Part 7 (1/2)

These remarks may suffice to give an idea of the most important feature in Indian society. Before I attempt to examine the second great characteristic of this people,--the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, a principle which, if it has not produced, has at least given the peculiar bent to their whole philosophy; I wish to take a general view of Polytheism, particularly as our notions of it, chiefly derived from the Greeks, are by no means perfectly applicable to the primitive nations of Asia.

We are wont to regard the Grecian mythology, and its many-coloured world of fables, only as the beautiful effusion of poetry, or a playful creation of fancy; and we never think of enquiring deeply or minutely into its details, or of examining its moral import and influence. It is the more natural that the mythology of the Greeks should produce this impression on our minds, and that we should regard it in this light, as all the higher ideas and severer doctrines on the G.o.d-head, its sovereign nature and infinite might, on the eternal wisdom and providence that conducts and directs all things to their proper end, on the infinite Mind, and supreme Intelligence that created all things, and that is raised far above external nature; all these higher ideas and severer doctrines have been expounded more or less perfectly by Pythagoras, or by Anaxagoras and Socrates; and have been developed in the most beautiful and luminous manner by Plato and the philosophers that followed him. But all this did not pa.s.s into the popular religion of the Greeks, and it remained for the most part a stranger to these exalted doctrines; and, though we find in this mythology many things capable of a deeper import and more spiritual signification, yet they appear but as rare vestiges of ancient truth--vague presentiments--fugitive tones--momentary flashes, revealing a belief in a supreme Being, an almighty Creator of the universe, and the common Father of mankind.

But it is far otherwise in the Indian mythology. There, amid a sensual idolatry of nature more pa.s.sionate and enthusiastic still than that of the Greeks, amid Pagan fictions and conceptions far more gigantic than those of the latter, we find almost all the truths of natural theology, not indeed without a considerable admixture of error, expressed with the utmost earnestness and dignity. We meet too, in this mythology, with the most rigidly scientific and metaphysical notions of the Supreme Being, his attributes and his relations; and it is the peculiar character of the Indian mythology to combine a gigantic wildness of fantasy, and a boundless enthusiasm for nature, with a deep mystical import, and a profound philosophic sense. If the Pythagoreans had succeeded in the design, which they in all probability entertained, of rendering their lofty notions on the Deity and on man, on the immortality of the soul, and the invisible world, more generally prevalent, and of introducing these ideas into the popular religion; as it was not their intention entirely to reject the vulgar creed, but only to mould it to their own principles, and impart to it a higher and more spiritual sense, (an attempt which was afterwards made by the New Platonists and the Emperor Julian, out of hatred to Christianity, though, as the time had then long gone by, their enterprise was attended with no permanent effects); if the Pythagoreans, we say, had succeeded in their design, the Greek mythology might then have borne some resemblance to the Indian, and we might have inst.i.tuted a comparison between the two. In the Indian mythology this strange combination, this inconsistent junction of the sublimest truth with the most sensual error, of the wildest and most extravagant fiction with the most abstract metaphysics, and even the purest natural theology (if we may thus call the divine Revelation of the primitive world); this strange combination, we say, has not been the effect of artful interpolation, but the fruit of native growth and of earliest development.

