§ 1

We have been occupied in considering two concrete and intelligible conceptions of the aim which men should set before them in living their life and of the means of attaining it—two definitely ethical systems based on specific theories of the universe—the Zoroastrian and the Buddhist. In both cases we have studied the theory and ethical system at their best—that is at their fountain-head—for in their subsequent propagation both alike were so fully accommodated to their surroundings that their essential character was almost lost.1 Thus in India we see Buddhism first transformed (in Northern Buddhism) and then expelled by the victorious power of Brah-manism2; and, outside Buddhism, anything like a definite theory of the good life for man in general we shall not find in India, on account of the indiscriminate toleration which is the principle (or absence of principle) in Hinduism. On this subject there appears to be general agreement. I will quote at length from a correspondence between a sympathetic Englishman and his Indian friend.3 The Indian writes:

“You asked me to give a definition of Hinduism. I am afraid I must disappoint you. Hinduism is not one religion, not one creed, not one faith. It is a jumble of all the religions, all the creeds, and all the faiths that have swept the land through the course of ages. Further, Hinduism covers all the stages through which religious instinct has passed and philosophic thought has travelled, developed and advanced. Nor is this all. Hinduism is not confined only to religion in the ordinary acceptance of the term. It also brings under its sheltering wings all the religions, semi-religions, and social practices and observances of the Hindu race (or races). Do not imagine for a moment that I have exaggerated matters. Polytheism, monotheism, pantheism and atheism have all flourished under the auspices and in the name of Hinduism, not necessarily at different times, and still form an integral part of recognized Hinduism. Demon worship, hero worship, ancestor worship, worship of animate and inanimate objects, worship of natural forces and worship of God have all been woven into its web. It caters for every taste, every grade of life, every stage of development. This at once constitutes the bane and beauty of Hinduism, its weakness and strength. From the purest to the vilest form of worship, from the sublimest heights of philosophic thought to the meanest and crudest phrases of intellectual and religious developments, all the stages are provided for.”

In The Hindu View of Life the eloquent Prof. S. Radhakrishnan,4 the panegyrist of Hinduism, gives us (notwithstanding his exaggerated and uncritical estimate of the merits of Hinduism) the same impression, if we read a little between the lines. I am not attempting any independent estimate of Hinduism. I am only urging that this atmosphere of indiscriminate intellectual, religious and moral toleration is not likely to generate a definite conception of the good life for all men based on any definite principle. I will justify this opinion by pointing to the great Epic, the Bhagavadgita5 (the Lord’s Song). “It would be difficult,” says Dr. Cave, “to exaggerate the importance of the Bhagavadgita in India to-day. By men educated on Western lines the Vedas are praised, but often left unread; but the Gita is known and loved, and to many such the Krishna of the Gita seems a worthy rival of the Christ of the Gospels. No Hindu book so merits study by those who would understand the vital forces of modern Hinduism.”

It starts by stating a moral problem with pathetic power. Arjuna, the warrior chieftain of the Pandavas in their struggle against the Kurus, to whom they are united by kinship, is paralysed by an overwhelming scruple at the thought of the slaughter of his kinsmen, which he and his are about to undertake from no other motive than ambition. “Ah me!, a heavy sin have we resolved to do, that we strive to slay our kin from lust after the sweets of kingship.” “Verily it were more blest to eat even the food of beggary in this world, without slaughter of noble masters.”6 But the divine Lord Krishna, who is acting as his charioteer, seeks to remove his scruple first by philosophical doctrine. The self (or essential reality) of each man is indestructible, and therefore unaffected by any physical experience in the cycle of births. It passes from body to body unchangeable in essence. “This slays not, neither is it slain. This never is born and never dies.” Therefore it is wrong to deplore the sufferings or deaths of men. “Thou dost not well to sorrow for any born beings.” Moreover, the individual selves have no reality: they are but phases of the unchanging universal soul. The real is one, and the differences of selves are illusory.

Then he passes from metaphysics to the practice of the Yoga—the ascetic discipline. Thereby Arjuna must seek to realize indifferency. He must fulfil his caste duties—and he belongs to the Warriors whose duty it is to kill—but he must rise to do these things without any thought of gaining benefit for himself thereby. He should pass to the highest state, which is a profound apathy of body and mind, the prelude to emancipation and union with the divine.

