.]
+
+Galen, the physician, asserts that experience is the only source of
+knowledge; lays great stress on the culture of mathematics and logic,
+observing that he himself should have been a Pyrrhonist had it not been
+for geometry. In the teleological doctrine of physiology he considers
+that the foundations of a true theology must be laid. The physicians of
+the times exerted no little influence on the promotion of such views;
+for the most part they embraced the Pantheistic doctrine. As one of
+them, Sextus Empiricus may be mentioned; his works, still remaining,
+indicate to us the tendency of this school to materialism.
+
+[Sidenote: Philosophical atheism among the educated.]
+
+Such was the tone of thought among the cultivated Romans; and to this
+philosophical atheism among them was added an atheism of indifference
+among the vulgar. But, since man is so constituted that he cannot live
+for any length of time without a form of worship, it is evident that
+there was great danger, whenever events should be ripe for the
+appearance of some monotheistic idea, that it might come in a base
+aspect. At a much later period than that we are here considering, one of
+the emperors expressed himself to the effect that it would be necessary
+to give liberty for the exercise of a sound philosophy among the higher
+classes, and provide a gorgeous ceremonial for the lower; he saw how
+difficult it is, by mere statesmanship to co-ordinate two such
+requirements, in their very nature contradictory. Though polytheism had
+lost all intellectual strength, the nations who had so recently parted
+with it could not be expected to have ceased from all disposition to an
+animalization of religion and corporealization of God. In a certain
+sense the emperor was only a more remote and more majestic form of the
+conquered and vanished kings, but, like them, he was a man. There was
+danger that the theological system, thus changing with the political,
+would yield only expanded anthropomorphic conceptions.
+
+[Sidenote: Principles, to be effective, must coincide with existing
+tendencies.]
+
+History perpetually demonstrates that nations cannot be permanently
+modified except by principles or actions conspiring with their existing
+tendency. Violence perpetrated upon them may pass away, leaving, perhaps
+in a few generations, no vestige of itself. Even Victory is conquered by
+Time. Profound changes only ensue when the operating force is in unison
+with the temper of the age. International peace among so many people
+once in conflict--peace under the auspices of a great overshadowing
+power; the unity of sentiment and brotherhood of feeling fast finding
+its way around the Mediterranean shores; the interests of a vast growing
+commerce, unfettered through the absorption of so many little kingdoms
+into one great republic, were silently bringing things to a condition
+that political force could be given to any religious dogma founded upon
+sentiments of mutual regard and interest. Nor could it be otherwise
+than that among the great soldiers of those times one would at last
+arise whose practical intellect would discover the personal advantages
+that must accrue from putting himself in relation with the universally
+prevailing idea. How could he better find adherents from the centre to
+the remotest corner of the empire? And, even if his own personal
+intellectual state should disable him from accepting in its fulness the
+special form in which the idea had become embodied, could there be any
+doubt, if he received it, and was true to it as a politician, though he
+might decline it as a man, of the immense power it would yield him in
+return--a power sufficient, if the metropolis should resist, or be
+otherwise unsuited to his designs, to enable him to found a rival to her
+in a more congenial place, and leave her to herself, "the skeleton of so
+much glory and of so much guilt."
+
+[Sidenote: The coming Monotheism must be bounded by the limits of Roman
+influence.]
+
+Thus, after the event, we can plainly see that the final blow to
+Polytheism was the suppression of the ancient independent nationalities
+around the Mediterranean Sea; and that, in like manner, Monotheism was
+the result of the establishment of an imperial government in Rome. But
+the great statesmen of those times, who were at the general point of
+view, must have foreseen that, in whatever form the expected change
+came, its limits of definition would inevitably be those of the empire
+itself, and that wherever the language of Rome was understood the
+religion of Rome would prevail. In the course of ages, an expansion
+beyond those limits might ensue wherever the state of things was
+congenial. On the south, beyond the mere verge of Africa, nothing was to
+be hoped for--it is the country in which man lives in degradation and is
+happy. On the east there were great unsubdued and untouched monarchies,
+having their own types of civilization, and experiencing no want in a
+religious respect. But on the north there were nations who, though they
+were plunged in hideous barbarism, filthy in an equal degree in body and
+mind, polygamists, idolaters, drunkards out of their enemies' skulls,
+were yet capable of an illustrious career. For these there was a
+glorious participation in store.
+
+[Sidenote: The new ideas coalesce with the old.]
+
+Except the death of a nation, there is no event in human history more
+profoundly solemn than the passing away of an ancient religion, though
+religious ideas are transitory, and creeds succeed one another with a
+periodicity determined by the law of continuous variation of human
+thought. The intellectual epoch at which we have now arrived has for its
+essential characteristic such a change--the abandonment of a
+time-honoured but obsolete system, the acceptance of a new and living
+one; and, in the incipient stages, opinion succeeding opinion in a
+well-marked way, until at length, after a few centuries of fusion and
+solution, there crystallized on the remnant of Roman power, as on a
+nucleus, a definite form, which, slowly modifying itself into the
+Papacy, served the purposes of Europe for more than a thousand years
+throughout its age of Faith.
+
+[Sidenote: Conduct of the Roman educated men at this period.]
+
+In this abandonment, the personal conduct of the educated classes very
+powerfully assisted. They outwardly conformed to the ceremonial of the
+times, reserving their higher doctrines to themselves, as something
+beyond vulgar comprehension. Considering themselves as an intellectual
+aristocracy, they stood aloof, and, with an ill-concealed smile,
+consented to the transparent folly around them. It had come to an evil
+state when authors like Polybius and Strabo apologized to their compeers
+for the traditions and legends they ostensibly accepted, on the ground
+that it is inconvenient and needless to give popular offence, and that
+those who are children in understanding must, like those who are
+children in age, be kept in order by bugbears. It had come to an evil
+state when the awful ceremonial of former times had degenerated into a
+pageant, played off by an infidel priesthood and unbelieving
+aristocracy; when oracles were becoming mute, because they could no
+longer withstand the sly wit of the initiated; when the miracles of the
+ancients were regarded as mere lies, and of contemporaries as feats of
+legerdemain. It had come to an evil pass when even statesmen received it
+as a maxim that when the people have advanced in intellectual culture to
+a certain point, the sacerdotal class must either deceive them or
+oppress them, if it means to keep its power.
+
+[Sidenote: Religious condition of the intellectual classes in Rome.]
+
+In Rome, at the time of Augustus, the intellectual
+classes--philosophers and statesmen--had completely emerged from the
+ancient modes of thought. To them, the national legends, so jealously
+guarded by the populace, had become mere fictions. The miraculous
+conception of Rhea Sylvia by the god Mars, an event from which their
+ancestors had deduced with pride the celestial origin of the founder of
+their city, had dwindled into a myth; as a source of actual reliance and
+trust, the intercession of Venus, that emblem of female loveliness, with
+the father of the gods in behalf of her human favourites, was abandoned;
+the Sibylline books, once believed to contain all that was necessary for
+the prosperity of the republic, were suspected of an origin more
+sinister than celestial; nor were insinuations wanting that from time to
+time they had been tampered with to suit the expediency of passing
+interests, or even that the true ones were lost and forgeries put in
+their stead. The Greek mythology was to them, as it is to us, an object
+of reverence, not because of any inherent truth, but because of the
+exquisite embodiments it can yield in poetry, in painting, in marble.
+The existence of those illustrious men who, on account of their useful
+lives or excellent example, had, by the pious ages of old, been
+sanctified or even deified, was denied, or, if admitted, they were
+regarded as the exaggerations of dark and barbarous times. It was thus
+with Aesculapius, Bacchus, and Hercules. And as to the various forms of
+worship, the multitude of sects into which the pagan nations were broken
+up offered themselves as a spectacle of imbecile and inconsistent
+devotion altogether unworthy of attention, except so far as they might
+be of use to the interests of the state.
+
+[Sidenote: Their irresolution.]
+
+Such was the position of things among the educated. In one sense they
+had passed into liberty, in another they were in bondage. Their
+indisposition to encounter those inflictions with which their illiterate
+contemporaries might visit them may seem to us surprizing: they acted as
+if they thought that the public was a wild beast that would bite if
+awakened too abruptly from its dream; but their pusillanimity, at the
+most, could only postpone for a little an inevitable day. The ignorant
+classes, whom they had so much feared, awoke in due season
+spontaneously, and saw in the clear light how matters stood.
+
+[Sidenote: Surrender of affairs in the illiterate classes,]
+
+[Sidenote: and consequent debasement of Christianity in Rome.]
+
+Of the Roman emperors there were some whose intellectual endowments were
+of the highest kind; yet, though it must have been plain to them, as to
+all who turned their attention to the matter, in what direction society
+was drifting, they let things take their course, and no one lifted a
+finger to guide. It may be said that the genius of Rome manifested
+itself rather in physical than in intellectual operations; but in her
+best days it was never the genius of Rome to abandon great events to
+freedmen, eunuchs, and slaves. By such it was that the ancient gods were
+politically cast aside, while the government was speciously yielding a
+simulated obedience to them, and hence it was not at all surprizing
+that, soon after the introduction of Christianity, its pure doctrines
+were debased by a commingling with ceremonies of the departing creed. It
+was not to be expected that the popular mind could spontaneously
+extricate itself from the vicious circle in which it was involved.
+Nothing but philosophy was competent to deliver it, and philosophy
+failed of its duty at the critical moment. The classical scholar need
+scarcely express his surprize that the Feriae Augusti were continued in
+the Church as the Festival St. Petri in Vinculis; that even to our own
+times an image of the holy Virgin was carried to the river in the same
+manner as in the old times was that of Cybele, and that many pagan rites
+still continue to be observed in Rome. Had it been in such incidental
+particulars only that the vestiges of paganism were preserved, the thing
+would have been of little moment; but, as all who have examined the
+subject very well know, the evil was far more general, far more
+profound. When it was announced to the Ephesians that the Council of
+that place, headed by Cyril, had decreed that the Virgin should be
+called "the Mother of God," with tears of joy they embraced the knees of
+their bishop; it was the old instinct peeping out; their ancestors would
+have done the same for Diana. If Trajan, after ten centuries, could have
+revisited Rome, he would, without difficulty, have recognized the drama,
+though the actors and scenery had all changed; he would have reflected
+how great a mistake had been committed in the legislation of his reign,
+and how much better it is, when the intellectual basis of a religion is
+gone, for a wise government to abstain from all compulsion in behalf of
+what has become untenable, and to throw itself into the new movement so
+as to shape the career by assuming the lead. Philosophy is useless when
+misapplied in support of things which common sense has begun to reject;
+she shares in the discredit which is attaching to them. The opportunity
+of rendering herself of service to humanity once lost, ages may elapse
+before it occurs again. Ignorance and low interests seize the moment,
+and fasten a burden on man, which the struggles of a thousand years may
+not suffice to cast off. Of all the duties of an enlightened government,
+this of allying itself with Philosophy in the critical moment in which
+society is passing through so serious a metamorphosis of its opinions as
+is involved in the casting off of its ancient investiture of Faith, and
+its assumption of a new one, is the most important, for it stands
+connected with things that outlast all temporal concerns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE EUROPEAN AGE OF INQUIRY.
+
+THE PROGRESSIVE VARIATION OF OPINIONS CLOSED BY THE INSTITUTION OF
+COUNCILS AND THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN A PONTIFF. RISE, EARLY
+VARIATIONS, CONFLICTS, AND FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+ _Rise of Christianity.--Distinguished from ecclesiastical
+ Organization.--It is demanded by the deplorable Condition of
+ the Empire.--Its brief Conflict with Paganism.--Character of
+ its first Organization.--Variations of Thought and Rise of
+ Sects: their essential Difference in the East and West.--The
+ three primitive Forms of Christianity: the Judaic Form, its
+ End--the Gnostic Form, its End--the African Form, continues._
+
+ _Spread of Christianity from Syria.--Its Antagonism to
+ Imperialism; their Conflicts.--Position of Affairs under
+ Diocletian.--The Policy of Constantine.--He avails himself of
+ the Christian Party, and through it attains supreme
+ Power.--His personal Relations to it._
+
+ _The Trinitarian Controversy.--Story of Arius.--The Council of
+ Nicea._
+
+ _The Progress of the Bishop of Rome to Supremacy.--The Roman
+ Church; its primitive subordinate Position.--Causes of its
+ increasing Wealth, Influence, and Corruptions.--Stages of its
+ Advancement through the Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian
+ Disputes.--Rivalry of the Bishops of Constantinople,
+ Alexandria, and Rome._
+
+ _Necessity of a Pontiff in the West and ecclesiastical
+ Councils in the East.--Nature of those Councils and of
+ pontifical Power._
+
+ _The Period closes at the Capture and Sack of Rome by
+ Alaric.--Defence of that Event by St. Augustine.--Criticism on
+ his Writings._
+
+ _Character of the Progress of Thought through this
+ Period.--Destiny of the three great Bishops._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Subject of the chapter.]
+
+From the decay of Polytheism and the decline of philosophy, from the
+moral and social disorganization of the Roman empire, I have now to turn
+to the most important of all events, the rise of Christianity. I have
+to show how a variation of opinion proceeded and reached its
+culmination; how it was closed by the establishment of a criterion of
+truth, under the form of ecclesiastical councils, and a system developed
+which supplied the intellectual wants of Europe for nearly a thousand
+years.
+
+[Sidenote: Introduction to the study of Christianity.]
+
+The reader, to whom I have thus offered a representation of the state of
+Roman affairs, must now prepare to look at the consequences thereof.
+Together we must trace out the progress of Christianity, examine the
+adaptation of its cardinal principles to the wants of the empire, and
+the variations it exhibited--a task supremely difficult, for even
+sincerity and truth will sometimes offend. For my part, it is my
+intention to speak with veneration on this great topic, and yet with
+liberty, for freedom of thought and expression is to me the first of all
+earthly things.
+
+[Sidenote: Distinction between Christianity and ecclesiastical
+organizations.]
+
+But, that I may not be misunderstood, I here, at the outset,
+emphatically distinguish between Christianity and ecclesiastical
+organizations. The former is the gift of God; the latter are the product
+of human exigencies and human invention, and therefore open to
+criticism, or, if need be, to condemnation.
+
+[Sidenote: Moral state of the world at this period.]
+
+From the condition of the Roman empire may be indicated the principles
+of any new system adapted to its amelioration. In the reign of Augustus,
+violence paused only because it had finished its work. Faith was dead;
+morality had disappeared. Around the shores of the Mediterranean the
+conquered nations looked at one another--partakers of a common
+misfortune, associates in a common lot. Not one of them had found a god
+to help her in her day of need. Europe, Asia, and Africa were tranquil,
+but it was the silence of despair.
+
+[Sidenote: Unpitying tyranny of Rome.]
+
+Rome never considered man as an individual, but only as a thing. Her way
+to political greatness was pursued utterly regardless of human
+suffering. If advantages accrued to the conquered under her dominion,
+they arose altogether from incident, and never from her purposed intent.
+She was no self-conscious, deliberate civilizer. Conquest and rapine,
+the uniform aim of her actions, never permitted her, even at her utmost
+intellectual development, to comprehend the equal rights of all men in
+the eye of the law. Unpitying in her stern policy, few were the
+occasions when, for high state reasons, she stayed her uplifted hand.
+She might in the wantonness of her power, stoop to mercy; she never rose
+to benevolence.
+
+[Sidenote: Prepares the way for the recognition of the equality of all
+men.]
+
+When Syria was paying one third of its annual produce in taxes, is it
+surprising that the Jewish peasant sighed for a deliverer, and eagerly
+listened to the traditions of his nation that a temporal Messiah, "a
+king of the Jews" would soon come? When there was announced the equality
+of all men before God, "who maketh his sun to shine on the good and the
+evil, and sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust," is it surprising
+that men looked for equal rights before the law? Universal equality
+means universal benevolence; it substitutes for the impersonal and
+easily-eluded commands of the state the dictates of an ever-present
+conscience; it accepts the injunction, "Do unto others as you would they
+should do to you."
+
+[Sidenote: Attitude of Paganism.]
+
+In the spread of a doctrine two things are concerned--its own intrinsic
+nature, and the condition of him on whom it is intended to act. The
+spread of Christianity is not difficult to be understood. Its
+antagonist, Paganism, presented inherent weakness, infidelity, and a
+cheerless prospect; a system, if that can be called so, which had no
+ruling idea, no principles, no organization; caring nothing for
+proselytes; its rival pontiffs devoted to many gods, but forming no
+political combination; occupying themselves with directing public
+worship and foretelling future events, but not interfering in domestic
+life; giving itself no concern for the lowly and unfortunate; not
+recognizing, or, at the best, doubtfully admitting a future life;
+limiting the hopes and destiny of man to this world; teaching that
+temporal prosperity may be selfishly gained at any cost, and looking to
+suicide as the relief of the brave from misfortune.
+
+[Sidenote: Attitude of Christianity.]
+
+On the other side was Christianity, with its enthusiasm and burning
+faith; its rewards in this life, and everlasting happiness or damnation
+in the next; the precise doctrines it by degrees gathered of sin,
+repentance, pardon; the efficacy of the blood of the Son of God; its
+proselytizing spirit; its vivid dogmas of a resurrection from the dead,
+the approaching end of the world, the judgment-day. Above all, in a
+worldly point of view, the incomparable organization it soon attained,
+and its preaching in season and out of season. To the needy Christian
+the charities of the faithful were freely given; to the desolate,
+sympathy. In every congregation there were prayers to God that he would
+listen to the sighing of the prisoner and captive, and have mercy on
+those who were ready to die. For the slave and his master there was one
+law and one hope, one baptism, one Saviour, one Judge. In times of
+domestic bereavement the Christian slave doubtless often consoled his
+pagan mistress with the suggestion that our present separations are only
+for a little while, and revealed to her willing ear that there is
+another world--a land in which we rejoin our dead. How is it possible to
+arrest the spread of a faith which can make the broken heart leap with
+joy?
+
+[Sidenote: Its first organization.]
+
+At its first organization Christianity embodied itself in a form of
+communism, the merging of the property of the disciples into a common
+stock, from which the necessary provision for the needy was made. Such a
+system, carried out rigorously, is, however, only suited to small
+numbers and a brief period. In its very nature it is impracticable on a
+great scale. Scarcely had it been resorted to before such troubles as
+that connected with the question of the Hebrew and Greek widows showed
+that it must be modified. By this relief or maintenance out of the funds
+of the Church, the spread of the faith among the humbler classes was
+greatly facilitated. In warm climates, where the necessities of life are
+small, an apparently insignificant sum will accomplish much in this way.
+But, as wealth accumulated, besides this inducement for the poor, there
+were temptations for the ambitious: luxurious appointments and a
+splendid maintenance, the ecclesiastical dignitaries becoming more than
+rivals to those of the state.
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual sectarian divergences.]
+
+From the modification which the primitive organization thus underwent,
+we may draw the instructive conclusion that the special forms of
+embodiment which the Christian principle from time to time has assumed,
+and of which many might be mentioned, were, in reality, of only
+secondary importance. The sects of the early ages have so totally died
+away that we hardly recall the meaning of their names, or determine
+their essential dogmas. From fasting, penance, and the gift of money,
+things which are of precise measurement, and therefore well suited to
+intellectual infancy, there may be perceived an advancing orthodoxy up
+to the highest metaphysical ideas. Yet it must not be supposed that new
+observances and doctrines, as they emerged, were the disconnected
+inventions of ambitious men. If rightly considered, they are, in the
+aggregate, the product of the uniform progression of human opinions.
+
+[Sidenote: Early variation of opinions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Eastern theology tends to Divinity,]
+
+[Sidenote: Western to Humanity.]
+
+Authors who have treated of the sects of earlier times will point out to
+the curious reader how, in the beginning, the Church was agitated by a
+lingering attachment to the Hebrew rites, and with difficulty tore
+itself away from Judaism, which for the first ten years was paramount in
+it; how then, for several centuries, it became engrossed with disputes
+respecting the nature of Christ, and creed after creed arose therefrom;
+to the Ebionites he was a mere man; to the Docetes, a phantasm; to the
+Jewish Gnostic, Cerinthus, possessed of a twofold nature; how, after the
+spread of Christianity, in succeeding ages, all over the empire, the
+intellectual peculiarities of the East and West were visibly impressed
+upon it--the East filled with speculative doctrines, of which the most
+important were those brought forward by the Platonists of Alexandria,
+for the Platonists, of all Philosophical sects, furnished most converts;
+the West, in accordance with its utilitarian genius, which esteems the
+practical and disparages the intellectual, singularly aided by
+propitious opportunity, occupying itself with material aggrandizement
+and territorial power. The vanishing point of all Christian sectarian
+ideas of the East was in God, of those of the West in Man. Herein
+consists the essential difference between them. The one was rich in
+doctrines respecting the nature of the Divinity, the other abounded in
+regulations for the improvement and consolation of humanity. For long
+there was a tolerance, and even liberality toward differences of
+opinion. Until the Council of Nicea, no one was accounted a heretic if
+only he professed his belief in the Apostles' Creed.
+
+[Sidenote: Foreign modifications of Christianity.]
+
+A very astute ecclesiastical historian, referring to the early
+contaminations of Christianity, makes this remark: "A clear and
+unpolluted fountain fed by secret channels with the dew of Heaven, when
+it grows a large river, and takes a long and winding course, receives a
+tincture from the various soils through which it passes."
+
+Thus influenced by circumstances, the primitive modifications of
+Christianity were three--Judaic Christianity, Gnostic Christianity,
+African Christianity.
+
+[Sidenote: Judaic Christianity.]
+
+Of these, the first consisted of contaminations from Judaism, from which
+true Christianity disentangled itself with extreme difficulty, at the
+cost of dissensions among the Apostles themselves. From the purely
+Hebrew point of view of the early disciples, who surrendered with
+reluctance their expectation that the Saviour was the long-looked-for
+temporal Messiah, the King of the Jews, under which name he suffered,
+the faith gradually expanded, including successively proselytes of the
+Gate, the surrounding Gentiles, and at last the whole world,
+irrespective of nation, climate, or colour. With this truly imperial
+extension, there came into view the essential doctrines on which it was
+based. But Judaic Christianity, properly speaking, soon came to an
+untimely end. It was unable to maintain itself against the powerful
+apostolic influences in the bosom of the Church, and the violent
+pressure exerted by the unbelieving Jews, who exhibited toward it an
+inflexible hatred. Moreover, the rapid advance of the new doctrines
+through Asia Minor and Greece offered a tempting field for enthusiasm.
+The first preachers in the Roman empire were Jews; for the first years
+circumcision and conformity to the law of Moses were insisted on; but
+the first council determined that point, at Jerusalem, probably about
+A.D. 49, in the negative. The organization of the Church, originally
+modelled upon that of the Synagogue, was changed. In the beginning the
+creed and the rites were simple; it was only necessary to profess belief
+in the Lord Jesus Christ, and baptism marked the admission of the
+convert into the community of the faithful. James, the brother of our
+Lord, as might, from his relationship, be expected, occupied the
+position of headship in the Church. The names of the bishops of the
+church of Jerusalem, as given by Eusebius, succeed to James, the brother
+of Christ, in the following order: Simeon, Justus, Zaccheus, Tobias,
+Benjamin, John, Matthew, Philip, Simeon, Justus, Levi, Ephraim, Joseph,
+and Judas. The names are indicative of the nationality. It was the boast
+of this Church that it was not corrupted with any heresy until the last
+Jewish bishop, a boast which must be received with some limitation, for
+very early we find traces of two distinct parties in Jerusalem--those
+who received the account of the miraculous conception and those who did
+not. The Ebionites, who were desirous of tracing our Saviour's lineage
+up to David, did so according to the genealogy given in the Gospel of
+St. Mathew, and therefore they would not accept what was said respecting
+the miraculous conception, affirming that it was apocryphal, and in
+obvious contradiction to the genealogy in which our Saviour's line was
+traced up through Joseph, who, it would thus appear, was not his father.
+They are to be considered as the national or patriotic party.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the arrest of Jewish conversion.]
+
+Two causes seem to have been concerned in arresting the spread of
+conversion among the Jews: the first was their disappointment as
+respects the temporal power of the Messiah; the second, the prominence
+eventually given to the doctrine of the Trinity. Their jealousy of
+anything that might touch the national doctrine of the unity of God
+became almost a fanaticism. Judaic Christianity may be said to have
+virtually ended with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; its
+last trace, however, was the dispute respecting Easter, which was
+terminated by the Council of Nicea. The conversion of the Jews had
+ceased before the reign of Constantine.
+
+[Sidenote: Gnostic Christianity.]
+
+The second form, Gnostic Christianity, had reached its full development
+within a century after the death of Christ; it maintained an active
+influence through the first four centuries, and gave birth, during that
+time, to many different subordinate sects. It consisted essentially in
+ingrafting Christianity upon Magianism. It made the Saviour an emanated
+intelligence, derived from the eternal, self-existing mind; this
+intelligence, and not the Man-Jesus, was the Christ, who thus, being an
+impassive phantom, afforded to Gnosticism no idea of an expiatory
+sacrifice, none of an atonement. It was arrested by the reappearance of
+pure Magianism in the Persian empire under Ardeschir Babhegan; not,
+however, without communicating to orthodox Christianity an impression
+far more profound than is commonly supposed, and one of which indelible
+traces may be perceived in our day.
+
+[Sidenote: Platonic Christianity.]
+
+The third form, African or Platonic Christianity, arose in Alexandria.
+Here was the focus of those fatal disputes respecting the Trinity, a
+word which does not occur in the Holy Scriptures, and which, it appears,
+had been first introduced by Theophilus, the Bishop of Antioch, the
+seventh from the apostles. In the time of Hadrian, Christianity had
+become diffused all over Egypt, and had found among the Platonizing
+philosophers of the metropolis many converts. These men modified the
+Gnostic idea to suit their own doctrines, asserting that the principle
+from which the universe originated was something emitted from the
+Supreme Mind, and capable of being drawn into it again, as they supposed
+was the case with a ray and the sun. This ray, they affirmed, was
+permanently attached to our Saviour, and hence he might be considered as
+God. Thus, therefore, there were in his person three parts, a body, a
+soul, and the logos; hence he was both God and man. But, as a ray is
+inferior to the sun, it seemed to follow that the Christ must be
+inferior to the Father.
+
+[Sidenote: The Logos.]
+
+In all this it is evident that there is something transcendental, and
+the Platonizing Christians, following the habit of the Greek
+philosophers, considered it as a mysterious doctrine; they spoke of it
+as "meat for strong men," but the popular current doctrine was "milk for
+babes." Justin Martyr, A.D. 132, who had been a Platonic philosopher,
+believed that the divine ray, after it was attached to Christ, was never
+withdrawn from him, and never separated from its source. He offers two
+illustrations of his idea. As speech (logos), going forth from one man,
+enters into another, conveying to him meaning, while the same meaning
+remains in the person who speaks, thus the logos of the Father continues
+unimpaired in himself, though imparted to the Christ; or, as from one
+lamp another may be lighted without any loss of splendour, so the
+divinity of the Father is transferred to the Son. This last illustration
+subsequently became very popular, and was adopted into the Nicene Creed.
+"God of God, Light of Light."
+
+It is obvious that the intention of this reasoning was to preserve
+intact, the doctrine of the unity of God, for the great body of
+Christians were at this time monarchists, the word being used in its
+theological acceptation.
+
+[Sidenote: Permanence of Alexandrian ideas.]
+
+Thus the Jewish and Gnostic forms both died out, but the African,
+Platonic, or Alexandrian, was destined to be perpetuated. The manner in
+which this occurred, can only be understood by a study of the political
+history of the times. To such facts as are needful for the purpose, I
+shall therefore with brevity allude.
+
+[Sidenote: Spread of Christianity from Syria.]
+
+[Sidenote: Modifications of organization become necessary.]
+
+[Sidenote: Becomes antagonistic to Imperialism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Persecution consolidates it.]
+
+From its birthplace in Judea, Christianity advanced to the conquest of
+the Roman world. In its primitive form it received an urgency from the
+belief that the end of all things was close at hand, and that the earth
+was on the point of being burnt up by fire. From the civil war it waged
+in Judea, it emerged to enter on a war of invasion and foreign
+annexation. In succession, Cyprus, Phrygia, Galatia, and all Asia Minor,
+Greece, and Italy, were penetrated. The persecutions of Nero, incident
+on the burning of Rome, did not for a moment retard its career; during
+his reign it rapidly spread, and in every direction Petrine and Pauline,
+or Judaizing and Hellenizing churches were springing up. The latter
+gained the superiority, and the former passed away. The constitution of
+the churches changed, the congregations gradually losing power, which
+became concentrated in the bishop. By the end of the first century the
+episcopal form was predominant, and the ecclesiastical organization so
+imposing as to command the attention of the emperors, who now began to
+discover the mistake that had hitherto been made in confounding the new
+religion with Judaism. Their dislike to it, soon manifested in measures
+of repression, was in consequence of the peculiar attitude it assumed.
+As a body, the Christians not only kept aloof from all the amusements of
+the times, avoiding theatres and public rejoicings, but in every respect
+constituted themselves an empire within the empire. Such a state of
+things was altogether inconsistent with the established government, and
+its certain inconveniences and evils were not long in making themselves
+felt. The triumphant march of Christianity was singularly facilitated by
+free intercommunication over the Mediterranean, in consequence of that
+sea being in the hands of one sovereign power. The Jewish and Greek
+merchants afforded it a medium; their trading towns were its posts. But
+it is not to be supposed that its spread was without resistance; for at
+least the first century and a half the small farmers and land labourers
+entertained a hatred to it, looking upon it as a peculiarity of the
+trading communities, whom they ever despised. They persuaded themselves
+that the earthquakes, inundations and pestilences were attributable to
+it. To these incitements was added a desire to seize the property of the
+faithful confiscated by the law. Of this the early Christians
+unceasingly and bitterly complained. But the rack, the fire, wild beasts
+were unavailingly applied. Out of the very persecutions themselves
+advantages arose. Injustice and barbarity bound the pious but feeble
+communities together, and repressed internal dissent.
+
+[Sidenote: Defiant air of the young churches.]
+
+[Sidenote: Opposition of the emperors.]
+
+In several instances, however, there can be no doubt that persecution
+was brought on by the defiant air the churches assumed as they gathered
+strength. To understand this, we have only to peruse such documents as
+the address of Tertullian to Scapula. Full of intolerant spirit, it
+accuses the national religion of being the cause of all the public
+calamities, the floods, the fires, the eclipses; it denounces the
+vengeance of God on the national idolatry. As was the opinion of the
+Christians at that time, it acknowledges the reality of the pagan gods,
+whom it stigmatizes as demons, and proclaims its determination to expel
+them. It warns its opponents that they may be stricken blind, devoured
+by worms, or visited with other awful calamities. Such a sentiment of
+scorn and hatred, gathering force enough to make itself politically
+felt, was certain to provoke persecution. That of Decius, A.D. 250, was
+chiefly aimed against the clergy, not even the bishops of Jerusalem,
+Antioch, and Rome escaping. Eight years afterwards occurred that in
+which Sextus, the Bishop of Rome, and Cyprian of Carthage perished.
+
+[Sidenote: Position of things under Diocletian.]
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial persecutions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their great political consequences.]
+
+[Sidenote: Successful policy of Constantine.]
+
+Under Diocletian it had become apparent that the self-governed Christian
+corporations everywhere arising were altogether incompatible with the
+imperial system. If tolerated much longer, they would undoubtedly gain
+such strength as to become politically quite formidable. There was not a
+town, hardly a village in the empire--nay, what was indeed far more
+serious, there was not a legion in which these organizations did not
+exist. The uncompromising and inexorable spirit animating them brought
+on necessarily a triple alliance of the statesmen, the philosophers, and
+the polytheists. These three parties, composing or postponing their
+mutual disputes, cordially united to put down the common enemy before it
+should be too late. It so fell out that the conflict first broke out in
+the army. When the engine of power is affected, it behoves a prince to
+take heed. The Christian soldiers in some of the legions refused to join
+in the time-honoured solemnities for propitiating the gods. It was in
+the winter A.D. 302-3. The emergency became so pressing that a council
+was held by Diocletian and Galerius to determine what should be done.
+The difficulty of the position may perhaps be appreciated when it is
+understood that even the wife and daughter of Diocletian himself were
+adherents of the new religion. He was a man of such capacity and
+enlarged political views that, at the second council of the leading
+statesmen and generals, he would not have been brought to give his
+consent to repression if it had not been quite clear that a conflict was
+unavoidable. His extreme reluctance to act is shown by the express
+stipulation he made that there should be no sacrifice of life. It is
+scarcely necessary to relate the events which ensued; how the Church of
+Nicomedia was razed to the ground; how, in retaliation, the imperial
+palace was set on fire; how an edict was openly insulted and torn down;
+how the Christian officers in the army were compelled to resign; and, as
+Eusebius, an eye-witness, relates, a vast number of martyrs soon
+suffered in Armenia, Syria, Mauritania, Egypt, and elsewhere. So
+resistless was the march of events that not even the emperor himself
+could stop the persecution. The Christians were given over to torture,
+the fire, wild beasts, beheading; many of them, in the moment of
+condemnation, simply returning thanks to God that he had thought them
+worthy to suffer. The whole world was filled with admiration. The
+greatness of such holy courage could have no other result. An
+internecine conflict between the disputants seemed to be inevitable.
+But, in the dark and bloody policy of the times, the question was
+settled in an unexpected way. To Constantine, who had fled from the
+treacherous custody of Galerius, it naturally occurred that if he should
+ally himself to the Christian party, conspicuous advantages must
+forthwith accrue to him. It would give him in every corner of the empire
+men and women ready to encounter fire and sword; it would give him
+partisans, not only animated by the traditions of their fathers,
+but--for human nature will even in the religious assert itself--demanding
+retribution for the horrible barbarities and injustice that had been
+inflicted on themselves; it would give him, and this was the most
+important of all, unwavering adherents in every legion of the army.
+He took his course. The events of war crowned him with success. He
+could not be otherwise than outwardly true to those who had given him
+power, and who continued to maintain him on the throne. But he never
+conformed to the ceremonial requirements of the Church till the close of
+his evil life.
+
+The attempt to make an alliance with this great and rapidly growing
+party was nothing new. Maximin tried it, but was distrusted. Licinius,
+foreseeing the policy that Constantine would certainly pursue,
+endeavoured to neutralize it by feebly reviving the persecution, A.D.
+316, thinking thereby to conciliate the pagans. The aspirants for empire
+at this moment so divided the strength of the state that, had the
+Christian party been weaker than it actually was, it so held the balance
+of power as to be able to give a preponderance to the candidate of its
+choice. Much more, therefore, was it certain to prevail, considering its
+numbers, its ramifications, its compactness. Force, argument, and
+persuasion had alike proved ineffectual against its strength.
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of the reign of Constantine.]
+
+To the reign of Constantine the Great must be referred the commencement
+of those dark and dismal times which oppressed Europe for a thousand
+years. It is the true close of the Roman empire, the beginning of the
+Greek. The transition from one to the other is emphatically and abruptly
+marked by a new metropolis, a new religion, a new code, and, above all,
+a new policy. An ambitious man had attained to imperial power by
+personating the interests of a rapidly growing party. The unavoidable
+consequences were a union between the Church and State; a diverting of
+the dangerous classes from civil to ecclesiastical paths, and the decay
+and materialization of religion. This, and not the reign of Leo the
+Isaurian, as some have said, is the true beginning of the Byzantine
+empire; it is also the beginning of the age of Faith in Europe, though I
+consider the age of Inquiry as overlapping this epoch, and as
+terminating with the military fall of Rome.
+
+Ecclesiastical authors have made everything hinge on the conversion of
+Constantine and the national establishment of Christianity. The medium
+through which they look distorts the position of objects, and magnifies
+the subordinate and the collateral into the chief. Events had been
+gradually shaping themselves in such a way that the political fall of
+the city of Rome was inevitable. The Romans, as a people, had
+disappeared, being absorbed among other nations; the centre of power was
+in the army. One after another, the legions put forth competitors for
+the purple--soldiers of fortune, whose success could never remove low
+habits due to a base origin, the coarseness of a life of camps--who
+found no congeniality in the elegance and refinement of those relics of
+the ancient families which were expiring in Rome. They despised the
+military decrepitude of the superannuated city; her recollections they
+hated. To such men the expediency of founding a new capital was an
+obvious device; or, if indisposed to undertake so laborious a task, the
+removal of the imperial residence to some other of the great towns was
+an effectual substitute. It was thus that the residence of Diocletian at
+Nicomedia produced such disastrous consequences in a short time to Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: He resolves on removing the metropolis.]
+
+After Constantine had murdered his son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and
+had suffocated in a steam-bath his wife Fausta, to whom he had been
+married twenty years, and who was the mother of three of his sons, the
+public abhorrence of his crimes could no longer be concealed. A
+pasquinade, comparing his reign to that of Nero, was affixed to the
+palace gate. The guilty emperor, in the first burst of anger, was on the
+point of darkening the tragedy, if such a thing had been possible, by a
+massacre of the Roman populace who had thus insulted him. It is said
+that his brothers were consulted on this measure of vengeance. The
+result of their counsel was even more deadly, for it was resolved to
+degrade Rome to a subordinate rank, and build a metropolis elsewhere.
+
+[Sidenote: He is a protector, but not a convert.]
+
+Political conditions thus at once suggested and rendered possible the
+translation of the seat of government: the temporary motive was the
+vengeance of a great criminal. Perhaps, also, in the mental occupation
+incident to such an undertaking, the emperor found a refuge from the
+accusations of conscience. But it is altogether erroneous to suppose
+that either at this time, or for many years subsequently, he was a
+Christian. His actions are not those of a devout convert; he was no
+proselyte, but a protector; never guiding himself by religious
+principles, but now giving the most valuable support to his new allies,
+now exhibiting the impartiality of a statesman for both forms of faith.
+In his character of Pontifex Maximus he restored pagan temples, and
+directed that the haruspices should be consulted. On the festival of the
+birthday of the new city he honoured the statue of Fortune. The
+continued heathen sacrifices and open temples seemed to indicate that he
+intended to do no more than place the new religion on a level with the
+old. His recommendation to the Bishop of Alexandria and to Arius of the
+example of the philosophers, who never debated profound questions before
+ignorant audiences, and who could differ without hating one another,
+illustrates the indifferentism of his personal attitude, and yet he
+clearly recognized his obligations to the party that had given him
+power.
+
+[Sidenote: His tendencies to Paganism.]
+
+This conclusion is confirmed by the works of Constantine himself. They
+must be regarded as far better authority than the writings of religious
+polemics. A medal was struck, on which was impressed his title of "God,"
+together with the monogram of Christ. Another represented him as raised
+by a hand from the sky while seated in the chariot of the Sun. But more
+particularly the great porphyry pillar, a column 120 feet in height,
+exhibited the true religious condition of the founder of Constantinople.
+The statue on its summit mingled together the Sun, the Saviour, and the
+Emperor. Its body was a colossal image of Apollo, whose features were
+replaced by those of Constantine, and round the head, like rays, were
+fixed the nails of the cross of Christ recently discovered in Jerusalem.
+
+[Sidenote: His relations to the Church.]
+
+The position of a patron assumed by Constantine may be remarked in many
+of the incidents of his policy. The edict of Milan gave liberty both to
+Pagans and Christians; but his necessity for showing in some degree a
+preponderance of favour for the latter obliged him to issue a rescript
+exempting the clergy from civil offices. It was this also which led him
+to conciliate the bishops by the donation of large sums of money for the
+restoration of their churches and other purposes, and to exert himself,
+often by objectionable means, for destroying that which they who were
+around him considered to be heresy. A better motive, perhaps, led him to
+restore those Christians who had been degraded; to surrender to the
+legal heirs the confiscated estates of martyrs, or, if no heirs were to
+be found, to convey them to the Church; to set at liberty those who had
+been condemned to the mines; to recall those who had been banished. If,
+as a tribute to the Christians, who had sustained him politically, he
+made the imperial treasury responsible for many of their losses; if he
+caused costly churches to be built not only in the great cities, but
+even in the Holy Land; if he vindicated the triumphant position of his
+supporters by forbidding any Jew to have a Christian slave; if he
+undertook to enforce the decisions of councils by means of the power of
+the state; if he forbade all schism in the Church, himself determining
+the degrees of heresy under the inspirations of his ecclesiastical
+entourage, his vacillations show how little he was guided by principle,
+how much by policy. After the case of the Donatists had been settled by
+repeated councils, he spontaneously recalled them from banishment; after
+he had denounced Arius as "the very image of the Devil," he, through the
+influence of court females, received him again into favour; after the
+temple of Aesculapius at Aegae had been demolished, and the doors and
+roofs of others removed, the pagans were half conciliated by perceiving
+that no steady care was taken to enforce the obnoxious decrees, and that,
+after all, the Christians would have to accept the declarations of the
+emperor for deeds.
+
+[Sidenote: Consequences of building a new metropolis.]
+
+In a double respect the removal of the seat of empire was important to
+Christianity. It rendered possible the assumption of power by the
+bishops of Rome, who were thereby secluded from imperial observation and
+inspection, and whose position, feeble at first, under such singularly
+auspicious circumstances was at last developed into papal supremacy. In
+Constantinople, also, there were no pagan recollections and interests to
+contend with. At first the new city was essentially Roman, and its
+language Latin; but this was soon changed for Greek, and thus the
+transference of the seat of government tended in the end to make Latin a
+sacred tongue.
+
+[Sidenote: The policy of Constantine.]
+
+Constantine knew very well where Roman power had for many years lain.
+His own history, from the time of his father's death and his exaltation
+by the legions at York, had taught him that, for the perpetuation of his
+dynasty and system, those formidable bodies must be disposed of. It was
+for this reason, and that no future commander might do what himself and
+so many of his predecessors had done, that he reduced the strength of
+the legion from 6000 to 1500 or 1000 men. For this reason, too, he
+opened to ambition the less dangerous field of ecclesiastical wealth and
+dignity, justly concluding that, since the clergy came from every class
+of society, the whole people would look to the prosperity of the Church.
