Volume I Part 5 (2/2)
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 pa.s.sage 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 Inst.i.tutes of Menu.--The Universe is G.o.d.--Trans.m.u.tation 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 Pa.s.sage of every thing to Nonent.i.ty.--Development of Buddhism into a vast monastic System marked by intense Selfishness.--Its practical G.o.dlessness._
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 Wors.h.i.+p, Star Wors.h.i.+p.--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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.sed 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 const.i.tution 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce and force alone. The former is exemplified in the Vedas and Inst.i.tutes 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 accomplis.h.i.+ng 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, n.o.ble 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d,]
[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 a.s.serted 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.
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