The poem, it must be confessed, is full of vital contradictions. Thus in spite of this supreme unselfishness which Arjuna is to cultivate, Krishna does not hesitate to represent to him the dishonour which will be his, if he fails to fight, and the honour which will accrue to the victor. “They that seek thy hurt will say many words of ill speech, crying out upon thee for thy faintness; now what is more grievous than this? If thou be slain, thou wilt win heaven; if thou conquer thou wilt have the joys of the earth; therefore rise up resolute for the fray.”

So far Arjuna is not satisfied. “If thou deemest understanding more excellent than works … then wherefore dost thou engage me in a grim work, O Long-Haired One? Thou confoundest my understanding with seemingly tangled utterance.” Krishna proceeds to explain to him how “worklessness” is, by mental abstraction, compatible with the works of his calling, for such work becomes no-work. The man may do them while he himself is utterly selfless—wholly detached from what he does with his body. “He who on every side is without attachments, whatever may happen, whether fair or foul, who neither likes nor dislikes, of such a one the understanding is well poised.” But as the “lessons” proceed the conception of the one supreme being changes.

He is now presented as one who seeks divers incarnations. He is incarnate, especially in Krishna-Vasudera, and he can most effectively be sought and found of men by Bhakti “devotion”—that is, faith and love and joyous self-surrender to the personal God incarnate. In this idea of the God of Love and the love of God the poem reaches its highest level. But the devotion is still free from positive ethical obligation. “I am indifferent,” says Krishna, “to all born beings; there is none whom I hate, none whom I love. He who regardeth indifferently friends and foes, also the righteous and unrighteous, he excelleth. But they that worship me with devotion dwell in me and I in them. Even if he that worships me with undivided worship should be a doer of exceeding evil, he shall be deemed good; for he is of right purpose. Speedily he becomes righteous of soul, and comes to lasting peace. O sons of Kunti, be assured that none who is devoted to me is lost.”7

The universality of Krishna, as the All in All incarnate, is then illustrated in a torrent of expressions; and afterwards he reveals himself in his body—the universe—to Arjuna, who is overwhelmed with the awful spectacle. “I behold in thy body all the gods and hosts of the orders of born beings … all the saints and heavenly serpents. I behold thee of many arms, bellies, faces and eyes, on all sides endless … Looking upon thy mighty form the worlds and I quake. For as I behold thee touching the heavens, glittering, many hued, with yawning mouths … my inward soul trembles. The sons of Dhritarashtra [his adversaries in the war] and likewise the chief of our warriors hasting enter into thy mouths, grim with fangs and terrible; some caught between thy teeth appear with crushed heads.” As rivers into the sea, as moths into the fire, so all worlds pass into thy mouths to perish. “Grim grow thy splendours, O Vishnu.” This awful demonstration is to render Arjuna indifferent to slaughter—“Therefore rise up and get thee glory; by conquest of thy foes enjoy ample empire. By me have they already been given to death; be thou the mere occasion thereto, O left-handed archer.”8

Having thus smitten Arjuna’s soul with terror, “Vasudeva [Krishna] once more displayed his own form; and … again assuming a pleasant shape, comforted him in his terror.” The ideal of devotion to the Lord, while doing the works of his calling in absolute detachment, is again set before him. “He who rejoices not, hates not, grieves not, desires not, who renounces alike fair and foul, and has devotion [bhakti], is dear to me—one indifferent to foe and to friend, free of attachment, possessed of devotion, is a man dear to me.” The noble virtues of such a man are contrasted with the vices of the sceptic.

Then the different works of the castes—brahmans, knights, traffickers and serfs—are described. “Restraint of spirit and sense, mortification, purity, patience, uprightness, knowledge, discernment and belief are the natural Brahma-works. Valour, heroic temper, constancy, skill, steadfastness in strife, largesse and princeliness are the natural knightly works. Tilling the ground, herding kine, and trading are the natural works of traffickers; and the natural work of the serfs is service. According as each man devotes himself to his own proper work does he attain to consummation.” But finally, the way of consummation which “wins to Brahma” is explained to be the way of absolute detachment from all earthly things, free from all thought of I or mine, the way of one who does his works of caste and religion in a spirit of total “worklessness” absorbed in devotion to the Lord. So, finally, Arjuna is rid of his doubts and scruples about the slaughter of his kinsmen. “My bewilderment has passed away… I stand free from doubt; I will do thy word.”