We must now be on our guard not to admit too lightly or too quickly the coincidence of certain symbols and conceptions of mythology with truths and doctrines familiar to ourselves. How much, for instance, would a man err, who would suppose that there was any a.n.a.logy in the Indian symbol and notion of _Trimurti_, or the divine Triad, I do not say with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, but with the opinion of either of the Platonic schools on the triple essence, or the triple Personality of the one G.o.d. In this symbol the heads of the three princ.i.p.al Hindoo divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva, the G.o.ds of creation, preservation and destruction, are united in one figure; and this union undoubtedly indicates the primary energy common to all three. If we examine each in particular, we shall see that the attributes a.s.signed to Brahma, and the expressions usually applied to his person, when divested of their poetical garb, and mythic accompaniments, may often, almost literally and in strict truth, be referred to the Deity. The all-pervading and self-transforming Vishnoo is much more the wonderful Prometheus of nature, than a real and well defined divinity. The third in this divine Triad, the formidable and destructive Siva, has but a very remote a.n.a.logy with the Deity that judges and chastises the world according to justice. This G.o.d of destruction, whose wors.h.i.+ppers appear to have been formerly the most numerous in India, as those of Vishnoo are at the present day; this G.o.d of destruction, with his serpents and bracelets of human skulls, appears evidently to be that demon of corruption who brought death into all creation, and who here, whimsically and inconsistently enough, has been introduced into the symbol, and made a part of the Deity itself. This union or confusion of Eternal Perfection with the Evil Principle is made in another way by the Indian philosophers; as some of them explain the doctrine of Trimurti, or the divine Triad by reference to the _Traigunyan_, or the three _qualities_. These three different regions, or degrees, into which, according to the Indian doctrine, all existence is divided, are the pure world of eternal truth, or of light, the middle region of vain appearance and illusion, and the abyss of darkness. However, it must be observed that the Indians do not express the pure and metaphysical idea of the Supreme Being by either of the names of the two last-mentioned popular divinities; nor do they even denote this idea by the name of Brahma, the first person of their trinity, but by the word _Brahm_, a neuter noun which signifies the Supreme Being.

As there were now two conflicting elements in the breast of man--the old inheritance or original dowry of truth, which G.o.d had imparted to him in the primitive revelation; and error, or the foundation for error in his degraded sense and spirit now turned from G.o.d to Nature--how easily must error have sprung up, when the precious gem of divine truth was no longer guarded with jealous care, nor preserved in its pristine purity; how much must truth have been obscured, as error advanced in all its formidable might, and in all its power of seduction; and how soon must not this have happened among a people, like the Indians, with whom imagination and a very deep, but still sensual, feeling for Nature, were so predominant!--It was thus a wild enthusiasm, and a sensual idolatry of Nature, generally superseded the simple wors.h.i.+p of Almighty G.o.d, and set aside or disfigured the pure belief in the eternal, uncreated Spirit. The great powers and elements of nature, and the vital principle of production and procreation through all generations, then the celestial spirits, or the heavenly host (to speak the language of antiquity), the luminous choir of stars, which the whole ancient world regarded not as mere globes of light or bodies of fire, but as animated substances; next the Genii and tutelar spirits, and even the souls of the dead received now divine wors.h.i.+p; and men, instead of honouring the Creator in these, and of regarding these in reference to their Creator, considered them as G.o.ds. Such is, when we have once supposed that man had turned away from G.o.d to Nature, such is the natural origin of Polytheism, which in every nation a.s.sumed a different form according to the peculiar modes of life, and the prevailing principles of life, in each.

Among the Indians this ruling principle of existence was the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which appears indeed to be the most characteristic of all their opinions, and was by its influence on real life, by far the most important. We must in the first place remember, and keep well in our minds, that, among those nations of primitive antiquity, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not a mere probable hypothesis, which, as with many moderns, needs laborious researches and diffuse argumentations in order to produce conviction on the mind. Nay, we can hardly give the name of faith to this primitive conception; for it was a lively certainty, like the feeling of one's own being, and of what is actually present; and this firm belief in a future existence exerted its influence on all sublunary affairs, and was often the motive of mightier deeds and enterprises than any mere earthly interest could inspire. I said above that the doctrine of the transmigration of souls was not unconnected with the Indian system of castes; for the most honourable appellation of a Brahmin is _Tvija_, that is to say, a second time born, or regenerated. On one hand this appellation refers to that spiritual renovation and second birth of a life of purity consecrated to G.o.d, as in this consists the true calling of a Brahmin, and the special purpose of his caste. On the other hand this term refers to the belief that the soul, after many transmigrations through various forms of animals, and various stages of natural existence, is permitted in certain cases, as a peculiar recompense, when it has gone through its prescribed cycle of migrations to return to the world, and be born in the cla.s.s of Brahmins. This doctrine of the transmigration of souls through various bodies of animals or other forms of existence, and even through more than one repet.i.tion of human life, (whether such migrations were intended as the punishment of souls for their viciousness and impiety, or as trials for their further purification and amendment)--this doctrine which has always been, and is still so prevalent in India, was held likewise by the ancient Egyptians.