+By exempting the priesthood from burdensome municipal offices, such as
+the decurionate, he put a premium on apostacy from paganism. The
+interest he personally took in the Trinitarian controversy encouraged
+the spreading of theological disputation from philosophers and men of
+capacity to the populace. Under the old polytheism heresy was
+impossible, since every man might select his god and his worship; but
+under the new monotheism it was inevitable--heresy, a word that provokes
+and justifies a black catalogue of crimes. Occupied in those exciting
+pursuits, men took but little heed of the more important political
+changes that were in progress. The eyes of the rabble were easily turned
+from the movements of the government by horse-racing, theatres,
+largesses. Yet already this diversion of ambition into new fields gave
+tokens of dangers to the state in future times. The Donatists, whom
+Constantine had attempted to pacify by the Councils of Rome, Arles, and
+Milan, maintained a more than religious revolt, and exhibited the
+bitterness that may be infused among competitors for ecclesiastical
+spoils. These enthusiasts assumed to themselves the title of God's
+elect, proclaimed that the only true apostolic succession was in their
+bishops, and that whosoever denied the right of Donatus to be Bishop of
+Carthage should be eternally damned. They asked, with a truth that lent
+force to their demand, "What has the emperor to do with the Church, what
+have Christians to do with kings, what have bishops to do at court?"
+Already the Catholic party, in preparation of its commencing atrocities,
+ominously inquired, "Is the vengeance of God to be defrauded of its
+victims?" Already Constantine, by bestowing on the Church the right of
+receiving bequests, had given birth to that power which, reposing on the
+influence that always attaches to the possession of land, becomes at
+last overwhelming when it is held by a corporation which may always
+receive and can never alienate, which is always renewing itself and can
+never die. It was by no miraculous agency, but simply by its
+organization, that the Church attained to power; an individual who must
+die, and a family which must become extinct, had no chance against a
+corporation whose purposes were ever unchanged, and its life perpetual.
+But it was not the state alone which thus took detriment from her
+connection with the Church; the latter paid a full price for the
+temporal advantages she received in admitting civil intervention in her
+affairs. After a retrospect of a thousand years, the pious Fratricelli
+loudly proclaimed their conviction that the fatal gift of a Christian
+emperor had been the doom of true religion.
+
+[Sidenote: His conversion and death.]
+
+From the rough soldier who accepted the purple at York, how great the
+change to the effeminate emperor of the Bosphorus, in silken robes
+stiffened with threads of gold, a diadem of sapphires and pearls, and
+false hair stained of various tints; his steps stealthily guarded by
+mysterious eunuchs flitting through the palace, the streets full of
+spies, and an ever-watchful police! The same man who approaches us as
+the Roman imperator retires from us as the Asiatic despot. In the last
+days of his life, he put aside the imperial purple, and, assuming the
+customary white garment, prepared for baptism, that the sins of his long
+and evil life might all be washed away. Since complete purification can
+thus be only once obtained, he was desirous to procrastinate that
+ceremony to the last moment. Profoundly politic, even in his relations
+with heaven, he thenceforth reclined on a white bed, took no further
+part in worldly affairs, and, having thus insured a right to the
+continuance of that prosperity in a future life which he had enjoyed in
+this, expired, A.D. 337.
+
+[Sidenote: The Trinitarian controversy.]
+
+In a theological respect, among the chief events of this emperor's reign
+are the Trinitarian controversy and the open materialization of
+Christianity. The former, commencing among the Platonizing
+ecclesiastics of Alexandria, continued for ages to exert a formidable
+influence. From time immemorial, as we have already related, the
+Egyptians had been familiar with various trinities, different ones being
+worshipped in different cities, the devotees of each exercising a
+peaceful toleration toward those of others. But now things were greatly
+changed. It was the settled policy of Constantine to divert ambition
+from the state to the Church, and to make it not only safer, but more
+profitable to be a great ecclesiastic than a successful soldier. A
+violent competition, for the chief offices was the consequence--a
+competition, the prelude of that still greater one for episcopal
+supremacy.
+
+We are now again brought to a consideration of the variations of opinion
+which marked this age. It would be impossible to give a description of
+them all. I therefore propose to speak only of the prominent ones. They
+are a sufficient guide in our investigation; and of the Trinitarian
+controversy first.
+
+[Sidenote: Prelude of sectarian dissent.]
+
+For some time past dissensions had been springing up in the Church. Even
+out of persecution itself disunion had arisen. The martyrs who had
+suffered for their faith, and the confessors who had nobly avowed it,
+gained a worthy consideration and influence, becoming the intermedium of
+reconciliation of such of their weaker brethren as had apostatized in
+times of peril by authoritative recommendations to "the peace of the
+Church." From this abuses arose. Martyrs were known to have given the
+use of their names to "a man and his friends;" nay, it was even asserted
+that tickets of recommendation had been bought for money; and as it was
+desirable that a uniformity of discipline should obtain in all the
+churches, so that he who was excommunicated from one should be
+excommunicated from all, it was necessary that these abuses should be
+corrected. In the controversies that ensued, Novatus founded his sect on
+the principle that penitent apostates should, under no circumstances, be
+ever again received. Besides this dissent on a question of discipline,
+already there were abundant elements of dispute, such as the time of
+observance of Easter, the nature of Christ, the millennium upon earth,
+and rebaptism. Already, in Syria, Noetus, the Unitarian, had
+foreshadowed what was coming; already there were Patripassians; already
+Sabellianism existed.
+
+[Sidenote: Arius, his doctrines.]
+
+[Sidenote: Constantine attempts to check the controversy,]
+
+[Sidenote: and summons the Council of Nicea.]
+
+But it was in Alexandria that the tempest burst forth. There lived in
+that city a presbyter of the name of Arius, who, on occasion of a
+vacancy occurring, desired to be appointed bishop. But one Alexander
+supplanted him in the coveted dignity. Both relied on numerous
+supporters, Arius counting among his not less than seven hundred virgins
+of the Mareotic nome. In his disappointment he accused his successful
+antagonist of Sabellianism, and, in retaliation, was anathematized. It
+was no wonder that, in such an atmosphere, the question quickly assumed
+a philosophical aspect. The point of difficulty was to define the
+position of the Son in the Holy Trinity. Arius took the ground that
+there was a time when, from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not
+exist, and a time at which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the
+necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older
+than his son. But this assertion evidently might imply subordination or
+inequality among the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The partisans of
+Alexander raised up their voices against such a blasphemous lowering of
+the Redeemer; the Arians answered them that, by exalting the Son in
+every respect to an equality with the Father, they impugned the great
+truth of the unity of God. The new bishop himself edified the giddy
+citizens, and perhaps, in some degree, justified his appointment to his
+place by displaying his rhetorical powers in public debates on the
+question. The Alexandrians, little anticipating the serious and enduring
+results soon to arise, amused themselves, with characteristic levity, by
+theatrical representations of the contest upon the stage. The passions
+of the two parties were roused; the Jews and Pagans, of whom the town
+was full, exasperated things by their mocking derision. The dissension
+spread: the whole country became convulsed. In the hot climate of
+Africa, theological controversy soon ripened into political disturbance.
+In all Egypt there was not a Christian man, and not a woman, who did
+not proceed to settle the nature of the unity of God. The tumult rose to
+such a pitch that it became necessary for the emperor to interfere.
+Doubtless, at first, he congratulated himself on such a course of
+events. It was better that the provinces should be fanatically engaged
+in disputes than secretly employed in treason against his person or
+conspiracies against his policy. A united people is an inconvenience to
+one in power. Nevertheless, to compose the matter somewhat, he sent
+Hosius, the Bishop of Cordova, to Alexandria; but, finding that the
+remedy was altogether inadequate, he was driven at last to the memorable
+expedient of summoning the Council of Nicea, A.D. 325. It attempted a
+settlement of the trouble by a condemnation of Arius, and the
+promulgation of authoritative articles of belief as set forth in the
+Nicene Creed. As to the main point, the Son was declared to be of the
+same substance with the Father--a temporizing and convenient, but, as
+the event proved, a disastrous ambiguity. The Nicene Council, therefore,
+settled the question by evading it, and the emperor enforced the
+decision by the banishment of Arius.
+
+[Sidenote: The fortunes of Arius.]
+
+"I am persecuted," Arius plaintively said, "because I have taught that
+the Son had a beginning and the Father had not." It was the influence of
+the court theologians that had made the emperor his personal enemy.
+Constantine, as we have seen, had looked upon the dispute, in the first
+instance, as altogether frivolous, if he did not, in truth, himself
+incline to the assertion of Arius, that, in the very nature of the
+thing, a father must be older than his son. The theatrical exhibitions
+at Alexandria in mockery of the question were calculated to confirm him
+in his opinion: his judgment was lost in the theories that were
+springing up as to the nature of Christ; for on the Ebionitish, Gnostic,
+and Platonic doctrines, as well as on the new one that "the logos" was
+made out of nothing, it equally followed that the current opinion must
+be erroneous, and that there was a time before which the Son did not
+exist.
+
+[Sidenote: His condemnation as a heretic.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Nicene Creed.]
+
+But, as the contest spread through churches and even families,
+Constantine had found himself compelled to intervene. At first he
+attempted the position of a moderator, but soon took ground against
+Arius, advised to that course by his entourage at Constantinople. It was
+at this time that the letter was circulated in which he denounced Arius
+as the image of the Devil. Arius might now have foreseen what must
+certainly occur at Nicea. Before that council was called everything was
+settled. No contemporary for a moment supposed that this was an assembly
+of simple-hearted men, anxious by a mutual comparison of thought, to
+ascertain the truth. Its aim was not to compose such a creed as would
+give unity to the Church, but one so worded that the Arians would be
+compelled to refuse to sign it, and so ruin themselves. To the creed was
+attached an anathema precisely defining the point of dispute, and
+leaving the foreordained victims no chance of escape. The original
+Nicene Creed differed in some essential particulars from that now
+current under that title. Among other things, the fatal and final clause
+has been dropped. Thus it ran: "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church
+anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God
+was not; and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was
+made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is
+created, or changeable, or alterable." The emperor enforced the decision
+of the council by the civil power; he circulated letters denouncing
+Arius, and initiated those fearful punishments unhappily destined in
+future ages to become so frequent, by ordaining that whoever should find
+one of the books of Arius and not burn it should actually be put to
+death.
+
+[Sidenote: Arius received again into court favour,]
+
+[Sidenote: and is poisoned.]
+
+It might be thought that, after such a decisive course, it would be
+impossible to change, and yet in less than ten years Constantine is
+found agreeing with the convict Arius. A presbyter in the confidence of
+Constantia, the emperor's sister, had wrought upon him. Athanasius, now
+Bishop of Alexandria, the representative of the other party, is deposed
+and banished. Arius is invited to Constantinople. The emperor orders
+Alexander, the bishop of that city, to receive him into communion
+to-morrow. It is Saturday. Alexander flees to the church, and, falling
+prostrate, prays to God that he will interpose and save his servant from
+being forced into this sin, even if it should be by death. That same
+evening Arius was seized with a sudden and violent illness as he passed
+along the street, and in a few moments he was found dead in a house,
+whither he had hastened. In Constantinople, where men were familiar with
+Asiatic crimes, there was more than a suspicion of poison. But when
+Alexander's party proclaimed that his prayer had been answered, they
+forgot what then that prayer must have been, and that the difference is
+little between praying for the death of a man and compassing it.
+
+[Sidenote: Constantine prepares for a new creed.]
+
+The Arians affirmed that it was the intention of Constantine to have
+called a new council, and have the creed rectified according to his more
+recent ideas; but, before he could accomplish this, he was overtaken by
+death. So little efficacy was there in the determination of the Council
+of Nicea, that for many years afterward creed upon creed appeared. What
+Constantine's new creed would have been may be told from the fact that
+the Consubstantialists had gone out of power, and from what his son
+Constantius soon after did at the Council of Ariminium.
+
+[Sidenote: Spread of theological disputes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Athanasius rebels against the emperor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Steady aggression of the Church and crimes of ecclesiastics.]
+
+So far, therefore, from the Council of Nicea ending the controversies
+afflicting religion, they continued with increasing fury. The sons and
+successors of Constantine set an example of violence in these disputes;
+and, until the barbarians burst in upon the empire, the fourth century
+wore away in theological feuds. Even the populace, scarcely emerged from
+paganism, set itself up for a judge on questions from their very nature
+incapable of being solved; and to this the government gave an impetus by
+making the profits of public service the reward of sectarian violence.
+The policy of Constantine began to produce its results. Mental activity
+and ambition found their true field in ecclesiastical affairs. Orthodoxy
+triumphed, because it was more in unison with the present necessity of
+the court, while asserting the predominance of Christianity, to offend
+as little as might be the pagan party. The heresy of Arius, though it
+might suit the monotheistic views of the educated, did not commend
+itself to that large mass who had been so recently pagan. Already the
+elements of dissension were obvious enough; on one side there was an
+illiterate, intolerant, unscrupulous, credulous, numerous body, on the
+other a refined, better-informed, yet doubting sect. The Emperor
+Constantius, guided by his father's latest principles, having sided with
+the Arian party, soon found that under the new system a bishop would,
+without hesitation, oppose his sovereign. Athanasius, the Bishop of
+Alexandria, as the head of the orthodox party, became the personal
+antagonist of the emperor, who attempted, after vainly using physical
+compulsion, to resort to the celestial weapons in vogue by laying claim
+to Divine inspiration. Like his father, he had a celestial vision; but,
+as his views were Arian, the orthodox rejected without scruple his
+supernatural authority, and Hilary of Poictiers wrote a book to prove
+that he was Antichrist. The horrible bloodshed and murders attending
+these quarrels in the great cities, and the private life of persons both
+of high and low degree, clearly showed that Christianity, through its
+union with politics, had fallen into such a state that it could no
+longer control the passions of men. The biography of the sons of
+Constantine is an awful relation of family murders. Religion had
+disappeared, theology had come in its stead. Even theology had gone mad.
+But in the midst of these disputes worldly interests were steadily kept
+in view. At the Council of Ariminium, A.D. 359, an attempt was made to
+have the lands belonging to the churches exempt from all taxation; to
+his credit, the emperor steadfastly refused. Macedonius, the Bishop of
+Constantinople, who had passed over the slaughtered bodies of three
+thousand people to take possession of his episcopal throne, exceeded in
+heresy even Arius himself, by not only asserting the inferiority of the
+Son to the Father, but by absolutely denying the divinity of the Holy
+Ghost.
+
+[Sidenote: Two results of these events.]
+
+As the fruits of these broils, two facts appear: 1st, that there is a
+higher law, which the faithful may obey, in opposition to the law of the
+land, when it suits their views; the law of God, as expounded by the
+bishop, who can eternally punish the soul, must take precedence of the
+law of Caesar, who can only kill the body and seize the goods; 2d, that
+there is a supremacy in the Bishop of Rome, to whom Athanasius, the
+leader of the orthodox, by twice visiting that city, submitted his
+cause. The significance of these facts becomes conspicuous in later
+ages. Things were evidently shaping themselves for a trial of strength
+between the imperial and ecclesiastical powers, heretofore allied. They
+were about to quarrel over their booty.
+
+[Sidenote: History of Papal supremacy.]
+
+We have now to consider this asserted supremacy of the Bishop of Rome,
+and how it came to be established as a political fact. We must also turn
+from the Oriental variations of opinion to those of the West. Except by
+thus enlarging the field to be traversed, we can gain no perfect
+conception of the general intellectual tendency.
+
+[Sidenote: Hellenized Christianity.]
+
+For long after its introduction to Western Europe, Christianity was
+essentially a Greek religion. Its Oriental aspect had become Hellenized.
+Its churches had, in the first instance, a Greek organization, conducted
+their worship in that tongue, and composed their writings in it. Though
+it retained much of this foreign aspect so long as Rome continued to be
+the residence, or was more particularly under the eye of the emperors,
+it was gradually being affected by the influences to which it was
+exposed. On Western Europe, the questions which had so profoundly
+agitated the East, such as the nature of God, the Trinity, the cause of
+evil, had made but little impression, the intellectual peculiarity of
+the people being unsuited to such exercises. The foundation of
+Constantinople, by taking off the political pressure, permitted native
+peculiarities to manifest themselves, and Latin Christianity emerged in
+contradistinction to Greek.
+
+[Sidenote: Modified by Africanism.]
+
+Yet still it cannot be said that Europe owes its existing forms of
+Christianity to a Roman origin. It is indebted to Africa for them. We
+live under African domination.
+
+I have now with brevity to relate the progress of this interesting
+event; how African conceptions were firmly established in Rome, and, by
+the time that Greek Christianity had lost its expansive power and ceased
+to be aggressive, African Christianity took its place, extending to the
+North and West, and obtaining for itself an organization copied from
+that of the Roman empire; sacerdotal praetors, proconsuls, and a Caesar;
+developing its own jurisprudence, establishing its own magistracy,
+exchanging the Greek tongue it had hitherto used for the Latin, which,
+soon becoming a sacred language, conferred upon it the most singular
+advantages.
+
+[Sidenote: Subordinate position of the early Roman Church.]
+
+The Greek churches were of the nature of confederated republics; the
+Latin Church instinctively tended to monarchy. Far from assuming an
+attitude of conspicuous dignity, the primitive bishops of Rome led a
+life of obscurity. In the earliest times, the bishops of Jerusalem, of
+whom James, the brother of our Lord, was the first, are spoken of as the
+heads of the Church, and so regarded even in Rome itself. The
+controversy respecting Easter, A.D. 109, shows, however, how soon the
+disposition for Western supremacy was exhibited, Victor, the Bishop of
+Rome, requiring the Asiatic bishops to conform to the view of his Church
+respecting the time at which the festival of Easter should be observed,
+and being resisted therein by Polycrates, the Bishop of Ephesus, on
+behalf of the Eastern churches, the feud continuing until the
+determination of the Council of Nicea. It was not in Asia alone that the
+growth of Roman supremacy was resisted. There is no difficulty in
+selecting from ecclesiastical history proofs of the same feeling in many
+other quarters. Thus, when the disciples of Montanus, the Phrygian, who
+pretended to be the Paraclete, had converted to their doctrines and
+austerities the Bishop of Rome and Tertullian the Carthaginian, on the
+former backsliding from that faith, the latter denounced him as a
+Patripassian heretic. Yet, for the most part, a good understanding
+obtained not only between Rome and Carthage, but also among the Gallic
+and Spanish churches, who looked upon Rome as conspicuous and
+illustrious, though as no more than equal to themselves. At the Council
+of Carthage St. Cyprian said, "None of us ought to set himself up as a
+bishop of bishops, or pretend tyrannically to restrain his colleagues,
+because each bishop has a liberty and power to act as he thinks fit, and
+can no more be judged by another bishop than he can judge another. But
+we must all wait for the judgment of Jesus Christ, to whom alone belongs
+the power to set us over the Church, and to judge of our actions."
+
+[Sidenote: Its gradual increase in wealth and influence,]
+
+Rome by degrees emerged from this equality, not by the splendid talents
+of any illustrious man, for among her early bishops none rose above
+mediocrity, but partly from her political position, partly from the
+great wealth she soon accumulated, and partly from the policy she
+happened to follow. Her bishop was not present at the Council of Nicea,
+A.D. 325, nor at that of Sardica, A.D. 345; perhaps on these occasions,
+as on others of a like kind subsequently, the immediate motive of his
+standing aloof was the fear that he might not receive the presidency.
+Soon, however, was discerned the advantage of the system of appearing by
+representatives. Such an attitude, moreover, offered the opportunity of
+frequently holding the balance of power in the fierce conflicts that
+soon arose, made Rome a retreat for the discomfited ecclesiastic, and
+her bishop, apparently, an elevated and unbiased arbiter on his case. It
+was thus that Athanasius, in his contests with the emperor, found a
+refuge and protector. With this elevated position in the esteem of
+strangers came also domestic dignity. The prodigal gifts of the rich
+Roman ladies had already made the bishopric to be sought after by those
+who esteem the ease and luxuries of life, as well as by the ambitious.
+Fierce contests arose on the occurrence of vacancies. At the election of
+Damasus, one hundred and thirty of the slain lay in the basilica of
+Sisinnius: the competitors had called in the aid of a rabble of
+gladiators, charioteers, and other ruffians; nor could the riots be
+ended except by the intervention of the imperial troops.
+
+[Sidenote: and early corruptions.]
+
+It was none too soon that Jerome introduced the monastic system at
+Rome--there was need of a change to austerity; none too soon that
+legacy-hunting on the part of the clergy was prohibited by law--it had
+become a public scandal; none too soon that Jerome struggled for the
+patronage of the rich Roman women; none too soon that this stern
+fanatic denounced the immorality of the Roman clergy, when even the
+Bishop Damasus himself was involved in a charge of adultery. It became
+clear, if the clergy would hold their ground in public estimation
+against their antagonists the monks, that celibacy must be insisted on.
+The doctrine of the pre-eminent value of virginity was steadily making
+progress; but it cost many years of struggle before the monks carried
+their point, and the celibacy of the clergy became compulsory.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity for an apostolic head.]
+
+It had long been seen by those who hoped for Roman supremacy that there
+was a necessity for the establishment of a definite and ascertained
+doctrine--a necessity for recognizing some apostolic man, who might be
+the representative of a criterion of truth. The Eastern system of
+deciding by councils was in its nature uncertain. The councils
+themselves had no ascertained organization. Experience had shown that
+they were too much under the control of the court at Constantinople.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity for Councils or a pontiff.]
+
+This tendency to accept the republican decisions of councils in the
+East, and monarchical ones by a supreme pontiff in the West, in reality,
+however, depended on a common sentiment entertained by reflecting men
+everywhere. Something must be done to check the anarchy of opinion.
+
+To show how this tendency was satisfied, it will be sufficient to
+select, out of the numberless controversies of the times, a few leading
+ones. A clear light is thrown upon the matter by the history of the
+Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies. Their chronological period
+is from about A.D. 400 to A.D. 450.
+
+[Sidenote: The Pelagian controversy].
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of Pelagianism on papal superiority.]
+
+Pelagius was the assumed name of a British monk, who, about the first of
+those dates, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching
+the doctrines that Adam was by nature mortal, and that, if he had not
+sinned, he nevertheless would have died; that the consequences of his
+sin were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity; that
+new-born infants are in the same condition as Adam before his fall; that
+we are at birth as pure as he was; that we sin by our own free will,
+and in the same manner may reform, and thereby work out our own
+salvation; that the grace of God is given according to our merits. He
+was repelled from Africa by the influence of St. Augustine, and
+denounced in Palestine from the cell of Jerome. He specially insisted on
+this, that it is not the mere act of baptizing by water that washes away
+sin, sin can only be removed by good works. Infants are baptized before
+it is possible that they could have sinned. On the contrary, Augustine
+resisted these doctrines, resting himself on the words of Scripture that
+baptism is for the remission of sins. The case of children compelled
+that father to introduce the doctrine of original sin as derived from
+Adam, notwithstanding the dreadful consequences if they die unbaptized.
+In like manner also followed the doctrines of predestination, grace,
+atonement.
+
+Summoned before a synod at Diospolis, Pelagius was unexpectedly
+acquitted of heresy--an extraordinary decision, which brought Africa and
+the East into conflict. Under these circumstances, perhaps without a
+clear foresight of the issue, the matter was referred to Rome as arbiter
+or judge.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of the Pelagian question by the Africans.]
+
+In his decision, Innocent I., magnifying the dignity of the Roman see
+and the advantage of such a supreme tribunal, determined in favour of
+the African bishops. But scarcely had he done this when he died, and his
+successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment, and declared the opinions of
+Pelagius to be orthodox. Carthage now put herself in an attitude of
+resistance. There was danger of a metaphysical or theological Punic war.
+Meantime the wily Africans quietly procured from the emperor an edict
+denouncing Pelagius as a heretic. Through the influence of Count
+Valerius the faith of Europe was settled; the heresiarchs and their
+accomplices were condemned to exile and forfeiture of their estates; the
+contested doctrine that Adam was created without any liability to death
+was established by law; to deny it was a state crime. Thus it appears
+that the vacillating papacy was not yet strong enough to exalt itself
+above its equals, and the orthodoxy of Europe was for ever determined by
+an obscure court intrigue.
+
+[Sidenote: The Nestorian controversy.]
+
+Scarcely was the Pelagian controversy disposed of when a new heresy
+appeared. Nestorius, the Bishop of Antioch, attempted to distinguish
+between the divine and human nature of Christ; he considered that they
+had become too much confounded, and that "the God" ought to be kept
+separate from "the Man." Hence it followed that the Virgin Mary should
+not be regarded as the "Mother of God," but only the "Mother of
+Christ--the God-man." Called by the Emperor Theodosius the Younger to
+the episcopate of Constantinople, A.D. 427, Nestorius was very quickly
+plunged by the intrigues of a disappointed faction of that city into
+disputes with the populace.
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrines of Nestorius.]
+
+Let us hear the Bishop of Constantinople himself; he is preaching in the
+great metropolitan church, setting forth, with all the eloquence of
+which language is capable, the attributes of the illimitable, the
+everlasting, the Almighty God. "And can this God have a mother? The
+heathen notion of a god born of a mortal mother is directly confuted by
+St. Paul, who declares the Lord to be without father and without mother.
+Could a creature bear the uncreated?" He thus insisted that what was
+born of Mary was human, and the divine was added afterwards. At once the
+monks raised a riot in the city, and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria,
+espoused their cause.
+
+Beneath the outraged orthodoxy of Cyril lay an ill-concealed motive, the
+desire of the Bishop of Alexandria to humble the Bishop of
+Constantinople. The uproar commenced with sermons, epistles, addresses.
+Instigated by the monks of Alexandria, the monks of Constantinople took
+up arms in behalf of "the Mother of God." Again we remark the eminent
+position of Rome. Both parties turn to her as an arbiter. Pope Celestine
+assembles a synod. The Bishop of Constantinople is ordered by the Bishop
+of Rome to recant, or hold himself under excommunication, Italian
+supremacy is emerging through Oriental disputes, yet not without a
+struggle. Relying on his influence at court, Nestorius resists,
+excommunicates Cyril, and the emperor summons a council to meet at
+Ephesus.
+
+[Sidenote: Overthrow of Nestorianism by the Africans.]
+
+[Sidenote: Worship of the Virgin Mary.]
+
+To that council Nestorius repaired, with sixteen bishops and some of
+the city populace. Cyril collected fifty, together with a rabble of
+sailors, bath-men, and women of the baser sort. The imperial
+commissioner with his troops with difficulty repressed the tumult of the
+assembly. The rescript was fraudulently read before the arrival of the
+Syrian bishops. In one day the matter was completed; the Virgin's party
+triumphed, and Nestorius was deposed. On the arrival of the Syrian
+ecclesiastics, a meeting of protest was held by them. A riot, with much
+bloodshed, occurred in the Cathedral of St. John. The emperor was again
+compelled to interfere; he ordered eight deputies from each party to
+meet him at Chalcedon. In the meantime court intrigues decided the
+matter. The emperor's sister was in after times celebrated by the party
+of Cyril as having been the cause of the discomfiture of Nestorius: "the
+Holy Virgin of the court of Heaven had found an ally of her own sex in
+the holy virgin of the emperor's court." But there were also other very
+efficient auxiliaries. In the treasury of the chief eunuch, which some
+time after there was occasion to open, was discovered an acknowledgment
+of many pounds of gold received by him from Cyril, through Paul, his
+sister's son. Nestorius was abandoned by the court, and eventually
+exiled to an Egyptian oasis. An edifying legend relates that his
+blasphemous tongue was devoured by worms, and that from the heats of an
+Egyptian desert he escaped only into the hotter torments of Hell.
+
+So, again, in the affair of Nestorius as in that of Pelagius, Africa
+triumphed, and the supremacy of Rome, her ally or confederate, was
+becoming more and more distinct.
+
+[Sidenote: The Eutychian controversy.]
+
+A very important result in this gradual evolution of Roman supremacy
+arose from the affair of Eutyches, the Archimandrite of a convent of
+monks at Constantinople. He had distinguished himself as a leader in the
+riots occurring at the time of Nestorius and in other subsequent
+troubles. Accused before a synod held in Constantinople of denying the
+two natures of Christ, of saying that if there be two natures there must
+be two Sons, Eutyches was convicted, and sentence of excommunication
+passed upon him. This was, however, only the ostensible cause of his
+condemnation; the true motive was connected with a court intrigue. The
+chief eunuch, who was his godson, was occupied in a double movement to
+elevate Eutyches to the see of Constantinople, and to destroy the
+authority of Pulcheria, the emperor's sister, by Eudocia, the emperor's
+wife. On his condemnation, Eutyches appealed to the emperor, who
+summoned, at the instigation of the eunuch, a council to meet at
+Ephesus. This was the celebrated "Robber Synod," as it was called. It
+pronounced in favour of the orthodoxy of Eutyches, and ordered his
+restoration, deposing the Bishop of Constantinople, Flavianus, who was
+his rival, and at the synod had been his judge and also Eusebius, who
+had been his accuser. A riot ensued, in which the Bishop of
+Constantinople was murdered by the Bishop of Alexandria and one
+Barsumas, who beat him with their fists amid cries of "Kill him! kill
+him!" The Italian legates made their escape from the uproar with
+difficulty.
+
+The success of these movements was mainly due to Dioscorus, the Bishop
+of Alexandria, who thus accomplished the overthrow of his rivals of
+Antioch and Constantinople. An imperial edict gave force to the
+determination of the council. At this point the Bishop of Rome
+intervened, refusing to acknowledge the proceedings. It was well that
+Alexandria and Constantinople should be perpetually struggling, but it
+was not well that either should become paramount. Dioscorus thereupon
+broke off communion with him. Rome and Alexandria were at issue.
+
+[Sidenote: Another advance of Rome to power through Eutychianism.]
+
+In a fortunate moment the emperor died; his sister, the orthodox
+Pulcheria, the friend of Leo, married Marcian, and made him emperor. A
+council was summoned at Chalcedon. Leo wished it to be in Italy, where
+no one could have disputed his presidency. As it was, he fell back on
+the ancient policy, and appeared by representatives. Dioscorus was
+overthrown, and sentence pronounced against him, in behalf of the
+council, by one of the representatives of Leo. It set forth that "Leo,
+therefore, by their voice, and with the authority of the council, in the
+name of the Apostle Peter, the Rock and foundation of the Church,
+deposes Dioscorus from his episcopal dignity, and excludes him from all
+Christian rites and privileges."
+
+[Sidenote: The rivalry of Constantinople.]
+
+But, perhaps that no permanent advantage might accrue to Rome from the
+eminent position she was attaining in these transactions, when most of
+the prelates had left the council, a few, who were chiefly of the
+diocese of Constantinople, passed, among other canons, one to the effect
+that the supremacy of the Roman see was not in right of its descent from
+St. Peter, but because it was the bishopric of an imperial city. It
+assigned, therefore, to the Bishop of Constantinople equal civil dignity
+and ecclesiastical authority. Rome ever refused to recognize the
+validity of this canon.
+
+[Sidenote: Rivalries of the three great bishops.]
+
+In these contests of Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria for
+supremacy--for, after all, they were nothing more than the rivalries of
+ambitious placemen for power--the Roman bishop uniformly came forth the
+gainer. And it is to be remarked that he deserved to be so; his course
+was always dignified, often noble; theirs exhibited a reckless scramble
+for influence, an unscrupulous resort to bribery, court intrigue,
+murder.
+
+[Sidenote: Nature of ecclesiastical councils.]
+
+Thus the want of a criterion of truth, and a determination to arrest a
+spirit of inquiry that had become troublesome, led to the introduction
+of councils, by which, in an authoritative manner, theological questions
+might be settled. But it is to be observed that these councils did not
+accredit themselves by the coincidence of their decisions on successive
+occasions, since they often contradicted one another; nor did they
+sustain those decisions only with a moral influence arising from the
+understanding of man, enlightened by their investigations and
+conclusions. Their human character is clearly shown by the necessity
+under which they laboured of enforcing their arbitrary conclusions by
+the support of the civil power. The same necessity which, in the
+monarchical East, led thus to the republican form of a council, led in
+the democratic West to the development of the autocratic papal power:
+but in both it was found that the final authority thus appealed to had
+no innate or divinely derived energy. It was altogether helpless except
+by the aid of military or civil compulsion against any one disposed to
+resist it.
+
+No other opinion could be entertained of the character of these
+assemblages by men of practical ability who had been concerned in their
+transactions. Gregory of Nazianzen, one of the most pious and able men
+of his age, and one who, during a part of its sittings, was president of
+the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, refused subsequently to attend
+any more, saying that he had never known an assembly of bishops
+terminate well; that, instead of removing evils, they only increased
+them, and that their strifes and lust of power were not to be described.
+A thousand years later, Aeneas Sylvius, Pope Pius II., speaking of
+another council, observes that it was not so much directed by the Holy
+Ghost as by the passions of men.
+
+[Sidenote: Progressive variation of human thought manifested by these
+councils.]
+
+[Sidenote: Pontifical power sustained by physical force.]
+
+Notwithstanding the contradictions and opposition they so frequently
+exhibit, there may be discerned in the decisions of these bodies the
+traces of an affiliation indicating the continuous progression of
+thought. Thus, of the four oecumenical councils that were concerned
+with the facts spoken of in the preceding pages, that of Nicea
+determined the Son to be of the same substance with the Father; that of
+Constantinople, that the Son and Holy Spirit are equal to the Father;
+that of Ephesus, that the two natures of Christ make but one person; and
+that of Chalcedon, that these natures remain two, notwithstanding their
+personal union. But that they failed of their object in constituting a
+criterion of truth is plainly demonstrated by such simple facts as that,
+in the fourth century alone, there were thirteen councils adverse to
+Arius, fifteen in his favour, and seventeen for the semi-Arians--in all,
+forty-five. From such a confusion, it was necessary that the councils
+themselves must be subordinate to a higher authority--a higher
+criterion, able to give to them or refuse to them authenticity. That the
+source of power, both for the council in the East and the papacy in the
+West, was altogether political, is proved by almost every transaction in
+which they were concerned. In the case of the papacy, this was well seen
+in the contest between Hilary the Bishop of Arles, and Leo, on which
+occasion an edict was issued by the Emperor Valentinian denouncing the
+contumacy of Hilary, and setting forth that "though the sentence of so
+great a pontiff as the Bishop of Rome did not need imperial
+confirmation, yet that it must now be understood by all bishops that the
+decrees of the apostolic see should henceforth be law, and that whoever
+refused to obey the citation of the Roman pontiff should be compelled to
+do so by the Moderator of the province." Herein we see the intrinsic
+nature of Papal power distinctly. It is allied with physical force.
+
+[Sidenote: The fall of Rome.]
+
+In the midst of these theological disputes occurred that great event
+which I have designated as marking the close of the age of Inquiry. It
+was the fall of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: Spread of the barbarians.]
+
+[Sidenote: Capture and sack of Rome by Alaric.]
+
+In the Eastern empire the Goths had become permanently settled, having
+laws of their own, a magistracy of their own, paying no taxes, but
+contributing 40,000 men to the army. The Visigoths were spreading
+through Greece, Spain, Italy. In their devastations of the former
+country, they had spared Athens, for the sake of her souvenirs. The
+Eleusinian mysteries had ceased. From that day Greece never saw
+prosperity again. Alaric entered Italy. Stilicho, the imperial general,
+forced him to retreat. Rhadogast made his invasion. Stilicho compelled
+him to surrender at discretion. The Burgundians and Vandals overflowed
+Gaul; the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans overflowed Spain. Stilicho, a man
+worthy of the old days of the republic, though a Goth, was murdered by
+the emperor his master. Alaric appeared before Rome. It was 619 years
+since she had felt the presence of a foreign enemy, and that was
+Hannibal. She still contained 1780 senatorial palaces, the annual income
+of some of the owners of which was 160,000_l._ The city was eighteen
+miles in circumference, and contained above a million of people--of
+people, as in old times clamorous for distributions of bread, and wine,
+and oil. In its conscious despair, the apostate city, it is said, with
+the consent of the pope, offered sacrifice to Jupiter, its repudiated,
+and, as it now believed, its offended god. 200,000_l._, together with
+many costly goods, were paid as a ransom. The barbarian general retired.
+He was insulted by the emperor from his fastness at Ravenna.
+Altercations and new marches ensued; and at last, for the third time,
+Alaric appeared before Rome. At midnight on the 24th of April, A.D. 410,
+eleven hundred and sixty-three years from the foundation of the city,
+the Salarian gate was opened to him by the treachery of slaves; there
+was no god to defend her in her dire extremity, and Rome was sacked by
+the Goths.
+
+[Sidenote: Accusations of the Pagans against the Christians.]
+
+Has the Eternal City really fallen! was the universal exclamation
+throughout the empire when it became known that Alaric had taken Rome.
+Though paganism had been ruined in a national sense, the true Roman
+ethnical element had never given it up, but was dying out with it, a
+relic of the population of the city still adhering to the ancient faith.
+Among this were not wanting many of the aristocratic families and
+philosophers, who imputed the disaster to the public apostasy, and in
+their shame and suffering loudly proclaimed that the nation was justly
+punished for its abandonment of the gods of its forefathers, the gods
+who had given victory and empire. It became necessary for the Church to
+meet this accusation, which, while it was openly urged by thousands, was
+doubtless believed to be true by silent, and timid, and panic-stricken
+millions. With the intention of defending Christianity, St. Augustine,
+one of the ablest of the fathers, solemnly devoted thirteen years of his
+life to the composition of his great work entitled "The City of God." It
+is interesting for us to remark the tone of some of these replies of the
+Christians to their pagan adversaries.
+
+[Sidenote: The Christian reply.]
+
+"For the manifest deterioration of Roman manners, and for the impending
+dissolution of the state, paganism itself is responsible. Our political
+power is only of yesterday; it is in no manner concerned with the
+gradual development of luxury and wickedness, which has been going on
+for the last thousand years. Your ancestors made war a trade; they laid
+under tribute and enslaved the adjacent nations, but were not
+profusion, extravagance, dissipation, the necessary consequences of
+conquest? was not Roman idleness the inevitable result of the filling of
+Italy with slaves? Every hour rendered wider that bottomless gulf which
+separates immense riches from abject poverty. Did not the middle class,
+in which reside the virtue and strength of a nation, disappear, and
+aristocratic families remain in Rome, whose estates in Syria or Spain,
+Gaul or Africa, equalled, nay, even exceeded in extent and revenue
+illustrious kingdoms, provinces for the annexation of which the republic
+of old had decreed triumphs? Was there not in the streets a profligate
+rabble living in total idleness, fed and amused at the expense of the
+state? We are not answerable for the grinding oppression perpetrated on
+the rural populations until they have been driven to despair, their
+numbers so diminishing as to warn us that there is danger of their being
+extinguished. We did not suggest to the Emperor Trajan to abandon Dacia,
+and neglect that policy which fixed the boundaries of the empire at
+strong military posts. We did not suggest to Caracalla to admit all
+sorts of people to Roman citizenship, nor dislocate the population by a
+wild pursuit of civil offices or the discharge of military duties. We
+did not crowd Italy with slaves, nor make those miserable men more
+degraded than the beasts of the field, compelling them to labours which
+are the business of the brutes. We have taught and practised a very
+different doctrine. We did not nightly put into irons the population of
+provinces and cities reduced to bondage. We are not responsible for the
+inevitable insurrections, poisonings, assassinations, vengeance. We did
+not bring on that state of things in which a man having a patrimony
+found it his best interest to abandon it without compensation and flee.
+We did not demoralize the populace by providing them food, games, races,
+theatres; we have been persecuted because we would not set our feet in a
+theatre. We did not ruin the senate and aristocracy by sacrificing
+everything, even ourselves, for the Julian family. We did not neutralize
+the legions by setting them to fight against one another. We were not
+the first to degrade Rome. Diocletian, who persecuted us, gave the
+example by establishing his residence at Nicomedia. As to the sentiment
+of patriotism of which you vaunt, was it not destroyed by your own
+emperors? When they had made Roman citizens of Gauls and Egyptians,
+Africans and Huns, Spaniards and Syrians, how could they expect that
+such a motley crew would remain true to the interests of an Italian
+town, and that town their hated oppressor. Patriotism depends on
+concentration; it cannot bear diffusion. Something more than such a
+worldly tie was wanted to bind the diverse nations together; they have
+found it in Christianity. A common language imparts community of thought
+and feeling; but what was to be expected when Greek is the language of
+one half of the ruling classes, and Latin of the other? we say nothing
+of the thousand unintelligible forms of speech in use throughout the
+Roman world. The fall of the senate preceded, by a few years, the origin
+of Christianity; you surely will not say that we were the inciters of
+the usurpations of the Caesars? What have we had to do with the army,
+that engine of violence, which, in ninety-two years gave you thirty-two
+emperors and twenty-seven pretenders to the throne? We did not suggest
+to the Praetorian Guards to put up the empire to auction.
+
+"Can you really wonder that all this should come to an end? We do not
+wonder; on the contrary, we thank God for it. It is time that the human
+race had rest. The sighing of the prisoner, the prayer of the captive,
+are heard at last. Yet the judgment has been tempered with mercy. Had
+the pagan Rhadogast taken Rome, not a life would have been spared, no
+stone left on another. The Christian Alaric, though a Goth, respects his
+Christian brethren, and for their sakes you are saved. As to the gods,
+those daemons in whom you trust, did they always save you from calamity?
+How long did Hannibal insult them? Was it a goose or a god that saved
+the Capitol from Brennus? Where were the gods in all the defeats, some
+of them but recent, of the pagan emperors? It is well that the purple
+Babylon has fallen, the harlot who was drunk with the blood of nations.
+
+"In the place of this earthly city, this vaunted mistress, of the world,
+whose fall closes a long career of superstition and sin, there shall
+arise "the City of God." The purifying fire of the barbarian shall
+remove her heathenish defilements, and make her fit for the kingdom of
+Christ. Instead of a thousand years of that night of crime, to which in
+your despair you look back, there is before her the day of the
+millennium, predicted by the prophets of old. In her regenerated walls
+there shall be no taint of sin, but righteousness and peace; no stain of
+the vanities of the world, no conflicts of ambition, no sordid hunger
+for gold, no lust after glory, no desire for domination, but holiness to
+the Lord."
+
+[Sidenote: St. Augustine's "City of God."]
+
+Of those who in such sentiments defended the cause of the new religion
+St. Augustine was the chief. In his great work, "the City of God," which
+may be regarded as the ablest specimen of the early Christian
+literature, he pursues this theme, if not in the language, at least in
+the spirit here presented, and through a copious detail of many books.
+On the later Christianity of the Western churches he has exerted more
+influence than any other of the fathers. To him is due much of the
+precision of our views on original sin, total depravity, grace,
+predestination, election.
