BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OFTHE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF lietirg, f|. Sage ft,3i-. ' * Cf. Lun Yu, X, 2, 5, 9, 16. A conception of the enormous import of ceremonies and strict propriety in Chinese thought may be had from the Li Ki, or " Collection of Treatises on the Rules of Propriety and Cere- monial Usages," perhaps the most characteristic work in Chinese literature. It is one of the five " King," or classics, and is translated by Dr. Legge in vols, xxvii and xxviii. Sacred Books of the East. ^ See e. g. Mencius, book iii, part ii, chap. iii. ' See f . ^. Zj Ki, xli, i . ' The father's power has always been and still is autocratic. See F. Scherzer, La Puissance Paternelle en Chine. EGYPT, CHALD^A, AND CHINA. 5 1 foundation of [all] love in the love of parents teaches people reverence.'" " Filial piety is the root of all virtue." ' Besides direct ethical instruction and example, with teaching of the rites and ceremonies, the system of Con- fucius sought to use subtler instruments for the Confucian perfecting of that character which should dis- Conception play itself in unfailing propriety of conduct, of Poetry These were poetry and music. In the Skii ^ Music. King^ the Emperor Shun appoints a Director of Music " to teach our sons, so that the straightforward shall yet be mild ; the gentle, dignified ; the strong, not tyranni- cal ; and the impetuous, not arrogant." This is the ancient statement. Says Confucius : " It is by the Odes that the mind is aroused. It is by the rules of propriety that the character is established. It is from music that the finish is received." ' When Confucius urged his disciples to study the Odes of the Sliih King,'' he urged them to study what was a collection of ancient poems, written at various epochs, prosperous or disastrous, virtuous or licentious, of the people's history. These, in the view of Confucian com- mentators, express sentiments appropriate to the condi- tions under which they were composed. They are duly joyful over righteous prosperity, duly resentful at dis- order, duly mournful over disaster. That is to say, they are moral or, in more Chinese phrase, correct." Odes stir the feelings of the hearers, and, if correct, rouse the feel- ings aright, all in due measure and proportion, — the State of Harmony. This is the function of poetry, correspond- ing to its nature. As is said in the " Great Preface " : " Poetry is the product of earnest thought. Thought [cherished] in the mind becomes earnest ; exhibited in words, it becomes poetry. The feelings move inwardly, ' Li Ki, xxi, i, 15. * Z«» Yu, viii, 8. ' Hsiao King, chap. i. ' Lun Yu, xvii, 9. ' II, i, 5- ' See the " Great Preface " to the Shih King. 52 ANCIENT IDEALS. and are embodied in words. When words are insufficient for them, recourse is had to sighs and exclamations ; when these are insufficient, recourse is had to the pro- longed utterances of song ; when this is insufficient, un- consciously the hands begin to wave and the feet to dance." " From music the finish is received." It is the finer analogue of poetry : " All modulations of the voice spring from the minds of men. When the feelings are moved within, they are manifested in the sounds of the voice ; and when these sounds are combined so as to form com- positions, we have what are called airs." ' Conversely, as with poetry, music influences the dispositions of the hearers, hence has an ethical effect. It should not be in- appropriate, licentious, rousing feelings improper to the situation. The ancient kings, in their institution of music as well as ceremonies, meant to teach the people to direct aright their likings and dislikings." Both ceremonies and music are needed for the perfection of character. To the performance of the one, as to the utterance of the other, there must be a correspondence in man's inner nature ; otherwise, at least for him, they are nothing.' It is, how- ever, the special function of music to promote union and affection, while ceremonies preserve distinctions and respect.* It accords with the inwardness of the Confucian ideal of character that music ideally conceived should be an inner harmony without sound, and that ceremony, like- wise ideally conceived, should be unembodied in any pre- scribed form. " When there is that ceremony without embodiment, all the demeanor is calm and gentle, when there is that music without sound, there is no movement of the will in opposition to it." ' The ancient Chinese sacrificed to the hills and rivers and ' Li Ki, xvii, i, 4. ' See Lun Yu, iii, 3. ' See Li Ki, xvii, i, 10, etc. • Li Ki, xvii, 1,15. 23, 24, 29. * Li Ki, xxvi, 5. EGYPT, CHALD^EA, AND CHINA. 53 other natural objects ; more earnestly they worshipped their ancestors with sacrifice and prayer. Divi- "Heaven" nation was the means employed to know the and Human future.' Above all these matters was the Ethical thought of the supreme and distant Heaven Endeavor, with its ordainments. Sometimes, instead of Heaven (Thien), the word " Ti " is used, which is translated " God." The Chinese terms seem equivalent in import. Heaven or- ders the world aright ; it is intelligent and observing," com- passionate, and again angered and unpitying, even unjust, sending down ruin.' Distant is it and vast.* Of no clear efficacy are prayers and sacrifices. Man must conform to its ways and hold its appointment by obeying its ordi- nances : ' " Shall not those whom great Heaven does not approve of, surely as the waters flow from a spring, sink down together in ruin ? " ° The conception of Heaven tended to lift itself farther above men, out of reach of their prayers ; it tended toward the thought of ethical law, sure and universal, but impersonal. Heaven was the source of man's nature, and in conformity to its ordinances must men live. Had Heaven possessed a vivid personality, Chinese thought of human shortcoming might have contained a sense of sin. Practically, in the system of Confucius, man must look to himself and his endeavors after right thought and act. Worship and prayer have become a part of human pro- priety and ceremonial. Not an atom of the rites and ceremonies due to ancestors or to Heaven would the rev- erent-minded master have disregarded ; but his earnest thought was directed to the proper performance of these ' See the Shu and Shih King, passim. ' Shu King, iv, viii, 2. 