This accordance in the faith of these two ancient nations, established beyond all doubt by historical testimony, is indeed remarkable; and even in the minutest particulars on the course of migration allotted to souls, and on the stated periods and cycles of that migration, the coincidence is often perfectly exact. How strangely now it this most singular error mixed up, I do not say with truth, but with a feeling that is certainly closely akin to primitive truth! When an individual of our own age, out of disgust with modern and well-known systems, or with the vulgar doctrines, and from a love of paradox, adopted this ancient hypothesis of the transmigration of souls; he merely considered the bare trans.m.u.tation of earthly forms.[48] But among those ancient nations this doctrine rested on a religious basis, and was connected with a sentiment purely religious. In this doctrine there was a n.o.ble element of truth--the feeling that man, since he has gone astray, and wandered so far from his G.o.d, must needs exert many efforts, and undergo a long and painful pilgrimage before he can rejoin the Source of all perfection;--the firm conviction and positive certainty that nothing defective, impure, or defiled with earthly stains can enter the pure region of perfect spirits, or be eternally united to G.o.d; and that thus, before it can attain to this blissful end, the immortal soul must pa.s.s through long trials and many purifications. It may now well be conceived, (and indeed the experience of this life would prove it,) that suffering, which deeply pierces the soul, anguish that convulses all the members of existence, may contribute, or may even be necessary, to the deliverance of the soul from all alloy and pollution, as, to borrow a comparison from natural objects, the generous metal is melted down in fire and purged from its dross. It is certainly true that the greater the degeneracy and the degradation of man, the nearer is his approximation to the brute; and when the transmigration of the immortal soul through the bodies of various animals is merely considered as the punishment of its former transgressions, we can very well understand the opinion which supposes that man who, by his crimes and the abuse of his reason, had descended to the level of the brute, should at last be transformed into the brute itself. But what could have given rise to the opinion that the transmigration of souls through the bodies of beasts was the road or channel of amendment, was destined to draw the soul nearer to infinite perfection, and even to accomplish its total union with the Supreme Being, from whom, in all appearance, it seemed calculated to remove it further? And as regards a return to the present state and existence of man, what thinking person would ever wish to return to a life divided and fluctuating as it is, between desire and disgust, wasted in internal and external strife, and which, though brightened by a few scattered rays of truth, is still encompa.s.sed with the dense clouds of error;--even though this return to earthly existence should be accomplished in the Brahminical cla.s.s so highly revered in India, or in the princely and royal race so highly favoured by fortune?

There is in all this a strange mixture and confusion of the ideas of this world with those of the next; and how the latter is separated from the former by an impa.s.sable gulf, they seem not to have been sufficiently aware. Both these ancient nations, the Egyptians as well as the Indians, regarded with few exceptions, the Metempsychosis, not as an object of joyful hope, but rather as a calamity impending over the soul; and whether they considered it to be a punishment for earthly transgressions, or a state of probation--a severe but preparatory trial of purification; they still looked on it as a calamity; which to avert or to mitigate, they deemed no attempt, no act, no exertion, no sacrifice, ought to be spared.