+
+[Sidenote: Life and writings of St. Augustine.]
+
+In his early years St. Augustine had led a frivolous and evil life,
+plunging into all the dissipations of the gay city of Carthage. Through
+the devious paths of Manichaeism, astrology, and scepticism, he at last
+arrived at the truth. It was not, however, the Fathers, but Cicero, to
+whom the good change was due; the writings of that great orator won him
+over to a love of wisdom, weaning him from the pleasures of the theatre,
+the follies of divination and superstition. From his Manichaean errors,
+he was snatched by Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, who baptized him,
+together with his illegitimate son Adeodatus. In his writings we may,
+without difficulty, recognize the vestiges of Magianism, not as regards
+the duality of God, but as respects the division of mankind--the elect
+and lost; the kingdoms of grace and perdition, of God and the devil;
+answering to the Oriental ideas of the rule of light and darkness. From
+Ambrose, St. Augustine learned those high Trinitarian doctrines which
+were soon enforced in the West.
+
+In his philosophical disquisitions on Time, Matter, Memory, this
+far-famed writer is, however, always unsatisfactory, often trivial. His
+doctrine that Scripture, as the word of God, is capable of a manifold
+meaning, led him into many delusions, and exercised, in subsequent ages,
+a most baneful influence on true science. Thus he finds in the Mosaic
+account of the creation proofs of the Trinity; that the firmament spoken
+of therein is the type of God's word; and that there is a correspondence
+between creation itself and the Church. His numerous books have often
+been translated, especially his Confessions, a work that has delighted
+and edified fifty generations, but which must, after all, yield the
+palm, as a literary production, to the writings of Bunyan, who, like
+Augustine, gave himself up to all the agony of unsparing personal
+examination and relentless self-condemnation, anatomizing his very soul,
+and dragging forth every sin into the face of day.
+
+The ecclesiastical influence of St. Augustine has so completely eclipsed
+his political biography, that but little attention has been given to his
+conduct in the interesting time in which he lived. Sismondi recalls to
+his disadvantage that he was the friend of Count Boniface, who invited
+Genseric and his Vandals into Africa; the bloody consequences of that
+conspiracy cannot be exaggerated. It was through him that the count's
+name has been transmitted to posterity without infamy. Boniface was with
+him when he died, at Hippo, August 28th, A.D. 440.
+
+[Sidenote: Propitious effect of Alaric's siege.]
+
+When Rome thus fell before Alaric, so far from the provincial Christians
+bewailing her misfortune, they actually gloried in it. They critically
+distinguished between the downfall of the purple pagan harlot and the
+untouched city of God. The vengeance of the Goth had fallen on the
+temples, but the churches had been spared. Though in subsequent and not
+very distant calamities of the city these triumphant distinctions could
+scarcely be maintained, there can be no doubt that that catastrophe
+singularly developed papal power. The abasement of the ancient
+aristocracy brought into relief the bishop. It has been truly said that,
+as Rome rose from her ruins, the bishop was discerned to be her most
+conspicuous man. Most opportunely, at this period Jerome had completed
+his Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate henceforth became the
+ecclesiastical authority of the West. The influence of the heathen
+classics, which that austere anchorite had in early life admired, but
+had vainly attempted to free himself from by unremitting nocturnal
+flagellations, appears in this great version. It came at a critical
+moment for the West. In the politic non-committalism of Rome, it was not
+expedient that a pope should be an author. The Vulgate was all that the
+times required. Henceforth the East might occupy herself in the harmless
+fabrication of creeds and of heresies; the West could develop her
+practical talent in the much more important organization of
+ecclesiastical power.
+
+[Sidenote: The fate of the three great bishops.]
+
+Doubtless not without interest will the reader of these pages remark how
+closely the process of ecclesiastical events resembles that of civil. In
+both there is an irresistible tendency to the concentration of power. As
+in Roman history we have seen a few families, and, indeed, at last, one
+man grasp the influence which in earlier times was disseminated among
+the people, so in the Church the congregations are quickly found in
+subordination to their bishops, and these, in their turn, succumbing to
+a perpetually diminishing number of their compeers. In the period we are
+now considering, the minor episcopates, such as those of Jerusalem,
+Antioch, Carthage, had virtually lost their pristine force, everything
+having converged into the three great sees of Constantinople,
+Alexandria, and Rome. The history of the time is a record of the
+desperate struggles of the three chief bishops for supremacy. In this
+conflict Rome possessed many advantages; the two others were more
+immediately under the control of the imperial government, the clashing
+of interests between them more frequent, their rivalry more bitter. The
+control of ecclesiastical power was hence perpetually in Rome, though
+she was, both politically and intellectually, inferior to her
+competitors. As of old, there was a triumvirate in the world destined to
+concentrate into a despotism. And, as if to remind men that the
+principles involved in the movements of the Church are of the same
+nature as those involved in the movements of the state, the resemblances
+here pointed out are sometimes singularly illustrated in trifling
+details. The Bishop of Alexandria was not the first triumvir who came to
+an untimely end on the banks of the Nile; the Roman pontiff was not the
+first who consolidated his power by the aid of Gallic legions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE EUROPEAN AGE OF FAITH.
+
+AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.
+
+ _Consolidation of the Byzantine System, or the Union of Church
+ and State.--The consequent Paganization of Religion and
+ Persecution of Philosophy._
+
+ _Political Necessity for the enforcement of Patristicism, or
+ Science of the Fathers.--Its peculiar Doctrines._
+
+ _Obliteration of the Vestiges of Greek Knowledge by
+ Patristicism.--The Libraries and Serapion of
+ Alexandria.--Destruction of the latter by Theodosius.--Death
+ of Hypatia.--Extinction of Learning in the East by Cyril, his
+ Associates and Successors._
+
+
+[Sidenote: The age of Faith.]
+
+The policy of Constantine the Great inevitably tended to the
+paganization of Christianity. An incorporation of its pure doctrines
+with decaying pagan ideas was the necessary consequence of the control
+that had been attained by unscrupulous politicians and placemen. The
+faith, thus contaminated, gained a more general and ready popular
+acceptance, but at the cost of a new lease of life to those ideas. So
+thorough was the adulteration, that it was not until the Reformation, a
+period of more than a thousand years, that a separation of the true from
+the false could be accomplished.
+
+[Sidenote: Subdivision of the subject.]
+
+Considering how many nations were involved in these events, and the
+length of time over which they extend, a clear treatment of the subject
+requires its subdivision. I shall therefore speak, 1st, of the Age of
+Faith in the East; 2nd, of the Age of Faith in the West. The former was
+closed prematurely by the Mohammedan conquest; the latter, after
+undergoing slow metamorphosis, passed into the European Age of Reason
+during the pontificate of Nicholas V.
+
+In this and the following chapter I shall therefore treat of the age of
+Faith in the East, and of the catastrophe that closed it. I shall then
+turn to the Age of Faith in the West--a long but an instructive story.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: The paganization of Christianity.]
+
+[Sidenote: Discovery of the true cross and nails.]
+
+The paganization of religion was in no small degree accomplished by the
+influence of the females of the court of Constantinople. It soon
+manifested all the essential features of a true mythology and
+hero-worship. Helena, the empress-mother, superintended the building of
+monumental churches over the reputed places of interest in the history
+of our Saviour--those of his birth, his burial, his ascension. A vast
+and ever-increasing crowd of converts from paganism, who had become such
+from worldly considerations, and still hankered after wonders like those
+in which their forefathers had from time immemorial believed, lent a
+ready ear to assertions which, to more hesitating or better-instructed
+minds, would have seemed to carry imposture on their very face. A temple
+of Venus, formerly erected on the site of the Holy Sepulchre, being torn
+down, there were discovered, in a cavern beneath, three crosses, and
+also the inscription written by Pilate. The Saviour's cross, being by
+miracle distinguished from those of the thieves, was divided, a part
+being kept at Jerusalem and a part sent to Constantinople, together with
+the nails used in the crucifixion, which were also fortunately found.
+These were destined to adorn the head of the emperor's statue on the top
+of the porphyry pillar. The wood of the cross, moreover, displayed a
+property of growth, and hence furnished an abundant supply for the
+demands of pilgrims, and an unfailing source of pecuniary profit to its
+possessors. In the course of subsequent years there was accumulated in
+the various churches of Europe, from this particular relic, a
+sufficiency to have constructed many hundred crosses. The age that could
+accept such a prodigy, of course found no difficulty in the vision of
+Constantine and the story of the Labarum.
+
+[Sidenote: Political causes of paganization.]
+
+Such was the tendency of the times to adulterate Christianity with the
+spirit of paganism, partly to conciliate the prejudices of worldly
+converts, partly in the hope of securing its more rapid spread. There is
+a solemnity in the truthful accusation which Faustus makes to Augustine:
+"You have substituted your agapae for the sacrifices of the pagans; for
+their idols your martyrs, whom you serve with the very same honours. You
+appease the shades of the dead with wine and feasts; you celebrate the
+solemn festivals of the Gentiles, their calends and their solstices; and
+as to their manners, those you have retained without any alteration.
+Nothing distinguishes you from the pagans except that you hold your
+assemblies apart from them."
+
+[Sidenote: Relative action of faith and philosophy.]
+
+[Sidenote: The emperors resist their ecclesiastical allies.]
+
+As we have seen in the last chapter, the course of political affairs had
+detached the power of the state from the philosophical and polytheistic
+parties. Joined to the new movement, it was not long before it gave
+significant proofs of the sincerity of its friendship by commencing an
+active persecution of the remnant of philosophy. It is to be borne in
+mind that the direction of the proselytism, which was thus leading to
+important results, was from below upward through society. As to
+philosophy, its action had been in the other direction; its depository
+in the few enlightened, in the few educated; its course, socially, from
+above downward. Under these circumstances, it was obvious enough that
+the prejudices of the ignorant populace would find, in the end, a full
+expression; that learning would have no consideration shown to it, or
+would be denounced as mere magic; that philosophy would be looked upon
+as a vain, and therefore sinful pursuit. When once a political aspirant
+has bidden with the multitude for power, and still depends on their
+pleasure for effective support, it is no easy thing to refuse their
+wishes or hold back from their demands. Even Constantine himself felt
+the pressure of the influence to which he was allied, and was compelled
+to surrender his friend Sopater, the philosopher, who was accused of
+binding the winds in an adverse quarter by the influence of magic, so
+that the corn-ships could not reach Constantinople; and the emperor was
+obliged to give orders for his decapitation to satisfy the clamours in
+the theatre. Not that such requisitions were submitted to without a
+struggle, or that succeeding sovereigns were willing to make their
+dignity tacitly subordinate to ecclesiastical domination. It was the aim
+of Constantine to make theology a branch of politics; it was the hope of
+every bishop in the empire to make politics a branch of theology.
+Already, however, it was apparent that the ecclesiastical party would,
+in the end, get the upper hand, and that the reluctance of some of the
+emperors to obey its behests was merely the revolt of individual minds,
+and therefore ephemeral in its nature, and that the popular wishes would
+be abundantly gratified as soon as emperors arose who not merely, like
+Constantine, availed themselves of Christianity, but absolutely and
+sincerely adopted it.
+
+[Sidenote: The Emperor Julian.]
+
+[Sidenote: Persecutions of his successors.]
+
+Julian, by his brief but ineffectual attempt to restore paganism,
+scarcely restrained for a moment the course of the new doctrines now
+strengthening themselves continually in public estimation by
+incorporating ideas borrowed from paganism. Through the reign of
+Valentinian, who was a Nicenist, and of Valens, who was an Arian, things
+went on almost as if the episode of Julian had never occurred. The
+ancient gods, whose existence no one seems ever to have denied, were now
+thoroughly identified with daemons; their worship was stigmatized as the
+practice of magic. Against this crime, regarded by the laws as equal to
+treason, a violent persecution arose. Persons resorting to Rome for the
+purposes of study were forbidden to remain there after they were
+twenty-one years of age. The force of this persecution fell practically
+upon the old religion, though nominally directed against the black art,
+for the primary function of paganism was to foretell future events in
+this world, and hence its connexion with divination and its punishment
+as magic.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity of learning to the bishops.]
+
+[Sidenote: Growth of bigotry and superstition.]
+
+But the persecution, though directed at paganism, struck also at what
+remained of philosophy. A great party had attained to power under
+circumstances which compelled it to enforce the principle on which it
+was originally founded. That principle was the exaction of unhesitating
+belief, which, though it will answer very well for the humbler and more
+numerous class of men, is unsuited for those of a higher intellectual
+grade. The policy of Constantine had opened a career in the state,
+through the Church, for men of the lowest rank. Many of such had already
+attained to the highest dignities. A burning zeal rather than the
+possession of profound learning animated them. But eminent position once
+attained, none stood more in need of the appearance of wisdom. Under
+such circumstances, they were tempted to set up their own notions as
+final and unimpeachable truth, and to denounce as magic, or the sinful
+pursuit of vain trifling, all the learning that stood in the way. In
+this the hand of the civil power assisted. It was intended to cut off
+every philosopher. Every manuscript that could be seized was forthwith
+burned. Throughout the East, men in terror destroyed their libraries,
+for fear that some unfortunate sentence contained in any of the books
+should involve them and their families in destruction. The universal
+opinion was that it was right to compel men to believe what the majority
+of society had now accepted as the truth, and, if they refused, it was
+right to punish them. No one in the dominating party was heard to raise
+his voice in behalf of intellectual liberty. The mystery of things above
+reason was held to be the very cause that they should be accepted by
+Faith; a singular merit was supposed to appertain to that mental
+condition in which belief precedes understanding.
+
+[Sidenote: Fanaticism of Theodosius.]
+
+The death-blow to paganism was given by the Emperor Theodosius, a
+Spaniard, who, from the services he rendered in this particular, has
+been rewarded with the title of "The Great." From making the practice of
+magic and the inspection of the entrails of animals capital offences, he
+proceeded to prohibit sacrifices, A.D. 391, and even the entering of
+temples. He alienated the revenues of many temples, confiscated the
+estates of others, some he demolished. The vestal virgins he dismissed,
+and any house profaned by incense he declared forfeited to the imperial
+exchequer. When once the property of a religious establishment has been
+irrevocably taken away, it is needless to declare its worship a capital
+crime.
+
+But not only did the government thus constitute itself a thorough
+auxiliary of the new religion; it also tried to secure it from its own
+dissensions. Apostates were deprived of the right of bequeathing their
+own property. Inquisitors of faith were established; they were at once
+spies and judges, the prototypes of the most fearful tribunal of modern
+times. Theodosius, to whom the carrying into effect of these measures
+was due, found it, however, more expedient for himself to institute
+living emblems of his personal faith than to rely on any ambiguous
+creed. He therefore sentenced all those to be deprived of civil rights,
+and to be driven into exile, who did not accord with the belief of
+Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, and Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria. Those
+who presumed to celebrate Easter on the same day as the Jews he
+condemned to death. "We will," says he, in his edict, "that all who
+embrace this creed be called catholic Christians"--the rest are
+heretics.
+
+[Sidenote: Responsibility of the clergy in these events.]
+
+[Sidenote: Massacre at Thessalonica.]
+
+Impartial history is obliged to impute the origin of these tyrannical
+and scandalous acts of the civil power to the influence of the clergy,
+and to hold them responsible for the crimes. The guilt of impure,
+unscrupulous women, eunuchs, parasites, violent soldiers in possession
+of absolute power, lies at their door. Yet human nature can never, in
+any condition of affairs, be altogether debased. Though the system under
+which men were living pushed them forward to these iniquities, the
+individual sense of right and wrong sometimes vindicated itself. In
+these pages we shall again and again meet this personal revolt against
+the indefensible consequences of system. It was thus that there were
+bishops who openly intervened between the victim and his oppressor, who
+took the treasures of the Church to redeem slaves from captivity. For
+this a future age will perhaps excuse Ambrose the Archbishop of Milan,
+the impostures he practised, remembering that, face to face, he held
+Theodosius the Great to accountability for the massacre of seven
+thousand persons, whom, in a fit of vengeance, he had murdered in the
+circus of Thessalonica, A.D. 390, and inexorably compelled the imperial
+culprit, to whom he and all his party were under such obligations, to
+atone for his crime by such penance as may be exacted in this world,
+teaching his sovereign "that though he was of the Church and in the
+Church, he was not above the Church;" that brute force must give way to
+intellect, and that even the meanest human being has rights in the sight
+of God.
+
+[Sidenote: Introduction of Patristicism.]
+
+Political events had thus taken a course disastrous to human knowledge.
+A necessity had arisen that they to whom circumstances had given the
+control of public faith should also have the control of public
+knowledge. The moral condition of the world had thus come into
+antagonism with scientific progress. As had been the case many ages
+before in India, the sacred writings were asserted to contain whatever
+was necessary or useful for man to know. Questions in astronomy,
+geography, chronology, history, or any other branch which had hitherto
+occupied or amused the human mind, were now to be referred to a new
+tribunal for solution, and there remained nothing to be done by the
+philosopher. A revelation of science is incompatible with any farther
+advance; it admits no employment save that of the humble commentator.
+
+[Sidenote: Apology of the fathers for Patristicism.]
+
+The early ecclesiastical writers, or Fathers, as they are often called,
+came thus to be considered not only as surpassing all other men in
+piety, but also as excelling them in wisdom. Their dictum was looked
+upon as final. This eminent position they held for many centuries;
+indeed, it was not until near the period of the Reformation that they
+were deposed. The great critics who appeared at that time, by submitting
+the Patristic works to a higher analysis, comparing them with one
+another and showing their mutual contradictions, brought them all to
+their proper level. The habit of even so much as quoting them went out
+of use, when it was perceived that not one of these writers could
+present the necessary credentials to entitle him to speak with authority
+on any scientific fact. Many of them had not scrupled to express their
+contempt of the things they thus presumed to judge. Thus Eusebius says:
+"It is not through ignorance of the things admired by philosophers, but
+through contempt of such useless labour, that we think so little of
+these matters, turning our souls to the exercise of better things." In
+such a spirit Lactantius holds the whole of philosophy to be "empty and
+false." Speaking in reference to the heretical doctrine of the globular
+form of the earth, he says: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as
+to believe that the crops and the trees on the other side of the earth
+hang downward, and that men have their feet higher than their heads? If
+you ask them how they defend these monstrosities? how things do not fall
+away from the earth on that side? they reply that the nature of things
+is such, that heavy bodies tend toward the centre like the spokes of a
+wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the centre
+to the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to say of
+those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere in their
+folly, and defend one absurd opinion by another." On the question of the
+antipodes, St. Augustine asserts that "it is impossible there should be
+inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is
+recorded by Scripture among the descendants of Adam."
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrines of Patristicism.]
+
+Patristicism, or the science of the Fathers, was thus essentially
+founded on the principle that the Scriptures contain all knowledge
+permitted to man. It followed, therefore, that natural phenomena may be
+interpreted by the aid of texts, and that all philosophical doctrines
+must be moulded to the pattern of orthodoxy. It asserted that God made
+the world out of nothing, since to admit the eternity of matter leads to
+Manichaeism. It taught that the earth is a plane, and the sky a vault
+above it, in which the stars are fixed, and the sun, moon, and planets
+perform their motions, rising and setting; that these bodies are
+altogether of a subordinate nature, their use being to give light to
+man; that still higher and beyond the vault of the sky is heaven, the
+abode of God and the angelic hosts; that in six days the earth, and all
+that it contains, were made; that it was overwhelmed by a universal
+deluge, which destroyed all living things save those preserved in the
+ark, the waters being subsequently dried up by the wind; that man is the
+moral centre of the world; for him all things were created and are
+sustained; that, so far as his ever having shown any tendency to
+improvement, he has fallen both in wisdom and worth, the first man,
+before his sin, having been perfect in body and soul: hence Patristicism
+ever looked backward, never forward; that through that sin death came
+into the world; not even any animal had died previously, but all had
+been immortal. It utterly rejected the idea of the government of the
+world by law, asserting the perpetual interference of an instant
+Providence on all occasions, not excepting the most trifling. It
+resorted to spiritual influences in the production of natural effects,
+assigning to angels the duty of moving the stars, carrying up water from
+the sea to form rain, and managing eclipses. It affirmed that man had
+existed but a few centuries upon earth, and that he could continue only
+a little longer, for that the world itself might every moment be
+expected to be burned up by fire. It deduced all the families of the
+earth from one primitive pair, and made them all morally responsible for
+the sin committed by that pair. It rejected the doctrine that man can
+modify his own organism as absolutely irreligious, the physician being
+little better than an atheist, but it affirmed that cures may be
+effected by the intercession of saints, at the shrines of holy men, and
+by relics. It altogether repudiated the improvement of man's physical
+state; to increase his power or comfort was to attempt to attain what
+Providence denied; philosophical investigation was an unlawful prying
+into things that God had designed to conceal. It declined the logic of
+the Greeks, substituting miracle-proof for it, the demonstration of an
+assertion being supposed to be given by a surprising illustration of
+something else.
+
+A wild astronomy had thus supplanted the astronomy of Hipparchus; the
+miserable fictions of Eusebius had subverted the chronology of Manetho
+and Eratosthenes; the geometry of Euclid and Apollonius was held to be
+of no use; the geography of Ptolemy a blunder; the great mechanical
+inventions of Archimedes incomparably surpassed by the miracles worked
+at the shrines of a hundred saints.
+
+[Sidenote: Intrinsic weakness of the Patristic system.]
+
+Of such a mixture of truth and of folly was Patristicism composed.
+Ignorance in power had found it necessary to have a false and
+unprogressive science, forgetting that sooner or later the time must
+arrive when it would be impossible to maintain stationary ideas in a
+world of which the affairs are ever advancing. A failure to include in
+the system thus imposed upon men any provision for intellectual progress
+was the great and fatal mistake of those times. Each passing century
+brought its incompatibilities. A strain upon the working of the system
+soon occurred, and perpetually increased in force. It became apparent
+that, in the end, the imposition would be altogether unable to hold
+together. On a future page we shall see what were the circumstances
+under which it at last broke down.
+
+[Sidenote: It commences by extinguishing Greek science.]
+
+The wonder-worker who prepares to exhibit his phantasmagoria upon the
+wall, knows well how much it adds to the delusion to have all lights
+extinguished save that which is in his own dark lantern. I have now to
+relate how the last flickering rays of Greek learning were put out; how
+Patristicism, aided by her companion Bigotry, attempted to lay the
+foundations of her influence in security.
+
+[Sidenote: Acts of the Emperor Theodosius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Alexandrian libraries.]
+
+[Sidenote: Library of Pergamus transferred to Egypt.]
+
+In the reign of Theodosius the Great, the pagan religion and pagan
+knowledge were together destroyed. This emperor was restrained by no
+doubts, for he was very ignorant and, it must be admitted, was equally
+sincere and severe. Among his early measures we find an order that if
+any of the governors of Egypt so much as entered a temple he should be
+fined fifteen pounds of gold. He followed this by the destruction of the
+temples of Syria. At this period the Archbishopric of Alexandria was
+held by one Theophilus, a bold, bad man, who had once been a monk of
+Nitria. It was about A.D. 390. The Trinitarian conflict was at the time
+composed, one party having got the better of the other. To the monks and
+rabble of Alexandria the temple of Serapis and its library were doubly
+hateful, partly because of the Pantheistic opposition it shadowed forth
+against the prevailing doctrine, and partly because within its walls
+sorcery, magic, and other dealings with the devil had for ages been
+going on. We have related how Ptolemy Philadelphus commenced the great
+library in the aristocratic quarter of the city named Bruchion, and
+added various scientific establishments to it. Incited by this example,
+Eumenes, King of Pergamus, established out of rivalry a similar library
+in his metropolis. With the intention of preventing him from excelling
+that of Egypt, Ptolemy Epiphanes prohibited the exportation of papyrus,
+whereupon Eumenes invented the art of making parchment. The second great
+Alexandrian library was that established by Ptolemy Physcon at the
+Serapion, in the adjoining quarter of the town. The library in the
+Bruchion, which was estimated to contain 400,000 volumes, was
+accidentally, or, as it has been said, purposely burned during the siege
+of the city by Julius Caesar, but that in the Serapion escaped. To make
+amends for this great catastrophe, Marc Antony presented to Cleopatra
+the rival library, brought for that purpose from Pergamus. It consisted
+of 200,000 volumes. It was with the library in the Bruchion that the
+Museum was originally connected; but after its conflagration, the
+remains of the various surviving establishments were transferred to the
+Serapion, which therefore was, at the period of which we are speaking,
+the greatest depository of knowledge in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: The temple of Serapis.]
+
+The pagan Roman emperors had not been unmindful of the great trust they
+had thus inherited from the Ptolemies. The temple of Serapis was
+universally admitted to be the noblest religious structure in the world,
+unless perhaps the patriotic Roman excepted that of the Capitoline
+Jupiter. It was approached by a vast flight of steps; was adorned with
+many rows of columns; and in its quadrangular portico--a matchless work
+of skill--were placed most exquisite statues. On the sculptured walls of
+its chambers, and upon ceilings, were paintings of unapproachable
+excellence. Of the value of these works of art the Greeks were no
+incompetent judges.
+
+[Sidenote: Quarrel between the Christians and pagans in Alexandria.]
+
+[Sidenote: Theodosius orders the Serapion to be destroyed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Statue of Serapis is destroyed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Persecutions of Theophilus.]
+
+The Serapion, with these its precious contents, perpetually gave umbrage
+to the Archbishop Theophilus and his party. To them it was a reproach
+and an insult. Its many buildings were devoted to unknown, and therefore
+unholy uses. In its vaults and silent chambers the populace believed
+that the most abominable mysteries were carried on. There were magical
+brazen circles and sun-dials for fortune-telling in its porch; every one
+said that they had once belonged to Pharaoh or the conjurors who strove
+with Moses. Alas! no one of the ferocious bigots knew that with these
+Eratosthenes had in the old times measured the size of the earth, and
+Timocharis had determined the motions of the planet Venus. The temple,
+with its pure white marble walls, and endless columns projected against
+a blue and cloudless Egyptian sky, was to them a whited sepulchre full
+of rottenness within. In the very sanctuary of the god it was said that
+the priests had been known to delude the wealthiest and most beautiful
+Alexandrian women, who fancied that they were honoured by the raptures
+of the god. To this temple, so well worthy of their indignation,
+Theophilus directed the attention of his people. It happened that the
+Emperor Constantius had formerly given to the Church the site of an
+ancient temple of Osiris, and, in digging the foundation for the new
+edifice, the obscene symbols used in that worship chanced to be found.
+With more zeal than modesty, Theophilus exhibited them to the derision
+of the rabble in the market-place. The old Egyptian pagan party rose to
+avenge the insult. A riot ensued, one Olympius, a philosopher, being the
+leader. Their head-quarters were in the massive building of the
+Serapion, from which issuing forth they seized whatever Christians they
+could, compelled them to offer sacrifice, and then killed them on the
+altar. The dispute was referred to the emperor, in the meantime the
+pagans maintaining themselves in the temple-fortress. In the dead of
+night, Olympius, it is said, was awe-stricken by the sound of a clear
+voice chanting among the arches and pillars the Christian Alleluia.
+Either accepting, like a heathen, the omen, or fearing a secret
+assassin, he escaped from the temple and fled for his life. On the
+arrival of the rescript of Theodosius the pagans laid down their arms,
+little expecting the orders of the emperor. He enjoined that the
+building should forthwith be destroyed, intrusting the task to the swift
+hands of Theophilus. His work was commenced by the pillage and dispersal
+of the library. He entered the sanctuary of the god--that sanctuary
+which was the visible sign of the Pantheism of the East, the memento of
+the alliance between hoary primeval Egypt and free-thinking Greece, the
+relic of the statesmanship of Alexander's captains. In gloomy silence
+the image of Serapis confronted its assailants. It is in such a moment
+that the value of a religion is tried; the god who cannot defend himself
+is a convicted sham. Theophilus, undaunted, commands a veteran to strike
+the image with his battle-axe. The helpless statue offers no resistance.
+Another blow rolls the head of the idol on the floor. It is said that a
+colony of frightened rats ran forth from its interior. The kingcraft,
+and priestcraft, and solemn swindle of seven hundred years are exploded
+in a shout of laughter; the god is broken to pieces, his members dragged
+through the streets. The recesses of the Serapion are explored.
+Posterity is edified by discoveries of frauds by which the priests
+maintain their power. Among other wonders, a car with four horses is
+seen suspended near the ceiling by means of a magnet laid on the roof,
+which being removed by the hand of a Christian, the imposture fell to
+the pavement. The historian of these events, noticing the physical
+impossibility of such things, has wisely said that it is more easy to
+invent a fictitious story than to support a practical fraud. But the
+gold and silver contained in the temple were carefully collected, the
+baser articles being broken in pieces or cast into the fire. Nor did the
+holy zeal of Theophilus rest until the structure was demolished to its
+very foundations--a work of no little labour--and a church erected in
+the precincts. It must, however, have been the temple more particularly
+which experienced this devastation. The building in which the library
+had been contained must have escaped, for, twenty years subsequently,
+Orosius expressly states that he saw the empty cases or shelves. The
+fanatic Theophilus pushed forward his victory. The temple at Canopus
+next fell before him, and a general attack was made on all similar
+edifices in Egypt. Speaking of the monks and of the worship of relics,
+Eunapius says: "Whoever wore a black dress was invested with tyrannical
+power; philosophy and piety to the gods were compelled to retire into
+secret places, and to dwell in contented poverty and dignified meanness
+of appearance. The temples were turned into tombs for the adoration of
+the bones of the basest and most depraved of men, who had suffered the
+penalty of the law, and whom they made their gods."
+
+Such was the end of the Serapion. Its destruction stands forth a token
+to all ages of the state of the times.
+
+[Sidenote: St. Cyril.]
+
+[Sidenote: Determines on supremacy in Alexandria.]
+
+[Sidenote: Riots in that city.]
+
+In a few years after this memorable event the Archbishop Theophilus had
+gone to his account. His throne was occupied by his nephew, St. Cyril,
+who had been expressly prepared for that holy and responsible office by
+a residence of five years among the monks of Nitria. He had been
+presented to the fastidious Alexandrians with due precautions, and by
+them acknowledged to be an effective and fashionable preacher. His pagan
+opponents, however, asserted that the clapping of hands and encores
+bestowed on the more elaborate passages of his sermons were performed by
+persons duly arranged in the congregation, and paid for their trouble.
+If doubt remains as to his intellectual endowments, there can be none
+respecting the qualities of his heart. The three parties into which the
+population of the city was divided--Christian, Heathen, and Jewish--kept
+up a perpetual disorder by their disputes. Of the last it is said that
+the number was not less than forty thousand. The episcopate itself had
+become much less a religious than an important civil office, exercising
+a direct municipal control through the Parabolani, which, under the
+disguise of city missionaries, whose duty it was to seek out the sick
+and destitute, constituted in reality a constabulary force, or rather
+actually a militia. The unscrupulous manner in which Cyril made use of
+this force, diverting it from its ostensible purpose, is indicated by
+the fact that the emperor was obliged eventually to take the
+appointments to it out of the archbishop's hands, and reduce the number
+to five or six hundred. Some local circumstances had increased the
+animosity between the Jews and the Christians, and riots had taken place
+between them in the theatre. These were followed by more serious
+conflicts in the streets; and the Jews, for the moment having the
+advantage over their antagonists, outraged and massacred them. It was,
+however, but for a moment; for, the Christians arousing themselves under
+the inspirations of Cyril, a mob sacked the synagogues, pillaged the
+houses of the Jews, and endeavoured to expel those offenders out of the
+city. The prefect Orestes was compelled to interfere to stop the riot;
+but the archbishop was not so easily disposed of. His old associates,
+the Nitrian monks, now justified the prophetic forecast of Theophilus.
+Five hundred of those fanatics swarmed into the town from the desert.
+The prefect himself was assaulted, and wounded in the head by a stone
+thrown by Ammonius, one of them. The more respectable citizens, alarmed
+at the turn things were taking, interfered, and Ammonius, being seized,
+suffered death at the hands of the lictor. Cyril, undismayed, caused his
+body to be transported to the Caesareum, laid there in state, and buried
+with unusual honours. He directed that the name of the fallen zealot
+should be changed from Ammonius to Thaumasius, or "the Wonderful," and
+the holy martyr received the honours of canonization.
+
+[Sidenote: Hypatia.]
+
+[Sidenote: The city of Alexandria.]
+
+In these troubles there can be no doubt that the pagans sympathized with
+the Jews, and therefore drew upon themselves the vengeance of Cyril.
+Among the cultivators of Platonic philosophy whom the times had spared,
+there was a beautiful young woman, Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the
+mathematician, who not only distinguished herself by her expositions of
+the Neo-Platonic and Peripatetic doctrines, but was also honoured for
+the ability with which she commented on the writings of Apollonius and
+other geometers. Every day before her door stood a long train of
+chariots; her lecture-room was crowded with the wealth and fashion of
+Alexandria. Her aristocratic audiences were more than a rival to those
+attending upon the preaching of the archbishop, and perhaps contemptuous
+comparisons were instituted between the philosophical lectures of
+Hypatia and the incomprehensible sermons of Cyril. But if the archbishop
+had not philosophy, he had what on such occasions is more
+valuable--power. It was not to be borne that a heathen sorceress should
+thus divide such a metropolis with a prelate; it was not to be borne
+that the rich, and noble, and young should thus be carried off by the
+black arts of a diabolical enchantress. Alexandria was too fair a prize
+to be lightly surrendered. It could vie with Constantinople itself. Into
+its streets, from the yellow sand-hills of the desert, long trains of
+camels and countless boats brought the abundant harvests of the Nile. A
+ship-canal connected the harbour of Eunostos with Lake Mareotis. The
+harbour was a forest of masts. Seaward, looking over the blue
+Mediterranean, was the great lighthouse, the Pharos, counted as one of
+the wonders of the world; and to protect the shipping from the north
+wind there was a mole three quarters of a mile in length, with its
+drawbridges, a marvel of the skill of the Macedonian engineers. Two
+great streets crossed each other at right angles--one was three, the
+other one mile long. In the square where they intersected stood the
+mausoleum in which rested the body of Alexander. The city was full of
+noble edifices--the palace, the exchange, the Caesareum, the halls of
+justice. Among the temples, those of Pan and Neptune were conspicuous.
+The visitor passed countless theatres, churches, temples, synagogues.
+There was a time before Theophilus when the Serapion might have been
+approached on one side by a slope for carriages, on the other by a
+flight of a hundred marble steps. On these stood the grand portico with
+its columns, its chequered corridor leading round a roofless hall, the
+adjoining porches of which contained the library, and from the midst of
+its area arose a lofty pillar visible afar off at sea. On one side of
+the town were the royal docks, on the other the Hippodrome, and on
+appropriate sites the Necropolis, the market-places, the gymnasium, its
+stoa being a stadium long; the amphitheatre, groves, gardens, fountains,
+obelisks, and countless public buildings with gilded roofs glittering in
+the sun. Here might be seen the wealthy Christian ladies walking in the
+streets, their dresses embroidered with Scripture parables, the Gospels
+hanging from their necks by a golden chain, Maltese dogs with jewelled
+collars frisking round them, and slaves with parasols and fans trooping
+along. There might be seen the ever-trading, ever-thriving Jew, fresh
+from the wharves, or busy negotiating his loans. But, worst of all, the
+chariots with giddy or thoughtful pagans hastening to the academy of
+Hypatia, to hear those questions discussed which have never yet been
+answered, "Where am I?" "What am I?" "What can I know?"--to hear
+discourses on antenatal existence, or, as the vulgar asserted, to find
+out the future by the aid of the black art, soothsaying by Chaldee
+talismans engraved on precious stones, by incantations with a glass and
+water, by moonshine on the walls, by the magic mirror, the reflection of
+a sapphire, a sieve, or cymbals; fortune-telling by the veins of the
+hand, or consultations with the stars.
+
+[Sidenote: Murder of Hypatia by Cyril.]
+
+Cyril at length determined to remove this great reproach, and overturn
+what now appeared to be the only obstacle in his way to uncontrolled
+authority in the city. We are reaching one of those moments in which
+great general principles embody themselves in individuals. It is Greek
+philosophy under the appropriate form of Hypatia; ecclesiastical
+ambition under that of Cyril. Their destinies are about to be fulfilled.
+As Hypatia comes forth to her academy, she is assaulted by Cyril's
+mob--an Alexandrian mob of many monks. Amid the fearful yelling of these
+bare-legged and black-cowled fiends she is dragged from her chariot, and
+in the public street stripped naked. In her mortal terror she is haled
+into an adjacent church, and in that sacred edifice is killed by the
+club of Peter the Reader. It is not always in the power of him who has
+stirred up the worst passions of a fanatical mob to stop their excesses
+when his purpose is accomplished. With the blow given by Peter the aim
+of Cyril was reached, but his merciless adherents had not glutted their
+vengeance. They outraged the naked corpse, dismembered it, and
+incredible to be said, finished their infernal crime by scraping the
+flesh from the bones with oyster-shells, and casting the remnants into
+the fire. Though in his privacy St. Cyril and his friends might laugh at
+the end of his antagonist, his memory must bear the weight of the
+righteous indignation of posterity.
+
+[Sidenote: Suppression of Alexandrian science.]
+
+Thus, in the 414th year of our era, the position of philosophy in the
+intellectual metropolis of the world was determined; henceforth science
+must sink into obscurity and subordination. Its public existence will no
+longer be tolerated. Indeed, it may be said that from this period for
+some centuries it altogether disappeared. The leaden mace of bigotry had
+struck and shivered the exquisitely tempered steel of Greek philosophy.
+Cyril's acts passed unquestioned. It was now ascertained that throughout
+the Roman world there must be no more liberty of thought. It had been
+said that these events prove Greek philosophy to have been a sham, and,
+like other shams, it was driven out of the world when detected, and that
+it could not withstand the truth. Such assertions might answer their
+purposes very well, so long as the victors maintained their power in
+Alexandria, but they manifestly are of inconvenient application after
+the Saracens had captured the city. However this may be, an intellectual
+stagnation settled upon the place, an invisible atmosphere of
+oppression, ready to crush down, morally and physically, whatever
+provoked its weight. And so for the next two dreary and weary centuries
+things remained, until oppression and force were ended by a foreign
+invader. It was well for the world that the Arabian conquerors avowed
+their true argument, the scimitar, and made no pretensions to superhuman
+wisdom. They were thus left free to pursue knowledge without involving
+themselves in theological contradictions, and were able to make Egypt
+once more illustrious among the nations of the earth--to snatch it from
+the hideous fanaticism, ignorance, and barbarism into which it had been
+plunged. On the shore of the Red Sea once more a degree of the earth's
+surface was to be measured, and her size ascertained--but by a
+Mohammedan astronomer. In Alexandria the memory of the illustrious old
+times was to be recalled by the discovery of the motion of the sun's
+apogee by Albategnius, and the third inequality of the moon, the
+variation, by Aboul Wefa; to be discovered six centuries later in Europe
+by Tycho Brahe. The canal of the Pharaohs from the Nile to the Red Sea,
+cleared out by the Ptolemies in former ages, was to be cleared from its
+sand again. The glad desert listened once more to the cheerful cry of
+the merchant camel-driver instead of the midnight prayer of the monk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PREMATURE END OF THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.
+
+THE THREE ATTACKS, VANDAL, PERSIAN, ARAB.
+
+ THE VANDAL ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Africa.--Recovery of
+ that Province by Justinian after great Calamities._
+
+ THE PERSIAN ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Syria and Fall of
+ Jerusalem.--The true Cross carried away as a Trophy.--Moral
+ Impression of these Attacks._
+
+ THE ARAB ATTACK.--_Birth, Mission, and Doctrines of
+ Mohammed.--Rapid Spread of his Faith in Asia and Africa.--Fall
+ of Jerusalem.--Dreadful Losses of Christianity to
+ Mohammedanism.--The Arabs become a learned Nation._
+
+ _Review of the Koran.--Reflexions on the Loss of Asia and
+ Africa by Christendom._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Three attacks made upon the Byzantine system.]
+
+I have now to describe the end of the age of Faith in the East. The
+Byzantine system, out of which it had issued, was destroyed by three
+attacks: 1st, by the Vandal invasion of Africa; 2nd, by the military
+operations of Chosroes, the Persian king; 3rd, by Mohammedanism.
+
+Of these three attacks, the Vandal may be said, in a military sense, to
+have been successfully closed by the victories of Justinian; but,
+politically, the cost of those victories was the depopulation and ruin
+of the empire, particularly in the south and west. The second, the
+Persian attack, though brilliantly resisted in its later years by the
+Emperor Heraclius, left, throughout the East, a profound moral
+impression, which proved final and fatal in the Mohammedan attack.
+
+[Sidenote: The Vandal attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of Africa.]
+
+No heresy has ever produced such important political results as that of
+Arius. While it was yet a vital doctrine, it led to the infliction of
+unspeakable calamities on the empire, and, though long ago forgotten,
+has blasted permanently some of the fairest portions of the globe. When
+Count Boniface, incited by the intrigues of the patrician Aetius, invited
+Genseric, the King of the Vandals, into Africa, that barbarian found in
+the discontented sectaries his most effectual aid. In vain would he
+otherwise have attempted the conquest of the country with the 50,000 men
+he landed from Spain, A.D. 429. Three hundred Donatist bishops, and many
+thousand priests, driven to despair by the persecutions inflicted by the
+emperor, carrying with them that large portion of the population who
+were Arian, were ready to look upon him as a deliverer, and therefore to
+afford him support. The result to the empire was the loss of Africa.
+
+[Sidenote: The reign of Justinian.]
+
+It was nothing more than might have been expected that Justinian, when
+he found himself firmly seated on the throne of Constantinople, should
+make an attempt to retrieve these disasters. The principles which led
+him to his scheme of legislation; to the promotion of manufacturing
+interests by the fabrication of silk; to the reopening of the ancient
+routes to India, so as to avoid transit through the Persian dominions;
+to his attempt at securing the carrying trade of Europe for the Greeks,
+also suggested the recovery of Africa. To this important step he was
+urged by the Catholic clergy. In a sinister but suitable manner, his
+reign was illustrated by his closing the schools of philosophy at
+Athens, ostensibly because of their affiliation to paganism, but in
+reality on account of his detestation of the doctrines of Aristotle and
+Plato; by the abolition of the consulate of Rome; by the extinction of
+the Roman senate, A.D. 552; by the capture and recapture five times of
+the Eternal City. The vanishing of the Roman race was thus marked by an
+extinction of the instruments of ancient philosophy and power.