I have thought it worth while to give this sketch of the argument of the Bhagavadgita because, while even in an English translation we can feel something of the splendour of the poem, it leads us to see that we cannot expect from Hinduism any firmly conceived ideal of the good life. Original Buddhism can supply one, because, however wrong we think its fundamental dogma, it does, in the form in which its founder inaugurated it, demand acceptance of that fundamental principle to the exclusion of all others, and a mode of life according to it. But Hinduism is infinitely tolerant. The way of real salvation is the way of intellectual abstraction, casting off all belief in real selves or the distinctions which belong to human experience. The real self is unaffected by deeds which belong only to the material—unreal—world. This leaves it possible for a man to fulfil the works of his calling, the laws of his caste, but in a spirit of indifference which is inevitably contemptuous. What we call ethics remains a matter of caste requirement or of religious observance according to the sect each man belongs to. How unlikely either caste or religion in India is to provide any worthy ethical standard for man as man we can easily ascertain. We have to accept the fact that, almost all the world over, the “natural religions” are ceremonial and non-ethical. They are divorced from morality, and often positively immoral. So it was and is in India.

There are noble examples set before India both in its myths and in its history, like the noble example of wifely purity and devotion in the heroic Sita in the Ramayana. But there are so many other examples. The Krishna of the Bhagavadgita is also the Krishna of the licentious stories of the Vishnavite Puranas. “Imagination can be foul as well as pure, and, in the popular mind, the ideal Krishna of the Gita is inevitably confused with the Krishna of the Puranas, who is the product of an imagination both lewd and foolish.”

There are so many writers to-day who are claiming for India that even we Western people should seek a new spiritual home in her thought and tradition that it is necessary to ask for serious consideration to be given to the fact that neither in the religion nor in the philosophy of India is any stable foundation to be found for ethics.

§ 2

The world is a large place. History sets before us for our consideration many nations, and within nations many races, and each has its own traditions of belief, practice and worship. But there seems to be everywhere something in human nature which responds to an ideal of conduct, transcending alike traditional customs and utilitarian necessities. To the Chinese sage, Mencius, the follower of Confucius, who gave Confucianism its final expression,9 and is called “the Second Inspired One,”—an optimist who always emphasizes the natural goodness of human nature—is attributed a saying with which the unsophisticated among us would agree. “From the feelings proper to it [mankind] is constituted for the practice of what is good. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety and knowledge are not infused into us by external influences. We are certainly furnished with them” [i.e. from within].

Thus the traditional wisdom of China finds at the basis of all things a divine principle or law—Tao [the way]—closely akin to what the Stoics described as Nature, to which all things in heaven and earth must conform, and to which human nature is akin; so that for man the highest knowledge is to know the Tao and the highest wisdom is to live by it. In the Chinese Classics10 the Rites, religious and social, of the Chinese tradition are regarded as the will of “Heaven,” which is the name for the Supreme Power ruling the affairs of men as an omnipotent and omniscient righteousness.11 “These rules [the Rites] are rooted in Heaven, have their correspondences on earth, and are applicable to spiritual beings.”12 The principle of Tao was already the governing idea of the system of Lao-tse, the older contemporary and traditional rival of Confucius, though his system, known as Taoism, became a pantheistic mysticism, indifferent, like the Indian metaphysic, to all considerations of difference between one thing and another, and having a pure impassiveness for its ideal of character. Later, it degenerated into a profuse polytheism and the practice of exorcism as a defence against demons,13 in this respect sharing the fate of Buddhism, with which it had joined hands.

But the principle received a different development at the hands of Confucius. His treasured sayings14 are sometimes enigmatical; but they are full of a ripe and shrewd wisdom, and on the whole one gets a clear picture of the mind of a great and good man. To quote a Chinese historian of the second century b.c.: “Countless are the princes and prophets that the world has seen in its time, glorious in life, forgotten in death. But Confucius, though only a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses, remains among us after many generations… He may indeed be pronounced the divinest of men.” Certainly he was one who loved and lived by the eternal virtues—justice, truth, self-control, kindness, faithfulness, and courage—holding, however, in especial veneration man’s duty to parents and to the King. “The duty of children to their parents is the fountain whence all other virtues proceed.”