In the manner, however, in which these two nations conceived this doctrine, there was a striking and fundamental difference; and if the leading tenet was the same among both, the views which each connected with it were very dissimilar. Deprived, as we are, of the old books and original writings of the Egyptians, we are unable perfectly to comprehend and seize their peculiar ideas on this subject, and state them with the same a.s.surance as we can those of the Indians, whose ancient writings we now possess in such abundance, and which in all main points perfectly agree with the accounts of the ancient cla.s.sics. But we are left to infer the ideas of the Egyptians on the Metempsychosis only from their singular treatment of the dead, and the bodies of the deceased; from that sepulchral art (if I may use the expression) which with them acquired a dignity and importance, and was carried to a pitch of refinement, such as we find among no other people; from that careful and costly consecration of the corpse, which we still regard with wonder and astonishment in their mummies and other monuments. That all these solemn preparations, and the religious rites which accompanied them, that the inscriptions on the tombs and mummies had all a religious meaning and object, and were intimately connected with the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, can admit of no doubt; though it is a matter of greater difficulty to ascertain with precision the peculiar ideas they were meant to express. Did the Egyptians believe that the soul did not separate immediately from the body which it had ceased to animate, but only on the entire decay and putrefaction of the corpse? Or did they wish by their art of embalmment to preserve the body from decay, in order to deliver the soul from the dreaded transmigration? The Egyptian treatment of the dead would certainly seem to imply a belief that, for some time at least after death, there existed a certain connection between the soul and body. Yet we cannot adopt this supposition to an unqualified extent, as it would be in contradiction with those symbolical representations that so frequently occur in Egyptian art, and in which the soul immediately after death is represented as summoned before the judgment-seat of G.o.d, severely accused by the hostile demon, but defended by the friendly and guardian spirit, who employs every resource to procure the deliverance and acquittal of the soul. Or did the Egyptians think that by all these rites, as by so many magical expedients, they would keep off the malevolent fiend from the soul, and obtain for it the succour of good and friendly divinities? Now that the gates of hieroglyphic science have been at last opened, we may trust that a further progress in the science will disclose to us more satisfactory information on all these topics.

The Indians, however, who ever remained total strangers to the mode of burial and treatment of the dead practised in Egypt, adopted a very different course to procure the deliverance of the human soul from transmigration:--they had recourse to philosophy--to the highest aspirings of thought towards G.o.d--to a total and lasting immersion of feeling in the unfathomable abyss of the divine essence. They have never doubted that by this means a perfect union with the Deity might be obtained even in this life, and that thus the soul, freed and emanc.i.p.ated from all mutation and migration through the various forms of animated nature in this world of illusion, might remain for ever united with its G.o.d. Such is the object to which all the different systems of Indian philosophy tend--such is the term of all their enquiries. This philosophy contains a mult.i.tude of the sublimest reflections on the separation from all earthly things, and on the union with the G.o.d-head; and there is no high conception in this department of metaphysics, unknown to the Hindoos. But this absorption of all thought and all consciousness in G.o.d--this solitary enduring feeling of internal and eternal union with the Deity, they have carried to a pitch and extreme that may almost be called a moral and intellectual self-annihilation.

This is the same philosophy, though in a different form, which in the history of European intellect and science, has received the denomination of _mysticism_. The possible excesses--the perilous abyss in this philosophy, have been in general acknowledged, and even pointed out in particular cases, where egotism or pride has been detected under a secret disguise, or where this total abstraction of thought and feeling has spurned all limit, measure, and law. In general however, the European mind, by its more temperate and harmonious const.i.tution, by the greater variety of its attainments, and above all, by the purer and fuller light of revealed truth, has been preserved from those aberrations of mysticism which in India have been carried to such a fearful extent, not only in speculation, but in real life and practice; and which, transcending as they do all the limits of human nature, far exceed the bounds of possibility, or what men have in general considered as such. And the apparently incredible things which the Greeks related more than two thousand years ago, respecting the recluses of India, or _Gymnosophists_, as they called those Yogis, are found to exist even at the present day; and ocular experience has fully corroborated the truth of their narratives.

END OF LECTURE IV.

LECTURE V.

A comparative view of the intellectual character of the four princ.i.p.al nations in the primitive world--the Indians, the Chinese, the Egyptians, and the Hebrews; next of the peculiar spirit and political relations of the ancient Persians.

As, after discord had broken out among mankind, humanity became split and divided into a mult.i.tude of nations, races, and languages, into hostile and conflicting tribes, castes rigidly separated, and cla.s.ses variously divided; as indeed, when once we suppose this original division and primitive opposition in the human race, it could not be otherwise from the very nature and even destiny of man; so in a psychological point of view, the moral unity of the individual man was broken, and his faculties of will and understanding became mutually opposed, or followed contrary courses. The whole internal structure of human consciousness was deranged, and in the present divided state of the human faculties, there is no longer the full play of the harmonious soul--of the once unbroken spirit--but its every faculty hath now but a limited, or, to speak more properly, one half of its proper power.