+
+[Sidenote: His reconquest of Africa.]
+
+The indignation of the Catholics was doubtless justly provoked by the
+atrocities practised in the Arian behalf by the Vandal kings of Africa,
+who, among other cruelties, had attempted to silence some bishops by
+cutting out their tongues. To carry out Justinian's intention of the
+recovery of Africa, his general Belisarius sailed at midsummer, A.D.
+533, and in November he had completed the reconquest of the country.
+
+[Sidenote: Dreadful calamities produced by him.]
+
+This was speedy work, but it was followed by fearful calamities; for in
+this, and the Italian wars of Justinian, likewise undertaken at the
+instance of the orthodox clergy, the human race visibly diminished. It
+is affirmed that in the African campaign five millions of the people of
+that country were consumed; that during the twenty years of the Gothic
+War Italy lost fifteen millions; and that the wars, famines, and
+pestilences of the reign of Justinian diminished the human species by
+the almost incredible number of one hundred millions.
+
+[Sidenote: The Persian attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fall and pillage of Jerusalem.]
+
+[Sidenote: Triumphs of Chosroes.]
+
+It is therefore not at all surprising that in such a deplorable
+condition men longed for a deliverer, in their despair totally
+regardless who he might be or from what quarter he might come.
+Ecclesiastical partisanship had done its work. When Chosroes II., the
+Persian monarch, A.D. 611, commenced his attack, the persecuted
+sectaries of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt followed the example of the
+African Arians in the Vandal invasion, and betrayed the empire. The
+revenge of an oppressed heretic is never scrupulous about its means of
+gratification. As might have been expected, the cities of Asia fell
+before the Persians. They took Jerusalem by assault, and with it the
+cross of Christ; ninety thousand Christians were massacred; and in its
+very birthplace Christianity was displaced by Magianism. The shock which
+religious men received through this dreadful event can hardly now be
+realized. The imposture of Constantine bore a bitter fruit; the sacred
+wood which had filled the world with its miracles was detected to be a
+helpless counterfeit, borne off in triumph by deriding blasphemers. All
+confidence in the apostolic powers of the Asiatic bishops was lost; not
+one of them could work a wonder for his own salvation in the dire
+extremity. The invaders overran Egypt as far as Ethiopia; it seemed as
+if the days of Cambyses had come back again. The Archbishop of
+Alexandria found it safer to flee to Cyprus than to defend himself by
+spiritual artifices or to rely on prayer. The Mediterranean shore to
+Tripoli was subdued. For ten years the Persian standards were displayed
+in view of Constantinople. At one time Heraclius had determined to
+abandon that city, and make Carthage the metropolis of the empire. His
+intention was defeated by the combination of the patriarch, who dreaded
+the loss of his position; of the aristocracy, who foresaw their own
+ruin; and of the people, who would thus be deprived of their largesses
+and shows. Africa was more truly Roman than any other of the provinces;
+it was there that Latin was last used. But when the vengeance of the
+heretical sects was satisfied, they found that they had only changed the
+tyrant without escaping the tyranny. The magnitude of their treason was
+demonstrated by the facility with which Heraclius expelled the Persians
+as soon as they chose to assist him.
+
+[Sidenote: The moral impression of these events.]
+
+In vain, after these successes, what was passed off as the true cross
+was restored again to Jerusalem--the charm was broken. The Magian fire
+had burnt the sepulchre of Christ, and the churches of Constantine and
+Helena; the costly gifts of the piety of three centuries were gone into
+the possession of the Persian and the Jew. Never again was it possible
+that faith could be restored. They who had devoutly expected that the
+earth would open, the lightning descend, or sudden death arrest the
+sacrilegious invader of the holy places, and had seen that nothing of
+the kind ensued, dropped at once into dismal disbelief. Asia and Africa
+were already morally lost. The scimitar of the Arabian soon cut the
+remaining tie.
+
+[Sidenote: Birth of Mohammed.]
+
+Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in
+Arabia, the man who, of all men, has exercised the greatest influence
+upon the human race--Mohammed, by Europeans surnamed "the Impostor." He
+raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of a meteoric stone,
+and from the basest idol-worship; he preached a monotheism which quickly
+scattered to the winds the empty disputes of the Arians and Catholics,
+and irrevocably wrenched from Christianity more than half, and that by
+far the best half of her possessions, since it included the Holy Land,
+the birthplace of our faith, and Africa, which had imparted to it its
+Latin form. That continent, and a very large part of Asia, after the
+lapse of more than a thousand years, still remain permanently attached
+to the Arabian doctrine. With the utmost difficulty, and as if by
+miracle, Europe itself escaped.
+
+[Sidenote: His preaching,]
+
+[Sidenote: and title to apostleship.]
+
+Mohammed possessed that combination of qualities which more than once
+has decided the fate of empires. A preaching soldier, he was eloquent in
+the pulpit, valiant in the field. His theology was simple: "There is but
+one God." The effeminate Syrian, lost in Monothelite and Monophysite
+mysteries; the Athanasian and Arian, destined to disappear before his
+breath, might readily anticipate what he meant. Asserting that
+everlasting truth, he did not engage in vain metaphysics, but applied
+himself to improving the social condition of his people by regulations
+respecting personal cleanliness, sobriety, fasting, prayer. Above all
+other works he esteemed almsgiving and charity. With a liberality to
+which the world had of late become a stranger, he admitted the salvation
+of men of any form of faith provided they were virtuous. To the
+declaration that there is but one God, he added, "and Mohammed is his
+Prophet." Whoever desires to know whether the event of things answered
+to the boldness of such an announcement, will do well to examine a map
+of the world in our own times. He will find the marks of something more
+than an imposture. To be the religious head of many empires, to guide
+the daily life of one-third of the human race, may perhaps justify the
+title of a messenger of God.
+
+[Sidenote: His delusions.]
+
+Like many of the Christian monks, Mohammed retired to the solitude of
+the desert, and, devoting himself to meditation, fasting, and prayer,
+became the victim of cerebral disorder. He was visited by supernatural
+appearances, mysterious voices accosting him as the Prophet of God; even
+the stones and trees joined in the whispering. He himself suspected the
+true nature of his malady, and to his wife Chadizah he expressed a dread
+that he was becoming insane. It is related that as they sat alone, a
+shadow entered the room. "Dost thou see aught?" said Chadizah, who,
+after the manner of Arabian matrons, wore her veil. "I do," said the
+prophet. Whereupon she uncovered her face and said, "Dost thou see it
+now?" "I do not." "Glad tidings to thee, O Mohammed!" exclaimed
+Chadizah: "it is an angel, for he has respected my unveiled face; an
+evil spirit would not." As his disease advanced, these spectral
+illusions became more frequent; from one of them he received the divine
+commission. "I," said his wife, "will be thy first believer;" and they
+knelt down in prayer together. Since that day nine thousand millions of
+human beings have acknowledged him to be a prophet of God.
+
+[Sidenote: His gradual antagonism to Christianity.]
+
+[Sidenote: Institution of polygamy.]
+
+Though, in the earlier part of his career, Mohammed exhibited a spirit
+of forbearance toward the Christians, it was not possible but that
+bitter animosity should arise, as the sphere of his influence extended.
+He appears to have been unable to form any other idea of the Trinity
+than that of three distinct gods; and the worship of the Virgin Mary,
+recently introduced, could not fail to come into irreconcilable conflict
+with his doctrine of the unity of God. To his condemnation of those Jews
+who taught that Ezra was the Son of God, he soon added bitter
+denunciations of the Oriental churches because of their idolatrous
+practices. The Koran is full of such rebukes: "Verily, Christ Jesus, the
+Son of Mary, is the apostle of God." "Believe, therefore, in God and his
+apostles, and say not that there are three gods. Forbear this; it will
+be better for you. God is but one God. Far be it from Him that he should
+have a son." "In the last day, God shall say unto Jesus, O Jesus, son of
+Mary! hast thou ever said to men, Take me and my mother for two gods
+beside God? He shall say, Praise be unto thee, it is not for me to say
+that which I ought not." Mohammed disdained all metaphysical
+speculations respecting the nature of the Deity, or of the origin and
+existence of sin, topics which had hitherto exercised the ingenuity of
+the East. He cast aside the doctrine of the superlative value of
+chastity, asserting that marriage is the natural state of man. To
+asceticism he opposed polygamy, permitting the practice of it in this
+life and promising the most voluptuous means for its enjoyment in
+Paradise hereafter, especially to those who had gained the crowns of
+martyrdom or of victory.
+
+[Sidenote: Results of his life.]
+
+Too often, in this world, success is the criterion of right. The
+Mohammedan appeals to the splendour and rapidity of his career as a
+proof of the divine mission of his apostle. It may, however, be
+permitted to a philosopher, who desires to speak of the faith of so
+large a portion of the human race with profound respect, to examine what
+were some of the secondary causes which led to so great a political
+result. From its most glorious seats Christianity was for ever expelled:
+from Palestine, the scene of its most sacred recollections; from Asia
+Minor, that of its first churches; from Egypt, whence issued the great
+doctrine of Trinitarian orthodoxy; from Carthage, who imposed her belief
+on Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of his success.]
+
+It is altogether a misconception that the Arabian progress was due to
+the sword alone. The sword may change an acknowledged national creed,
+but it cannot affect the consciences of men. Profound though its
+argument is, something far more profound was demanded before
+Mohammedanism pervaded the domestic life of Asia and Africa, before
+Arabic became the language of so many different nations.
+
+[Sidenote: Civil weakness produced by ecclesiastical demoralization.]
+
+The explanation of this political phenomenon is to be found in the
+social condition of the conquered countries. The influences of religion
+in them had long ago ceased; it had become supplanted by theology--a
+theology so incomprehensible that even the wonderful capabilities of the
+Greek language were scarcely enough to meet its subtle demands; the
+Latin and the barbarian dialects were out of the question. How was it
+possible that unlettered men, who with difficulty can be made to
+apprehend obvious things, should understand such mysteries? Yet they
+were taught that on those doctrines the salvation or damnation of the
+human race depended. They saw that the clergy had abandoned the guidance
+of the individual life of their flocks; that personal virtue or vice
+were no longer considered; that sin was not measured by evil works but
+by the degrees of heresy. They saw that the ecclesiastical chiefs of
+Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria were engaged in a desperate
+struggle for supremacy, carrying out their purposes by weapons and in
+ways revolting to the conscience of man. What an example when bishops
+were concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries, blindings,
+riots, treasons, civil war; when patriarchs and primates were
+excommunicating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries for
+earthly power, bribing eunuchs with gold, and courtesans and royal
+females with concessions of episcopal love, and influencing the
+decisions of councils asserted to speak with the voice of God by those
+base intrigues and sharp practices resorted to by demagogues in their
+packed assemblies! Among legions of monks, who carried terror into the
+imperial armies and riot into the great cities, arose hideous clamours
+for theological dogmas, but never a voice for intellectual liberty or
+the outraged rights of man. In such a state of things, what else could
+be the result than disgust or indifference? Certainly men could not be
+expected, if a time of necessity arose, to give help to a system that
+had lost all hold on their hearts.
+
+When, therefore, in the midst of the wrangling of sects, in the
+incomprehensible jargon of Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites,
+Monophysites, Mariolatrists, and an anarchy of countless disputants,
+there sounded through the world, not the miserable voice of the
+intriguing majority of a council, but the dread battle-cry, "There is
+but one God," enforced by the tempest of Saracen armies, is it
+surprising that the hubbub was hushed? Is it surprising that all Asia
+and Africa fell away? In better times patriotism is too often made
+subordinate to religion; in those times it was altogether dead.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of Africa.]
+
+Scarcely was Mohammed buried when his religion manifested its inevitable
+destiny of overpassing the bounds of Arabia. The prophet himself had
+declared war against the Roman empire, and, at the head of 30,000 men,
+advanced toward Damascus, but his purpose was frustrated by ill health.
+His successor Abu-Bekr, the first khalif, attacked both the Romans and
+the Persians. The invasion of Egypt occurred A.D. 638, the Arabs being
+invited by the Copts. In a few months the Mohammedan general Amrou wrote
+to his master, the khalif, "I have taken Alexandria, the great city of
+the West." Treason had done its work, and Egypt was thoroughly
+subjugated. To complete the conquest of Christian Africa, many attacks
+were nevertheless required. Abdallah penetrated nine hundred miles to
+Tripoli, but returned. Nothing more was done for twenty years, because
+of the disputes that arose about the succession to the khalifate. Then
+Moawiyah sent his lieutenant, Akbah, who forced his way to the Atlantic,
+but was unable to hold the long line of country permanently. Again
+operations were undertaken by Abdalmalek, the sixth of the Ommiade
+dynasty, A.D. 698; his lieutenant, Hassan, took Carthage by storm and
+destroyed it, the conquest being at last thoroughly completed by Musa,
+who enjoyed the double reputation of a brave soldier and an eloquent
+preacher. And thus this region, distinguished by its theological acumen,
+to which modern Europe owes so much, was for ever silenced by the
+scimitar. It ceased to preach and was taught to pray.
+
+In this political result--the Arabian conquest of Africa--there can be
+no doubt that the same element which exercised in the Vandal invasion so
+disastrous an effect, came again into operation. But, if treason
+introduced the enemy, polygamy secured the conquest. In Egypt the Greek
+population was orthodox, the natives were Jacobites, more willing to
+accept the Monotheism of Arabia than to bear the tyranny of the
+orthodox. The Arabs, carrying out their policy of ruining an old
+metropolis and erecting a new one, dismantled Alexandria; and thus the
+patriarchate of that city ceased to have any farther political existence
+in the Christian system, which for so many ages had been disturbed by
+its intrigues and violence. The irresistible effect of polygamy in
+consolidating the new order of things soon became apparent. In little
+more than a single generation all the children of the north of Africa
+were speaking Arabic.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of Syria and Persia.]
+
+[Sidenote: The fall of Jerusalem.]
+
+During the khalifates of Abu-Bekr and Omar, and within twelve years
+after the death of Mohammed, the Arabians had reduced thirty-six
+thousand cities, towns, and castles in Persia, Syria, Africa, and had
+destroyed four thousand churches, replacing them with fourteen hundred
+mosques. In a few years they had extended their rule a thousand miles
+east and west. In Syria, as in Africa, their early successes were
+promoted in the most effectual manner by treachery. Damascus was taken
+after a siege of a year. At the battle of Aiznadin, A.D. 633, Kalid,
+"the Sword of God," defeated the army of Heraclius, the Romans losing
+fifty thousand men; and this was soon followed by the fall of the great
+cities Jerusalem, Antioch, Aleppo, Tyre, Tripoli. On a red camel, which
+carried a bag of corn and one of dates, a wooden dish, and a leather
+water-bottle, the Khalif Omar came from Medina to take formal possession
+of Jerusalem. He entered the Holy City riding by the side of the
+Christian patriarch Sophronius, whose capitulation showed that his
+confidence in God was completely lost. The successor of Mohammed and the
+Roman emperor both correctly judged how important in the eyes of the
+nations was the possession of Jerusalem. A belief that it would be a
+proof of the authenticity of Mohammedanism led Omar to order the Saracen
+troops to take it at any cost.
+
+The conquest of Syria and the seizure of the Mediterranean ports gave to
+the Arabs the command of the sea. They soon took Rhodes and Cyprus. The
+battle of Cadesia and sack of Ctesiphon, the metropolis of Persia,
+decided the fate of that kingdom. Syria was thus completely reduced
+under Omar, the second khalif; Persia under Othman, the third.
+
+[Sidenote: The Arabs become a learned nation.]
+
+If it be true that the Arabs burned the library of Alexandria, there was
+at that time danger that their fanaticism would lend itself to the
+Byzantine system; but it was only for a moment that the khalifs fell
+into this evil policy. They very soon became distinguished patrons of
+learning. It has been said that they overran the domains of science as
+quickly as they overran the realms of their neighbours. It became
+customary for the first dignities of the state to be held by men
+distinguished for their erudition. Some of the maxims current show how
+much literature was esteemed. "The ink of the doctor is equally valuable
+with the blood of the martyr." "Paradise is as much for him who has
+rightly used the pen as for him who has fallen by the sword." "The world
+is sustained by four things only: the learning of the wise, the justice
+of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valour of the brave."
+Within twenty-five years after the death of Mohammed, under Ali, the
+fourth khalif, the patronage of learning had become a settled principle
+of the Mohammedan system. Under the khalifs of Bagdad this principle was
+thoroughly carried out. The cultivators of mathematics, astronomy,
+medicine, and general literature abounded in the court of Almansor, who
+invited all philosophers, offering them his protection, whatever their
+religious opinions might be. His successor, Alraschid, is said never to
+have travelled without a retinue of a hundred learned men. This great
+sovereign issued an edict that no mosque should be built unless there
+was a school attached to it. It was he who confided the superintendence
+of his schools to the Nestorian Masue. His successor, Almaimon, was
+brought up among Greek and Persian mathematicians, philosophers, and
+physicians. They continued his associates all his life. By these
+sovereigns the establishment of libraries was incessantly prosecuted,
+and the collection and copying of manuscripts properly organized. In all
+the great cities schools abounded; in Alexandria there were not less
+than twenty. As might be expected, this could not take place without
+exciting the indignation of the old fanatical party, who not only
+remonstrated with Almaimon, but threatened him with the vengeance of God
+for thus disturbing the faith of the people. However, what had thus been
+commenced as a matter of profound policy soon grew into a habit, and it
+was observed that whenever an emir managed to make himself independent,
+he forthwith opened academies.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapidity of their intellectual development.]
+
+The Arabs furnish a striking illustration of the successive phases of
+national life. They first come before us as fetich worshippers, having
+their age of credulity, their object of superstition being the black
+stone in the temple at Mecca. They pass through an age of inquiry,
+rendering possible the advent of Mohammed. Then follows their age of
+faith, the blind fanaticism of which quickly led them to overspread all
+adjoining countries; and at last comes their period of maturity, their
+age of reason. The striking feature of their movement is the quickness
+with which they passed through these successive phases, and the
+intensity of their national life.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the spread of Mohammedanism.]
+
+This singular rapidity of national life was favoured by very obvious
+circumstances. The long and desolating wars between Heraclius and
+Chosroes had altogether destroyed the mercantile relations of the Roman
+and Persian empires, and had thrown the entire Oriental and African
+trade into the hands of the Arabs. As a merchant Mohammed himself makes
+his first appearance. The first we hear in his history are the journeys
+he has made as the factor of the wealthy Chadizah. In these expeditions
+with the caravans to Damascus and other Syrian cities, he was brought in
+contact with Jews and men of business, who, from the nature of their
+pursuits, were of more enlarged views than mere Arab chieftains or the
+petty tradesmen of Arab towns. Through such agency the first impetus was
+given. As to the rapid success, its causes are in like manner so plain
+as to take away all surprise. It is no wonder that in fifty years, as
+Abderrahman wrote to the khalif, not only had the tribute from the
+entire north of Africa ceased, through the population having become
+altogether Mohammedan, but that the Moors boasted an Arab descent as
+their greatest glory. For, besides the sectarian animosities on which I
+have dwelt as facilitating the first conquest of the Christians, and the
+dreadful shock that had been given by the capture of the Holy City,
+Jerusalem, the insulting and burning the sepulchre of our Saviour, and
+the carrying away of his cross as a trophy by the Persians, there were
+other very powerful causes. For many years the taxation imposed by the
+Emperors of Constantinople on their subjects in Asia and Africa had been
+not only excessive and extortionate, but likewise complicated. This the
+khalifs replaced by a simple well-defined tribute of far less amount.
+Thus, in the case of Cyprus, the sum paid to the khalif was only half of
+what it had been to the emperor; and, indeed, the lower orders were
+never made to feel the bitterness of conquest; the blows fell on the
+ecclesiastics, not on the population, and between them there was but
+little sympathy. In the eyes of the ignorant nations the prestige of the
+patriarchs and bishops was utterly destroyed by their detected
+helplessness to prevent the capture and insult of the sacred places. On
+the payment of a trifling sum the conqueror guaranteed to the Christian
+and the Jew absolute security for their worship. An equivalent was
+given for a price. Religious freedom was bought with money. Numerous
+instances might be given of the scrupulous integrity with which the Arab
+commanders complied with their part of the contract. The example set by
+Omar on the steps of the Church of the Resurrection was followed by
+Moawiyah, who actually rebuilt the church of Edessa for his Christian
+subjects; and by Abdulmalek, who, when he had commenced converting that
+of Damascus into a mosque, forthwith desisted on finding that the
+Christians were entitled to it by the terms of the capitulation. If
+these things were done in the first fervour of victory, the principles
+on which they depended were all the more powerful after the Arabs had
+become tinctured with Nestorian and Jewish influences, and were a
+learned nation. It is related of Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, and
+the fourth successor in the khalifate, that he gave himself up to
+letters. Among his sayings are recorded such as these: "Eminence in
+science is the highest of honours;" "He dies not who gives life to
+learning;" "The greatest ornament of a man is erudition." When the
+sovereign felt and expressed such sentiments, it was impossible but that
+a liberal policy should prevail.
+
+Besides these there were other incentives not less powerful. To one
+whose faith sat lightly upon him, or who valued it less than the tribute
+to be paid, it only required the repetition of a short sentence
+acknowledging the unity of God and the divine mission of the prophet,
+and he forthwith became, though a captive or a slave, the equal and
+friend of his conquerer. Doubtless many thousands were under these
+circumstances carried away. As respects the female sex, the Arab system
+was very far from being oppressive; some have even asserted that "the
+Christian women found in the seraglios a delightful retreat." But above
+all, polygamy acted most effectually in consolidating the conquests; the
+large families that were raised--some are mentioned of more than one
+hundred and eighty children--compressed into the course of a few years
+events that would otherwise have taken many generations for their
+accomplishment. These children gloried in their Arab descent, and, being
+taught to speak the language of their conquering fathers, became to all
+intents and purposes Arabs. This diffusion of the language was sometimes
+expedited by the edicts of the khalifs; thus Alwalid I. prohibited the
+use of Greek, directing Arabic to be employed in its stead.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the arrest of Mohammedanism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary disintegration of the Arabian system.]
+
+If thus without difficulty we recognise the causes which led to the
+rapid diffusion of Arab power, we also without difficulty recognise
+those which led to its check and eventual dissolution. Arab conquest
+implied, from the scale on which it was pursued, the forthgoing of the
+whole nation. It could only be accomplished, and in a temporary manner
+sustained, by an excessive and incessant drain of the native Arab
+population. That immobility, or, at best, that slow progress the nation
+had for so many ages displayed, was at an end, society was moved to its
+foundations, a fanatical delirium possessed it, the greatest and boldest
+enterprises were entered upon without hesitation, the wildest hopes or
+passions of men might be speedily gratified, wealth and beauty were the
+tangible rewards of valour in this life, to say nothing of Paradise in
+the next. But such an outrush of a nation in all directions implied the
+quick growth of diverse interests and opposing policies. The necessary
+consequence of the Arab system was subdivision and breaking up. The
+circumstances of its growth rendered it certain that a decomposition
+would take place in the political, and not, as was the case of the
+ecclesiastical Roman system, in the theological direction. All this is
+illustrated both in the earlier and later Saracenic history.
+
+[Sidenote: Effect on the low Arab class.]
+
+War makes a people run through its phases of existence fast. It would
+have taken the Arabs many thousand years to have advanced intellectually
+as far as they did in a single century, had they, as a nation, remained
+in profound peace. They did not merely shake off that dead weight which
+clogs the movement of a nation--its inert mass of common people; they
+converted that mass into a living force. National progress is the sum of
+individual progress; national immobility the result of individual
+quiescence. Arabian life was run through with rapidity, because an
+unrestrained career was opened to every man; and yet, quick as the
+movement was, it manifested all those unavoidable phases through which,
+whether its motion be swift or slow, humanity must unavoidably pass.
+
+[Sidenote: Review of the Koran.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its asserted homogeneousness and completeness.]
+
+[Sidenote: The characters it ought, therefore, to have presented.]
+
+Arabian influence, thus imposing itself on Africa and Asia by military
+successes, and threatening even Constantinople, rested essentially on an
+intellectual basis, the value of which it is needful for us to consider.
+The Koran, which is that basis, has exercised a great control over the
+destinies of mankind, and still serves as a rule of life to a very large
+portion of our race. Considering the asserted origin of this
+book--indirectly from God himself--we might justly expect that it would
+bear to be tried by any standard that man can apply, and vindicate its
+truth and excellence in the ordeal of human criticism. In our estimate
+of it we must constantly bear in mind that it does not profess to be
+successive revelations made at intervals of ages and on various
+occasions, but a complete production delivered to one man. We ought,
+therefore, to look for universality, completeness, perfection. We might
+expect that it would present us with just views of the nature and
+position of this world in which, we live, and that, whether dealing with
+the spiritual or the material, it would put to shame the most celebrated
+productions of human genius, as the magnificent mechanism of the heavens
+and the beautiful living forms of the earth are superior to the vain
+contrivances of man. Far in advance of all that has been written by the
+sages of India, or the philosophers of Greece, on points connected with
+the origin, nature, and destiny of the universe, its dignity of
+conception and excellence of expression should be in harmony with the
+greatness of the subject with which it is concerned.
+
+We might expect that it should propound with authority, and definitively
+settle those all-important problems which have exercised the mental
+powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe for so many centuries, and
+which are at the foundation of all faith and all philosophy; that it
+should distinctly tell us in unmistakable language what is God, what is
+the world, what is the soul, and whether man has any criterion of
+truth; that it should explain to us how evil can exist in a world the
+Maker of which is omnipotent and altogether good; that it should reveal
+to us in what the affairs of men are fixed by Destiny, in what by
+free-will; that it should teach us whence we came, what is the object of
+our continuing here, what is to become of us hereafter. And, since a
+written work claiming a divine origin must necessarily accredit itself
+even to those most reluctant to receive it, its internal evidences
+becoming stronger and not weaker with the strictness of the examination
+to which they are submitted, it ought to deal with those things that may
+be demonstrated by the increasing knowledge and genius of man,
+anticipating therein his conclusions. Such a work, noble as may be its
+origin, must not refuse, but court the test of natural philosophy,
+regarding it not as an antagonist, but as its best support. As years
+pass on, and human science becomes more exact and more comprehensive,
+its conclusions must be found in unison therewith. When occasion arises,
+it should furnish us at least the foreshadowings of the great truths
+discovered by astronomy and geology, not offering for them the wild
+fictions of earlier ages, inventions of the infancy of man. It should
+tell us how suns and worlds are distributed in infinite space, and how,
+in their successions, they come forth in limitless time. It should say
+how far the dominion of God is carried out by law, and what is the point
+at which it is his pleasure to resort to his own good providence or his
+arbitrary will. How grand the description of this magnificent universe
+written by the Omnipotent hand! Of man it should set forth his relations
+to other living beings, his place among them, his privileges, and
+responsibilities. It should not leave him to grope his way through the
+vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth at last; but it
+should teach him wherein true knowledge consists, anticipating the
+physical science, physical power, and physical well-being of our own
+times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit things that we are still
+ignorant of. The discussion of subjects, so many and so high, is not
+outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its manner of dealing
+with them is the only criterion it can offer of its authenticity to
+succeeding times.
+
+[Sidenote: Defects of the Koran.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its God.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its views of man.]
+
+Tried by such a standard, the Koran altogether fails. In its philosophy
+it is incomparably inferior to the writings of Chakia Mouni, the founder
+of Buddhism; in its science it is absolutely worthless. On speculative
+or doubtful things it is copious enough; but in the exact, where a test
+can be applied to it, it totally fails. Its astronomy, cosmogony,
+physiology, are so puerile as to invite our mirth if the occasion did
+not forbid. They belong to the old times of the world, the morning of
+human knowledge. The earth is firmly balanced in its seat by the weight
+of the mountains; the sky is supported over it like a dome, and we are
+instructed in the wisdom and power of God by being told to find a crack
+in it if we can. Ranged in stories, seven in number, are the heavens,
+the highest being the habitation of God, whose throne--for the Koran
+does not reject Assyrian ideas--is sustained by winged animal forms. The
+shooting-stars are pieces of red-hot stone thrown by angels at impure
+spirits when they approach too closely. Of God the Koran is full of
+praise, setting forth, often in not unworthy imagery, his majesty.
+Though it bitterly denounces those who give him any equals, and assures
+them that their sin will never be forgiven; that in the judgment-day
+they must answer the fearful question, "Where are my companions about
+whom ye disputed?" though it inculcates an absolute dependence on the
+mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all those who make a
+merchandise of religion, its ideas of the Deity are altogether
+anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic man living in a paradise. In this
+respect, though exceptional passages might be cited, the reader rises
+from a perusal of the 114 chapters of the Koran with a final impression
+that they have given him low and unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising
+that one of the Mohammedan sects reads it in such a way as to find no
+difficulty in asserting that, "from the crown of the head to the breast
+God is hollow, and from the breast downward he is solid; that he has
+curled black hair, and roars like a lion at every watch of the night."
+The unity asserted by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction
+to the Trinity of the Christians, and the doctrine of a divine
+generation. Our Saviour is never called the Son of God, but always the
+son of Mary. Throughout there is a perpetual acceptance of the delusion
+of the human destiny of the universe. As to man, Mohammed is diffuse
+enough respecting a future state, speaking with clearness of a
+resurrection, the judgment-day, Paradise, the torment of hell, the worm
+that never dies, the pains that never end; but, with all this precise
+description of the future, there are many errors as to the past. If
+modesty did not render it unsuitable to speak of such topics here, it
+might be shown how feeble is his physiology when he has occasion to
+allude to the origin or generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond
+the ideas of Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things
+that are past, cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.
+
+[Sidenote: Its literary inferiority compared with the Bible.]
+
+Of the literary execution of his work, it is, perhaps, scarcely possible
+to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the oldest prose
+composition among the Arabs, by whom Mohammed's boast of the
+unapproachable excellence of his work is almost universally sustained;
+but it must not be concealed that there have been among them very
+learned men who have held it in light esteem. Its most celebrated
+passages, as those on the nature of God, in Chapters II., XXIV., will
+bear no comparison with parallel ones in the Psalms and Book of Job. In
+the narrative style, the story of Joseph, in Chapter XII., compared with
+the same incidents related in Genesis, shows a like inferiority.
+Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends, derived
+probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he mixes with many
+of his own inventions the scripture account of the temptation of Adam,
+the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, enriching the whole with stories like
+the later Night Entertainments of his country, the seven sleepers, Gog
+and Magog, and all the wonders of genii, sorcery, and charms.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of its surprising influence.]
+
+An impartial reader of the Koran may doubtless be surprised that so
+feeble a production should serve its purpose so well. But the theory of
+religion is one thing, the practice another. The Koran abounds in
+excellent moral suggestions and precepts; its composition is so
+fragmentary that we cannot turn to a single page without finding maxims
+of which all men must approve. This fragmentary construction yields
+texts, and mottoes, and rules complete in themselves, suitable for
+common men in any of the incidents of life. There is a perpetual
+insisting on the necessity of prayer, an inculcation of mercy,
+almsgiving, justice, fasting, pilgrimage, and other good works;
+institutions respecting conduct, both social and domestic, debts,
+witnesses, marriage, children, wine, and the like; above all, a constant
+stimulation to do battle with the infidel and blasphemer. For life as it
+passes in Asia, there is hardly a condition in which passages from the
+Koran cannot be recalled suitable for instruction, admonition,
+consolation, encouragement. To the Asiatic and to the African, such
+devotional fragments are of far more use than any sustained theological
+doctrine. The mental constitution of Mohammed did not enable him to
+handle important philosophical questions with the well-balanced ability
+of the great Greek and Indian writers, but he has never been surpassed
+in adaptation to the spiritual wants of humble life, making even his
+fearful fatalism administer thereto. A pitiless destiny is awaiting us;
+yet the prophet is uncertain what it may be. "Unto every nation a fixed
+time is decreed. Death will overtake us even in lofty towers, but God
+only knoweth the place in which a man shall die," After many an
+admonition of the resurrection and the judgment-day, many a promise of
+Paradise and threat of hell, he plaintively confesses, "I do not know
+what will be done with you or me hereafter."
+
+[Sidenote: Its true nature.]
+
+The Koran thus betrays a human, and not a very noble intellectual
+origin. It does not, however, follow that its author was, as is so often
+asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and again, I am nothing
+more than a public preacher. He defends, not always without acerbity,
+his work from those who, even in his own life, stigmatized it as a
+confused heap of dreams, or, what is worse, a forgery. He is not the
+only man who has supposed himself to be the subject of supernatural and
+divine communications, for this is a condition of disease to which any
+one, by fasting and mental anxiety, may be reduced.
+
+In what I have thus said respecting a work held by so many millions of
+men as a revelation from God, I have endeavoured to speak with respect,
+and yet with freedom, constantly bearing in mind how deeply to this book
+Asia and Africa are indebted for daily guidance, how deeply Europe and
+America for the light of science.
+
+[Sidenote: Popular Mohammedanism.]
+
+As might be expected, the doctrines of the Koran have received many
+fictitious additions and sectarian interpretations in the course of
+ages. In the popular superstition angels and genii largely figure. The
+latter, being of a grosser fabric, eat, drink, propagate their kind, are
+of two sorts, good and bad, and existed long before men, having occupied
+the earth before Adam. Immediately after death, two greenish, livid
+angels, Monkir and Nekkar, examine every corpse as to its faith in God
+and Mohammed; but the soul, having been separated from the body by the
+angel of death, enters upon an intermediate state, awaiting the
+resurrection. There is, however, much diversity of opinion as to its
+precise disposal before the judgment-day: some think that it hovers near
+the grave; some, that it sinks into the well Zemzem; some, that it
+retires into the trumpet of the Angel of the Resurrection; the
+difficulty apparently being that any final disposal before the day of
+judgment would be anticipatory of that great event, if, indeed, it would
+not render it needless. As to the resurrection, some believe it to be
+merely spiritual, others corporeal; the latter asserting that the os
+coccygis, or last bone of the spinal column, will serve, as it were, as
+a germ, and that, vivified by a rain of forty days, the body will sprout
+from it. Among the signs of the approaching resurrection will be the
+rising of the sun in the West. It will be ushered in by three blasts of
+a trumpet: the first, known as the blast of consternation, will shake
+the earth to its centre, and extinguish the sun and stars; the second,
+the blast of extermination, will annihilate all material things except
+Paradise, hell, and the throne of God. Forty years subsequently, the
+angel Israfil will sound the blast of resurrection. From his trumpet
+there will be blown forth the countless myriads of souls who have taken
+refuge therein or lain concealed. The day of judgment has now come. The
+Koran contradicts itself as to the length of this day; in one place
+making it a thousand, in another fifty thousand years. Most Mohammedans
+incline to adopt the longer period, since angels, genii, men, and
+animals have to be tried. As to men, they will rise in their natural
+state, but naked; white winged camels, with saddles of gold, awaiting
+the saved. When the partition is made, the wicked will be oppressed with
+an intolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called into
+existence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a sweat to issue
+from them, and this, according to their demerits, will immerse them from
+the ankles to the mouth; but the righteous will be screened by the
+shadow of the throne of God. The judge will be seated in the clouds, the
+books open before him, and everything in its turn called on to account
+for its deeds. For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel will hold forth
+his balance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise and one over hell.
+In these all works are weighed. As soon as the sentence is delivered,
+the assembly, in a long file, will pass over the bridge Al-Sirat. It is
+as sharp as the edge of a sword, and laid over the mouth of hell.
+Mohammed and his followers will successfully pass the perilous ordeal;
+but the sinners, giddy with terror, will drop into the place of torment.
+The blessed will receive their first taste of happiness at a pond which
+is supplied by silver pipes from the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of
+Paradise is of musk. Its rivers tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies
+and emeralds. From tents of hollow pearls, the Houris, or girls of
+Paradise, will come forth, attended by troops of beautiful boys. Each
+Saint will have eighty thousand servants and seventy-two girls. To
+these, some of the more merciful Mussulmans add the wives they have had
+upon earth; but the grimly orthodox assert that hell is already nearly
+filled with women. How can it be otherwise since they are not permitted
+to pray in a mosque upon earth? I have not space to describe the silk
+brocades, the green clothing, the soft carpets, the banquets, the
+perpetual music and songs. From the glorified body all impurities will
+escape, not as they did during life, but in a fragrant perspiration of
+camphor and musk. No one will complain I am weary; no one will say I am
+sick.
+
+[Sidenote: The Mohammedan sects.]
+
+From the contradictions, puerilities, and impossibilities indicated in
+the preceding paragraphs, it may be anticipated that the faith of
+Mohammed has been broken into many sects. Of such it is said that not
+less than seventy-three may be numbered. Some, as the Sonnites, are
+guided by traditions; some occupy themselves with philosophical
+difficulties, the existence of evil in the world, the attributes of God,
+absolute predestination and eternal damnation, the invisibility and
+non-corporeality of God, his capability of local motion: these and other
+such topics furnish abundant opportunity for sectarian dispute. As if to
+show how the essential principles of the Koran may be departed from by
+those who still profess to be guided by it, there are, among the
+Shiites, those who believe that Ali was an incarnation of God; that he
+was in existence before the creation of things; that he never died, but
+ascended to heaven, and will return again in the clouds to judge the
+world. But the great Mohammedan philosophers, simply accepting the
+doctrine of the Oneness of God as the only thing of which man can be
+certain, look upon all the rest as idle fables, having, however, this
+political use, that they furnish contention, and therefore occupation to
+disputatious sectarians, and consolation to illiterate minds.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of Mohammedanism on Christianity.]
+
+Thus settled on the north of Africa the lurid phantom of the Arabian
+crescent, one horn reaching to the Bosphorus and one pointing beyond the
+Pyrenees. For a while it seemed that the portentous meteor would
+increase to the full, and that all Europe would be enveloped.
+Christianity had lost for ever the most interesting countries over which
+her influence had once spread, Africa, Egypt, Syria, the Holy Land, Asia
+Minor, Spain. She was destined, in the end, to lose in the same manner
+the metropolis of the East. In exchange for these ancient and
+illustrious regions, she fell back on Gaul, Germany, Britain,
+Scandinavia. In those savage countries, what were there to be offered as
+substitutes for the great capitals, illustrious in ecclesiastical
+history, for ever illustrious in the records of the human
+race--Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople? It was
+an evil exchange. The labours, intellectual and physical, of which
+those cities had once been the scene; the preaching, and penances, and
+prayers so lavishly expended in them, had not produced the anticipated,
+the asserted result. In theology and morality the people had pursued a
+descending course. Patriotism was extinct. They surrendered the state to
+preserve their sect; their treason was rewarded by subjugation.
+
+[Sidenote: Reflexions on the course of historic events.]
+
+From these melancholy events we may learn that the principles on which
+the moral world is governed are analogous to those which obtain in the
+physical. It is not by incessant divine interpositions, which produce
+breaches in the continuity of historic action; it is not by miracles and
+prodigies that the course of events is determined; but affairs follow
+each other in the relation of cause and effect. The maximum development
+of early Christianity coincided with the boundaries of the Roman empire;
+the ecclesiastical condition depended on the political, and, indeed, was
+its direct consequence and issue. The loss of Africa and Asia was, in
+like manner, connected with the Arabian movement, though it would have
+been easy to prevent that catastrophe, and to preserve those continents
+to the faith by the smallest of those innumerable miracles of which
+Church history is full, and which were often performed on unimportant
+and obscure occasions. But not even one such miracle was vouchsafed,
+though an angel might have worthily descended. I know of no event in the
+history of our race on which a thoughtful man may more profitably
+meditate than on this loss of Africa and Asia. It may remove from his
+mind many erroneous ideas, and lead him to take a more elevated, a more
+philosophical, and, therefore, more correct view of the course of
+earthly affairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST.
+
+ _The Age of Faith in the West is marked by Paganism.--The
+ Arabian military Attacks produce the Isolation and permit the
+ Independence of the Bishop of Rome._
+
+ GREGORY THE GREAT _organizes the Ideas of his Age,
+ materializes Faith, allies it to Art, rejects Science, and
+ creates the Italian Form of Religion._
+
+ _An Alliance of the Papacy with France diffuses that
+ Form.--Political History of the Agreement and Conspiracy of
+ the Frankish Kings and the Pope.--The resulting Consolidation
+ of the new Dynasty in France, and Diffusion of Roman
+ Ideas.--Conversion of Europe._
+
+ _The Value of the Italian Form of Religion determined from the
+ papal Biography._
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Age of Faith in the West.]
+
+From the Age of Faith, in the East, I have now to turn to the Age of
+Faith in the West. The former, as we have seen, ended prematurely,
+through a metamorphosis of the populations by military operations,
+conquests, polygamy; the latter, under more favourable circumstances,
+gradually completed its predestined phases, and, after the lapse of many
+centuries, passed into the Age of Reason.
+
+If so many recollections of profound interest cluster round Jerusalem,
+"the Holy City" of the East, many scarcely inferior are connected with
+Rome, "the Eternal City" of the West.
+
+[Sidenote: Is essentially marked by the paganization of religion.]
+
+The Byzantine system, which, having originated in the policy of an
+ambitious soldier struggling for supreme power, and in the devices of
+ecclesiastics intolerant of any competitors, had spread itself all over
+the eastern and southern portions of the Roman empire, and with its
+hatred of human knowledge and degraded religious ideas and practices,
+had been adopted at last even in Italy. Not by the Romans, for they had
+ceased to exist, but by the medley of Goths and half-breeds, the
+occupants of that peninsula. Gregory the Great is the incarnation of the
+ideas of this debased population. That evil system, so carefully
+nurtured by Constantine and cherished by all the Oriental bishops, had
+been cut down by the axe of the Vandal, the Persian, the Arab, in its
+native seats, but the offshoot of it that had been planted in Rome
+developed spontaneously with unexpected luxuriance, and cast its dark
+shadow over Europe for many centuries. He who knew what Christianity had
+been in the apostolic days, might look with boundless surprise on what
+was now ingrafted upon it, and was passing under its name.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of the loss of Africa on events in Italy.]
+
+In the last chapter we have seen how, through the Vandal invasion,
+Africa was lost to the empire--a dire calamity, for, of all the
+provinces, it had been the least expensive and the most productive; it
+yielded men, money, and, what was perhaps of more importance, corn for
+the use of Italy. A sudden stoppage of the customary supply rendered
+impossible the usual distributions in Rome, Ravenna, Milan. A famine
+fell upon Italy, bringing in its train an inevitable diminution of the
+population. To add to the misfortunes, Attila, the King of the Huns, or,
+as he called himself, "the Scourge of God," invaded the empire. The
+battle of Chalons, the convulsive death-throe of the Roman empire,
+arrested his career, A.D. 451.