His idea of authority was not, however, absolute authority. He found the moral principle of life in reciprocity. The duty of the governed was reciprocal to that of the governor. The duty of obedience presupposes just government. He expressed the principle of reciprocity in the words, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” Lao-tse had said, “Recompense injury with kindness.” “No,” said Confucius. “Recompense kindness with kindness, and injury with justice.” That is reciprocity.

He was a grand conservative. His ideals lay in the past as tradition glorified it. He laboured hard, so long as he was allowed, to restore the ancient standards of discipline and obedience. Except for a few of his disciples, his “little children,” his “two or three lads,” he had the poorest opinion of his contemporaries, high and low. Perhaps you cannot find in his sayings much attempt to base the good life upon principles valid for mankind in general. “He threw no light,” says Dr. Legge, “on any of the questions which have a world-wide interest.” But this is not wholly true. No doubt it was of his own country and its tradition that he chiefly thought. No doubt also it is the case that, living in a world of disorder in which there was only too much religion of a kind which could give him no assistance, his aim was only to restore morality and peace on the basis of the Chinese tradition of duty. But though he rarely spoke of religion, he certainly claimed a divine sanction for his utilitarian morality—its roots were to be found not in human necessity but in the divine order.15

His later disciple Mencius, developing his thoughts, is the author of a system of conduct and a political economy which have a remarkably modern ring, and he appears to be even more purely secularist than his master; but while affirming the natural goodness of man, he finds this in kinship to some vaguely conceived divine principle.

Apart from the influence and authority of the three philosophers we have noticed, there appears to be found in China an amorphous mass of traditional beliefs and practices, not capable of being reduced to any system.16 China at present is confronted with a formidable task of political, moral and spiritual reconstruction. The source of her traditional morality, Confucianism, is so bound up with a vanished regime that it does not seem likely to be of much avail for the establishment of a new order. But those who study China deeply seem always to discern in her a moral capacity which has deep roots in her traditional doctrine of a divine order to which man must conform or he will perish.

§ 3

We find in Japan an extraordinary confusion of religious and ethical theories. The traditional Shinto mythology appears to be quite meaningless, but it is identified with patriotism and loyalty to the Emperor.17 It has no other meaning. “It was too unreflective to be ethical.” But Japan has shown an extraordinary power of assimilating foreign cults and ideas. In the sixth century A.D. Buddhism—of a kind far off from the teaching of Gotama—was introduced from Korea, and became gradually the established religion. Later Christianity became a dangerous rival to Buddhism, but it was almost extirpated in the sixteenth century. Shinto was again established; but the real rival to Buddhism, which still prevailed in its various sects, was Confucianism, introduced from China, modified, however, from its Chinese form,18 and made to minister to the military ideal of unconditional and absolute loyalty to the Emperor, be he good or bad. At present it would appear that Buddhist quietism, Confucian morality and Christian ideals in a vague form, coming as part of Western civilization, are contending for the mastery in Japan; but except in the great tradition of patriotism, no definite ethical standard or theory is to be found there which can claim our consideration.

§ 4

Nothing like an ethical system or clear ethical theory has come down to us among Egyptian or Babylonian records; but it is interesting to notice that the Hebrew Book of Proverbs has recently been shown to depend in part upon the Teaching of Amen-em-ope, contained in a papyrus which may date from the period of the twenty-fifth dynasty, to which Tirhakah belonged, who helped King Hezekiah of Judæa against Sennacherib. Hezekiah’s scribes, who “copied out” proverbs, or their later followers, may have used those of the Egyptian wise man, contained in thirty chapters, which are now available for our study.

Amen-em-ope is said to represent a higher tone of religious and moral reflection than appears in any other specimen of Egyptian wisdom. His proverbs—which seem to have been used as a school-book—illustrate the appreciation, which is general among men, of the virtues of justice, truth, mercy and self-control (“tranquillity”), not only for their utilitarian value but also for their conformity with the divine will. Amenophis, who is a “superintendent of land and of corn” for the king and “for all the gods”—i.e. all the temples—is giving advice to his son, who appears to be a young priest; and the gods he appeals to are various, but supreme among them appears to be the Sun-God (Ra) in his visible disk (Aten), whose approval all good people desire to win. Unlike the Hebrew compilers of proverbs, his vision of the advantage of virtuous living extends beyond this world to that which lies beyond.19 The following are specimens of this Egyptian wisdom:

The beginning of teaching how to live, guidance for welfare … to direct a man in the path of life and make him prosper upon earth.