The restoration of the full life and entire operation of the divided faculties of the human soul must be considered now only as a splendid exception--the high gift of creative genius, and of a more than ordinary strength of character; and such a re-union of faculties must be looked upon as the high problem which const.i.tutes the ultimate object and ideal term of all the intellectual and moral exertions of man. When in an individual a clear, comprehensive, penetrative understanding, that has mastered all sound science, is combined with a will not only firm, but pure and upright, such an individual has attained the great object of his existence; and when a whole generation, or mankind in general, present this harmonious concord between science on the one hand, and moral conduct and external life, or to characterize them by one word, the general will, on the other, which is often in utter hostility with science--we may then truly say that humanity has attained its destiny.

The great error of ordinary philosophy, and the princ.i.p.al reason that has prevented it from accomplis.h.i.+ng its ends, is the supposition it so hastily admits that the consciousness of man now entirely changed, broken and mutilated, is the same as it was originally, and as it was created and fas.h.i.+oned by its Maker; without observing that, since the great primeval Revolution, man has not only been outwardly or historically disunited, but even internally and psychologically deranged. The moral being of man, a prey to internal discord, may be said to be quartered, because the four primary faculties of the soul and mind of man--Understanding and Will, Reason and Imagination, stand in a two-fold opposition one to the other, and are, if we may so speak, dispersed into the four regions of existence. Reason in man is the regulating faculty of thought; and so far it occupies the first place in life and the whole system and arrangement of life; but it is unproductive in itself, and even in science it can pretend to no real fertility or immediate intuition. Imagination on the other hand is fertile and inventive indeed, but left to itself and without guidance, it is blind, and consequently subject to illusion. The best will, devoid of discernment and understanding, can accomplish little good. Still less capable of good is a strong, and even the strongest understanding, when coupled with a wicked and corrupt character; or should such an understanding be a.s.sociated with an unsteady and changeable will, the individual dest.i.tute of character, is entirely without influence.

To prove moreover how all the other faculties of the soul, or the mind, elsewhere enumerated are but the connecting links--the subordinate branches[49] of those four primary faculties; how the general dismemberment of the human consciousness reaches even to them; how they diverge from one another, and appear still more split and narrowed; to prove this would lead me too far, and is the less necessary, as, in the peculiar character of particular ages or nations, the historical enquirer can observe but those four primary faculties mentioned above, as the intellectual elements prevalent in each. As in the intellectual character of particular men, or in any given system of human thought, fiction, or science (and these can be better described and more closely a.n.a.lyzed than the fleeting and transient phenomena of real life and the social relations); as in every such individual production, I say, of human thought and human action, either Reason will preponderate as a systematic methodizer and a moral regulator, or a fertile, inventive Imagination will be displayed, or a clear, penetrative understanding, or again a peculiar energy of will and strength of character will be observed; so the same holds good in the great whole of universal history--in the moral and intellectual existence--the character, or the mind of particular ages or nations in the ancient world.