+
+[Sidenote: Fall and pillage of Rome.]
+
+Four years after this event, through intrigues in the imperial family,
+Genseric, the Vandal king, was invited from Africa to Rome. The
+atrocities which of old had been practised against Carthage under the
+auspices of the senate were now avenged. For fourteen days the Vandals
+sacked the city, perpetrating unheard-of cruelties. Their ships, brought
+into the Tiber, enabled them to accomplish their purpose of pillage far
+more effectually than would have been possible by any land expedition.
+The treasures of Rome, with multitudes of noble captives, were
+transported to Carthage. In twenty-one years after this time, A.D. 476,
+the Western Empire became extinct.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of the wars of Justinian.]
+
+Thus the treachery of the African Arians not only brought the Vandals
+into the most important of all the provinces, so far as Italy was
+concerned; it also furnished an instrument for the ruin of Rome. But
+hardly had the Emperor Justinian reconquered Africa when he attempted
+the subjugation of the Goths now holding possession of Italy. His
+general, Belisarius, captured Rome, Dec. 10, A.D. 556. In the military
+operations ensuing with Vitiges, Italy was devastated, the population
+sank beneath the sword, pestilence, famine. In all directions the
+glorious remains of antiquity were destroyed; statues, as those of the
+Mole of Hadrian, were thrown upon the besiegers of Rome. These
+operations closed by the surrender of Vitiges to Belisarius at the
+capture of Ravenna.
+
+But, as soon as the military compression was withdrawn, revolt broke
+out. Rome was retaken by the Goths; its walls were razed; for forty days
+it was deserted by its inhabitants, an emigration that in the end proved
+its ruin. Belisarius, who had been sent back by the emperor, re-entered
+it, but was too weak to retain it. During four years Italy was ravaged
+by the Franks and the Goths. At last Justinian sent the eunuch Narses
+with a well-appointed army. The Ostrogothic monarchy was overthrown, and
+the emperor governed Italy by his exarchs at Ravenna.
+
+[Sidenote: Debased ideas of the incoming Age of Faith.]
+
+But what was the cost of all this? We may reject the statement
+previously made, that Italy lost fifteen millions of inhabitants, on the
+ground that such computations were beyond the ability of the survivors,
+but, from the asserted number we may infer that there had been a
+horrible catastrophe. In other directions the relics of civilization
+were fast disappearing; the valley of the Danube had relapsed into a
+barbarous state; the African shore had become a wilderness; Italy a
+hideous desert; and the necessary consequence of the extermination of
+the native Italians by war, and their replacement by barbarous
+adventurers, was the falling of the sparse population of that peninsula
+into a lower psychical state. It was ready for the materialized
+religion that soon ensued. An indelible aspect was stamped on the
+incoming Age of Faith. The East and the West had equally displayed the
+imbecility of ecclesiastical rule. Of both, the Holy City had fallen;
+Jerusalem had been captured by the Persian and the Arab, Rome had been
+sacked by the Vandal and the Goth.
+
+[Sidenote: Steady progress of the papacy to supremacy.]
+
+But, for the proper description of the course of affairs, I must retrace
+my steps a little. In the important political events coinciding with the
+death of Leo the Great, and the constitution of the kingdom of Italy by
+the barbarian Odoacer, A.D. 476-490, the bishops of Rome seem to have
+taken but little interest. Doubtless, on one side, they perceived the
+transitory nature of such incidents, and, on the other, clearly saw for
+themselves the road to lasting spiritual domination. The Christians
+everywhere had long expressed a total carelessness for the fate of old
+Rome; and in the midst of her ruins the popes were incessantly occupied
+in laying deep the foundations of their power. Though it mattered little
+to them who was the temporal ruler of Italy, they were vigilant and
+energetic in their relations with their great competitors, the bishops
+of Constantinople and Alexandria. It had become clear that Christendom
+must have a head; and that headship, once definitely settled, implied
+the eventual control over the temporal power. Of all objects of human
+ambition, that headship was best worth struggling for.
+
+[Sidenote: Its attitude toward the emperor.]
+
+Steadily pursuing every advantage as it arose, Rome inexorably insisted
+that her decisions should be carried out in Constantinople itself. This
+was the case especially in the affair of Acacius, the bishop of that
+city, who, having been admonished for his acts by Felix, the bishop of
+Rome, was finally excommunicated. A difficulty arose as to the manner in
+which the process should be served; but an adventurous monk fastened it
+to the robe of Acacius as he entered the church. Acacius, undismayed,
+proceeded with his services, and, pausing deliberately, ordered the name
+of Felix, the Bishop of Rome, to be struck from the roll of bishops in
+communion with the East. Constantinople and Rome thus mutually
+excommunicated one another. It is in reference to this affair that Pope
+Gelasius, addressing the emperor, says; "There are two powers which rule
+the world, the imperial and pontifical. You are the sovereign of the
+human race, but you bow your neck to those who preside over things
+divine. The priesthood is the greater of the two powers; it has to
+render an account in the last day for the acts of kings." This is not
+the language of a feeble ecclesiastic, but of a pontiff who understands
+his power.
+
+[Sidenote: The Gothic conquest gives the pope an Arian master.]
+
+The conquest of Italy by Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, A.D. 493, gave to the
+bishops of Rome an Arian sovereign, and presented to the world the
+anomaly of a heretic appointing God's vicar upon earth. There was a
+contested election between two rival candidates, whose factions,
+emulating the example of the East, filled the city with murder. The
+Gothic monarch ordered that he who had most suffrages, and had been
+first consecrated, should be acknowledged. In this manner Symmachus
+became pope.
+
+[Sidenote: The emperor and pope conspire against him.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Gothic king detects them.]
+
+Hormisdas, who succeeded Symmachus, renewed the attempt to compel the
+Eastern emperor, Anastasius, to accept the degradation of Acacius and
+his party, and to enforce the assent of all his clergy thereto, but in
+vain. On the accession of Justin to the imperial throne, Rome at last
+carried her point; all her conditions were admitted; the schism was
+ended in the humiliation of the Bishop of Constantinople, it was said,
+through the orthodoxy of the emperor. But very soon began to appear
+unmistakable indications that for this religious victory a temporal
+equivalent had been given. Conspiracies were detected in Rome against
+Theodoric, the Gothic king; and rumours were whispered about that the
+arms of Constantinople would before long release Italy from the
+heretical yoke of the Arian. There can be no doubt that Theodoric
+detected the treason. It was an evil reward for his impartial equity. At
+once he disarmed the population of Rome. From being a merciful
+sovereign, he exhibited an awful vengeance. It was in these transactions
+that Boethius, the philosopher, and Symmachus, the senator, fell victims
+to his wrath. The pope John himself was thrown into prison, and there
+miserably died. In his remonstrances with Justin, the great barbarian
+monarch displays sentiments far above his times, yet they were the
+sentiments that had hitherto regulated his actions. "To pretend to a
+dominion over the conscience is to usurp the prerogative of God. By the
+nature of things, the power of sovereigns is confined to political
+government. They have no right of punishment but over those who disturb
+the public peace. The most dangerous heresy is that of a sovereign who
+separates himself from part of his subjects because they believe not
+according to his belief."
+
+[Sidenote: The conspiracy matures.]
+
+[Sidenote: Subjugation of the pope by the emperor.]
+
+Theodoric had been but a few years dead--his soul was seen by an
+orthodox hermit carried by devils into the crater of the volcano of
+Lipari, which was considered to be the opening into hell--when the
+invasion of Italy by Justinian showed how well-founded his suspicions
+had been. Rome was, however, very far from receiving the advantages she
+had expected; the inconceivable wickedness of Constantinople was brought
+into Italy. Pope Sylverius, who was the son of Pope Hormisdas, was
+deposed by Theodora, the emperor's wife. This woman, once a common
+prostitute, sold the papacy to Vigilius for two hundred pounds of gold.
+Her accomplice, Antonina, the unprincipled wife of Belisarius, had
+Sylverius stripped of his robes and habited as a monk. He was
+subsequently banished to the old convict island of Pandataria, and there
+died. Vigilius embraced Eutychianism and, it was said, murdered one of
+his secretaries, and caused his sister's son to be beaten to death. He
+was made to feel what it is for a bishop to be in the hands of an
+emperor; to taste of the cup so often presented to prelates at
+Constantinople; to understand in what estimation his sovereign held the
+vicar of God upon earth. Compelled to go to that metropolis to embrace
+the theological views which Justinian had put forth, thrice he agreed to
+them, and thrice he recanted; he excommunicated the Patriarch of
+Constantinople, and was excommunicated by him. In his personal contests
+with the imperial officials, they dragged him by his feet from a
+sanctuary with so much violence that a part of the structure was pulled
+down upon him; they confined him in a dungeon and fed him on bread and
+water. Eventually he died an outcast in Sicily. The immediate effect of
+the conquest of Italy was the reduction of the popes to the degraded
+condition of the patriarchs of Constantinople. Such were the bitter
+fruits of their treason to the Gothic king. The success of Justinian's
+invasion was due to the clergy; in the ruin they brought upon their
+country, and the relentless tyranny they drew upon themselves, they had
+their reward.
+
+[Sidenote: The paganization of religion proceeds.]
+
+In the midst of this desolation and degradation the Age of Faith was
+gradually assuming distinctive lineaments in Italy. Paganization, which
+had been patronized as a matter of policy in the East, became a matter
+of necessity in the West. To a man like Gregory the Great, born in a
+position which enabled him to examine things from a very general point
+of view, it was clear that the psychical condition of the lower social
+stratum demanded concessions in accordance with its ideas. The belief of
+the thoughtful must be alloyed with the superstition of the populace.
+
+[Sidenote: Division of the subjects to be treated of.]
+
+Accordingly, that was what actually occurred. For the clear
+understanding of these events I shall have to speak, 1st, of the acts of
+Pope Gregory the Great, by whom the ideas of the age were organized and
+clothed in a dress suited to the requirements of the times; 2d, of the
+relations which the papacy soon assumed with the kings of France, by
+which the work of Gregory was consolidated, upheld, and diffused all
+over Europe. It adds not a little to the interest of these things that
+the influences thus created have outlasted their original causes, and,
+after the lapse of more than a thousand years, though moss-covered and
+rotten, are a stumbling-block to the progress of nations.
+
+[Sidenote: Gregory the Great.]
+
+Gregory the Great was the grandson of Pope Felix. His patrician
+parentage and conspicuous abilities had attracted in early life the
+attention of the Emperor Justin, by whom he was appointed prefect of
+Rome. Withdrawn by the Church from the splendours of secular life, he
+was sent, while yet a deacon, as nuncio to Constantinople. Discharging
+the duties that had been committed to him with singular ability and
+firmness, he resumed the monastic life on his return, with daily
+increasing reputation. Elected to the papacy by the clergy, the senate,
+and people of Rome, A.D. 590, with well dissembled resistance he
+implored the emperor to reject their choice, and, on being refused,
+escaped from the city hidden in a basket. It is related that the retreat
+in which he was concealed was discovered by a celestial hovering light
+that settled upon it, and revealed to the faithful their reluctant pope.
+This was during a time of pestilence and famine.
+
+Once made supreme pontiff, this austere monk in an instant resumed the
+character he had displayed at Constantinople, and exhibited the
+qualities of a great statesman. He regulated the Roman liturgy, the
+calendar of festivals, the order of processions, the fashions of
+sacerdotal garments; he himself officiated in the canon of the mass,
+devised many solemn and pompous rites, and invented the chant known by
+his name. He established schools of music, administered the Church
+revenues with precision and justice, and set an example of almsgiving
+and charity; for such was the misery of the times that even Roman
+matrons had to accept the benevolence of the Church. He authorized the
+alienation of Church property for the redemption of slaves, laymen as
+well as ecclesiastics.
+
+An insubordinate clergy and a dissolute populace quickly felt the hand
+that now held the reins. He sedulously watched the inferior pastors,
+dealing out justice to them, and punishing all who offended with
+rigorous severity. He compelled the Italian bishops to acknowledge him
+as their metropolitan. He extended his influence to Greece; prohibited
+simony in Gaul; received into the bosom of the Church Spain, now
+renouncing her Arianism; sent out missionaries to Britain, and converted
+the pagans of that country; extirpated heathenism from Sardinia;
+resisted John, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who had dared to take
+the title of universal bishop; exposed to the emperor the ruin
+occasioned by the pride, ambition, and wickedness of the clergy, and
+withstood him on the question of the law prohibiting soldiers from
+becoming monks. It was not in the nature of such a man to decline the
+regulation of political affairs; he nominated tribunes, and directed the
+operations of troops.
+
+[Sidenote: His superstition.]
+
+[Sidenote: He materializes religion.]
+
+[Sidenote: His hatred of learning,]
+
+[Sidenote: and expulsion of classical authors.]
+
+No one can shake off the system that has given him power; no one can
+free himself from the tincture of the times of which he is the
+representative. Though in so many respects Gregory was far in advance of
+his age, he was at once insincere and profoundly superstitious. With
+more than Byzantine hatred he detested human knowledge. His
+oft-expressed belief that the end of the world was at hand was
+perpetually contradicted by his acts, which were ceaselessly directed to
+the foundation of a future papal empire. Under him was sanctified that
+mythologic Christianity destined to become the religion of Europe for
+many subsequent centuries, and which adopted the adoration of the Virgin
+by images and pictures; the efficacy of the remains of martyrs and
+relics; stupendous miracles wrought at the shrines of saints; the
+perpetual interventions of angels and devils in sublunary affairs; the
+truth of legends far surpassing in romantic improbability the stories of
+Greek mythology; the localization of heaven a few miles above the air,
+and of hell in the bowels of the earth, with its portal in the crater of
+Lipari. Gregory himself was a sincere believer in miracles, ghosts, and
+the resurrection of many persons from the grave, but who, alas! had
+brought no tidings of the secret wonders of that land of deepest shade.
+He made these wild fancies the actual, the daily, the practical religion
+of Europe. Participating in the ecclesiastical hatred of human learning,
+and insisting on the maxim that "Ignorance is the mother of devotion,"
+he expelled from Rome all mathematical studies, and burned the Palatine
+library founded by Augustus Caesar. It was valuable for the many rare
+manuscripts it contained. He forbade the study of the classics,
+mutilated statues, and destroyed temples. He hated the very relics of
+classical genius; pursued with vindictive fanaticism the writings of
+Livy, against whom he was specially excited. It has truly been said that
+"he was as inveterate an enemy to learning as ever lived;" that "no
+lucid ray ever beamed on his superstitious soul." He boasted that his
+own works were written without regard to the rules of grammar, and
+censured the crime of a priest who had taught that subject. It was his
+aim to substitute for the heathen writings others which he thought less
+dangerous to orthodoxy; and so well did he succeed in rooting out of
+Italy her illustrious pagan authors, that when one of his successors,
+Paul I., sent to Pepin of France "what books he could find," they were
+"an antiphonal, a grammar, and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite."
+He was the very incarnation of the Byzantine principle of ignorance.
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual preparation for the debasement of religion.]
+
+[Sidenote: Corruption of Christianity.]
+
+If thus the misfortunes that had fallen on Italy had given her a base
+population, whose wants could only be met by a paganized religion, the
+more fortunate classes all over the empire had long been tending in the
+same direction. Whoever will examine the progress of Christian society
+from the earlier ages, will find that there could be no other result
+than a repudiation of solid learning and an alliance with art. We have
+only to compare the poverty and plainness of the first disciples with
+the extravagance reached in a few generations. Cyprian complains of the
+covetousness, pride, luxury, and worldly-mindedness of Christians, even
+of the clergy and confessors. Some made no scruple to contract matrimony
+with heathens. Clement of Alexandria bitterly inveighs against "the
+vices of an opulent and luxurious Christian community--splendid dresses,
+gold and silver vessels, rich banquets, gilded litters and chariots, and
+private baths. The ladies kept Indian birds, Median peacocks, monkeys,
+and Maltese dogs, instead of maintaining widows and orphans; the men had
+multitudes of slaves." The dipping three times at baptism, the tasting
+of honey and milk, the oblations for the dead, the signing of the cross
+on the forehead on putting on the clothes or the shoes, or lighting a
+candle, which Tertullian imputes to tradition without the authority of
+Scripture, foreshadowed a thousand pagan observances soon to be
+introduced. As time passed on, so far from the state of things
+improving, it became worse. Not only among the frivolous class, but even
+among historic personages, there was a hankering after the ceremonies of
+the departed creed, a lingering attachment to the old rites, and,
+perhaps, a religious indifference to the new. To the age of Justinian
+these remarks strikingly apply. Boethius was, at the best, only a pagan
+philosopher; Tribonian, the great lawyer, the author of the Justinian
+Code, was suspected of being an atheist.
+
+[Sidenote: Episcopal splendour and wickedness.]
+
+[Sidenote: Paganisms of Christianity.]
+
+[Sidenote: It allies itself to art,]
+
+In the East, the splendour of the episcopal establishments extorted
+admiration even from those who were familiar with the imperial court.
+The well-ordered trains of attendants and the magnificent banquets in
+the bishops' palaces are particularly praised. Extravagant views of the
+pre-eminent value of celibacy had long been held among the more devout,
+who conceded a reluctant admission even for marriage itself. "I praise
+the married state, but chiefly for this, that it provides virgins," had
+been the more than doubtful encomium of St. Jerome. Among the clergy,
+who under the force of this growing sentiment found it advisable to
+refrain from marriage, it had become customary, as we learn from the
+enactments and denunciations against the practice, to live with
+"sub-introduced women," as they were called. These passed as sisters of
+the priests, the correctness of whose taste was often exemplified by the
+remarkable beauty of their sinful partners. A law of Honorius put an end
+to this iniquity. The children arising from these associations do not
+appear to have occasioned any extraordinary scandal. At weddings it was
+still the custom to sing hymns to Venus. The cultivation of music at a
+very early period attracted the attention of many of the great
+ecclesiastics--Paul of Samosata, Arius, Chrysostom. In the first
+congregations probably all the worshippers joined in the hymns and
+psalmody. By degrees, however, more skilful performers had been
+introduced, and the chorus of the Greek tragedy made available under the
+form of antiphonal singing. The Ambrosian chant was eventually exchanged
+for the noble Roman chant of Gregory the Great, which has been truly
+characterised as the foundation of all that is grand and elevated in
+modern music.
+
+[Sidenote: and rejects learning.]
+
+With the devastation that Italy had suffered the Latin language was
+becoming extinct. But Roman literature had never been converted to
+Christianity. Of the best writers among the Fathers, not one was a
+Roman; all were provincials. The literary basis was the Hebrew
+Scriptures and the New Testament, the poetical imagery being, for the
+most part, borrowed from the prophets. In historical compositions there
+was a want of fair dealing and truthfulness almost incredible to us;
+thus Eusebius naively avows that in his history he shall omit whatever
+might tend to the discredit of the Church, and magnify whatever might
+conduce to her glory. The same principle was carried out in numberless
+legends, many of them deliberate forgeries, the amazing credulity of the
+times yielding to them full credit, no matter how much they might
+outrage common sense. But what else was to be expected of generations
+who could believe that the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot-wheels were still
+impressed on the sands of the Red Sea, and could not be obliterated
+either by the winds or the waves? He who ventured to offend the public
+taste for these idle fables brought down upon himself the wrath of
+society, and was branded as an infidel. In the interpretation of the
+Scriptures, and, indeed, in all commentaries on authors of repute, there
+was a constant indulgence in fanciful mystification and the detection of
+concealed meanings, in the extracting of which an amusing degree of
+ingenuity and industry was often shown; but these hermeneutical
+writings, as well as the polemical, are tedious beyond endurance; with
+regard to the latter, the energy of their vindictive violence is not
+sufficient to redeem them from contempt.
+
+[Sidenote: Painting and sculpture.]
+
+[Sidenote: Adopts a typical model of the Saviour,]
+
+The relation of the Church to the sister arts, painting and sculpture,
+was doubtless fairly indicated at a subsequent time by the second
+Council of Nicea, A.D. 787; their superstitious use had been resumed.
+Sculpture has, however, never forgotten the preference that was shown to
+her sister. To this day she is a pagan, emulating in this the example of
+the noblest of the sciences, Astronomy, who bears in mind the great
+insults she has received from the Church, and tolerates the name of no
+saint in the visible heavens; the new worlds she discovers are dedicated
+to Uranus, or Neptune, or other Olympian divinities. Among the
+ecclesiastics there had always been many, occasionally some of eminence,
+who set their faces against the connexion of worship with art; thus
+Tertullian of old had manifested his displeasure against Hermogenes, on
+account of the two deadly sins into which he had fallen, painting and
+marriage; but Gnostic Christianity had approved, as Roman Christianity
+was now to approve, of their union. To the Gnostics we owe the earliest
+examples of our sacred images. The countenance of our Saviour, along
+with those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, appears on some of their
+engraved gems and seals. Among the earlier fathers--Justin Martyn and
+Tertullian--there was an impression that the personal appearance of our
+Lord was ungainly; that he was short of stature; and, at a later period
+Cyril says, mean of aspect "even beyond the ordinary race of men." But
+these unsuitable delineations were generally corrected in the fourth
+century, it being then recognised that God could not dwell in a humble
+form or low stature. The model eventually received was perhaps that
+described in the spurious epistle of Lentulus to the Roman senate: "He
+was a man of tall and well-proportioned form; his countenance severe and
+impressive, so as to move the beholders at once with love and awe. His
+hair was of an amber colour, reaching to his ears with no radiation, and
+standing up from his ears clustering and bright, and flowing down over
+his shoulders, parted on the top according to the fashion of the
+Nazarenes. The brow high and open; the complexion clear, with a delicate
+tinge of red; the aspect frank and pleasing; the nose and mouth finely
+formed; the beard thick, parted, and of the colour of the hair; the eyes
+blue, and exceedingly bright." Subsequently the oval countenance assumed
+an air of melancholy, which, though eminently suggestive, can hardly be
+considered as the type of manly beauty.
+
+[Sidenote: and of the Virgin.]
+
+At first the cross was without any adornment; it next had a lamb at the
+foot; and eventually became the crucifix, sanctified with the form of
+the dying Saviour. Of the Virgin Mary, destined in later times to
+furnish so many beautiful types of female loveliness, the earliest
+representations are veiled. The Egyptian sculptors had thus depicted
+Isis; the first form of the Virgin and child was the counterpart of Isis
+and Horus. St. Augustine says her countenance was unknown; there
+appears, however, to have been a very early Christian tradition that in
+complexion she was a brunette. Adventurous artists by degrees removed
+the veil, and next to the mere countenance added a full-grown figure
+like that of a dignified Roman matron; then grouped her with the divine
+child, the wise men, and other suggestions of Scripture.
+
+[Sidenote: Consolidation of papal power in the West.]
+
+[Sidenote: Roman Church anthropomorphized,]
+
+[Sidenote: and necessarily becoming intolerant.]
+
+While thus the papacy was preparing for an alliance with art, it did not
+forget to avail itself of the vast advantages within its reach by
+interfering in domestic life--an interference which the social
+demoralization of the time more than ever permitted. A prodigious step
+in power was made by assuming the cognizance of marriage, and the
+determination of the numberless questions connected with it. Once having
+discovered the influence thus gained, the papacy never surrendered it;
+some of the most important events in later history have been determined
+by its action in this matter. Perhaps even a greater power accrued from
+its assumption of the cognizance of wills, and of questions respecting
+the testamentary disposal of property. Though in many respects, at the
+time we are now considering, the papacy had separated itself from
+morality, had become united to monachism, and was preparing for a future
+alliance with political influences and military power; though its
+indignation and censures were less against personal wickedness than
+heresy of opinion, toward which it was inexorable and remorseless, a
+good effect arose from these assumptions upon domestic life,
+particularly as regards the elevation of the female sex. The power thus
+arising was re-enforced by a continually-increasing rigour in the
+application of penitential punishments. As in the course of years the
+intellectual basis on which that power rested became more doubtful, and
+therefore more open to attack, the papacy became more sensitive and more
+exacting. Pushed on by the influence of the lower population, it fell
+into the depths of anthropomorphism, asserting for the Virgin and the
+saints such attributes as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence.
+Everywhere present, they could always listen to prayer, and, if
+necessary, control or arrest the course of Nature. As it was certain
+that such doctrines must in the end be overthrown, the inevitable day
+was put off by an instant and vindictive repression of any want of
+conformity. Despotism in the State and despotism in the Church were
+upheld by despotism over thought.
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of the alliance of the papacy and France.]
+
+From the acts of Pope Gregory the Great, and his organization of the
+ideas of his age, the paganization of religion in Italy and its alliance
+with art, I have now to turn to the second topic to which this chapter
+is devoted--the relations assumed by the papacy with the kings of
+France, by which the work of Gregory was consolidated and upheld, and
+diffused all over Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Military results of the Arabian wars.]
+
+The armies of the Saracens had wrested from Christendom the western,
+southern, and eastern countries of the Mediterranean; their fleets
+dominated in that sea. Ecclesiastical policy had undergone a revolution.
+Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, had disappeared from the
+Christian system; their bishops had passed away. Alone, of the great
+episcopal seats, Constantinople and Rome were left. To all human
+appearance, their fall seemed to be only a question of time.
+
+[Sidenote: Independence of the pope.]
+
+The disputes of the Bishop of Rome with his African and Asiatic rivals
+had thus come to an untimely end. With them nothing more remained to be
+done; his communications with the emperor at Constantinople were at the
+sufferance of the Mohammedan navies. The imperial power was paralysed.
+The pope was forced by events into isolation; he converted it into
+independence.
+
+But independence! how was that to be asserted and maintained. In Italy
+itself the Lombards seemed to be firmly seated, but they were Arian
+heretics. Their presence and power were incompatible with his. Already,
+in a political sense, he was at their mercy.
+
+One movement alone was open to him; and, whether he rightly understood
+his position or not, the stress of events forced him to make it. It was
+an alliance with the Franks, who had successfully resisted the
+Mohammedan power, and who were orthodox.
+
+[Sidenote: Conditions of his alliance with the Franks.]
+
+An ambitious Frank officer had resolved to deprive his sovereign of the
+crown if the pope would sanctify the deed. They came to an
+understanding. The usurpation was consummated by the one and consecrated
+by the other. It was then the interest of the intrusive line of monarchs
+to magnify their Italian confederate. In the spread of Roman principles
+lay the consolidation of the new Frankish power. It became desirable to
+compel the ignorant German tribes to acknowledge in the pope the
+vicegerent of God, even though the sword must be applied to them for
+that purpose for thirty years.
+
+The pope revolted against his Byzantine sovereign on the question of
+images; but that was a fictitious issue. He did not revolt against his
+new ally, who fell into the same heresy. He broke away from a weak and
+cruel master, and attached himself on terms of equality to a
+confederate. But from the first his eventual ascendancy was assured. The
+representative of a system which is immortal must finally gain supremacy
+over individuals and families, who must die.
+
+[Sidenote: The conversion of Europe.]
+
+Though we cannot undervalue the labours of the monks, who had already
+nominally brought many portions of Europe to Christianity, the passage
+of the centre of the Continent to its Age of Faith, was, in an enlarged
+political sense, the true issue of the empire of the Franks. The fiat of
+Charlemagne put a stamp upon it which it bears to this day. He converted
+an ecclesiastical fiction into a political fact.
+
+[Sidenote: Three points for consideration.]
+
+To understand this important event, it is necessary to describe, 1st,
+the psychical state of Central Europe; 2nd, the position of the pontiff
+and his compact with the Franks. It is also necessary to determine the
+actual religious value of the system he represents, and this is best
+done through, 3rd, the biography of the popes.
+
+[Sidenote: The psychical change of Europe.]
+
+1st. As with the Arabs, so with the barbarians of Europe. They pass from
+their Age of Credulity to their Age of Faith without dwelling long in
+the intermediate state of Inquiry. An age of inquiry implies
+self-investigation, and the absence of an authoritative teacher. But the
+Arabs had had the Nestorians and the Jews, and to the Germans the
+lessons of the monk were impressively enforced by the convincing
+argument of the sword of Charlemagne.
+
+[Sidenote: Labours and successes of the monks.]
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of devout women.]
+
+[Sidenote: Conversion of Europe.]
+
+The military invasions of the south by the barbarians were retaliated by
+missionary invasions of the north. The aim of the former was to conquer,
+that of their antagonists to convert, if antagonists those can be called
+who sought to turn them from their evil ways. The monk penetrated
+through their most gloomy forests unarmed and defenceless; he found his
+way alone to their fortresses. Nothing touches the heart of a savage so
+profoundly as the greatness of silent courage. Among the captives taken
+from the south in war were often high-born women of great beauty and
+purity of mind, and sometimes even bishops, who, true to their religious
+principles, did not fail to exert a happy and a holy influence on the
+tribes among whom their lot was cast. One after another the various
+nations submitted: the Vandals and Gepidae in the fourth century; the
+Goths somewhat earlier; the Franks at the end of the fifth; the Alemanni
+and Lombards at the beginning of the sixth; the Bavarians, Hessians, and
+Thuringians in the seventh and eighth. Of these, all embraced the Arian
+form except the Franks, who were converted by the Catholic clergy. In
+truth, however, these nations were only Christianized upon the surface,
+their conversion being indicated by little more than their making the
+sign of the cross. In all these movements women exercised an
+extraordinary influence: thus Clotilda, the Queen of the Franks, brought
+over to the faith her husband Clovis. Bertha, the Queen of Kent, and
+Gisella, the Queen of Hungary, led the way in their respective
+countries; and under similar influences were converted the Duke of
+Poland and the Czar Jarislaus. To women Europe is thus greatly indebted,
+though the forms of religion at the first were nothing more than the
+creed and the Lord's prayer. It has been truly said that for these
+conversions three conditions were necessary--a devout female of the
+court, a national calamity, and a monk. As to the people, they seem to
+have followed the example of their rulers in blind subserviency,
+altogether careless as to what the required faith might be. The
+conversion of the ruler is naively taken by historians as the conversion
+of the whole people. As might be expected, a faith so lightly assumed at
+the will or whim of the sovereign was often as lightly cast aside; thus
+the Swedes, Bohemians, and Hungarians relapsed into idolatry.
+
+[Sidenote: Conversion of England.]
+
+Among such apostasies it is interesting to recall that of the
+inhabitants of Britain, to whom Christianity was first introduced by the
+Roman legions, and who might boast in Constantine the Great, and his
+mother Helena, if they were really natives of that country, that they
+had exercised no little influence on the religion of the world. The
+biography of Pelagius shows with what acuteness theological doctrines
+were considered in those remote regions; but, after the decline of Roman
+affairs, this promising state of things was destroyed, and the clergy
+driven by the pagan invaders to the inaccessible parts of Wales,
+Scotland, and Ireland. The sight of some English children exposed for
+sale in the slave-market at Rome suggested to Gregory the Great the
+attempt of reconverting the island. On his assuming the pontificate he
+commissioned the monk Augustine for that purpose; and after the usual
+exertion of female influence in the court of King Ethelbert by Bertha,
+his Frankish princess, and the usual vicissitudes of backsliding, the
+faith gradually won its way throughout the whole country. A little
+opposition occurred on the part of the ancient clergy, who retained in
+their fastnesses the traditions of the old times, particularly in regard
+to Easter. But this at length disappeared; an intercourse sprang up with
+Rome, and it became common for the clergy and wealthy nobles to visit
+that city.
+
+[Sidenote: Irish and British missionaries.]
+
+Displaying the same noble quality which in our own times characterises
+it, British Christianity did not fail to exert a proselytizing spirit.
+As, at the end of the sixth century, Columban, an Irish monk of Banchor,
+had gone forth as a missionary, passing through France, Switzerland, and
+beyond the confines of the ancient Roman empire, so about a century
+later Boniface, an Englishman of Devonshire, repaired to Germany, under
+a recommendation from the pope and Charles Martel, and laboured among
+the Hessians and Saxons, cutting down their sacred oaks, overturning
+their altars, erecting churches, founding bishoprics, and gaining at
+last, from the hands of the savages, the crown of martyrdom. In the
+affinity of their language to those of the countries to which they went,
+these missionaries from the West found a very great advantage.
+
+It is the glory of Pope Formosus, the same whose body underwent a
+posthumous trial, that he converted the Bulgarians, a people who came
+from the banks of the Volga. The fact that this event was brought about
+by a picture representing the judgment-day shows on what trifling
+circumstances these successes turned. The Slavians were converted by
+Greek missionaries, and for them the monk Cyril invented an alphabet, as
+Ulphilas had done for the Goths. The predatory Normans, who plundered
+the churches in their forays, embraced Christianity on settling in
+Normandy, as the Goths, in like circumstances, had elsewhere done. The
+Scandinavians were converted by St. Anschar.
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of Charlemagne on these events.]
+
+Thus, partly by the preaching of missionaries, partly by the example of
+monks, partly by the influence of females, partly by the sword of the
+Frankish sovereigns, partly by the great name of Rome, Europe was at
+last nominally converted. The so-called religious wars of Charlemagne,
+which lasted more than thirty years, and which were attended by the
+atrocities always incident to such undertakings, were doubtless as much,
+so far as he was concerned, of a political as of a theological nature.
+They were the embodiment of the understanding that had been made with
+Rome by Pepin. Charlemagne clearly comprehended the position and
+functions of the Church; he never suffered it to intrude unduly on the
+state. Regarding it as furnishing a bond for uniting not only the
+various nations and tribes of his empire, but even families and
+individuals together, he ever extended to it a wise and liberal
+protection. His mental condition prevented him from applying its
+doctrines to the regulation of his own life, which was often blemished
+by acts of violence and immorality. From the point of view he occupied,
+he doubtless was led to the conclusion that the maxims of religion are
+intended for the edification and comfort of those who occupy a humbler
+sphere, but that for a prince it is only necessary to maintain
+appropriate political relations with the Church. To him baptism was the
+sign, not of salvation, but of the subjugation of people; and the
+foundation of churches and monasteries, the institution of bishoprics,
+and increase of the clergy, a more trustworthy means of government than
+military establishments. A priest must necessarily lean on him for
+support, a lieutenant might revolt.
+
+[Sidenote: Reflex action of converted Europe.]
+
+If thus Europe, by its conversion, received from Rome an immense
+benefit, it repaid the obligation at length by infusing into Latin
+Christianity what was sadly needed--a higher moral tone. Earnestness is
+the attribute of savage life. That divorce between morality and faith
+which the southern nations had experienced was not possible among these
+converts. If, by communicating many of their barbarous and pagan
+conceptions to the Latin faith, they gave it a tendency to develop
+itself in an idolatrous form, their influence was not one of unmitigated
+evil, for while they lowered the standard of public belief, they
+elevated that of private life. In truth, the contamination they imparted
+is often over-rated. The infusion of paganism into religion was far more
+due to the people of the classical countries. The inhabitants of Italy
+and Greece were never really alienated from the idolatries of the old
+times. At the best, they were only Christianized on the surface. With
+many other mythological practices, they forced image-worship on the
+clergy. But Charlemagne, who, in this respect, may be looked upon as a
+true representative of Frankish and German sentiment, totally
+disapproved of that idolatry.
+
+[Sidenote: The conspiracy of the papacy and the Franks.]
+
+2nd. From this consideration of the psychical revolution that had
+occurred in Central Europe, I turn to an investigation of the position
+of the papacy and its compact with the Franks.
+
+[Sidenote: Position of the Franks and Saracens.]
+
+[Sidenote: Relations of Charles Martel to the Church.]
+
+Scarcely had the Arabs consolidated their conquest of Africa when they
+passed into Spain, and quickly, as will be related in a subsequent
+chapter, subjugating that country, prepared to overwhelm Europe. It was
+their ambition and their threat to preach the unity of God in Rome. They
+reached the centre of France, but were beaten in the great battle of
+Tours by Charles Martel, the Duke of the Franks, A.D. 732. That battle
+fixed the religious destiny of Europe. The Saracens did not, however,
+give up their attempt. Three years afterward they returned into
+Provence, and Charles was himself repulsed. But by this time their power
+had expanded too extensively for consolidation. It was already giving
+unmistakable tokens of decomposition. Scarcely, indeed, had Musa, the
+conqueror of Spain, succeeded in his expedition, when he was arrested at
+the head of his army, and ordered to give an account of his doings at
+Damascus. It was the occurrence of such disputes among the Saracens in
+Spain that constituted the true check to their conquest of France.
+Charles Martel had permitted Chilperic II. and Thierry IV. to retain the
+title of king; but his foresight of approaching events seems to be
+indicated by the circumstance that after the death of the latter he
+abstained from appointing any successor. He died A.D. 741, leaving a
+memory detested by the Church of his own country on account of his
+having been obliged to appropriate from its property sufficient for the
+payment of his army. He had taken a tithe from the revenues of the
+churches and convents for that purpose. The ignorant clergy, alive only
+to their present temporal interests, and not appreciating the great
+salvation he had wrought out for them, could never forgive him. Their
+inconceivable greed could not bear to be taxed even in its own defence.
+"It is because Prince Charles," says the Council of Kiersi to one of his
+descendants, "was the first of all the kings and princes of the Franks
+who separated and dismembered the goods of the Church; it is for that
+sole cause that he is eternally damned. We know, indeed, that St.
+Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, being in prayer, was carried up into the
+world of spirits, and that among the things which the Lord showed to
+him, he beheld Charles tormented in the lowest depths of hell. The angel
+who conducted him, being interrogated on this matter, answered him that,
+in the judgment to come, the soul and body of him who has taken, or who
+has divided the goods of the Church, shall be delivered over, even
+before the end of the world, to eternal torments by the sentence of the
+saints, who shall sit together with the Lord to judge him. This act of
+sacrilege shall add to his own sins the accumulated sins of all those
+who thought that they had purchased their redemption by giving for the
+love of God their goods to holy places, to the lights of divine worship,
+and to the alms of the servants of Christ." This amusing but instructive
+quotation strikingly shows how quickly the semi barbarian Frankish
+clergy had caught the methods of Rome in the defence of temporal
+possessions.
+
+[Sidenote: The epoch of Pepin.]
+
+[Sidenote: His conspiracy with the pope.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its results.]
+
+Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, introduces us to an epoch and a policy
+resembling in many respects that of Constantine the Great; for he saw
+that by an alliance with the Church it would be possible for him to
+displace his sovereign and attain to kingly power. A thorough
+understanding was entered upon between Pepin and the pope. Each had his
+needs. One wanted the crown of France, the other liberation from
+Constantinople and the Lombards. Pepin commenced by enriching the clergy
+with immense gifts, and assigning to the bishops seats in the assembly
+of the nation. In thus consolidating ecclesiastical power he occasioned
+a great social revolution, as was manifested by the introduction of the
+Latin and the disuse of the Frankic on those occasions, and by the
+transmuting of military reviews into theological assemblies. Meantime
+Pope Zachary, on his part, made ready to accomplish his engagement, the
+chaplain of Pepin being the intermedium of negotiation. On the demand
+being formally made, the pope decided that "he should be king who really
+possessed the royal power." Hereupon, in March, A.D. 752, Pepin caused
+himself to be raised by his soldiers on a buckler and proclaimed King of
+the Franks. To give solemnity to the event, he was anointed by the
+bishops with oil. The deposed king, Childeric III., was shut up in the
+convent of St. Omer. Next year Pope Stephen III., driven to extremity,
+applied to Pepin for assistance against the Lombards. It was during
+these transactions that he fell upon the device of enforcing his demand
+by a letter which he feigned had been written by St. Peter to the
+Franks. And now, visiting France, the pope, as an earnest of his
+friendship, and as the token of his completion of the contract, in the
+monastery of St. Denis, placed, with his own hands, the diadem on
+Pepin's brow, and anointed him, his wife, and children, with "the holy
+oil," thereby reviving the Jewish system of creating kings by
+anointment, and imparting to his confederate "a divine right." Pepin now
+finally defeated the Lombards, and assigned a part of the conquered
+territory to the pope. Thus, by a successful soldier, two important
+events had been accomplished--a revolution in France, attended by a
+change of dynasty, and a revolution in Christendom--the Bishop of Rome
+had become a temporal sovereign. To the hilt of the sword of France the
+keys of St. Peter were henceforth so firmly bound that, though there
+have been great kings, and conquerors, and statesmen who have wielded
+that sword, not one to this day has been able, though many have desired,
+to wrench the encumbrance away.
+
+[Sidenote: The reign of Charlemagne.]
+
+Charlemagne, on succeeding his father Pepin, thoroughly developed his
+policy. At the urgent entreaty of Pope Stephen III. he entered Italy,
+subjugated the Lombards, and united the crown of Lombardy to that of
+France. Upon the pagan Saxons burning the church of Deventer, he
+commenced a war with them which lasted thirty-three years, and ended in
+their compulsory Christianization. As the circle of his power extended,
+he everywhere founded churches and established bishoprics, enriching
+them with territorial possessions. To the petty sovereigns, as they
+successively succumbed, he permitted the title of counts. True to his
+own and his father's understanding with the pope, he invariably insisted
+on baptism as the sign of submission, punishing with appalling barbarity
+any resistance, as on the occasion of the revolt, A.D. 782, when, in
+cold blood, he beheaded in one day 4500 persons at Verden. Under such
+circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that clerical influence
+extended so fast; yet, rapid as was its development, the power of
+Charlemagne was more so.
+
+[Sidenote: He is crowned Emperor of the West,]
+
+In the church of St. Peter at Rome, on Christmas-day, A.D. 800, Pope Leo
+III., after the celebration of the holy mysteries, suddenly placed on
+the head of Charlemagne a diadem, amid the acclamations of the people,
+"Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by
+God, the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans." His head and body
+were anointed with the holy oil, and, as was done in the case of the
+Caesars, the pontiff himself saluted or adored him. In the coronation
+oath Charlemagne promised to maintain the privileges of the Church.
+
+[Sidenote: and carries out his compact with the papacy.]
+
+The noble title of "Emperor of the West" was not inappropriate, for
+Charlemagne ruled in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary. An inferior
+dignity would not have been equal to his deserts. His princely
+munificence to St. Peter was worthy of the great occasion, and even in
+his minor acts he exhibited a just appreciation of his obligations to
+the apostle. He proceeded to make in his dominions such changes in the
+Church organization as the Italian policy required, substituting, for
+instance, the Gregorian for the Ambrosian chant, and, wherever his
+priests resisted, he took from them by force their antiphonaries. As an
+example to insubordinates he, at the request of the pope, burnt some of
+the singers along with their books.