Beware of robbing a poor man, of being valorous against the man who has a broken arm.

Give way unto him that attacketh; sleep a night before speaking; leave the passionate man to his own devices. God will know how to reply to him.

The truly tranquil man … is like a tree grown in a plot (?): it grows green, it doubles its yield, its fruit is sweet, its shade is pleasant.

Remove not the landmark on the boundaries of the sown fields, nor shift the position of the measuring-rod … mark well him who hath done this on earth, for he is an oppressor of the weak. [But] his goods are taken out of the hand of his children and his property is given to another… A man propitiates God by the power of the Lord [Aten], when he defines the boundaries. Desire then to make thine own self prosperous; beware of the Universal Lord. Better is a bushel that God giveth thee, than five thousand [obtained] by force. Better is poverty at the hand of God than riches in the storehouse; better is bread with a happy heart than riches with vexation.

Labour not to seek increase, [then] thy needs shall be secure for thee; if riches be brought to thee by robbery, they shall not stay the night with thee. They have made themselves wings like geese. The boat of the covetous is left in the mud, while the bark of the tranquil sails free. Thou shalt pray to the Aten when he rises, saying, “Give me prosperity and health,” and he will give thee thy needs in life, and thou wilt be safe from fear.

Speak not to a man in falsehood, the abomination of God.

If thou find a large debt against a poor man, make it into three parts: forgive two, let one remain; thou will find it a path of life.

Justice is a great gift of God; He will give it to him whom He will… Sit thee down at the hands of God; thy tranquillity will overthrow [thine adversaries].

Empty not thine inmost soul to everybody … nor associate thyself with one who lays bare his heart.

Verily man is clay and straw; God is his fashioner. Happy is he who hath reached the West, where he is safe in the hand of God.

God loves the happiness of the humble more than that the noble be honoured.

[In the ferry boat] take the fare from the man of wealth, and welcome also him who has nothing.

All this is strongly reminiscent of the Hebrew proverbs. But it indicates something widely spread in the East beyond the limits of Israel—a practical wisdom based on a deep reverence for a divine law, which human arrogance or wilfulness or folly violates at its peril.

§ 5

We find a definite system of morals, with a definite conception of its divine sanction, arising in Arabia in the seventh century of our era under the teaching of Muhammad—a way of life making a tremendous appeal, with startling strength behind it, which rapidly became one of the most important factors in the world’s history.20 In former days the accounts given of Muhammad from within Christendom were grossly unfair. But in our day we have attained a quite new power of impartial treatment of the heroes of religion, and the ablest estimates by European scholars of the prophet of Islam are fairly consistent. No one can ignore his supreme genius as a master of men. Few can read his early history when he first became conscious of his mission as the Messenger of the One God, to suppress idolatry among the Arab tribes and proclaim the true religion, without recognition of the reality of divine inspiration in his soul. The marvellous effects of his mission witness to his power, for Islam swallowed up a great part of a divided and corrupted Christendom, became a serious and recurrent menace to Europe, and is still the formidable rival to Christianity in Africa and elsewhere.

But I do not propose to examine Islam (the great “submission” to the call of God) or the Quran (the Lesson or Recitation) at any length. Confessedly Muhammad was deeply influenced in the beginning of his mission by what he had learned of Judaism and Christianity. At first he taught his disciples to turn to Jerusalem, not to Mecca, in prayer, and to observe not the Fast of Ramadan, but the Jewish Day of Atonement. His system is, like that of the Bible, an ethical monotheism. Comparing, then, the theology and morality of Islam at its best with Judaism at its best, I suppose that hardly anyone can hesitate to give the preference to the latter or to exalt the Old Testament above the Quran.21 Still less, if Islam is compared to Christianity and the Quran to the New Testament, will any of us hesitate to give the preference to the latter. Thus, if there be such a thing as one specific religion and morality for the world, it must be sought in Christianity at its best rather than in Islam at its best. I propose accordingly only to make three remarks on Islam.