This is apparent not only in the very various manner, in which sacred Tradition--the external word to man revealed--was conceived, developed and disfigured among each of those nations; but in the peculiar form and direction which the internal word in man--that is to say his higher consciousness and intellectual life a.s.sumed among each. Such an intellectual opposition evidently exists between those two great primitive nations already characterized, that inhabit the extreme East and South of Asia--an opposition between reason and imagination. In regard to the intellectual and moral character of nations as well as of individuals, Reason is that human faculty which is conversant with grammatical construction, logical inferences, dialectic contests, systematic arrangement; and in practical life it serves as the divine regulator, in so far as it adheres to the higher order of G.o.d. But when it refuses to do this, and wishes to deduce all from itself and its own individuality, then it becomes an egotistical, over-refining, selfish, calculating, degenerate Reason, the inventress of all the arbitrary systems of science and morals, dividing and splitting every thing into sects and parties. Imagination must not be considered as a mere faculty for fiction, nor confined to the circle of art and poetry--it includes a faculty for scientific discoveries, nor did a mind dest.i.tute of all imagination ever make a great scientific discovery. There is even a higher, purely speculative fancy which finds its proper sphere in a mysticism, like the Indian, that has already been described. Even if a mysticism, like that which const.i.tutes the basis of the Indian philosophy, were entirely free from all admixture of sensual feelings, and were entirely dest.i.tute of images, we should certainly not be right in refusing on that account to imagination its share in this peculiar intellectual phenomenon. That in the intellectual character of the Chinese, reason, and not imagination, was the predominant element, it would, after the sketch we have before given of that people, and which was drawn from the best and most recent sources and authorities, be scarcely necessary to prove at any length--so clearly is that fact established. Originally when the old system of Chinese manners was regulated by the pure wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, not disfigured as among other nations by manifold fictions, but breathing the better spirit of Confucius, it was undoubtedly in a sound, upright Reason, conformable to G.o.d, that the Chinese placed the foundation of their moral and political existence; since they designated the Supreme Being by the name of Divine Reason. Although some modern writers in our time have, like the Chinese, applied the term _divine reason_ to Almighty G.o.d; yet I cannot adopt this Chinese mode of speech, since, though according to the doctrine from which I start, and the truth of which has been all along pre-supposed, the living G.o.d is a spirit; yet it by no means follows thence that G.o.d is Reason or Reason G.o.d. If we examine the expression closely and in its scientific rigour, we can with as little propriety attribute to G.o.d the faculty of reason, as the faculty of imagination.

The latter prevails in the poetical mythology of ancient Paganism; the former, when the expression is really correct, designates rationalism or the modern idolatry of Reason; and to this indeed we may discern a certain tendency even in very early times, and particularly among the Chinese. Among the latter people at a tolerably early period, a sound, just Reason conformable and docile to divine revelation was superseded by an egotistical, subtle, over-refining Reason, which split into hostile sects, and at last subverted the old edifice of sacred Tradition, to re-construct it on a new revolutionary plan.

Equally, and even still more strongly, apparent is the predominance of the imaginative faculty among the Indians, as is seen even in their science and in that peculiar tendency to mysticism which this faculty has imparted to the whole Indian philosophy. The creative fulness of a bold poetical imagination is evinced by those gigantic works of architecture which may well sustain a comparison with the monuments of Egypt; by a poetry, which in the manifold richness of invention is not inferior to that of the Greeks, while it often approximates to the beauty of its forms; and, above all, by a mythology which in its leading features, its profound import, and its general connexion resembles the Egyptian, while in its rich clothing of poetry, in its attractive and bewitching representations, it bears a strong similarity to that of the Greeks. This decided and peculiar character of the whole intellectual culture of the Indians, will not permit us to doubt which of the various faculties of the soul is there the ruling and preponderant element.

A similar, and equally decided opposition in the intellectual character and predominant element of human consciousness is observed between the Hebrews and Egyptians; though this was an opposition of a different kind, and of a deeper import. To show this more clearly, I will take the liberty of interrupting for a moment the order I have hitherto followed, of characterizing each nation in regular succession, and with as much accuracy and fullness as possible; in order by a comparative view of the four princ.i.p.al nations of remote antiquity, to draw such a general sketch of the first period of universal history as may serve at once for a central point in our enquiries, and for the ground-work of subsequent remarks. Such a comparison will tend to facilitate our survey of the primitive ages of the world: and in this general combination of the whole, each part will appear in a clearer light.

If I wished to characterize in one word the peculiar bearing and ruling element of the Egyptian mind; however unsatisfactory in other respects such general designations may be--I should say that the intellectual eminence of that people was in its scientific profundity--in an understanding that penetrated or sought to penetrate by magic into all the depths and mysteries of nature, even into their most hidden abyss.