+
+[Sidenote: He declines image-worship,]
+
+[Sidenote: but permits relic-worship.]
+
+[Sidenote: His policy as respects slavery.]
+
+The rapid growth of the power of Charlemagne, his overshadowing
+pre-eminence, and the subordinate position of the pope, who had really
+become his Italian lieutenant, are strikingly manifested by the event of
+image-worship in the West. On this, as we shall in another chapter see,
+the popes had revolted from their iconoclastic sovereigns of
+Constantinople. The second Council of Nicea had authorized
+image-worship, but the good sense of Charlemagne was superior to such
+idolatry. He openly expressed his disapproval, and even dictated a work
+against it--the Carolinian books. The pope was therefore placed in a
+singular dilemma, for not only had image-worship been restored at
+Constantinople, and the original cause of the dispute removed, but the
+new protector, Charlemagne, had himself embraced iconoclasm. However, it
+was not without reason that the pope at this time avoided the
+discussion, for a profitable sale of bones and relics, said to be those
+of saints but in reality obtained from the catacombs of Rome, had
+arisen. To the barbarian people of the north these gloomy objects proved
+more acceptable than images of wood, and the traffic, though
+contemptible, was more honourable than the slave-trade in vassals and
+peasant children which had been carried on with Jews and Mohammedans.
+Like all the great statesmen of antiquity, who were unable to comprehend
+the possibility of a highly civilized society without the existence of
+slavery, Charlemagne accepted that unfortunate condition as a political
+necessity, and attempted to draw from it as much benefit as it was
+capable of yielding to the state. From certain classes of slaves he
+appointed, by a system of apprenticeship, those who should be devoted to
+the mechanical arts and to trade. It was, however, slavery and warfare
+which, during his own life, by making the possession of property among
+small proprietors an absolute disadvantage, prepared the way for that
+rapid dissolution of his empire so quickly occurring after his death.
+
+[Sidenote: The European slave-trade.]
+
+Yet, though Charlemagne thus accepted the existence of slavery as a
+necessary political evil, the evidences are not wanting that he was
+desirous to check its abuses wherever he could. When the Italian dukes
+accused Pope Adrian of selling his vassals as slaves to the Saracens,
+Charlemagne made inquiry into the matter, and, finding that transactions
+of the kind had occurred in the port of Civita Vecchia, though he did
+not choose to have so infamous a scandal made public, he ever afterwards
+withdrew his countenance from that pope. At that time a very extensive
+child slave-trade was carried on with the Saracens through the medium of
+the Jews, ecclesiastics as well as barons selling the children of their
+serfs.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvements of the physical state of the people.]
+
+[Sidenote: State of the clergy.]
+
+Though he never succeeded in learning how to write, no one appreciated
+better than Charlemagne the value of knowledge. He laboured assiduously
+for the elevation and enlightenment of his people. He collected together
+learned men; ordered his clergy to turn their attention to letters;
+established schools of religious music; built noble palaces, churches,
+bridges; transferred, for the adornment of his capital, Aix-la-Chapelle,
+statues from Italy; organized the professions and trades of his cities,
+and gave to his towns a police. Well might he be solicitous that his
+clergy should not only become more devout, but more learned. Very few of
+them knew how to read, scarcely any to write. Of the first half of the
+eighth century, a period of great interest, since it includes the
+invasion of France by the Saracens, and their expulsion, there is
+nothing more than the most meagre annals; the clergy understood much
+better the use of the sword than that of the pen. The schools of
+Charlemagne proved a failure, not through any fault of his, but because
+the age had no demand for learning, and the Roman pontiffs and their
+clergy, as far as they troubled themselves with any opinion about the
+matter, thought that knowledge was of more harm than good.
+
+[Sidenote: Private life of Charlemagne.]
+
+[Sidenote: His relations with the Saracens.]
+
+The private life of Charlemagne was stained with great immoralities and
+crimes. He indulged in a polygamy scarcely inferior to that of the
+khalifs, solacing himself with not less than nine wives and many
+concubines. He sought to increase the circle of the former, or perhaps
+it should be said, considering the greatness of his statesmanship, to
+unite the Eastern and Western empires together by a marriage with the
+Empress Irene. This was that Irene who put out the eyes of her own son
+in the porphyry chamber at Constantinople. His fame extended into Asia.
+The Khalif Haroun al Raschid, A.D. 801, sent him from Bagdad the keys of
+our Saviour's sepulchre as a mark of esteem from the Commander of the
+Faithful to the greatest of Christian kings. However, there was
+doubtless as much policy as esteem in this, for the Asiatic khalifs
+perceived the advantage of a good understanding with the power that
+could control the emirs of Spain. Always bearing in mind his engagement
+with the papacy, that Roman Christianity should be enforced upon Europe
+wherever his influence could reach, he remorselessly carried into
+execution the penalty of death that he had awarded to the crimes of, 1,
+refusing baptism; 2, false pretence of baptism; 3, relapse to idolatry;
+4, the murder of a priest or bishop; 5, human sacrifice; 6, eating meat
+in Lent. To the pagan German his sword was a grim, but a convincing
+missionary. To the last he observed a savage fidelity to his bond. He
+died A.D. 814.
+
+[Sidenote: Course of events after the death of Charlemagne.]
+
+[Sidenote: Social condition of Europe.]
+
+Such was the compact that had been established between the Church and
+the State. As might be expected, the succeeding transactions exhibit an
+alternate preponderance of one and of the other, and the degradation of
+both in the end. Scarcely was Charlemagne dead ere the imbecile
+character of his son and successor, Louis the Pious, gave the Church her
+opportunity. By the expulsion of his father's numerous concubines and
+mistresses, the scandals of the palace were revealed. I have not the
+opportunity to relate in detail how this monarch disgracefully
+humiliated himself before the Church; how, under his weak government,
+the slave-trade greatly increased; how every shore, and, indeed, every
+country that could be reached through a navigable river, was open to the
+ravages of pirates, the Northmen extending their maraudings even to the
+capture of great cities; how, in strong contrast with the social
+decomposition into which Europe was falling, Spain, under her Mohammedan
+rulers, was becoming rich, populous, and great; how, on the east, the
+Huns and Avars, ceasing their ravages, accepted Christianity, and, under
+their diversity of interests the nations that had been bound together by
+Charlemagne separated into two divisions--French and German--and civil
+wars between them ensued; how, through the folly of the clergy, who
+vainly looked for protection from relics instead of the sword, the
+Saracens ranged uncontrolled all over the south, and came within an
+hair's-breadth of capturing Rome itself; how France, at this time, had
+literally become a theocracy, the clergy absorbing everything that was
+worth having; how the pope, trembling at home, nevertheless maintained
+an external power by interfering with domestic life, as in the quarrel
+with King Lothaire II. and his wife; how Italy, France, and Germany
+became, as Africa and Syria had once been, full of miracles; how,
+through these means the Church getting the advantage, John VIII. thought
+it expedient to assert his right of disposing of the imperial crown in
+the case of Charles the Bald (the imperial supremacy that Charlemagne
+had obtained in reality implied the eventual supremacy of the pope); how
+an opportunity which occurred for reconstructing the empire of the West
+under Charles the Fat was thwarted by the imbecility of that sovereign,
+an imbecility so great that his nobles were obliged to depose him; how,
+thereupon, a number of new kingdoms arose, and Europe fell, by an
+inevitable necessity, into a political chaos; how, since there was thus
+no protecting government, each great landowner had to protect himself,
+and the rightfulness of private war became recognised; how, through this
+evil state, the strange consequence ensued of a great increase in the
+population, it becoming the interest of every lord to raise as many
+peasants as he could, offering his lands on personal service, the value
+of an estate being determined by the number of retainers it could
+furnish, and hence arose the feudal system; how the monarchical
+principle, once again getting the superiority, asserted its power in
+Germany in Henry the Fowler and his descendants, the three Othos; how,
+by these great monarchs, the subjection of Italy was accomplished, and
+the morality of the German clergy vindicated by their attempts at the
+reformation of the papacy, which fell to the last degree of degradation,
+becoming, in the end, an appanage of the Counts of Tusculum, and,
+shameful to be said, in some instances given by prostitutes to their
+paramours or illegitimates, in some, to mere boys of precociously
+dissolute life; before long, A.D. 1045, it was actually to be sold for
+money. We have now approached the close of a thousand years from the
+birth of Christ; the evil union of the Church and State, their
+rivalries, their intrigues, their quarrels, had produced an inevitable
+result, doing the same in the West that they had done in the East;
+disorganizing the political system, and ending in a universal social
+demoralization. The absorption of small properties into large estates
+steadily increased the number of slaves; where there had once been many
+free families, there was now found only a rich man. Even of this class
+the number diminished by the same process of absorption, until there
+were sparsely scattered here and there abbots and counts with enormous
+estates worked by herds of slaves, whose numbers, since sometimes one
+man possessed more than 20,000 of them, might deceive us, if we did not
+consider the vast surface over which they were spread. Examined in that
+way, the West of Europe proves to have been covered with forests, here
+and there dotted with a convent or a town. From those countries, once
+full of the splendid evidences of Roman civilization, mankind was fast
+disappearing. There was no political cause, until at a later time, when
+the feudal system was developed, for calling men into existence.
+Whenever there was a partial peace, there was no occasion for the
+multiplication of men beyond the intention of extracting from them the
+largest possible revenue, a condition implying their destruction. Soon
+even the necessity for legislation ceased; events were left to take
+their own course. Through the influence of the monks the military spirit
+declined; a vile fetichism of factitious relics, which were working
+miracles in all directions, constituted the individual piety. Whoever
+died without bequeathing a part of his property to the Church, died
+without confession and the sacraments, and forfeited Christian burial.
+Trial by battle, and the ordeals of fire and boiling water, determined
+innocence or guilt in those accused of crimes. Between places at no
+great distance apart intercommunication ceased, or, at most, was carried
+on as in the times of the Trojan War, by the pedlar travelling with his
+packs.
+
+[Sidenote: Expected end of the world, A.D. 1000.]
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of the union of Church and state.]
+
+In these deplorable days there was abundant reason to adopt the popular
+expectation that the end of all things was at hand, and that the year
+1000 would witness the destruction of the world. Society was dissolving,
+the human race was disappearing, and with difficulty the melancholy
+ruins of ancient civilization could be traced. Such was the issue of the
+second attempt at the union of political and ecclesiastical power. In a
+former chapter we saw what it had been in the East, now we have found
+what it was in the West. Inaugurated in selfishness, it strengthens
+itself by violence, is perpetuated by ignorance, and yields as its
+inevitable result, social ruin.
+
+And while things were thus going to wreck in the state, it was no better
+in the Church. The ill-omened union between them was bearing its only
+possible fruit, disgrace to both--a solemn warning to all future ages.
+
+[Sidenote: Value of the new system estimated from the lives of the
+popes.]
+
+3d. This brings me to the third and remaining topic I proposed to
+consider in this chapter, to determine the actual religious value of the
+system in process of being forced upon Europe, using, for the purpose,
+that which must be admitted as the best test--the private lives of the
+popes.
+
+[Sidenote: Apology for referring to the biography of the popes.]
+
+To some it might seem, considering the interests of religion alone,
+desirable to omit all biographical reference to the popes; but this
+cannot be done with justice to the subject. The essential principle of
+the papacy, that the Roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ upon earth,
+necessarily obtrudes his personal relations upon us. How shall we
+understand his faith unless we see it illustrated in his life? Indeed,
+the unhappy character of those relations was the inciting cause of the
+movements in Germany, France, and England, ending in the extinction of
+the papacy as an actual political power, movements to be understood only
+through a sufficient knowledge of the private lives and opinions of the
+popes. It is well, as far as possible, to abstain from burdening systems
+with the imperfections of individuals. In this case they are inseparably
+interwoven. The signal peculiarity of the papacy is that, though its
+history may be imposing, its biography is infamous. I shall, however,
+forbear to speak of it in this latter respect more than the occasion
+seems necessarily to require; shall pass in silence some of those cases
+which would profoundly shock my religious reader, and therefore restrict
+myself to the ages between the middle of the eighth and the middle of
+the eleventh centuries, excusing myself to the impartial critic by the
+apology that these were the ages with which I have been chiefly
+concerned in this chapter.
+
+[Sidenote: The popes from A.D. 757.]
+
+On the death of Pope Paul I., who had attained the pontificate A.D. 757,
+the Duke of Nepi compelled some bishops to consecrate Constantine, one
+of his brothers, as pope; but more legitimate electors subsequently,
+A.D. 768, choosing Stephen IV., the usurper and his adherents were
+severely punished; the eyes of Constantine were put out; the tongue of
+the Bishop Theodorus was amputated, and he was left in a dungeon to
+expire in the agonies of thirst. The nephews of Pope Adrian seized his
+successor, Pope Leo III., A.D. 795, in the street, and, forcing him into
+a neighbouring church, attempted to put out his eyes and cut out his
+tongue; at a later period, this pontiff trying to suppress a conspiracy
+to depose him, Rome became the scene of rebellion, murder, and
+conflagration. His successor, Stephen V., A.D. 816, was ignominiously
+driven from the city; his successor, Paschal I., was accused of
+blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace; it was
+necessary that imperial commissioners should investigate the matter, but
+the pope died, after having exculpated himself by oath before thirty
+bishops. John VIII., A.D. 872, unable to resist the Mohammedans, was
+compelled to pay them tribute; the Bishop of Naples, maintaining a
+secret alliance with them, received his share of the plunder they
+collected. Him John excommunicated, nor would he give him absolution
+unless he would betray the chief Mohammedans and assassinate others
+himself. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope; some
+of the treasures of the Church were seized; and the gate of St.
+Pancrazia was opened with false keys, to admit the Saracens into the
+city. Formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, and
+excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of John, was subsequently
+elected pope, A.D. 891; he was succeeded by Boniface VI., A.D. 896, who
+had been deposed from the diaconate, and again from the priesthood, for
+his immoral and lewd life. By Stephen VII., who followed, the dead body
+of Formosus was taken from the grave, clothed in the papal habiliments,
+propped up in a chair, tried before a council, and the preposterous and
+indecent scene completed by cutting off three of the fingers of the
+corpse and casting it into the Tiber; but Stephen himself was destined
+to exemplify how low the papacy had fallen: he was thrown into prison
+and strangled. In the course of five years, from A.D. 896 to A.D. 900,
+five popes were consecrated. Leo V., who succeeded in A.D. 904, was in
+less than two months thrown into prison by Christopher, one of his
+chaplains, who usurped his place, and who, in his turn, was shortly
+expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who, by the aid of a military force,
+seized the pontificate, A.D. 905. This man, according to the testimony
+of the times, lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated
+prostitute Theodora, who, with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, also
+prostitutes, exercised an extraordinary control over him. The love of
+Theodora was also shared by John X.: she gave him first the
+archbishopric of Ravenna, and then translated him to Rome, A.D. 915, as
+pope. John was not unsuited to the times; he organized a confederacy
+which perhaps prevented Rome from being captured by the Saracens, and
+the world was astonished and edified by the appearance of this warlike
+pontiff at the head of his troops. By the love of Theodora, as was said,
+he had maintained himself in the papacy for fourteen years; by the
+intrigues and hatred of her daughter Marozia he was overthrown. She
+surprised him in the Lateran Palace; killed his brother Peter before his
+face; threw him into prison, where he soon died, smothered, as was
+asserted, with a pillow. After a short interval Marozia made her own son
+pope as John XI., A.D. 931. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his
+father, but she herself inclined to attribute him to her husband
+Alberic, whose brother Guido she subsequently married. Another of her
+sons, Alberic, so called from his supposed father, jealous of his
+brother John, cast him and their mother Marozia into prison. After a
+time Alberic's son was elected pope, A.D. 956; he assumed the title of
+John XII., the amorous Marozia thus having given a son and a grandson to
+the papacy. John was only nineteen years old when he thus became the
+head of Christendom. His reign was characterized by the most shocking
+immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German
+clergy to interfere. A synod was summoned for his trial in the Church of
+St. Peter, before which it appeared that John had received bribes for
+the consecration of bishops, that he had ordained one who was but ten
+years old, and had performed that ceremony over another in a stable; he
+was charged with incest with one of his father's concubines, and with so
+many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel; he put out
+the eyes of one ecclesiastic and castrated another, both dying in
+consequence of their injuries; he was given to drunkenness, gambling,
+and the invocation of Jupiter and Venus. When cited to appear before the
+council, he sent word that "he had gone out hunting;" and to the fathers
+who remonstrated with him, he threateningly remarked "that Judas, as
+well as the other disciples, received from his master the power of
+binding and loosing, but that as soon as he proved a traitor to the
+common cause, the only power he retained was that of binding his own
+neck." Hereupon he was deposed, and Leo VIII. elected in his stead,
+A.D. 963; but subsequently getting the upper hand, he seized his
+antagonists, cut off the hand of one, the nose, finger, tongue of
+others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a
+man whose wife he had seduced.
+
+[Sidenote: The papacy bought at auction A.D. 1045, by Gregory VI.]
+
+After such details it is almost needless to allude to the annals of
+succeeding popes: to relate that John XIII. was strangled in prison;
+that Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII., and killed him by
+starvation; that John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of
+the Castle of St. Angelo; that the corpse of Boniface was dragged by the
+populace through the streets. The sentiment of reverence for the
+sovereign pontiff, nay, even of respect, had become extinct in Rome;
+throughout Europe the clergy were so shocked at the state of things,
+that, in their indignation, they began to look with approbation on the
+intention of the Emperor Otho to take from the Italians their privilege
+of appointing the successor of St. Peter, and confine it to his own
+family. But his kinsman, Gregory V., whom he placed on the pontifical
+throne, was very soon compelled by the Romans to fly; his
+excommunications and religious thunders were turned into derision by
+them; they were too well acquainted with the true nature of those
+terrors; they were living behind the scenes. A terrible punishment
+awaited the Anti-pope John XVI. Otho returned into Italy, seized him,
+put out his eyes, cut off his nose and tongue, and sent him through the
+streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail, and a wine-bladder
+on his head. It seemed impossible that things could become worse; yet
+Rome had still to see Benedict IX., A.D. 1033, a boy of less than twelve
+years, raised to the apostolic throne. Of this pontiff, one of his
+successors, Victor III., declared that his life was so shameful, so
+foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a
+captain of banditti rather than a prelate. The people at last, unable to
+bear his adulteries, homicides, and abominations any longer, rose
+against him. In despair of maintaining his position, he put up the
+papacy to auction. It was bought by a presbyter named John, who became
+Gregory VI., A.D. 1045.
+
+[Sidenote: Conclusion respecting this biography.]
+
+More than a thousand years had elapsed since the birth of our Saviour,
+and such was the condition of Rome. Well may the historian shut the
+annals of those times in disgust; well may the heart of the Christian
+sink within him at such a catalogue of hideous crimes. Well may he ask,
+Were these the vicegerents of God upon earth--these, who had truly
+reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness
+cannot pass?
+
+[Sidenote: The philosophical conclusion at last attained.]
+
+[Sidenote: The evils imputed to the nature of papal election.]
+
+Not until several centuries after these events did public opinion come
+to the true and philosophical conclusion--the total rejection of the
+divine claims of the papacy. For a time the evils were attributed to the
+manner of the pontifical election, as if that could by any possibility
+influence the descent of a power which claimed to be supernatural and
+under the immediate care of God. The manner of election was this. The
+Roman ecclesiastics recommended a candidate to the College of Cardinals;
+their choice had to be ratified by the populace of Rome, and, after
+that, the emperor must give his approval. There were thus to be brought
+into agreement the machinations of the lower ecclesiastics, the
+intrigues of the cardinals, the clamours of the rabble of Rome, and the
+policy of the emperor. Such a system must inevitably break to pieces
+with its own incongruities. Though we may wonder that men failed to see
+that it was merely a human device, we cannot wonder that the emperors
+perceived the necessity of taking the appointments into their own hands,
+and that Gregory VII. was resolved to confine it to the College of
+Cardinals, to the exclusion of the emperor, the Roman people, and even
+of the rest of Christendom--an attempt in which he succeeded.
+
+[Sidenote: Human origin of the papacy.]
+
+No one can study the development of the Italian ecclesiastical power
+without discovering how completely it depended on human agency, too
+often on human passion and intrigues; how completely wanting it was of
+any mark of the Divine construction and care--the offspring of man, not
+of God, and therefore bearing upon it the lineaments of human passions,
+human virtues, and human sins.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+DIGRESSION ON THE PASSAGE OF THE ARABIANS TO THEIR AGE OF REASON.
+
+INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL IDEAS THROUGH THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS.
+
+ _The intellectual Development of the Arabians is guided by the
+ Nestorians and the Jews, and is in the Medical Direction.--The
+ Basis of this Alliance is theological._
+
+ _Antagonism of the Byzantine System to Scientific
+ Medicine.--Suppression of the Asclepions.--Their Replacement
+ by Miracle-cure.--The resulting Superstition and Ignorance._
+
+ _Affiliation of the Arabians with the Nestorians and Jews._
+
+ _1st. The Nestorians, their Persecutions, and the Diffusion of
+ their Sectarian Ideas.--They inherit the old Greek Medicine._
+
+ _Sub-digression on Greek Medicine.--The
+ Asclepions.--Philosophical Importance of Hippocrates, who
+ separates Medicine from Religion.--The School of Cnidos.--Its
+ Suppression by Constantine._
+
+ _Sub-digression on Egyptian Medicine.--It is founded on
+ Anatomy and Physiology.--Dissections and Vivisections.--The
+ Great Alexandrian Physicians._
+
+ _2nd. The Jewish Physicians.--Their Emancipation from
+ Superstition.--They found Colleges and promote Science and
+ Letters._
+
+ _The contemporary Tendency to Magic, Necromancy, the Black
+ Art.--The Philosopher's Stone, Elixir of Life, etc._
+
+ _The Arabs originate scientific Chemistry.--Discover the
+ strong Acids, Phosphorus, etc.--Their geological Ideas.--Apply
+ Chemistry to the Practice of Medicine.--Approach of the
+ Conflict between the Saracenic material and the European
+ supernatural System._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Importance of the influence of the Arabians.]
+
+The military operations of the Arabians, described in Chapter XI.,
+overthrew the Byzantine political system, prematurely closing the Age of
+Faith in the East; their intellectual procedure gave rise to an equally
+important result, being destined, in the end, to close the Age of Faith
+in the West. The Saracens not only destroyed the Italian offshoot, they
+also impressed characteristic lineaments on the Age of Reason in Europe.
+
+Events so important make it necessary for me to turn aside from the
+special description of European intellectual advancement, and offer a
+digression on the passage of the Arabians to their Age of Reason. It is
+impossible for us to understand their action in the great drama about to
+be performed unless we understand the character they had assumed.
+
+[Sidenote: Their intellectual progress.]
+
+In a few centuries the fanatics of Mohammed had altogether changed their
+appearance. Great philosophers, physicians, mathematicians, astronomers,
+alchemists, grammarians, had arisen among them. Letters and science, in
+all their various departments, were cultivated.
+
+[Sidenote: Their teachers were the Nestorians and Jews.]
+
+A nation stirred to its profoundest depths by warlike emigration, and
+therefore ready to make, as soon as it reaches a period of repose, a
+rapid intellectual advance, may owe the path in which it is about to
+pass to those who are in the position of pointing it out, or of
+officiating as teachers. The teachers of the Saracens were the
+Nestorians and the Jews.
+
+[Sidenote: Their scientific progress was through medicine.]
+
+It has been remarked that Arabian science emerged out of medicine, and
+that in its cultivation physicians took the lead, its beginnings being
+in the pursuit of alchemy. In this chapter I have to describe the origin
+of these facts, and therefore must consider the state of Greek and
+Egyptian medicine, and relate how, wherever the Byzantine system could
+reach, true medical philosophy was displaced by relic and shrine-curing;
+and how it was, that while European ideas were in all directions
+reposing on the unsubstantial basis of the supernatural, those of the
+Saracens were resting on the solid foundation of a material support.
+
+When the Arabs conquered Egypt, their conduct was that of bigoted
+fanatics; it justified the accusation made by some against them, that
+they burned the Alexandrian library for the purpose of heating the
+baths. But scarcely were they settled in their new dominion when they
+exhibited an extraordinary change. At once they became lovers and
+zealous cultivators of learning.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of their union with Nestorians and Jews.]
+
+The Arab power had extended in two directions, and had been submitted to
+two influences. In Asia it had been exposed to the Nestorians, in Africa
+to the Jews, both of whom had suffered persecution at the hands of the
+Byzantine government, apparently for the same opinion as that which had
+now established itself by the sword of Mohammed. The doctrine of the
+unity of God was their common point of contact. On this they could
+readily affiliate, and hold in common detestation the trinitarian power
+at Constantinople. He who is suffering the penalties of the law as a
+heretic, or who is pursued by judicial persecution as a misbeliever,
+will readily consort with others reputed to cherish similar
+infidelities. Brought into unison in Asia with the Nestorians, and in
+Africa with the Alexandrian Jews, the Arabians became enthusiastic
+admirers of learning.
+
+[Sidenote: Medicine becomes their neutral ground.]
+
+Not that there was between the three parties thus coalescing a complete
+harmony of sentiment in the theological direction; for, though the
+Nestorians and the Jews were willing to accept one-half of the Arabian
+dogma, that there is but one God, they could not altogether commit
+themselves to the other, that Mohammed is his Prophet. Perhaps
+estrangement on this point might have arisen, but fortunately a
+remarkable circumstance opened the way for a complete understanding
+between them. Almost from the beginning the Nestorians had devoted
+themselves to the study of medicine, and had paid much attention to the
+structure and diseases of the body of man; the Jews had long produced
+distinguished physicians. These medical studies presented, therefore, a
+neutral ground on which the three parties could intellectually unite in
+harmony; and so thoroughly did the Arabians affiliate with these their
+teachers, that they acquired from them a characteristic mental
+physiognomy. Their physicians were their great philosophers; their
+medical colleges were their foci of learning. While the Byzantines
+obliterated science in theology, the Saracens illuminated it by
+medicine.
+
+[Sidenote: Byzantine suppression of medicine.]
+
+[Sidenote: Substitution of public charities.]
+
+When Constantine the Great and his successors, under ecclesiastical
+influence, had declared themselves the enemies of worldly learning, it
+became necessary for the clergy to assume the duty of seeing to the
+physical as well as the religious condition of the people. It was
+unsuited to the state of things that physicians, whose philosophical
+tendencies inclined them to the pagan party, should be any longer
+endured. Their education in the Asclepions imparted to them ideas in
+opposition to the new policy. An edict of Constantine suppressed those
+establishments, ample provision being, however, made for replacing them
+by others more agreeable to the genius of Christianity. Hospitals and
+benevolent organizations were founded in the chief cities, and richly
+endowed with money and lands. In these merciful undertakings the
+empress-mother, Helena, was distinguished, her example being followed by
+many high-born ladies. The heart of women, which is naturally open to
+the desolate and afflicted, soon gives active expression to its
+sympathies when it is sanctified by Christian faith. In this, its
+legitimate direction, Christianity could display its matchless
+benevolence and charities. Organizations were introduced upon the most
+extensive and varied scale; one had charge of foundlings, another of
+orphans, another of the poor. We have already alluded to the parabolani
+or visitors, and of the manner in which they were diverted from their
+original intent.
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual fall into miracle-cure.]
+
+But, noble as were these charities, they laboured under an essential
+defect in having substituted for educated physicians well-meaning but
+unskilful ecclesiastics. The destruction of the Asclepions was not
+attended by any suitably extensive measures for insuring professional
+education. The sick who were placed in the benevolent institutions were,
+at the best, rather under the care of kind nurses than under the advice
+of physicians; and the consequences are seen in the gradually increasing
+credulity and imposture of succeeding ages, until, at length, there was
+an almost universal reliance on miraculous interventions. Fetiches, said
+to be the relics of saints, but no better than those of tropical
+Africa, were believed to cure every disorder. To the shrines of saints
+crowds repaired as they had at one time to the temples of Aesculapius.
+The worshippers remained, though the name of the divinity was changed.
+
+[Sidenote: Closing of the schools of medicine and philosophy.]
+
+Scarcely were the Asclepions closed, the schools of philosophy
+prohibited, the libraries dispersed or destroyed, learning branded as
+magic or punished as treason, philosophers driven into exile and as a
+class exterminated, when it became apparent that a void had been created
+which it was incumbent on the victors to fill. Among the great prelates,
+who was there to stand in the place of those men whose achievements had
+glorified the human race? Who was to succeed to Archimedes, Hipparchus,
+Euclid, Herophilus, Eratosthenes? who to Plato and Aristotle? The
+quackeries of miracle-cure, shrine-cure, relic-cure, were destined to
+eclipse the genius of Hippocrates, and nearly two thousand years to
+intervene between Archimedes and Newton, nearly seventeen hundred
+between Hipparchus and Kepler. A dismal interval of almost twenty
+centuries parts Hero, whose first steam-engine revolved in the Serapion,
+from James Watt, who has revolutionized the industry of the world. What
+a fearful blank! Yet not a blank, for it had its products--hundreds of
+patristic folios filled with obsolete speculation, oppressing the
+shelves of antique libraries, enveloped in dust, and awaiting the worm.
+
+[Sidenote: Its deplorable results.]
+
+[Sidenote: Insecurity of the Byzantine system.]
+
+Never was a more disastrous policy adopted than the Byzantine
+suppression of profane learning. It is scarcely possible now to realize
+the mental degradation produced when that system was at its height. Many
+of the noblest philosophical and scientific works of antiquity
+disappeared from the language in which they had been written, and were
+only recovered, for the use of later and better ages, from translations
+which the Saracens had made into Arabic. The insolent assumption of
+wisdom by those who held the sword crushed every intellectual
+aspiration. Yet, though triumphant for a time, this policy necessarily
+contained the seeds of its own ignominious destruction. A day must
+inevitably come when so grievous a wrong to the human race must be
+exposed, and execrated, and punished--a day in which the poems of Homer
+might once more be read, the immortal statues of the Greek sculptors
+find worshippers, and the demonstrations of Euclid a consenting
+intellect. But that unfortunate, that audacious policy of usurpation
+once entered upon, there was no going back. He who is infallible must
+needs be immutable. In its very nature the action implied compulsion,
+compulsion implied the possession of power, and the whole policy insured
+an explosion the moment that the means of compression should be weak.
+
+[Sidenote: Bigotry of the first Saracens.]
+
+[Sidenote: The nobler policy soon pursued.]
+
+It is said that when the Saracens captured Alexandria, their victorious
+general sent to the khalif to know his pleasure respecting the library.
+The answer was in the spirit of the age. "If the books be confirmatory
+of the Koran, they are superfluous; if contradictory, they are
+pernicious. Let them be burnt." At this moment, to all human appearance,
+the Mohammedan autocrat was on the point of joining in the evil policy
+of the Byzantine sovereign. But fortunately it was but the impulse of a
+moment, rectified forthwith, and a noble course of action was soon
+pursued. The Arab incorporated into his literature the wisdom of those
+he had conquered. In thus conceding to knowledge a free and
+unembarrassed career, and, instead of repressing, encouraging to the
+utmost all kinds of learning did the Koran take any harm? It was a high
+statesmanship which, almost from the beginning of the impulse from
+Mecca, bound down to a narrow, easily comprehended, and easily expressed
+dogma the exacted belief, and in all other particulars let the human
+mind go free.
+
+[Sidenote: The true causes of the preceding events.]
+
+In the preceding paragraphs I have criticized the course of events,
+condemning or applauding the actions and the actors as circumstances
+seem to require, herein following the usual course, which implies that
+men can control affairs, and that the agent is to be held responsible
+for his deed. We have, however, only to consider the course of our own
+lives to be satisfied to how limited an extent such is the case. We are,
+as we often say, the creatures of circumstances. In that expression
+there is a higher philosophy than might at first sight appear. Our
+actions are not the pure and unmingled results of our desires; they are
+the offspring of many various and mixed conditions. In that which seems
+to be the most voluntary decision there enters much that is altogether
+involuntary--more, perhaps, than we generally suppose. And, in like
+manner, those who are imagined to have exercised an irresponsible and
+spontaneous influence in determining public policy, and thereby fixing
+the fate of nations, will be found, when we understand their position
+more correctly, to have been the creatures of circumstances altogether
+independent and irrespective of them--circumstances which they never
+created, of whose influence they only availed themselves. They were
+placed in a current which drifted them irresistibly along.
+
+From this more accurate point of view we should therefore consider the
+course of these events, recognizing the principle that the affairs of
+men pass forward in a determinate way, expanding and unfolding
+themselves. And hence we see that the things of which we have spoken as
+though they were matters of choice were, in reality, forced upon their
+apparent authors by the necessity of the times. But, in truth, they
+should be considered as the presentations of a certain phase of life
+which nations in their onward course sooner or later assume. In the
+individual, how well we know that a sober moderation of action, an
+appropriate gravity of demeanour, belong to the mature period of life; a
+change from the wanton wilfulness of youth, which may be ushered in, or
+its beginning marked, by many accidental incidents: in one perhaps by
+domestic bereavements, in another by the loss of fortune, in a third by
+ill health. We are correct enough in imputing to such trials the change
+of character, but we never deceive ourselves by supposing that it would
+have failed to take place had those incidents not occurred. There runs
+an irresistible destiny in the midst of all these vicissitudes.
+
+[Sidenote: Succession of affairs determined by law.]
+
+We may therefore be satisfied that, whatever may have been the
+particular form of the events of which we have had occasion to speak,
+their order of succession was a matter of destiny, and altogether beyond
+the reach of any individual. We may condemn the Byzantine monarchs, or
+applaud the Arabian khalifs--our blame and our praise must be set at
+their proper value. Europe was passing from its Age of Inquiry to its
+Age of Faith. In such a transition the predestined underlies the
+voluntary. There are analogies between the life of a nation and that of
+an individual, who, though he may be in one respect the maker of his own
+fortunes for happiness or for misery, for good or for evil, though he
+remains here or goes there, as his inclinations prompt, though he does
+this or abstains from that as he chooses, is nevertheless held fast by
+an inexorable fate--a fate which brought him into the world
+involuntarily so far as he was concerned, which presses him forward
+through a definite career, the stages of which are absolutely
+invariable--infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, old age, with all their
+characteristic actions and passions, and which removes him from the
+scene at the appointed time, in most cases against his will. So also it
+is with nations; the voluntary is only the outward semblance, covering,
+but hardly hiding the predetermined. Over the events of life we may have
+control, but none whatever over the law of its progress. There is a
+geometry that applies to nations, an equation of their curve of advance.
+That no mortal man can touch.
+
+[Sidenote: Arabian science in its stage of sorcery.]
+
+We have now to examine in what manner the glimmering lamp of knowledge
+was sustained when it was all but ready to die out. By the Arabians it
+was handed down to us. The grotesque forms of some of those who took
+charge of it are not without interest. They exhibit a strange mixture of
+the Neo-platonist, the Pantheist, the Mohammedan, the Christian. In such
+untoward times, it was perhaps needful that the strongest passions of
+men should be excited and science stimulated by inquiries for methods of
+turning lead into gold, or of prolonging life indefinitely. We have now
+to deal with the philosopher's stone, the elixir vitae, the powder of
+projection, magical mirrors, perpetual lamps, the transmutation of
+metals. In smoky caverns under ground, where the great work is
+stealthily carried on, the alchemist and his familiar are busy with
+their alembics, cucurbites, and pelicans, maintaining their fires for so
+many years that salamanders are asserted to be born in them.
+
+Experimental science was thus restored, though under a very strange
+aspect, by the Arabians. Already it displayed its connexion with
+medicine--a connexion derived from the influence of the Nestorians and
+the Jews. It is necessary for us to consider briefly the relations of
+each, and of the Nestorians first.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: The Nestorians.]
+
+[Sidenote: They deny the virginity of the queen of heaven.]
+
+[Sidenote: They begin to cultivate medicine.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Arabs affiliate with them.]
+
+In Chapter IX. we have related the rivalries of Cyril, the Bishop of
+Alexandria, and Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople. The theological
+point of their quarrel was whether it is right to regard the Virgin Mary
+as the mother of God. To an Egyptian still tainted with ancient
+superstition, there was nothing shocking in such a doctrine. His was the
+country of Isis. St. Cyril, who is to be looked upon as a mere
+ecclesiastical demagogue, found his purposes answered by adopting it
+without any scruple. But in Greece there still remained traces of the
+old philosophy. A recollection of the ideas of Plato had not altogether
+died out. There were some by whom it was not possible for the Egyptian
+doctrine to be received. Such, perhaps, was Nestorius, whose sincerity
+was finally approved by an endurance of persecutions, by his sufferings,
+and his death. He and his followers, insisting on the plain inference of
+the last verse of the first chapter of St. Matthew, together with the
+fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth verses of the thirteenth of the same Gospel,
+could never be brought to an acknowledgment of the perpetual virginity
+of the new queen of heaven. We have described the issue of the Council
+of Ephesus: the Egyptian faction gained the victory, the aid of court
+females being called in, and Nestorius, being deposed from his office,
+was driven, with his friends into exile. The philosophical tendency of
+the vanquished was soon indicated by their actions. While their leader
+was tormented in an African oasis, many of them emigrated to the
+Euphrates, and founded the Chaldaean Church. Under its auspices the
+college at Edessa, with several connected schools, arose. In these were
+translated into Syriac many Greek and Latin works, as those of Aristotle
+and Pliny. It was the Nestorians who, in connexion with the Jews,
+founded the medical college of Djondesabour, and first instituted a
+system of academical honours which has descended to our times. It was
+the Nestorians who were not only permitted by the khalifs the free
+exercise of their religion, but even intrusted with the education of the
+children of the great Mohammedan families, a liberality in striking
+contrast to the fanaticism of Europe. The Khalif Alraschid went so far
+as even to place all his public schools under the superintendence of
+John Masue, one of that sect. Under the auspices of these learned men
+the Arabian academies were furnished with translations of Greek authors,
+and vast libraries were collected in Asia.
+
+[Sidenote: Their great spread in the East,]
+
+Through this connexion with the Arabs, Nestorian missionaries found
+means to disseminate their form of Christianity all over Asia, as far as
+Malabar and China. The successful intrigues of the Egyptian politicians
+at Ephesus had no influence in those remote countries, the Asiatic
+churches of the Nestorian and Jacobite persuasions outnumbering
+eventually all the European Christians of the Greek and Roman churches
+combined. In later times the papal government has made great exertions
+to bring about an understanding with them, but in vain.
+
+[Sidenote: and persecutions in the West.]
+
+The expulsion of this party from Constantinople was accomplished by the
+same persons and policy concerned in destroying philosophy in
+Alexandria. St. Cyril was the representative of an illiterate and
+unscrupulous faction that had come into the possession of power through
+intrigues with the females of the imperial court, and bribery of eunuchs
+and parasites. The same spirit that had murdered Hypatia tormented
+Nestorius to death. Of the contending parties, one was respectable and
+had a tincture of learning, the other ignorant, and not hesitating at
+the employment of brute force, deportation, assassination. Unfortunately
+for the world, the unscrupulous party carried the day.
+
+[Sidenote: They inherit the old Greek medicine.]
+
+By their descent, the Nestorians had become the depositaries of the old
+Greek medical science. Its great names they revered. They collected,
+with the utmost assiduity, whatever works remained on medical topics,
+whether of a Greek or Alexandrian origin, from the writings of
+Hippocrates, called, with affectionate veneration by his successors,
+"The Divine Old Man," down to those of the Ptolemaic school.
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of Greek medicine--Asclepions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hippocrates destroys the theological theory of disease.]
+
+Greek medicine arose in the temples of Aesculapius, whither the sick were
+in the habit of resorting for the assistance of the god. It does not
+appear that any fee was exacted for the celestial advice; but the
+gratitude of the patient was frequently displayed by optional gifts, and
+votive tablets presented to the temple, setting forth the circumstances
+of the case, were of value to those disposed to enter on medical
+studies. The Asclepions thus became both hospitals and schools. They
+exercised, from their position, a tendency to incorporate medical and
+ecclesiastical pursuits. At this time it was universally believed that
+every sickness was due to the anger of some offended god, and especially
+was this supposed to be the case in epidemics and plagues. Such a
+paralyzing notion was necessarily inconsistent with any attempt at the
+relief of communities by the exercise of sanitary measures. In our times
+it is still difficult to remove from the minds of the illiterate classes
+this ancient opinion, or to convince them that under such visitations we
+ought to help ourselves, and not expect relief by penance and
+supplications, unless we join therewith rigorous personal, domestic,
+municipal cleanliness, fresh air, and light. The theological doctrine of
+the nature of disease indicated its means of cure. For Hippocrates was
+reserved the great glory of destroying them both, replacing them by more
+practical and material ideas, and, from the votive tablets, traditions,
+and other sources, together with his own admirable observations,
+compiling a body of medicine. The necessary consequence of his great
+success was the separation of the pursuits of the physician from those
+of the priest. Not that so great a revolution, implying the diversion of
+profitable gains from the ancient channel, could have been accomplished
+without a struggle. We should reverence the memory of Hippocrates for
+the complete manner in which he effected that object.
+
+[Sidenote: Writings of Hippocrates.]
+
+Of the works attributed to Hippocrates, many are doubtless the
+production of his family, his descendants, or his pupils. The
+inducements to literary forgery in the times of the Ptolemies, who paid
+very high prices for books of reputation, have been the cause of much
+difficulty among critics in determining such questions of authorship.
+The works indisputably written by Hippocrates display an extent of
+knowledge answering to the authority of his name; his vivid descriptions
+have never been excelled, if indeed they have ever been equalled. The
+Hippocratic face of the dying is still retained in our medical treatises
+in the original terms, without any improvement.
+
+[Sidenote: His opinions.]