First, it has often been observed that the Muslims on the average are better specimens of their religion than Christians are of theirs. This has been true on a large scale, though with great reservations; and if we are to justify our-selves hereafter in taking the religion of the Bible as our supreme type of “ethical monotheism,” we should take this fact—granted that it is a fact—of the greater success of Muhammadanism in impressing itself on the mass of its converts into account. The truth seems to be that the success of Muhammadanism is due to its limitation—that very limitation which makes it un-progressive and renders it impossible to consider it as a religion for humanity.

Muhammad must have had a very shrewd perception of what the Arabs, with whom he was primarily concerned, would be content to do, or refuse to do, in order to procure the rewards of Paradise and avoid the horrors of hell. Thus—they would accept a creed on absolute authority; they would transact religious forms such as the Five Duties—the recital of the confession of faith, the recital of the set prayers, the fast of Ramadan, almsgiving, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, specific duties which, considerable as they are, would involve no deep transformation of character; they would fight courageously for the victorious faith, and die for it, like brave soldiers the world all over; they would avoid certain sins and submit to certain limitations on conduct, such as the avoidance of alcoholic drink, or the flesh of the pig, and perform certain penances or make required compensations for a neglect of specific prohibitions.

This obedience to specific commands was what Islam involved; and the prospect of obtaining heaven and avoiding hell was put in a form which the natural man would find fully attractive. But Islam made no searching claim for a radical reformation of character. Christianity, however, wherever it has been at all true to its New Testament, has made so deep a claim that men must “die to live,” as to make them feel that mere conformity, mere “works,” are not worth while. Christianity, where it has been content to become a religion of moderate conformity to an external rule, has been as successful as Muhammadanism in dealing with uncultured people; and indeed at some periods and in some countries in retaining the allegiance of highly cultivated people. But at least in countries where the New Testament is well known, even where people have not broken away from Christianity but have maintained a certain measure of conformity, they have not done so with any strictness, because they have fully recognized in their hearts that what Christ required of them was something very much deeper than this. Thus, for us the Muhammadan idea of God and of religious authority, and the Muhammadan satisfaction with conformity as the passport to heaven, has become wholly impossible. We could not be persuaded to believe that such “works” would carry us to heaven, for heaven is fellowship with God, and such fellowship is impossible without a very radical conversion. Thus the relative success of Muhammadanism as compared with Christianity over the mass of its adherents, so far as that is a fact, appears to be due to the essential defectiveness of its moral claim.

Secondly, the success of Muhammadanism, where it still appears as the rival to Christianity, as among African tribes, is largely due to something highly meritorious—something which Christianity, according to its principles, ought to have exhibited in an even higher degree, but to its shame has not—that is, that it incorporates weak races into a great world-wide fellowship, of which they at once feel the sustaining force. The principle of brotherhood they see among the Muhammadans really exemplified. They feel its support. Whereas Christianity, as Africans (or Asiatics) have seen it exemplified in the European, nominally Christian, community, so far from welcoming them into brotherhood, has been scandalously exclusive and even hostile. But this is a mere negation of fundamental Christianity, to which it is to be feared the British nation has been peculiarly liable. Racial narrowness and pride have been besetting sins which our Christianity has never at all effectively undermined. But no one can deny that the principle of a catholic fellowship was inherent in Christianity from the start, and is of its essence, and that in a higher form than in Muhammadanism, which maintains slavery and the depreciation of women.

Lastly, something must be said about the mysticism which has been a conspicuous growth upon the Muhammadan, as upon the Indian, the Hellenistic and the Christian soil. That it is not a natural outcome of Islam is not disputable. It has lain always in Muhammadanism under suspicion of heresy. Nevertheless it has flourished at certain periods and in certain regions, and has exhibited beautiful fruits, such as that wonderful Mallorcan saint, Ramon Lull—of the thirteenth century—frankly recognized.

Mysticism—Indian, Hellenistic, Muhammadan and Christian—presents a remarkable similarity. “We cannot honestly say,” writes Evelyn Underhill, “that there is any wide difference between the Brahman, the Sufi (Muhammadan), or the Christian mystics at their best.”22 The mystics start from different traditions, theological and moral, and a mystic, like St. Theresa, or El-Ghazali among the Muslims, may remain a devoutly orthodox adherent of the tradition; but the substance of the mystics’ quest is union with God, and God being above all that human speech can utter and human thought conceive, there has been a tendency among them to depreciate the specific doctrines of positive religion. Not only so, but mysticism, being “the flight of the alone to the alone,” has been deeply individualistic, and has taken wing to the skies above the common life of men. On the contrary, the religion of Muhammad and the religion of Jesus Christ have from first to last concerned themselves primarily with the common and social life of man; and, though there is an element of mysticism in all true religion, yet in the quest which we are now pursuing—the quest of the good life for men in general—we have not much concern, at least directly, with the mystics in any religion.

• 1.

  See The Interpretation of Religion, by John Baillie (T. and T. Clark, 1929), pp. 386 ff.

• 2.

  It would appear probable that many Buddhists remained in India by professing the Jain religion. Jainism at its origin was a movement akin to that of the Buddha. It was not strictly a religion. The cry was, “Man, thou art thy own friend! Why wishest thou for a friend beyond thyself?” (see Baillie, as above, p. 389). But, like Buddhism, it was accommodated to the surrounding polytheism, retaining as its most distinctive feature the scrupulous refusal to take life.

• 3.

  Sidelights on the Crisis in India, by H. Harcourt (Longmans, 1924), pp. 28-29, slightly abbreviated. A valuable book, with a preface by Dr. Norwood, the Head Master of Harrow.

• 4.

  King George V Professor of Philosophy in Calcutta University (George Allen & Unwin, 1927), see pp. 37, 41, 46, 48.

• 5.

  Dr. Barnett’s translation (Dent & Son) in the Temple Classics. The introduction to the translation and Dr. Cave’s analysis, pp. 42 ff., should be consulted. The poem dates probably from the first century A.D.

• 6.

  Pp. 86-87.

• 7.

  Pp. 129-130.

• 8.

  This is one of the examples of the “numinous” in poetry given by Otto, The Idea of the Holy, App. ii, p. 193.

• 9.

  Confucius died in 479, Mencius in 289 B.C.

• 10.

  S.B.E., vol. iii.

• 11.

  See S.B.E., vol. iii, Dr. James Legge’s preface, p. xxiv.

• 12.

  This is a response of Confucius to a question as to the value of the Rites.

• 13.

  See Cave, pp. 159-161.

• 14.

  See L. A. Lyall’s Sayings of Confucius (Longmans).

• 15.

  Cave, p. 156; see also Christopher Dawson’s Progress and Religion, pp. 119 ff.

• 16.

  Cf. L. Hodous, Folkways in China (Probsthain).

• 17.

  Cave, pp. 173 ff.

• 18.

  In which stress was laid on “reciprocity,” see above, p. 98.

• 19.

  For the above see the translation of the Egyptian document n F. H. Griffith’s article in the Journal of Egyptian Archæology, vol. xii, October 1926, and Prof. A. E. Morris, in A New Commentary (S.P.C.K.), pp. 382 ff., and Oesterley’s Proverbs (Westminster Commentaries). The portion of the Book of Proverbs which especially shows dependence upon the Egyptian document is capp. xxii. 17 to xxiv. 2. It is not, however, certain that we are justified in speaking of this specimen of “wisdom” as of Egyptian origin. Sir E. Wallis Budge would find its home in Asia: and Oesterley (pp. xxxiv. ff.) would have us recognize a wisdom of the proverbial sort as characteristic of the whole Middle East and only receiving a special development in Israel.

• 20.

  Dr. Cave’s Living Religions of the East gives an admirable and brief account of Muhammad and Islam with Bibliography, and the article by Dr. Badger in the Dictionary of Christian Biography (Muhammad) is also excellent. Among recent authorities of importance are Margoliouth (Mohammedanism in Home Univ. Libr., and other books) and Bevan (Mahomet and Islam in Camb. Mediæv. Hist., vol. ii.).

• 21.

  On Muhammad’s defective conception of God (“In Allah the numinous is absolutely preponderant” over the rational, “This will account for the fanatical character of this religion”), see Otto’s Idea of the Holy, p. 94.

• 22.

  See Essentials of Mysticism (Dent), p. 4.