+
+In his medical doctrine, Hippocrates starts with the postulate that the
+body is composed of the four elements. From these are formed the four
+cardinal humours. He thinks that the humours are liable to undergo
+change; that health consists in their right constitution and proper
+adjustment as to quantity; disease, in their impurities and
+inequalities; that the disordered humours undergo spontaneous changes or
+coction, a process requiring time, and hence the explanation of critical
+days and critical discharges. The primitive disturbance of the humours
+he attributed to a great variety of causes, chiefly to the influence of
+physical circumstances, such as heat, cold, air, water. Unlike his
+contemporaries, he did not impute all the afflictions of man to the
+anger of the gods. Along with those influences of an external kind, he
+studied the special peculiarities of the human system, how it is
+modified by climate and manner of life, exhibiting different
+predispositions at different seasons of the year. He believed that the
+innate heat of the body varies with the period of life, being greatest
+in infancy and least in old age, and that hence morbific agents affect
+us with greater or less facility at different times. For this reason it
+is that the physician should attend very closely to the condition of
+those in whom he is interested as respects their diet and exercise, for
+thereby he is able not only to regulate their general susceptibility,
+but also to exert a control over the course of their diseases.
+
+Referring diseases in general to the condition or distribution of the
+humours, for he regards inflammation as the passing of blood into parts
+not previously containing it, he considers that so long as those liquids
+occupy the system in an unnatural or adulterated state, disease
+continues; but as they ferment or undergo coction, various
+characteristic symptoms appear, and, when their elaboration is
+completed, they are discharged by perspiration or other secretions, by
+alvine dejections, etc. But where such a general relief of the system is
+not accomplished, the peccant humours may be localized in some
+particular organ or special portion, and erysipelatous inflammation,
+mortification, or other such manifestations ensue. It is in aiding this
+elimination from the system that the physician may signally manifest his
+skill. His power is displayed much more at this epoch than by the
+control he can exert over the process of coction. Now may he invoke the
+virtues of the hellebores, the white and the black, now may he use
+elaterium. The critical days which answer to the periods of the process
+of coction are to be watched with anxiety, and the correspondence of the
+state of the patient with the expected condition which he ought to show
+at those epochs ascertained. Hence the physician may be able to predict
+the probable course of the disease during the remainder of its career,
+and gather true notions as to the practice it would be best for him to
+pursue to aid Nature in her operations.
+
+[Sidenote: The character of his practice.]
+
+It thus appears that the practice of medicine in the hands of
+Hippocrates had reference rather to the course or career of disease than
+to its special nature. Nothing more than this masterly conception is
+wanted to impress us with his surprizing scientific power. He watches
+the manner in which the humours are undergoing their fermenting coction,
+the phenomena displayed in the critical days, the aspect and nature of
+the critical discharges. He does not attempt to check the process going
+on, but simply to assist the natural operation.
+
+When we consider the period at which Hippocrates lived, B.C. 400, and
+the circumstances under which he had studied medicine, we cannot fail to
+admire the very great advance he made. His merit is conspicuous in
+rejecting the superstitious tendency of his times by teaching his
+disciples to impute a proper agency to physical causes. He altogether
+discarded the imaginary influences then in vogue. For the gods he
+substituted, with singular felicity, Impersonal Nature. It was the
+interest of those who were connected with the temples of Aesculapius to
+refer all the diseases of men to supernatural agency; their doctrine
+being that every affliction should be attributed to the anger of some
+offended god, and restoration to health most certainly procured by
+conciliating his power. So far, then, as such interests were concerned,
+any contradiction of those doctrines, any substitution of the material
+for the supernatural, must needs have met with reprehension. Yet such
+opposition seems in no respect to have weighed with this great
+physician, who developed his theory and pursued his practice without
+giving himself any concern in that respect. He bequeathed an example to
+all who succeeded him in his noble profession, and taught them not to
+hesitate in encountering the prejudices and passions of the present for
+the sake of the truth, and to trust for their reward in the just
+appreciation of a future age.
+
+[Sidenote: His doctrine is truly scientific.]
+
+With such remarks we may assert that the medical philosophy of
+Hippocrates is worthy of our highest admiration, since it exhibits the
+scientific conditions of deduction and induction. The theory itself is
+compact and clear; its lineaments are completely Grecian. It presents,
+to one who will contemplate it with due allowance for its times, the
+characteristic quick-sightedness, penetration, and power of the Greek
+mind, fully vindicating for its author the title which has been
+conferred upon him by his European successors--the Father of
+Medicine--and perhaps inducing us to excuse the enthusiastic assertion
+of Galen, that we ought to reverence the words of Hippocrates as the
+voice of God.
+
+[Sidenote: The school of Cnidos.]
+
+[Sidenote: Is destroyed by Constantine.]
+
+[Sidenote: Classes of physicians.]
+
+The Hippocratic school of Cos found a rival in the school of Cnidos,
+which offered not only a different view of the nature of disease, but
+also taught a different principle for its cure. The Cnidians paid more
+particular attention to the special symptoms in individual cases, and
+pursued a less active treatment, declining, whenever they could, a
+resort to drastic purgatives, venesection, or other energetic means. As
+might be expected, the professional activity of these schools called
+into existence many able men, and produced many excellent works: thus
+Philiston wrote on the regimen for persons in health; Diocles on hygiene
+and gymnastics; Praxagoras on the pulse, showing that it is a measure of
+the force of disease. The Asclepion of Cnidos continued until the time
+of Constantine, when it was destroyed along with many other pagan
+establishments. The union between the priesthood and the profession was
+gradually becoming less and less close; and, as the latter thus
+separated itself, divisions or departments arose in it, both as regards
+subjects, such as pharmacy, surgery, etc., and also as respects the
+position of its cultivators, some pursuing it as a liberal science, and
+some as a mere industrial occupation. In those times, as in our own,
+many who were not favoured with the gifts of fortune were constrained to
+fall into the latter ranks. Thus Aristotle, than whom few have ever
+exerted a greater intellectual influence upon humanity, after spending
+his patrimony in liberal pursuits, kept an apothecary's shop at Athens.
+Aristotle the druggist, behind his counter, selling medicines to chance
+customers, is Aristotle the great writer, whose dictum was final with
+the schoolmen of the Middle Ages. As a general thing, however, the
+medical professors were drawn from the philosophical class. Outside of
+these divisions, and though in all ages continually repudiated by the
+profession, yet continually hovering round it, was a host of impostors
+and quacks, as there will always be so long as there are weak-minded and
+shallow men to be deluded, and vain and silly women to believe.
+
+[Sidenote: Egyptian medicine. The Museum.]
+
+[Sidenote: Philadelphus founds medicine on anatomy.]
+
+[Sidenote: He authorizes dissection and human vivisection.]
+
+[Sidenote: Physicians of the Alexandrian school.]
+
+When the Alexandrian Museum was originated by Ptolemy Philadelphus, its
+studies were arranged in four faculties--literature, mathematics,
+astronomy, medicine. These divisions are, however, to be understood
+comprehensively: thus, under the faculty of medicine were included such
+subjects as natural history. The physicians who received the first
+appointments were Cleombrotus, Herophilus, and Erasistratus; among the
+subordinate professors was Philo-Stephanus, who had charge of natural
+history, and was directed to write a book on Fishes. The elevated ideas
+of the founder cannot be better illustrated than by the manner in which
+he organized his medical school. It was upon the sure basis of anatomy.
+Herophilus and his colleagues were authorized to resort to the
+dissection of the dead, and to ascertain, by that only trustworthy
+method, the true structure of the human body. The strong hand of Ptolemy
+resolutely carried out his design, though in a country where popular
+sentiment was strongly opposed to such practices. To touch a corpse in
+Egypt was an abomination. Nor was it only this great man's intention to
+ascertain the human structure; he also took measures to discover the
+mode in which its functions are carried forward, the manner in which it
+works. To this end he authorized his anatomists to make vivisections
+both of animals, and also of criminals who had been condemned to death,
+herein finding for himself that royal road in physiology which Euclid
+once told him, at a dinner in the Museum, did not exist in geometry, and
+defending the act from moral criticism by the plea that, as the culprits
+had already forfeited their lives to the law, it was no injury to make
+them serviceable to the interests of humanity. Herophilus had been
+educated at Cos; his pathological views were those known as humouralism;
+his treatment active, after the manner of Hippocrates, upon whose works
+he wrote commentaries. His original investigations were numerous; they
+were embodied, with his peculiar views, in treatises on the practice of
+medicine; on obstetrics; on the eye; on the pulse, which he properly
+referred to contractions of the heart. He was aware of the existence of
+the lacteals, and their anatomical relation to the mesenteric glands.
+Erasistratus, his colleague, was a pupil of Theophrastus and Chrysippus:
+he, too, cultivated anatomy. He described the structure of the heart,
+its connexions with the arteries and veins, but fell into the mistake
+that the former vessels were for the conveyance of air, the latter for
+that of blood. He knew that there are two kinds of nerves, those of
+motion and those of sensation. He referred all fevers to inflammatory
+states, and in his practice differed from the received methods of
+Hippocrates by observing a less active treatment.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvements in surgery and pharmacy.]
+
+By these physicians the study of medicine in Alexandria was laid upon
+the solid foundation of anatomy. Besides them there were many other
+instructors in specialties; and, indeed, the temple of Serapis was used
+for a hospital, the sick being received into it, and persons studying
+medicine admitted for the purpose of familiarizing themselves with the
+appearance of disease, precisely as in similar institutions at the
+present time. Of course, under such circumstances, the departments of
+surgery and pharmacy received many improvements, and produced many able
+men. Among these improvements may be mentioned new operations, for
+lithotomy, instruments for crushing calculi, for reducing dislocations,
+etc. The active commerce of Egypt afforded abundant opportunity for
+extending the materia medica by the introduction of a great many herbs
+and drugs.
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of Alexandrian medicine.]
+
+The medical school of Alexandria, which was thus originally based upon
+dissection, in the course of time lost much of its scientific spirit.
+But the influence of the first teachers may be traced through many
+subsequent ages. Thus Galen divides the profession in his time into
+Herophilians and Erasistratians. Various sects had arisen in the course
+of events, as the Dogmatists, who asserted that diseases can only be
+treated correctly by the aid of a knowledge of the structure and
+functions, the action of drugs, and the changes induced in the affected
+parts; they insisted, therefore, upon the necessity of anatomy,
+physiology, therapeutics, and pathology. They claimed a descent from
+Hippocrates. Their antagonists, the Empirics, ridiculed such knowledge
+as fanciful or unattainable, and relied on experience alone. These
+subdivisions were not limited to sects; they may also be observed under
+the form of schools. Even Erasistratus himself, toward the close of his
+life, through some dispute or misunderstanding, appears to have left the
+Museum and established a school at Smyrna. The study of the various
+branches of medicine was also pursued by others out of the immediate
+ranks of the profession. Mithridates, king of Pontus, thus devoted
+himself to the examination of poisons and the discovery of antidotes.
+
+What a fall from this scientific medicine to the miracle-cure which soon
+displaced it! What a descent from Hippocrates and the great Alexandrian
+physicians to the shrines of saints and the monks!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: The Jewish physicians.]
+
+To the foregoing sketch of the state of Greek medicine in its day of
+glory, I must add an examination of the same science among the Jews
+subsequently to the second century; it is necessary for the proper
+understanding of the origin of Saracen learning.
+
+[Sidenote: Their emancipation from the supernatural.]
+
+In philosophy the Jews had been gradually emancipating themselves from
+the influence of ancient traditions; their advance in this direction is
+shown by the active manner in which they aided in the development of
+Neo-platonism. After the destruction of Jerusalem all Syria and
+Mesopotamia were full of Jewish schools; but the great philosophers, as
+well as the great merchants of the nation, were residents of Alexandria.
+Persecution and dispersion, if they served no other good purpose,
+weakened the grasp of the ecclesiastic. Perhaps, too, repeated
+disappointments in an expected coming of a national temporal Messiah had
+brought those who were now advanced in intellectual progress to a just
+appreciation of ancient traditions. In this mental emancipation their
+physicians took the lead. For long, while their pursuits were yet in
+infancy, a bitter animosity had been manifested toward them by the
+Levites, whose manner of healing was by prayer, expiatory sacrifice, and
+miracle; or, if they descended to less supernatural means, by an
+application of such remedies as are popular with the vulgar everywhere.
+Thus, to a person bitten by a mad dog, they would give the diaphragm of
+a dog to eat. As examples of a class of men soon to take no obscure
+share in directing human progress may be mentioned Hannina, A.D. 205,
+often spoken of by his successors as the earliest of Jewish physicians;
+Samuel, equally distinguished as an astronomer, accoucheur, and oculist,
+the inventor of a collyrium which bore his name; Rab, an anatomist, who
+wrote a treatise on the structure of the body of man as ascertained by
+dissections, thereby attaining such celebrity that the people, after his
+death, used the earth of his grave as a medicine; Abba Oumna, whose
+study of insanity plainly shows that he gave a material interpretation
+to the national doctrine of possession by devils, and replaced that
+strange delusion by the scientific explanation of corporeal derangement.
+This honourable physician made it a rule never to take a fee from the
+poor, and never to make any difference in his assiduous attention
+between them and the rich. These men may be taken as a type of their
+successors to the seventh century, when the Oriental schools were broken
+up in consequence of the Arab military movements. In the Talmudic
+literature there are all the indications of a transitional state, so far
+as medicine is concerned; the supernatural seems to be passing into the
+physical, the ecclesiastical is mixed up with the exact: thus a rabbi
+may cure disease by the ecclesiastical operation of laying on of hands;
+but of febrile disturbances, an exact, though erroneous explanation is
+given, and paralysis of the hind legs of an animal is correctly referred
+to the pressure of a tumour on the spinal cord. Some of its aphorisms
+are not devoid of amusing significance: "Any disease, provided the
+bowels remain open; any kind of pain, provided the heart remain
+unaffected; any kind of uneasiness, provided the head be not attacked;
+all manner of evils, except it be a bad woman."
+
+[Sidenote: The Arabs affiliate with them.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Jewish physicians to influence.]
+
+[Sidenote: They found medical colleges,]
+
+[Sidenote: and promote science and literature.]
+
+At first, after the fall of the Alexandrian school, it was all that the
+Jewish physicians could do to preserve the learning that had descended
+to them. But when the tumult of Arabic conquest was over, we find them
+becoming the advisers of crowned heads, and exerting, by reason of their
+advantageous position, their liberal education, their enlarged views, a
+most important influence on the intellectual progress of humanity. Maser
+Djaivah, physician to the Khalif Moawiyah, was distinguished at once as
+a poet, a critic, a philosopher; Haroun, a physician of Alexandria,
+whose Pandects, a treatise unfortunately now lost, are said to have
+contained the first elaborate description of the small-pox and method of
+its treatment. Isaac Ben Emran wrote an original treatise on poisons
+and their symptoms, and others followed his example. The Khalif Al
+Raschid, who maintained political relations with Charlemagne by means of
+Jewish envoys, set that monarch an example by which indeed he was not
+slow to profit, in actively patronising the medical college at
+Djondesabour, and founding a university at Bagdad. He prohibited any
+person from practising medicine until after a satisfactory examination
+before one of those faculties. In the East the theological theory of
+disease and of its cure was fast passing away. Of the school at Bagdad,
+Joshua ben Nun is said to have been the most celebrated professor, the
+school itself actively promoting the translation of Greek works into
+Arabic--not alone works of a professional, but also those of a general
+kind. In this manner the writings of Plato and Aristotle were secured;
+indeed, it is said that almost every day camels laden with volumes were
+entering the gates of Bagdad. To add to the supply, the Emperor Michael
+III. was compelled by treaty to furnish Greek books. The result of this
+intellectual movement could be no other than a diffusion of light.
+Schools arose in Bassora, Ispahan, Samarcand, Fez, Morocco, Sicily,
+Cordova, Seville, Granada.
+
+[Sidenote: Intermingling of magic and sorcery.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dedication of portions of matter and time to the
+supernatural.]
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of the week.]
+
+Through the Nestorians and the Jews the Arabs thus became acquainted
+with the medical science of Greece and Alexandria; but to this was added
+other knowledge of a more sinister kind, derived from Persia, or perhaps
+remotely from Chaldee sources, the Nestorians having important Church
+establishments in Mesopotamia, and the Jews having been long familiar
+with that country; indeed, from thence their ancestors originally came.
+More than once its ideas had modified their national religion. This
+extraneous knowledge was of an astrological or magical nature, carried
+into practice by incantations, amulets, charms, and talismans. Its
+fundamental principle was that the planetary bodies exercise an
+influence over terrestrial things. As seven planets and seven metals
+were at that time known--the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter,
+Venus, Saturn, being the planets of astrology--a due allotment was made.
+Gold was held sacred to the sun, silver to the moon, iron to Mars, etc.
+Even the portions of time were in like manner dedicated; the seven days
+of the week were respectively given to the seven planets of astrology.
+The names imposed on those days, and the order in which they occur, are
+obviously connected with the Ptolemaic hypothesis of astronomy, each of
+the planets having an hour assigned to it in its order of occurrence,
+and the planet ruling first the hour of each day giving its name to that
+day. Thus arranged, the week is a remarkable instance of the longevity
+of an institution adapted to the wants of man. It has survived through
+many changes of empire, has forced itself on the ecclesiastical system
+of Europe, which, unable to change its idolatrous aspect, has encouraged
+the vulgar error that it owes its authenticity to the Holy Scriptures,
+an error too plainly betrayed by the pagan names that the days bear, and
+also by their order of occurrence.
+
+These notions of dedicating portions of matter or of time to the
+supernatural were derived from the doctrine of a universal spirit or
+soul of the world, extensively believed in throughout the East. It
+underlies, as we have seen in Chapter III., all Oriental theology, and
+is at once a very antique and not unphilosophical conception. Of this
+soul the spirit of man was by many supposed to be a particle like a
+spark given off from a flame. All other things, animate or inanimate,
+brutes, plants, stones, nay, even natural forms, rivers, mountains,
+cascades, grottoes, have each an indwelling and animating spirit.
+
+[Sidenote: Alexandrian necromancy.]
+
+Amulets and charms, therefore, did not derive their powers from the
+material substance of which they consisted, but from this indwelling
+spirit. In the case of man, his immaterial principle was believed to
+correspond to his personal bodily form. Of the two great sects into
+which the Jewish nation had been divided, the Pharisees accepted the
+Assyrian doctrine; but the Sadducees, who denied the existence of any
+such spirit, boasted that theirs was the old Mosaic faith, and denounced
+their antagonists as having been contaminated at the time of the
+Babylonian captivity, before which catastrophe, according to them, these
+doctrines were unheard of in Jerusalem. In Alexandria, among the
+leading men there were many adherents to these opinions. Thus Plotinus
+wrote a book on the association of daemons with men, and his disciple
+Porphyry proved practically the possibility of such an alliance; for,
+repairing to the temple of Isis along with Plotinus and a certain
+Egyptian priest, the latter, to prove his supernatural power, offered to
+raise up the spirit of Plotinus himself in a visible form. A magical
+circle was drawn on the ground, surrounded with the customary
+astrological signs, the invocation commenced, the spirit appeared, and
+Plotinus stood face to face with his own soul. In this successful
+experiment it is needless to inquire how much the necromancer depended
+upon optical contrivances, and how much upon an alarmed imagination. But
+if thus the spirit of a living man could be called up, how much more
+likely the souls of the dead.
+
+[Sidenote: These ideas originate in Pantheism.]
+
+In reality, these wild doctrines were connected with Pantheism, which
+was secretly believed in everywhere; for, though, in a coarse mode of
+expression, a distinction seemed thus to be made between matter and
+spirit, or body and soul, it was held by the initiated that matter
+itself is a mere shadow of the spirit, and the body a delusive semblance
+of the soul.
+
+[Sidenote: The black art.]
+
+In the eighth century, many natural facts of a surprising and
+unaccountable description, well calculated to make a profound impression
+upon those who witnessed them, had accumulated. They were such as are
+now familiar to chemists. Vessels tightly closed were burst open when
+tormented in the fire, apparently by some invisible agency; intangible
+vapours condensed into solids; from colourless liquids gaudy
+precipitates were suddenly called into existence; flames were disengaged
+without any adequate cause; explosions took place spontaneously. So much
+that was unexpected and unaccountable justified the title of "the occult
+science," "the black art." From being isolated marvels unconnected with
+one another, these facts had been united. The Chaldee notions of a soul
+of the world, and of indwelling spirits, had furnished a thread on which
+all these pearls, for such they proved to be, might be strung.
+
+[Sidenote: The Arabians fall into these delusions,]
+
+With avidity--for there is ever a charm in the supernatural--did the
+Arabs receive from their Nestorian and Jewish medical instructors these
+mystical interpretations along with true knowledge. And far from resting
+satisfied with what their masters had thus delivered, they proceeded
+forthwith to improve and extend it for themselves. They submitted all
+kinds of substances to all kinds of operations, greatly improving the
+experimental process they had been taught. By exposing various bodies to
+the fire, they found it possible to extract from them more refined
+portions, which seemed to concentrate in themselves the qualities
+pertaining in a more diffuse way to the substances from which they had
+been drawn. These, since they were often invisible at their first
+disengagement, yet capable of bursting open the strongest vessels, and
+sometimes of disappearing in explosions and flames, they concluded must
+be the indwelling spirit or soul of the body, from which the fire had
+driven them forth. It was the Chaldee doctrine realized. Thus they
+obtained the spirit of wine, the spirit of salt, the spirit of nitre. We
+still retain in commerce these designations, though their significance
+is lost. When first introduced they had a strictly literal meaning.
+Alchemy, with its essences, quintessences, and spirits, was Pantheism
+materialized. God was seen to be in everything, in the abstract as well
+as the concrete, in numbers as well as realities.
+
+[Sidenote: and the Christians also.]
+
+Anticipating what will have hereafter to be considered in detail, I may
+here remark that it was not the Mohammedan alone who delivered himself
+up to these mystic delusions; Christendom was prepared for them also. In
+its opinion, the earth, the air, the sea, were full of invisible forms.
+With more faith than even by paganism itself was the supernatural power
+of the images of the gods accepted, only it was imputed to the influence
+of devils. The lunatic was troubled by a like possession. If a spring
+discharged its waters with a periodical gushing of carbonic acid gas, it
+was agitated by an angel; if an unfortunate descended into a pit and was
+suffocated by the mephitic air, it was by some daemon who was secreted;
+if the miner's torch produced an explosion, it was owing to the wrath of
+some malignant spirit guarding a treasure, and whose solitude had been
+disturbed. There was no end to the stories, duly authenticated by the
+best human testimony, of the occasional appearance of such spirits under
+visible forms; there was no grotto or cool thicket in which angels and
+genii had not been seen, no cavern without its daemons. Though the names
+were not yet given, it was well understood that the air had its sylphs,
+the earth its gnomes, the fire its salamanders, the water its undines;
+to the day belonged its apparitions, to the night its fairies. The foul
+air of stagnant places assumed the visible form of daemons of abominable
+aspect; the explosive gases of mines took on the shape of pale-faced,
+malicious dwarfs, with leathery ears hanging down to their shoulders,
+and garments of grey cloth. Philosophical conceptions can never be
+disentangled from social ideas; the thoughts of man will always gather a
+tincture from the intellectual medium in which he lives.
+
+In Christendom, however, the chief application of these doctrines was to
+the relics of martyrs and saints. As with the amulets and talismans of
+Mesopotamia, these were regarded as possessing supernatural powers. They
+were a sure safeguard against evil spirits, and an unfailing relief in
+sickness.
+
+[Sidenote: Transmutation of metals--Alchemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Philosopher's stone.]
+
+A singular force was given to these mystic ideas by the peculiar
+direction they happened to take. As there are veins of water in the
+earth, and apertures through which the air can gain access, an analogy
+was inferred between its structure and that of an animal, leading to an
+inference of a similarity of functions. From this came the theory of the
+development of metals in its womb under the influence of the planets,
+the pregnant earth spontaneously producing gold and silver from baser
+things after a definite number of lunations. Already, however, in the
+doctrine of the transmutation of metals, it was perceived that to Nature
+the lapse of time is nothing--to man it is everything. To Nature, when
+she is transmuting a worthless into a better metal, what signify a
+thousand years? To man, half a century embraces the period of his
+intellectual activity. The aim of the cultivator of the sacred art
+should be to shorten the natural term; and, since we observe the
+influence of heat in hastening the ripening of fruits, may we not
+reasonably expect that duly regulated degrees of fire will answer the
+purpose? by an exposure of base material in the furnace for a proper
+season, may we not anticipate the wished for event? The Emperor
+Caligula, who had formerly tried to make gold from orpiment by the force
+of fire, was only one of a thousand adepts pursuing a similar scheme.
+Some trusted to the addition of a material substance in aiding the fire
+to purge away the dross of the base body submitted to it. From this
+arose the doctrine of the powder of projection and the philosopher's
+stone.
+
+[Sidenote: Transmutation and transubstantiation.]
+
+This doctrine of the possibility of transmuting things into forms
+essentially different steadily made its way, leading, in the material
+direction, to alchemy, the art of making gold and silver out of baser
+metals, and in theology to transubstantiation. Transmutation and
+transubstantiation were twin sisters, destined for a world-wide
+celebrity; one became allied to the science of Mecca, the other to the
+theology of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: The elixir of life.]
+
+[Sidenote: Potable gold.]
+
+[Sidenote: Chemical waters.]
+
+While thus the Arabs joined in the pursuit of alchemy, their medical
+tendencies led them simultaneously to cultivate another ancient
+delusion, the discovery of a universal panacea or elixir which could
+cure all diseases and prolong life for ever. Mystical experimenters for
+centuries had been ransacking all nature, from the yellow flowers which
+are sacred to the sun, and gold his emblem and representative on earth,
+down to the vilest excrements of the human body. As to gold, there had
+been gathered round that metal many fictitious excellences in addition
+to its real values; it was believed that in some preparation of it would
+be found the elixir vitae. This is the explanation of the unwearied
+attempts at making potable gold, for it was universally thought that if
+that metal could be obtained in a dissolved state, it would constitute
+the long-sought panacea. Nor did it seem impossible so to increase the
+power of water, as to impart to it new virtues, and thereby enable it to
+accomplish the desired solution. Were there not natural waters of very
+different properties? were there not some that could fortify the memory,
+others destroy it; some re-enforce the spirits, some impart dulness,
+and some, which were highly prized, that could secure a return of love?
+It had been long known that both natural and artificial waters can
+permanently affect the health, and that instruments may be made to
+ascertain their qualities. Zosimus, the Panopolitan, had described in
+former times the operation of distillation, by which water may be
+purified; the Arabs called the apparatus for conducting that experiment
+an alembic. His treatise on the virtues and composition of waters was
+conveyed under the form of a dream, in which there flit before us
+fantastically white-haired priests sacrificing before the altar;
+cauldrons of boiling water, in which there are walking about men a span
+long; brazen-clad warriors in silence reading leaden books, and sphinxes
+with wings. In such incomprehensible fictions knowledge was purposely,
+and ignorance conveniently concealed.
+
+[Sidenote: The Arabs originate scientific chemistry.]
+
+The practical Arabs had not long been engaged in these fascinating but
+wild pursuits, when results of very great importance began to appear. In
+a scientific point of view, the discovery of the strong acids laid the
+true foundation of chemistry; in a political point of view, the
+invention of gunpowder revolutionized the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Gunpowder and fireworks.]
+
+There were several explosive mixtures. Automatic fire was made from
+equal parts of sulphur, saltpetre, and sulphide of antimony, finely
+pulverized and mixed into a paste, with equal parts of juice of the
+black sycamore and liquid asphaltum, a little quick-lime being added. It
+was directed to keep the material from the rays of the sun, which would
+set it on fire.
+
+[Sidenote: Incombustible men.]
+
+Of liquid or Greek fire we have not a precise description, since the
+knowledge of it was kept at Constantinople as a state secret. There is
+reason, however, to believe that it contained sulphur and nitrate of
+potash mixed with naphtha. Of gunpowder, Marcus Graecus, whose date is
+probably to be referred to the close of the eighth century, gives the
+composition explicitly. He directs us to pulverize in a marble mortar
+one pound of sulphur, two of charcoal, and six of saltpetre. If some of
+this powder be tightly rammed in a long narrow tube closed at one end,
+and then set on fire, the tube will fly through the air: this is
+clearly the rocket. He says that thunder may be imitated by folding some
+of the powder in a cover and tying it up tightly: this is the cracker.
+It thus appears that fireworks preceded fire-arms. To the same author we
+are indebted for prescriptions for making the skin incombustible, so
+that we may handle fire without being burnt. These, doubtless, were
+received as explanations of the legends of the times, which related how
+miracle-workers had washed their hands in melted copper, and sat at
+their ease in flaming straw.
+
+[Sidenote: Arabian chemists.]
+
+Among the Saracen names that might be mentioned as cultivators of
+alchemy, we may recall El-Rasi, Ebid Durr, Djafar or Geber, Toghrage,
+who wrote an alchemical poem, and Dschildegi, one of whose works bears
+the significant title of "The Lantern." The definition of alchemy by
+some of these authors is very striking: the science of the balance, the
+science of weight, the science of combustion.
+
+[Sidenote: Djafar discovers nitric acid and aqua regia,]
+
+[Sidenote: and that oxidation increases weight.]
+
+[Sidenote: He solves the problem of potable gold.]
+
+To one of these chemists, Djafar, our attention may for a moment be
+drawn. He lived toward the end of the eighth century, and is honoured by
+Rhazes, Avicenna, and Kalid, the great Arabic physicians, as their
+master. His name is memorable in chemistry, since it marks an epoch in
+that science of equal importance to that of Priestley and Lavoisier. He
+is the first to describe nitric acid and aqua regia. Before him no
+stronger acid was known than concentrated vinegar. We cannot conceive of
+chemistry as not possessing acids. Roger Bacon speaks of him as the
+magister magistrorum. He has perfectly just notions of the nature of
+spirits or gases, as we call them; thus he says, "O son of the doctrine,
+when spirits fix themselves in bodies, they lose their form; in their
+nature they are no longer what they were. When you compel them to be
+disengaged again, this is what happens: either the spirit alone escapes
+with the air, and the body remains fixed in the alembic, or the spirit
+and body escape together at the same time." His doctrine respecting the
+nature of the metals, though erroneous, was not without a scientific
+value. A metal he considers to be a compound of sulphur, mercury, and
+arsenic, and hence he infers that transmutation is possible by varying
+the proportion of those ingredients. He knows that a metal, when
+calcined, increases in weight, a discovery of the greatest importance,
+as eventually brought to bear in the destruction of the doctrine of
+Phlogiston of Stahl, and which has been imputed to Europeans of a much
+later time. He describes the operations of distillation, sublimation,
+filtration, various chemical apparatus, water-baths, sand-baths, cupels
+of bone-earth, of the use of which he gives a singularly clear
+description. A chemist reads with interest Djafar's antique method of
+obtaining nitric acid by distilling in a retort Cyprus vitriol, alum,
+and saltpetre. He sets forth its corrosive power, and shows how it may
+be made to dissolve even gold itself, by adding a portion of sal
+ammoniac. Djafar may thus be considered as having solved the grand
+alchemical problem of obtaining gold in a potable state. Of course, many
+trials must have been made on the influence of this solution on the
+animal system, respecting which such extravagant anticipations had been
+entertained. The disappointment that ensued was doubtless the reason
+that the records of these trials have not descended to us.
+
+[Sidenote: Rhazes discovers sulphuric acid.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bechil discovers phosphorus.]
+
+With Djafar may be mentioned Rhazes, born A.D. 860, physician-in-chief
+to the great hospital at Bagdad. To him is due the first description of
+the preparation and properties of sulphuric acid. He obtained it, as the
+Nordhausen variety is still made, by the distillation of dried green
+vitriol. To him are also due the first indications of the preparation of
+absolute alcohol, by distilling spirit of wine from quick-lime. As a
+curious discovery made by the Saracens may be mentioned the experiment
+of Achild Bechil, who, by distilling together the extract of urine,
+clay, lime, and powdered charcoal, obtained an artificial carbuncle,
+which shone in the dark "like a good moon." This was phosphorus.
+
+[Sidenote: Geological views of Avicenna.]
+
+[Sidenote: His works indicate the attainment of the times.]
+
+And now there arose among Arabian physicians a correctness of thought
+and breadth of view altogether surprising. It might almost be supposed
+that the following lines were written by one of our own contemporaries;
+they are, however, extracted from a chapter of Avicenna on the origin of
+mountains. This author was born in the tenth century. "Mountains may be
+due to two different causes. Either they are effects of upheavals of the
+crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or
+they are the effect of water, which, cutting for itself a new route, has
+denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft,
+some hard. The winds and waters disintegrate the one, but leave the
+other intact. Most of the eminences of the earth have had this latter
+origin. It would require a long period of time for all such changes to
+be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat
+diminished in size. But that water has been the main cause of these
+effects is proved by the existence of fossil remains of aquatic and
+other animals on many mountains." Avicenna also explains the nature of
+petrifying or incrusting waters, and mentions aerolites, out of one of
+which a sword-blade was made, but he adds that the metal was too brittle
+to be of any use. A mere catalogue of some of the works of Avicenna will
+indicate the condition of Arabian attainment. 1. On the Utility and
+Advantage of Science; 2. Of Health and Remedies; 3. Canons of Physic; 4.
+On Astronomical Observations; 5. Mathematical Theorems; 6. On the Arabic
+Language and its Properties; 7. On the Origin of the Soul and
+Resurrection of the Body; 8. Demonstration of Collateral Lines on the
+Sphere; 9. An Abridgment of Euclid; 10. On Finity and Infinity; 11. On
+Physics and Metaphysics; 12. An Encyclopaedia of Human Knowledge, in 20
+vols., etc., etc. The perusal of such a catalogue is sufficient to
+excite profound attention when we remember the contemporaneous state of
+Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of the search for the elixir on practical medicine.]
+
+The pursuit of the elixir made a well-marked impression upon Arab
+experimental science, confirming it in its medical application. At the
+foundation of this application lay the principle that it is possible to
+relieve the diseases of the human body by purely material means. As the
+science advanced it gradually shook off its fetichisms, the spiritual
+receding into insignificance, the material coming into bolder relief.
+Not, however, without great difficulty was a way forced for the great
+doctrine that the influence of substances on the constitution of man is
+altogether of a material kind, and not at all due to any indwelling or
+animating spirit; that it is of no kind of use to practise incantations
+over drugs, or to repeat prayers over the mortar in which medicines are
+being compounded, since the effect will be the same, whether this has
+been done or not; that there is no kind of efficacy in amulets, no
+virtue in charms; and that, though saint-relics may serve to excite the
+imagination of the ignorant, they are altogether beneath the attention
+of the philosopher.
+
+[Sidenote: Medical conflict between Europe and Africa.]
+
+It was this last sentiment which brought Europe and Africa into
+intellectual collision. The Saracen and Hebrew physicians had become
+thoroughly materialized. Throughout Christendom the practice of medicine
+was altogether supernatural. It was in the hands of ecclesiastics; and
+saint relics, shrines, and miracle-cures were a source of boundless
+profit. On a subsequent page I shall have to describe the circumstances
+of the conflict that ensued between material philosophy on one side, and
+supernatural jugglery on the other; to show how the Arab system gained
+the victory, and how, out of that victory, the industrial life of Europe
+arose. The Byzantine policy inaugurated in Constantinople and Alexandria
+was, happily for the world, in the end overthrown. To that future page I
+must postpone the great achievements of the Arabians in the fulness of
+their Age of Reason. When Europe was hardly more enlightened than
+Caffraria is now, the Saracens were cultivating and even creating
+science. Their triumphs in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy,
+chemistry, medicine, proved to be more glorious, more durable, and
+therefore more important than their military actions had been.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Continued_).
+
+IMAGE-WORSHIP AND THE MONKS.
+
+ _Origin of_ IMAGE-WORSHIP.--_Inutility of Images discovered in
+ Asia and Africa during the Saracen Wars.--Rise of Iconoclasm._
+
+ _The Emperors prohibit Image-worship.--The Monks, aided by
+ court Females, sustain it.--Victory of the latter._
+
+ _Image-worship in the West sustained by the Popes.--Quarrel
+ between the Emperor and the Pope.--The Pope, aided by the
+ Monks, revolts and allies himself with the Franks._
+
+ THE MONKS.--_History of the Rise and Development of
+ Monasticism.--Hermits and Coenobites.--Spread of Monasticism
+ from Egypt over Europe.--Monk Miracles and
+ Legends.--Humanization of the monastic Establishments.--They
+ materialize Religion, and impress their Ideas on Europe._
+
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of the Arabians.]
+
+The Arabian influence, allying itself to philosophy, was henceforth
+productive of other than military results. To the loss of Africa and
+Asia was now added a disturbance impressed on Europe itself, ending in
+the decomposition of Christianity into two forms, Greek and Latin, and
+in three great political events--the emancipation of the popes from the
+emperors of Constantinople, the usurpation of power by a new dynasty in
+France, the reconstruction of the Roman empire in the West.
+
+The dispute respecting the worship of images led to those great events.
+The acts of the Mohammedan khalifs and of the iconoclastic or
+image-breaking emperors occasioned that dispute.
+
+[Sidenote: Worship of relics and images.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its rapid spread in Christendom.]
+
+Nothing could be more deplorable than the condition of southern Europe
+when it first felt the intellectual influence of the Arabians. Its old
+Roman and Greek populations had altogether disappeared; the races of
+half-breeds and mongrels substituted for them were immersed in
+fetichism. An observance of certain ceremonials constituted a religious
+life. A chip of the true cross, some iron filings from the chain of St.
+Peter, a tooth or bone of a martyr, were held in adoration; the world
+was full of the stupendous miracles which these relics had performed.
+But especially were painted or graven images of holy personages supposed
+to be endowed with such powers. They had become objects of actual
+worship. The facility with which the Empress Helena, the mother of
+Constantine the Great, had given an aristocratic fashion to this
+idolatry, showed that the old pagan ideas had never really died out, and
+that the degenerated populations received with approval the religious
+conceptions of their great predecessors. The early Christian fathers
+believed that painting and sculpture were forbidden by the Scriptures,
+and that they were therefore wicked arts; and, though the second Council
+of Nicea asserted that the use of images had always been adopted by the
+Church, there are abundant facts to prove that the actual worship of
+them was not indulged in until the fourth century, when, on the occasion
+of its occurrence in Spain, it was condemned by the Council of
+Illiberis. During the fifth century the practice of introducing images
+into churches increased, and in the sixth it had become prevalent. The
+common people, who had never been able to comprehend doctrinal
+mysteries, found their religious wants satisfied in turning to these
+effigies. With singular obtuseness, they believed that the saint is
+present in his image, though hundreds of the same kind were in
+existence, each having an equal and exclusive right to the spiritual
+presence. The doctrine of invocation of departed saints, which assumed
+prominence in the fifth century, was greatly strengthened by these
+graphic forms. Pagan idolatry had reappeared.
+
+[Sidenote: Simple fetiches replaced by images.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bleeding and winking images.]
+
+At first the simple cross was used as a substitute for the amulets and
+charms of remoter times; it constituted a fetich able to expel evil
+spirits, even Satan himself. This Being, who had become singularly
+debased from what he was in the noble Oriental fictions, was an
+imbecile and malicious though not a malignant spirit, affrighted not
+only at pieces of wood framed in the shape of a cross, but at the form
+of it made by the finger in the air. A subordinate daemon was supposed to
+possess every individual at his birth, but he was cast out by baptism.
+When, in the course of time, the cross became a crucifix, offering a
+representation of the dying Redeemer, it might be supposed to have
+gathered increased virtue; and soon, in addition to that adorable form,
+were introduced images of the Virgin, the apostles, saints, and martyrs.
+The ancient times seemed to have come again, when these pictures were
+approached with genuflexions, luminaries, and incense. The doctrine of
+the more intelligent was that these were aids to devotion, and that,
+among people to whom the art of reading was unknown, they served the
+useful purpose of recalling sacred events in a kind of hieroglyphic
+manner. But among the vulgar, and monks, and women, they were believed
+to be endowed with supernatural power. Of some, the wounds could bleed;
+of others, the eyes could wink; of others, the limbs could be raised. In
+ancient times, the statues of Minerva could brandish spears, and those
+of Venus could weep.
+
+[Sidenote: Idolatry never extinguished in Greece and Italy.]
+
+In truth, the populations of the Greek and Latin countries were no more
+than nominally converted and superficially Christianized. The old
+traditions and practices had never been forgotten. A tendency to
+idolatry seemed to be the necessary incident of the climate. Not without
+reason have the apologists of the clergy affirmed that image-worship was
+insisted on by the people, and that the Church had to admit ideas that
+she had never been able to eradicate. After seven hundred years of
+apostolic labour, it was found that the populace of Greece and Italy
+were apparently in their old state, and that actually nothing at all had
+been accomplished; the new-comers had passed into the track of their
+predecessors. It is often said that the restoration of image-worship was
+owing to the extinction of civilization by the Northern barbarians. But
+this is not true. In the blood of the German nations the taint of
+idolatry is but small. In their own countries they gave it little
+encouragement, and, indeed, hastened quickly to its total rejection. The
+sin lay not with them, but with the Mediterranean people.
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of the barbarians.]
+
+Nor are those barbarians to be held accountable for the so-called
+extinction of civilization in Italy. The true Roman race had prematurely
+died; it came to an untimely end in consequence of its dissolute, its
+violent life. Its civilization would have spontaneously died with it had
+no barbarian been present; and, if these intruders produced a baneful
+effect at first, they compensated for it in the end. As, when fresh coal
+is added to a fire that is burning low, a still further diminution will
+ensue, perhaps there may be a risk of entirely putting it out; but in
+due season, if all goes well, the new material will join in the
+contagious blaze. The savages of Europe, thrown into the decaying foci
+of Greek and Roman light, did perhaps for a time reduce the general
+heat; but, by degrees, it spread throughout their mass, and the bright
+flame of modern civilization was the result. Let those who lament the
+intrusion of these men into the classical countries, reflect upon the
+result which must otherwise have ensued--the last spark would soon have
+died out, and nothing but ashes have remained.
+
+[Sidenote: Origin of Iconoclasm.]
+
+Three causes gave rise to Iconoclasm, or the revolt against
+image-worship: 1st, the remonstrances and derision of the Mohammedans;
+2nd, the good sense of a great sovereign, Leo the Isaurian, who had
+risen by his merit from obscurity, and had become the founder of a new
+dynasty at Constantinople; 3rd, the detected inability of these
+miracle-working idols and fetiches to protect their worshippers or
+themselves against an unbelieving enemy. Moreover, an impression was
+gradually making its way among the more intelligent classes that
+religion ought to free itself from such superstitions. So important were
+the consequences of Leo's actions, that some have been disposed to
+assign to his reign the first attempt at making policy depend on
+theology; and to this period, as I have elsewhere remarked, they
+therefore refer the commencement of the Byzantine empire. Through one
+hundred and twenty years, six emperors devoted themselves to this
+reformation. But it was premature. They were overpowered by the populace
+and the monks, by the bishops of Rome, and by a superstitious and wicked
+woman.
+
+[Sidenote: Inutility of miraculous images discovered in the Arab
+invasions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Destruction and sale of idols by the Arabs.]
+
+It had been a favourite argument against the pagans how little their
+gods could do for them when the hour of calamity came, when their
+statues and images were insulted and destroyed, and hence how vain was
+such worship, how imbecile such gods. When Africa and Asia, full of
+relics and crosses, pictures and images, fell before the Mohammedans,
+those conquerors retaliated the same logic with no little effect. There
+was hardly one of the fallen towns that had not some idol for its
+protector. Remembering the stern objurgations of the prophet against
+this deadly sin, prohibited at once by the commandment of God and
+repudiated by the reason of man, the Saracen khalifs had ordered all the
+Syrian images to be destroyed. Amid the derision of the Arab soldiery
+and the tears of the terror-stricken worshippers, these orders were
+remorselessly carried into effect, except in some cases where the
+temptation of an enormous ransom induced the avengers of the unity of
+God to swerve from their duty. Thus the piece of linen cloth on which it
+was feigned that our Saviour had impressed his countenance, and which
+was the palladium of Edessa, was carried off by the victors at the
+capture of that town, and subsequently sold to Constantinople at the
+profitable price of twelve thousand pounds of silver. This picture, and
+also some other celebrated ones, it was said, possessed the property of
+multiplying themselves by contact with other surfaces, as in modern
+times we multiply photographs. Such were the celebrated images "made
+without hands."
+
+[Sidenote: The Emperor prohibits image-worship.]
+
+[Sidenote: The monks sustain it.]
+
+It was currently asserted that the immediate origin of Iconoclasm was
+due to the Khalif Yezed, who had completed the destruction of the Syrian
+images, and to two Jews, who stimulated Leo the Isaurian to his task.
+However that may be, Leo published an edict, A.D. 726, prohibiting the
+worship of images. This was followed by another directing their
+destruction, and the whitewashing of the walls of churches ornamented
+with them. Hereupon the clergy and the monks rebelled; the emperor was
+denounced as a Mohammedan and a Jew. He ordered that a statue of the
+Saviour in that part of the city called Chalcopratia should be removed,
+and a riot was the consequence. One of his officers mounted a ladder and
+struck the idol with an axe upon its face; it was an incident like that
+enacted centuries before in the temple of Serapis at Alexandria. The
+sacred image, which had often arrested the course of Nature and worked
+many miracles, was now found to be unable to protect or to avenge its
+own honour. A rabble of women interfered in its behalf; they threw down
+the ladder and killed the officer; nor was the riot ended until the
+troops were called in and a great massacre perpetrated. The monks spread
+the sedition in all parts of the empire; they even attempted to proclaim
+a new emperor. Leo was everywhere denounced as a Mohammedan infidel, an
+enemy of the Mother of God; but with inflexible resolution he persisted
+in his determination as long as he lived.
+
+[Sidenote: They accuse the emperor of atheism.]
+
+His son and successor, Constantine, pursued the same iconoclastic
+policy. From the circumstance of his accidentally defiling the font at
+which he was being baptized, he had received the suggestive name of
+Copronymus. His subsequent career was asserted by the monks to have been
+foreshadowed by his sacrilegious beginnings. It was publicly asserted
+that he was an atheist. In truth, his biography, in many respects,
+proves that the higher classes in Constantinople were largely infected
+with infidelity. The patriarch deposed upon oath that Copronymus had
+made the most irreligious confessions to him, as that our Saviour, far
+from being the Son of God, was, in his opinion, a mere man, born of his
+mother in the common way. The truth of these accusations was perhaps, in
+a measure, sustained by the revenge that the emperor took on the
+patriarch for his indiscreet revelations. He seized him, put out his
+eyes, caused him to be led through the city mounted on an ass, with his
+face to the tail, and then, as if to show his unutterable contempt for
+all religion, with an exquisite malice, appointed him to his office
+again.
+
+[Sidenote: Council of Constantinople prohibits image-worship.]
+
+If such was the religious condition of the emperor, the higher clergy
+were but little better. A council was summoned by Constantine, A.D. 754,
+at Constantinople, which was attended by 388 bishops. It asserted for
+itself the position of the seventh general council. It unanimously
+decreed that all visible symbols of Christ, except in the Eucharist, are
+blasphemous or heretical; that image-worship is a corruption of
+Christianity and a renewed form of paganism; it directed all statues and
+paintings to be removed from the churches and destroyed, it degraded
+every ecclesiastic and excommunicated every layman who should be
+concerned in setting them up again. It concluded its labours with
+prayers for the emperor who had extirpated idolatry and given peace to
+the Church.
+
+[Sidenote: Uproar among the monks.]
+
+[Sidenote: The emperor retaliates.]
+
+But this decision was by no means quietly received. The monks rose in an
+uproar; some raised a clamour in their caves, some from the tops of
+their pillars; one, in the church of St. Mammas, insulted the emperor to
+his face, denouncing him as a second apostate Julian. Nor could he
+deliver himself from them by the scourging, strangling, and drowning of
+individuals. In his wrath, Copronymus, plainly discerning that it was
+the monks on one side and the government on the other, determined to
+strike at the root of the evil, and to destroy monasticism itself. He
+drove the holy men out of their cells and cloisters; made the
+consecrated virgins marry; gave up the buildings for civil uses; burnt
+pictures, idols, and all kinds of relics; degraded the patriarch from
+his office, scourged him, shaved off his eyebrows, set him for public
+derision in the circus in a sleeveless shirt, and then beheaded him.
+Already he had consecrated a eunuch in his stead. Doubtless these
+atrocities strengthened the bishops of Rome in their resolve to seek a
+protector from such a master among the barbarian kings of the West.
+
+[Sidenote: Re-establishment of image-worship by Irene the murderess.]
+
+Constantine Copronymus was succeeded by his son, Leo the Chazar, who,
+during a short reign of five years, continued the iconoclastic policy.
+On his death his wife Irene seized the government, ostensibly in behalf
+of her son. This woman, pre-eminently wicked and superstitious beyond
+her times, undertook the restoration of images. She caused the patriarch
+to retire from his dignity, appointed one of her creatures, Tarasius, in
+his stead, and summoned another council. In this second Council of Nicea
+that of Constantinople was denounced as a synod of fools and atheists,
+the worship of images was pronounced agreeable to Scripture and reason,
+and in conformity to the usages and traditions of the Church.
+
+Irene, saluted as the second Helena, and set forth by the monks as an
+exemplar of piety, thus accomplished the restoration of image-worship.
+In a few years this ambitious woman, refusing to surrender his rightful
+dignity to her son, caused him to be seized, and, in the porphyry
+chamber in which she had borne him, put out his eyes. Constantinople,
+long familiar with horrible crimes, was appalled at such an unnatural
+deed.
+
+[Sidenote: Resumption of Iconoclasm by the succeeding emperors.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their Saracenic tastes.]
+
+During the succeeding reigns to that of Leo the Armenian, matters
+remained without change; but that emperor resumed the policy of Leo the
+Isaurian. By an edict he prohibited image-worship, and banished the
+Patriarch of Constantinople, who had admonished him that the apostles
+had made images of the Saviour and the Virgin, and that there was at
+Rome a picture of the Transfiguration, painted by order of St. Peter.
+After the murder of Leo, his successor, Michael the Stammerer, showed no
+encouragement to either party. It was affirmed that he was given to
+profane jesting, was incredulous as to the resurrection of the dead,
+disbelieved the existence of the devil, was indifferent whether images
+were worshipped or not, and recommended the patriarch to bury the
+decrees of Constantinople and Nicea equally in oblivion. His successor
+and son, however, observed no such impartiality. To Saracenic tastes,
+shown by his building a palace like that of the khalif; to a devotion
+for poetry, exemplified by branding some of his own stanzas on his
+image-worshipping enemies; to the composition of music and its singing
+by himself as an amateur in the choir; to mechanical knowledge,
+displayed by hydraulic contrivances, musical instruments, organs,
+automatic singing-birds sitting in golden trees, he added an
+abomination of monks and a determined iconoclasm. Instead of merely
+whitewashing the walls of the churches, he adorned them with pictures of
+beasts and birds. Iconoclasm had now become a struggle between the
+emperors and the monks.
+
+[Sidenote: Final restoration of image-worship by the Empress Theodora.]
+
+Again, on the death of Theophilus, image-worship triumphed, and
+triumphed in the same manner as before. His widow, Theodora, alarmed by
+the monks for the safety of the soul of her husband, purchased
+absolution for him at the price of the restoration of images.
+
+Such was the issue of Iconoclasm in the East. The monks proved stronger
+than the emperors, and, after a struggle of 120 years, the images were
+finally restored. In the West far more important consequences followed.
+
+[Sidenote: Image-worship in the West.]
+
+[Sidenote: It is sustained by the pope,]
+
+To image-worship Italy was devoutly attached. When the first edict of
+Leo was made known by the exarch, it produced a rebellion, of which Pope
+Gregory II. took advantage to suspend the tribute paid by Italy. In
+letters that he wrote to the emperor he defended the popular delusion,
+declaring that the first Christians had caused pictures to be made of
+our Lord, of his brother James, of Stephen, and all the martyrs, and had
+sent them throughout the world; the reason that God the Father had not
+been painted was that his countenance was not known. These letters
+display a most audacious presumption of the ignorance of the emperor
+respecting common Scripture incidents, and, as some have remarked,
+suggest a doubt of the pope's familiarity with the sacred volume. He
+points out the difference between the statues of antiquity, which are
+only the representations of phantoms, and the images of the Church,
+which have approved themselves, by numberless miracles, to be the
+genuine forms of the Saviour, his mother, and his saints. Referring to
+the statue of St. Peter, which the emperor had ordered to be broken to
+pieces, he declares that the Western nations regard that apostle as a
+god upon earth, and ominously threatens the vengeance of the pious
+barbarians if it should be destroyed. In this defence of images Gregory
+found an active coadjutor in a Syrian, John of Damascus, who had
+witnessed the rage of the khalifs against the images of his own country,
+and whose hand, having been cut off by those tyrants, had been
+miraculously rejoined to his body by an idol of the Virgin to which he
+prayed.
+
+[Sidenote: and by the Lombard king.]
+
+But Gregory was not alone in his policy, nor John of Damascus in his
+controversies. The King of the Lombards, Luitprand, also perceived the
+advantage of putting himself forth as the protector of images, and of
+appealing to the Italians, for their sake, to expel the Greeks from the
+country. The pope acted on the principle that heresy in a sovereign
+justifies withdrawal of allegiance, the Lombard that it excuses the
+seizure of possessions. Luitprand accordingly ventured on the capture of
+Ravenna. An immense booty, the accumulation of the emperors, the Gothic
+kings, and the exarchs, which was taken at the storming of the town, at
+once rewarded his piety, stimulated him to new enterprises of a like
+nature, and drew upon him the attention of his enemy the emperor, whom
+he had plundered, and of his confederate the pope, whom he had
+overreached.
+
+[Sidenote: Position of affairs at this time.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Saracens dominate in the Mediterranean.]
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the alliance of the popes and the Franks.]
+
+This was the position of affairs. If the Lombards, who were Arians, and
+therefore heretics, should succeed in extending their sway all over
+Italy, the influence and prosperity of the papacy must come to an end;
+their action on the question of the images was altogether of an
+ephemeral and delusive kind, for all the northern nations preferred a
+simple worship like that of primitive times, and had never shown any
+attachment to the adoration of graven forms. If, on the other hand, the
+pope should continue his allegiance to Constantinople, he must be liable
+to the atrocious persecutions so often and so recently inflicted on the
+patriarchs of that city by their tyrannical master; and the breaking of
+that connexion in reality involved no surrender of any solid advantages,
+for the emperor was too weak to give protection from the Lombards.
+Already had been experienced a portentous difficulty in sending relief
+from Constantinople, on account of the naval superiority of the Saracens
+in the Mediterranean. For the taxes paid to the sovereign no real
+equivalent was received; but Rome, in ignominy, was obliged to submit,
+like an obscure provincial town, to the mandates of the Eastern court.
+Moreover, in her eyes, the emperor, by reason of his iconoclasm, was a
+heretic. But if alliance with the Lombards and allegiance to the Greeks
+were equally inexpedient, a third course was possible. A mayor of the
+palace of the Frankish kings had successfully led his armies against the
+Arabs from Spain, and had gained the great victory of Tours. If the
+Franks, under the influence of their climate or the genius of their
+race, had thus far shown no encouragement to images, in all other
+respects they were orthodox, for they had been converted by Catholic
+missionaries; their kings, it was true, were mere phantoms, but Charles
+Martel had proved himself a great soldier; he was, therefore, an
+ambitious man. There was Scripture authority for raising a subordinate
+to sovereign power; the prophets of Israel had thus, of old, with oil
+anointed kings. And if the sword of France was gently removed from the
+kingly hand that was too weak to hold it, and given to the hero who had
+already shown that he could smite terribly with it--if this were done by
+the authority of the pope, acting as the representative of God, how
+great the gain to the papacy! A thousand years might not be enough to
+separate the monarchy of France from the theocracy of Italy.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt of the pope from the emperor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Alliance of the pope and the Franks.]
+
+The resistance which had sprung up to the imperial edict for the
+destruction of images determined the course of events. The pope
+rebelled, and attempts were made by the emperor to seize or assassinate
+him. A fear that the pontiff might be carried to Constantinople, and the
+preparations making to destroy the images in the churches, united all
+Italy. A council was held at Rome, which anathematized the Iconoclasts.
+In retaliation, the Sicilian and other estates of the Church were
+confiscated. Gregory III., who in the meantime succeeded to the papacy,
+continued the policy of his predecessor. The emperor was defied. A
+fleet, fitted out by him in support of the exarch, was lost in a storm.
+With this termination of the influence of Constantinople in Italy came
+the imminent danger that the pope must acknowledge the supremacy of the
+Lombards. In his distress Gregory turned to Charles Martel. He sent him
+the keys of the sepulchre of St. Peter, and implored his assistance. The
+die was cast. Papal Rome revolted from her sovereign, and became
+indissolubly bound to the barbarian kingdoms. To France a new dynasty
+was given, to the pope temporal power, and to the west of Europe a
+fictitious Roman empire.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Sidenote: The monks.]
+
+The monks had thus overcome the image-breaking emperors, a result which
+proves them to have already become a formidable power in the state. It
+is necessary, for a proper understanding of the great events with which
+henceforth they were connected, to describe their origin and history.
+
+[Sidenote: Their first position]
+
+In the iconoclastic quarrel they are to be regarded as the
+representatives of the common people in contradistinction to the clergy;
+often, indeed, the representatives of the populace, infected with all
+its instincts of superstition and fanaticism. They are the upholders of
+miracle-cures, invocation of saints, worship of images, clamorous
+asserters of a unity of faith in the Church--a unity which they never
+practised, but which offered a convenient pretext for a bitter
+persecution of heresy and paganism, though they were more than half
+pagan themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: and subsequent improvement.]
+
+It was their destiny to impress on the practical life of Europe that
+mixture of Christianity and heathenism engendered by political events in
+Italy and Greece. Yet, while they thus co-operated in great affairs,
+they themselves exhibited, in the most signal manner, the force of that
+law of continuous variation of opinion and habits to which all enduring
+communities of men must submit. Born of superstition, obscene in their
+early life, they end in luxury, refinement, learning. Theirs is a
+history to which we may profitably attend.
+
+[Sidenote: The first hermits.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their self-denial.]
+
+From very early times there had been in India zealots who, actuated by a
+desire of removing themselves from the temptations of society and
+preparing for another life, retired into solitary places. Such also were
+the Essenes among the Jews, and the Therapeutae in Egypt. Pliny speaks
+of the blameless life of the former when he says, "They are the
+companions of palms;" nor does he hide his astonishment at an immortal
+society in which no one is ever born. Their example was not lost upon
+more devout Christians, particularly after the influence of Magianism
+began to be felt. Though it is sometimes said that the first of these
+hermits were Anthony and Paulus, they doubtless are to be regarded as
+only having rendered themselves more illustrious by their superior
+sanctity among a crowd of worthies who had preceded them or were their
+contemporaries. As early as the second and third centuries the practice
+of retirement had commenced among Christians; soon afterwards it had
+become common. The date of Hilarion is about A.D. 328, of Basil A.D.
+360. Regarding prayer as the only occupation in which man may profitably
+engage, they gave no more attention to the body than the wants of nature
+absolutely demanded. A little dried fruit or bread for food, and water
+for drink, were sufficient for its support; occasionally a particle of
+salt might be added, but the use of warm water was looked upon as
+betraying a tendency to luxury. The incentives to many of their rules of
+life might excite a smile, if it were right to smile at the acts of
+earnest men. Some, like the innocent Essenes, who would do nothing
+whatever on the Sabbath, observed the day before as a fast, rigorously
+abstaining from food and drink, that nature might not force them into
+sin on the morrow. For some, it was not enough, by the passive means of
+abstinence, to refrain from fault or reduce the body to subjection,
+though starvation is the antidote for desire; the more active, and,
+perhaps, more effectual operation of periodical flagellations and bodily
+torture were added. Ingenuity was taxed to find new means of personal
+infliction. A hermit who never permitted himself to sleep more than an
+hour without being awakened endured torments not inferior to those of
+the modern fakir, who crosses his arms on the top of his head and keeps
+them there for years, until they are wasted to the bone, or suspends
+himself to a pole by means of a hook inserted in the flesh of his back.
+
+[Sidenote: Profound contemplation of God.]
+
+[Sidenote: Aerial martyrs. Holy birds.]
+
+Among the Oriental sects there are some who believe that the Supreme
+Being is perpetually occupied in the contemplation of himself, and that
+the nearer man can approach to a state of total inaction the more will
+he resemble God. For many years the Indian sage never raises his eyes
+from his navel; absorbed in the profound contemplation of it, his
+perennial reverie is unbroken by any outward suggestions, the admiring
+by-standers administering, as chance offers, the little food and water
+that his wants require. Under the influence of such ideas, in the fifth
+century, St. Simeon Stylites, who in his youth had often been saved from
+suicide, by ascending a column he had built, sixty feet in height, and
+only one foot square at the top, departed as far as he could from
+earthly affairs, and approached more closely to heaven. On this elevated
+retreat, to which he was fastened by a chain, he endured, if we may
+believe the incredible story, for thirty years the summer's sun and the
+winter's frost. Afar off the passer-by was edified by seeing the
+motionless figure of the holy man with outstretched arms like a cross,
+projected against the sky, in his favourite attitude of prayer, or
+expressing his thankfulness for the many mercies of which he supposed
+himself to be the recipient by rapidly striking his forehead against his
+knees. Historians relate that a curious spectator counted twelve hundred
+and forty-four of these motions, and then abstained through fatigue from
+any farther tally, though the unwearied exhibition was still going on.
+This "most holy aerial martyr," as Evagrius calls him, attained at last
+his reward, and Mount Telenissa witnessed a vast procession of devout
+admirers accompanying to the grave his mortal remains.
+
+[Sidenote: The monks insist on celibacy.]
+
+More commonly, however, the hermit declined the conspicuous notoriety of
+these "holy birds," as they were called by the profane, and, retiring to
+some cave in the desert, despised the comforts of life, and gave himself
+up to penance and prayer. Among men who had thus altogether exalted
+themselves above the wants of the flesh, there was no toleration for its
+lusts. The sinfulness of the marriage relation, and the pre-eminent
+value of chastity, followed from their principles. If it was objected to
+such practices that by their universal adoption the human species would
+soon be extinguished, and no man would remain to offer praises to God,
+these zealots, remembering the temptations from which they had escaped,
+with truth replied that there would always be sinners enough in the
+world to avoid that disaster, and that out of their evil works good
+would be brought. St. Jerome offers us the pregnant reflection that,
+though it may be marriage that fills the earth, it is virginity that
+replenishes heaven.
+
+[Sidenote: Grazing hermits.]
+
+If they were not recorded by many truthful authors, the extravagances of
+some of these enthusiasts would pass belief. Men and women ran naked
+upon all fours, associating themselves with the beasts of the field. In
+the spring season, when the grass is tender, the grazing hermits of
+Mesopotamia went forth to the plains, sharing with the cattle their
+filth, and their food. Of some, notwithstanding a weight of evidence,
+the stupendous biography must tax their admirers' credulity. It is
+affirmed that St. Ammon had never seen his own body uncovered; that an
+angel carried him on his back over a river which he was obliged to
+cross; that at his death he ascended to heaven through the skies, St.
+Anthony being an eye-witness of the event--St. Anthony, who was guided
+to the hermit Paulus by a centaur; that Didymus never spoke to a human
+being for ninety years.
+
+[Sidenote: Insane hermits.]
+
+From the Jewish anchorites, who of old sought a retreat beneath the
+shade of the palms of Engaddi, who beguiled their weary hours in the
+chanting of psalms by the bitter waters of the Dead Sea; from the
+philosophic Hindu, who sought for happiness in bodily inaction and
+mental exercise, to these Christian solitaries, the stages of delusion
+are numerous and successive. It would not be difficult to present
+examples of each step in the career of debasement. To one who is
+acquainted with the working and accidents of the human brain, it will
+not be surprizing that an asylum for hermits who had become hopelessly
+insane was instituted at Jerusalem.
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of hallucinations.]
+
+The biographies of these recluses, for ages a source of consolation to
+the faithful in their temptations, are not to be regarded as mere works
+of fiction, though they abound in supernatural occurrences, and are the
+forerunners of the daemonology of the Middle Ages. The whole world was a
+scene of daemoniac adventures, of miracles and wonders. So far from being
+mere impostures, they relate nothing more than may be witnessed at any
+time under similar conditions. In the brain of man, impressions of
+whatever he has seen or heard, of whatever has been made manifest to him
+by his other senses, nay, even the vestiges of his former thoughts, are
+stored up. These traces are most vivid at first, but, by degrees, they
+decline in force, though they probably never completely die out. During
+our waking hours, while we are perpetually receiving new impressions
+from things that surround us, such vestiges are overpowered, and cannot
+attract the attention of the mind. But in the period of sleep, when
+external influences cease, they present themselves to our regard, and
+the mind submitting to the delusion, groups them into the fantastic
+forms of dreams. By the use of opium and other drugs which can blunt our
+sensibility to passing events, these phantasms may be made to emerge.
+They also offer themselves in the delirium of fevers and in the hour of
+death.
+
+[Sidenote: Supernatural appearances.]
+
+It is immaterial in what manner or by what agency our susceptibility to
+the impressions of surrounding objects is benumbed, whether by drugs, or
+sleep, or disease, as soon as their force is no greater than that of
+forms already registered in the brain, those forms will emerge before
+us, and dreams or apparitions are the result. So liable is the mind to
+practise deception on itself, that with the utmost difficulty it is
+aware of the delusion. No man can submit to long-continued and rigorous
+fasting without becoming the subject of these hallucinations; and the
+more he enfeebles his organs of sense, the more vivid is the exhibition,
+the more profound the deception. An ominous sentence may perhaps be
+incessantly whispered in his ear; to his fixed and fascinated eye some
+grotesque or abominable object may perpetually present itself. To the
+hermit, in the solitude of his cell, there doubtless often did appear,
+by the uncertain light of his lamp, obscene shadows of diabolical
+import; doubtless there was many an agony with fiends, many a struggle
+with monsters, satyrs, and imps, many an earnest, solemn, and manful
+controversy with Satan himself, who sometimes came as an aged man,
+sometimes with a countenance of horrible intelligence, and sometimes as
+a female fearfully beautiful. St. Jerome, who, with the utmost
+difficulty, had succeeded in extinguishing all carnal desires,
+ingenuously confesses how sorely he was tried by this last device of the
+enemy, how nearly the ancient flames were rekindled. As to the reality
+of these apparitions, why should a hermit be led to suspect that they
+arose from the natural working of his own brain? Men never dream that
+they are dreaming. To him they were terrible realities; to us they
+should be the proofs of insanity, not of imposture.
+
+[Sidenote: Delusions created by the mind.]
+
+If, in the prison discipline of modern times, it has been found that
+solitary confinement is a punishment too dreadful for the most hardened
+convict to bear, and that, if persisted in, it is liable to lead to
+insanity, how much more quickly must that unfortunate condition have
+been induced when the trials of religious distress and the physical
+enfeeblement arising from rigorous fastings and incessant watchings were
+added? To the dreadful ennui which precedes that state, one of the
+ancient monks pathetically alludes when he relates how often he went
+forth and returned to his cell, and gazed on the sun as if he hastened
+too slowly to his setting. And yet such fearful solitude is of but brief
+duration. Even though we flee to the desert we cannot be long alone. Cut
+off from social converse, the mind of man engenders companions for
+itself--companions like the gloom from which they have emerged. It was
+thus that to St. Anthony appeared the Spirit of Fornication, under the
+form of a lascivious negro boy; it was thus that multitudes of daemons of
+horrible aspect cruelly beat him nearly to death, the brave old man
+defying them to the last, and telling them that he did not wish to be
+spared one of their blows; it was thus that in the night, with hideous
+laughter, they burst into his cell, under the form of lions, serpents,
+scorpions, asps, lizards, panthers, and wolves, each attacking him in
+own way; thus that when, in his dire extremity, he lifted his eyes for
+help, the roof disappeared, and amid beams of light the Saviour looked
+down; thus it was with the enchanted silver dish that Satan gave him,
+which, being touched, vanished in smoke; thus with the gigantic bats and
+centaurs, and the two lions that helped him to scratch a grave for Paul.
+
+[Sidenote: Important religious results of cerebral sight.]
+
+[Sidenote: A future world.]
+
+[Sidenote: Immortality of the soul.]
+
+The images that may thus emerge from the brain have been classed by
+physiologists among the phenomena of inverse vision, or cerebral sight.
+Elsewhere I have given a detailed investigation of their nature (Human
+Physiology, chap, xxi.), and, persuaded that they have played a far more
+important part in human affairs than is commonly supposed, have thus
+expressed myself: "Men in every part of the world, even among nations
+the most abject and barbarous, have an abiding faith not only in the
+existence of a spirit that animates us, but also in its immortality. Of
+these there are multitudes who have been shut out from all communion
+with civilized countries, who have never been enlightened by revelation,
+and who are mentally incapable of reasoning out for themselves arguments
+in support of those great truths. Under such circumstances, it is not
+very likely that the uncertainties of tradition, derived from remote
+ages, could be any guide to them, for traditions soon disappear except
+they be connected with the wants of daily life. Can there be, in a
+philosophical view, anything more interesting than the manner in which
+these defects have been provided for by implanting in the very
+organization of every man the means of constantly admonishing him of
+these facts--of recalling them with an unexpected vividness before even
+after they have become so faint as almost to die out? Let him be as
+debased and benighted a savage as he may, shut out from all communion
+with races whom Providence has placed in happier circumstances, he has
+still the same organization, and is liable to the same physiological
+incidents, as ourselves. Like us, he sees in his visions the fading
+forms of landscapes which are perhaps connected with some of his most
+grateful recollections, and what other conclusion can he possibly derive
+from these unreal pictures than that they are the foreshadowings of
+another land beyond that in which his lot is cast. Like us, he is
+revisited at intervals by the resemblances of those whom he has loved or
+hated while they were alive, nor can he ever be so brutalized as not to
+discern in such manifestations suggestions which to him are
+incontrovertible proofs of the existence and immortality of the soul.
+Even in the most refined social conditions we are never able to shake
+off the impressions of these occurrences, and are perpetually drawing
+from them the same conclusions that our uncivilized ancestors did. Our
+more elevated condition of life in no respect relieves us from the
+inevitable consequences of our own organization, any more than it
+relieves us from infirmities and disease. In these respects, all over
+the globe we are on an equality. Savage or civilized, we carry within us
+a mechanism intended to present to us mementoes of the most solemn facts
+with which we can be concerned, and the voice of history tells us that
+it has ever been true to its design. It wants only moments of repose or
+sickness, when the influence of external things is diminished, to come
+into full play, and these are precisely the moments when we are best
+prepared for the truths it is going to suggest. Such a mechanism is in
+keeping with the manner in which the course of nature is fulfilled, and
+bears in its very style the impress of invariability of action. It is no
+respecter of persons. It neither permits the haughtiest to be free from
+its monitions, nor leaves the humblest without the consolation of a
+knowledge of another life. Liable to no mischances, open to no
+opportunities of being tampered with by the designing or interested,
+requiring no extraneous human agency for its effect, but always present
+with each man wherever he may go, it marvellously extracts from vestiges
+of the impressions of the past overwhelming proofs of the reality of the
+future, and gathering its power from what would seem to be a most
+unlikely source, it insensibly leads us, no matter who or where we may
+be, to a profound belief in the immortal and imperishable, from phantoms
+that have scarcely made their appearance before they are ready to vanish
+away."
+
+[Sidenote: Amelioration of monasticism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its final corruptions.]
+
+From such beginnings the monastic system of Europe arose--that system
+which presents us with learning in the place of ferocious ignorance,
+with overflowing charity to mankind in the place of malignant hatred of
+society. The portly abbot on his easy going palfrey, his hawk upon his
+fist, scarce looks like the lineal descendant of the hermit starved
+into insanity. How wide the interval between the monk of the third and
+the monk of the thirteenth century--between the caverns of Thebais and
+majestic monasteries cherishing the relics of ancient learning, the
+hopes of modern philosophy--between the butler arranging his
+well-stocked larder, and the jug of cold water and crust of bread. A
+thousand years had turned starvation into luxury, and alas! if the
+spoilers of the Reformation are to be believed, had converted visions of
+loveliness into breathing and blushing realities, who exercised their
+charms with better effect than of old their phantom sisters had done.
+
+[Sidenote: The modifications of eremitism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Number of anchorites.]
+
+The successive stages to this end may be briefly described. Around the
+cell of some eremite like Anthony, who fixed his retreat on Mount
+Colzim, a number of humble imitators gathered, emulous of his
+austerities and of his piety. A similar sentiment impels them to observe
+stated hours of prayer. Necessity for supporting the body indicates some
+pursuit of idle industry, the plaiting of mats or making of baskets. So
+strong is the instinctive tendency of man to association, that even
+communities of madmen may organize. Hilarion is said to have been the
+first who established a monastic community. He went into the desert when
+he was only fifteen years old. Eremitism thus gave birth to
+Coenobitism, and the evils of solitude were removed. Yet still there
+remained rigorous anchorites who renounced their associated brethren as
+these had renounced the world, and the monastery was surrounded by their
+circle of solitary cells--a Laura, it was called. In Egypt, the sandy
+deserts on each side of the rich valley of the river offered great
+facilities for such a mode of life: that of Nitria was full of monks,
+the climate being mild and the wants of man easily satisfied. It is said
+that there were at one time in that country of these religious recluses
+not fewer than seventy-six thousand males and twenty-seven thousand
+females. With countless other uncouth forms, under the hot sun of that
+climate they seemed to be spawned from the mud of the Nile. As soon as
+from some celebrated hermitage a monastery had formed, the associates
+submitted to the rules of brotherhood. Their meal, eaten in silence,
+consisted of bread and water, oil, and a little salt. The bundle of
+papyrus which had served the monk for a seat by day, while he made his
+baskets or mats, served him for a pillow by night. Twice he was roused
+from his sleep by the sound of a horn to offer up his prayers. The
+culture of superstition was compelled by inexorable rules. A discipline
+of penalties, confinement, fasting, whipping, and, at a later period
+even mutilation, was inflexibly administered.
+
+[Sidenote: Spread of monasticism from Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Increase of the religious houses.]
+
+From Egypt and Syria monachism spread like an epidemic. It was first
+introduced into Italy by Athanasius, assisted by some of the disciples
+of Anthony; but Jerome, whose abode was in Palestine, is celebrated for
+the multitude of converts he made to a life of retirement. Under his
+persuasion, many of the high-born ladies of Rome were led to the
+practice of monastic habits, as far as was possible, in secluded spots
+near that city, on the ruins of temples, and even in the Forum. Some
+were induced to retreat to the Holy Land, after bestowing their wealth
+for pious purposes. The silent monk insinuated himself into the privacy
+of families for the purpose of making proselytes by stealth. Soon there
+was not an unfrequented island in the Mediterranean, no desert shore, no
+gloomy valley, no forest, no glen, no volcanic crater, that did not
+witness exorbitant selfishness made the rule of life. There were
+multitudes of hermits on the desolate coasts of the Black Sea. They
+abounded from the freezing Tanais to the sultry Tabenne. In rigorous
+personal life and in supernatural power the West acknowledged no
+inferiority to the East; his admiring imitators challenged even the
+desert of Thebais to produce the equal of Martin of Tours. The solitary
+anchorite was soon supplanted by the coenobitic establishment, the
+monastery. It became a fashion among the rich to give all that they had
+to these institutions for the salvation of their own souls. There was
+now no need of basket-making or the weaving of mats. The brotherhoods
+increased rapidly. Whoever wanted to escape from the barbarian invaders,
+or to avoid the hardships of serving in the imperial army--whoever had
+become discontented with his worldly affairs, or saw in those dark times
+no inducements in a home and family of his own, found in the monastery
+a sure retreat. The number of these religious houses eventually became
+very great. They were usually placed on the most charming and
+advantageous sites, their solidity and splendour illustrating the
+necessity of erecting durable habitations for societies that were
+immortal. It often fell out that the Church laid claim to the services
+of some distinguished monk. It was significantly observed that the road
+to ecclesiastical elevation lay through the monastery porch, and often
+ambition contentedly wore for a season the cowl, that it might seize
+more surely the mitre.
+
+[Sidenote: Difference of the Eastern and Western monk.]
+
+[Sidenote: Legends of Western saints.]
+
+Though the monastic system of the East included labour, it was greatly
+inferior to that of the West in that particular. The Oriental monk, at
+first making selfishness his rule of life, and his own salvation the
+grand object, though all the world else should perish, in his maturer
+period occupied his intellectual powers in refined disputations of
+theology. Too often he exhibited his physical strength in the furious
+riots he occasioned in the streets of the great cities. He was a fanatic
+and insubordinate. On the other hand, the Occidental monk showed far
+less disposition for engaging in the discussion of things above reason,
+and expended his strength in useful and honourable labour. Beneath his
+hand the wilderness became a garden. To a considerable extent this
+difference was due to physiological peculiarity, and yet it must not be
+concealed that the circumstances of life in the two cases were not
+without their effects. The old countries of the East, with their
+worn-out civilization and worn-out soil, offered no inducements
+comparable with the barbarous but young and fertile West, where to the
+ecclesiastic the most lovely and inviting lands were open. Both,
+however, coincided in this, that they regarded the affairs of life as
+presenting perpetual interpositions of a providential or rather
+supernatural kind--angels and devils being in continual conflict for the
+soul of every man, who might become the happy prize of the one or the
+miserable prey of the other. These spiritual powers were perpetually
+controlling the course of nature and giving rise to prodigies. The
+measure of holiness in a saint was the number of miracles he had
+worked. Thus, in the life of St. Benedict, it is related that when his
+nurse Cyrilla let fall a stone sieve, her distress was changed into
+rejoicing by the prayer of the holy child, at which the broken parts
+came together and were made whole; that once on receiving his food in a
+basket, let down to his otherwise inaccessible cell, the devil vainly
+tried to vex him by breaking the rope; that once Satan, assuming the
+form of a blackbird, nearly blinded him by the flapping of his wings;
+that once, too, the same tempter appeared as a beautiful Roman girl, to
+whose fascinations, in his youth, St. Benedict had been sensible, and
+from which he now hardly escaped by rolling himself among thorns. Once,
+when his austere rules and severity excited the resentment of the
+monastery over which he was abbot, the brethren--for monks have been
+known to do such things--attempted to poison him, but the cup burst
+asunder as soon as he took it into his hands. When the priest
+Florentius, being wickedly disposed, attempted to perpetrate a like
+crime by means of an adulterated loaf, a raven carried away the deadly
+bread from the hand of St. Benedict. Instructed by the devil, the same
+Florentius drove from his neighbourhood the holy man, by turning into
+the garden of his monastery seven naked girls; but scarcely had the
+saint taken to flight, when the chamber in which his persecutor lived
+fell in and buried him beneath its ruins, though the rest of the house
+was uninjured. Under the guidance of two visible angels, who walked
+before him, St. Benedict continued his journey to Monte Casino, where he
+erected a noble monastery; but even here miracles did not cease; for
+Satan bewitched the stones, so that it was impossible for the masons to
+move them until they were released by powerful prayers. A boy, who had
+stolen from the monastery to visit his parents was not only struck dead
+by God for his offence, but the consecrated ground threw forth his body
+when they attempted to bury it; nor could it be made to rest until
+consecrated bread was laid upon it. Two garrulous nuns, who had been
+excommunicated by St. Benedict for their perverse prating, chanced to be
+buried in the church. On the next administration of the sacrament, when
+the deacon commanded all those who did not communicate to depart, the
+corpses rose out of their graves and walked forth from the church.
+
+[Sidenote: The character of these miracles.]
+
+Volumes might be filled with such wonders, which edified the religious
+for centuries, exacting implicit belief, and being regarded as of equal
+authority with the miracles of the Holy Scriptures.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise and progress of monastic orders.]
+
+Though monastic life rested upon the principle of social abnegation,
+monasticism, in singular contradiction thereto, contained within itself
+the principle of organization. As early as A.D. 370, St. Basil, the
+Bishop of Caesarea, incorporated the hermits and coenobites of his
+diocese into one order, called after him the Basilian. One hundred and
+fifty years later, St. Benedict, under a milder rule, organised those
+who have passed under his name, and found for them occupation in
+suitable employments of manual and intellectual labour. In the ninth
+century, another Benedict revised the rule of the order, and made it
+more austere. Offshoots soon arose, as those of Clugni, A.D. 900; the
+Carthusians, A.D. 1084; the Cistercians, A.D. 1098. A favourite pursuit
+among them being literary labour, they introduced great improvements in
+the copying of manuscripts; and in their illumination and illustration
+are found the germs of the restoration of painting and the invention of
+cursive handwriting. St. Benedict enjoined his order to collect books.
+It has been happily observed that he forgot to say anything about their
+character, supposing that they must all be religious. The Augustinians
+were founded in the eleventh century. They professed, however, to be a
+restoration of the society founded ages before by St. Augustine.
+
+[Sidenote: The Benedictines.]
+
+The influence to which monasticism attained may be judged of from the
+boast of the Benedictines that "Pope John XXII., who died in 1334, after
+an exact inquiry, found that, since the first rise of the order, there
+had been of it 24 popes, near 200 cardinals, 7000 archbishops, 15,000
+bishops, 15,000 abbots of renown, above 4000 saints, and upward of
+37,000 monasteries. There have been likewise, of this order, 20 emperors
+and 10 empresses, 47 kings and above 50 queens, 20 sons of emperors, and
+48 sons of kings; about 100 princesses, daughters of kings and
+emperors; besides dukes, marquises, earls, countesses, etc.,
+innumerable. The order has produced a vast number of authors and other
+learned men. Their Rabanus set up the school of Germany. Their Alcuin
+founded the University of Paris. Their Dionysius Exiguus perfected
+ecclesiastical computation. Their Guido invented the scale of music;
+their Sylvester, the organ. They boasted to have produced Anselm,
+Ildefonsus, and the Venerable Bede."
+
+[Sidenote: Civilization of Europe by the monks.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their later intellectual influence.]
+
+We too often date the Christianization of a community from the
+conversion of its sovereign, but it is not in the nature of things that
+that should change the hearts of men. Of what avail is it if a barbarian
+chieftain drives a horde of his savages through the waters of a river by
+way of extemporaneous or speedy baptism? Such outward forms are of
+little moment. It was mainly by the monasteries that to the peasant
+class of Europe was pointed out the way of civilization. The devotions
+and charities; the austerities of the brethren; their abstemious meal;
+their meagre clothing, the cheapest of the country in which they lived;
+their shaven heads, or the cowl which shut out the sight of sinful
+objects; the long staff in their hands; their naked feet and legs; their
+passing forth on their journeys by twos, each a watch on his brother;
+the prohibitions against eating outside of the wall of the monastery,
+which had its own mill, its own bakehouse, and whatever was needed in an
+abstemious domestic economy; their silent hospitality to the wayfarer,
+who was refreshed in a separate apartment; the lands around their
+buildings turned from a wilderness into a garden, and, above all, labour
+exalted and ennobled by their holy hands, and celibacy, for ever, in the
+eye of the vulgar, a proof of separation from the world and a sacrifice
+to heaven--these were the things that arrested the attention of the
+barbarians of Europe, and led them on to civilization. In our own
+material age, the advocates of the monastery have plaintively asked,
+Where now shall we find an asylum for the sinner who is sick of the
+world--for the man of contemplation in his old age, or for the statesman
+who is tired of affairs? It was through the leisure procured by their
+wealth that the monasteries produced so many cultivators of letters,
+and transmitted to us the literary relics of the old times. It was a
+fortunate day when the monk turned from the weaving of mats to the
+copying of manuscripts--a fortunate day when he began to compose those
+noble hymns and strains of music which will live for ever. From the
+"Dies Irae" there rings forth grand poetry even in monkish Latin. The
+perpetual movements of the monastic orders gave life to the Church. The
+Protestant admits that to a resolute monk the Reformation was due.
+
+[Sidenote: Their materialization of religion.]
+
+With these pre-eminent merits, the monastic institution had its evils.
+Through it was spread that dreadful materialization of religion which,
+for so many ages, debased sacred things; through it that worse than
+pagan apotheosis, which led to the adoration--for such it really was--of
+dead men; through it were sustained relics and lying miracles, a belief
+in falsehoods so prodigious as to disgrace the common sense of man. The
+apostles and martyrs of old were forgotten; nay, even the worship of God
+was forsaken for shrines that could cure all diseases, and relics that
+could raise the dead. Through it was developed that intense selfishness
+which hesitated at no sacrifice either of the present or the future, so
+far as this life is concerned, in order to insure personal happiness in
+the next--a selfishness which, in the delusion of the times, passed
+under the name of piety; and the degree of abasement from the dignity of
+a man was made the measure of the merit of a monk.
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL
+DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE, VOLUME I (OF 2)***
+
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