'See Shu King'w, xi, 2 ; v, i, i and z ; Shih King, Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Fourth Dec. Ode 7 and Ode 10; Fifth Dec, Ode i ; Maior Odes, Dec. ii, Odes 10 and 11 ; Dec. iii, 10. * Shih King, Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Fifth Dec, Ode 4. ^ Shu King, iv, 'i, 4. ' Shih King, Major Odes of the Kingdom, Dec. iii. Ode 2. 54 ANCIENT IDEALS. matters on the side of man. Righteousness, though it be conformity to the nature implanted by Heaven, must be reached through human exertions; Heaven helps not here. Confucius' teachings related not to God, but to human character and human conduct.' i Confucianism was the ethical expression of the Chinese Q . ,. . formative power and capacity. Before this Tenden- power was spent, the race had realized its cies ; destiny in stable nationality under a not intol- Taoism and ej-able government. There had always been Buddhism. ,• j r • i. • i* t^l reactionary modes of mert quietism. These found expression in " Taoism," whose founder Lao-tze, was not in all respects an originator," for in his system appear certain thoughts which Confucius also had taken from the past and adjusted to Confucianism. Lao-tze set forth his system darkly in terms of an ill-conceived abso- lute and the ineffable union of contraries ; for such is the Tao, the causative principle of all existence as well as the way or rule of conduct which men must hold to. The operation of the Tao is motiveless ; it is neither self-seek- ing nor benevolent. ° In no way does it assert itself ; yet it is the source and sustaining principle of life, and men must strive to hold it and imitate its ways. The sage will have no desires and do nothing with any purpose, either self-seek- ing or benevolent, so can he not fail to be beneficent.* Thus will he in absolute contentment preserve the Tao within him. If this fills him fully, there is in him no place for injury or death ; his is indefinite and undefined longevity.^ Likewise the Taoist sage-ruler should set the example of doing nothing with a purpose, and seeking no ' See Lun Yu, vii, 17 ; id., vii, 24 ; ii., vii, 20 ; ii., vi, 19 ; id., xi, 11. ^ See Les Origines du Taoisme, Jean de Rosny, " Revue de I'Histoire des Religions, vol. xxii (i8go) p. 161. Lao-tze's interesting but somewhat incomprehensible book is the Tao-teh-king, translated by Dr. Legge, vol, xxxix, Sacred Books of the East. ^See Tao-teh-King, 5, 7, 10, 34, 51. * See Tao-teh-King, 5, 10, 12, 15, 16, 22, 24, 27, 28, 32, 34, 35, 64. ^Ib., 16, 44, 45, 50, 52, 55, 59. EGYPT, CHALD^A, AND CHINA. 55 knowledge outside the Tao. Thus will he bring men back to the state of primitive simplicity. Taoism for its ' ideal looked back to an age of idyllic ignorance, when the people needed neither ruler nor laws, but all had the Tao. The first stage of degeneracy was the conscious exercise of benevolence and knowledge in the conduct of affairs.' In such profound absurdities, which Taoism before its degeneracy drew from its principles, it showed the same thorough-going consistency as Confucianism. But that upheld the state, while Taoism, in any imagined applica- tion to affairs, was a more than reactionary dream." It logically had no place for God ; but its history bears wit- ness how that the prayerful spirit of man, when it has reached forward to the thought of a single God, if it be cut off by some philosophy, may yield itself to every superstition. Long since has the philosophy of the Tao become idolatry mixed with magic seekings for elixirs of longevity. The course of its debasement is similar to that of Chinese Buddhism, though the latter system had fallen from its strenuous self-reliance before reaching China, where it was not introduced till the first century after Christ.' Thereafter, though occasionally persecuted, its spread was rapid, and its influence helped to turn Tao- ism into a religion. Side by side the two systems sank to kindred forms of superstition, both appealing to the inert, ignoble sides of Chinese character. China was not India, v/here grief at life's fleeting change might hold itself erect ' See Tao-Teh-King, 3, 17, 18, ig, 58, 60, 61, 64, 65. ^ From ancient China comes the noble thought of the silent, undirected, almost unintended, working of a perfect character on the characters of othei' men. Herein the influence of the Confucian superior man was like the ways of Heaven, while the influence of the Taoist sage was like the rule and principle of life, — the Tao. The active energies of Confucianism kept the application of this idea within the limits of reason. But this same thought, comporting with the rest of Taoist principles and balanced by no teachings of endeavor, confirmed that system's uselessness and sealed its fate. ^ See Beal, Buddhism in China, p. 47, etc. Some slight account of it may have reached China a century or two before. S6 ANCIENT IDEALS. on the strength of its high despair. China's strength and virtue lay in its toiling hands and toiling character. Doubt of the worth of endeavor and attainment meant life, not grieved over, but besotted. The civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China are primitive, not on account of their antiquity alone, but _ . .. . by reason of their quality and the undevel- Limitations Oped humanity which they present. Alike of these they stand for that ancient pre-requisite of Primitive civilization, ant-like, patient toil, which builds and gathers and preserves according to the calls of material well-being. They also represent a social ethics suited to the complex conventions of established and sta- tionary societies, an ethics roundly well-intentioned, with a great fund of precepts shrewd and benignant, yet, save in the case of China, related to no fundamental principles. Politically, the ideal is that of absolute monarchs wisely ruling, and constructing works of large beneficence. As free-will is an element of the concept man, it is evident that no full humanity can exist among people who, through incapacity for social freedom, — which is self- assertion self-restrained, — are incapable of forming a free community. Here was a striking race deficiency in these early peoples. From the first historic periods the rulers of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China, however wide or nar- row the territory over which they ruled, or however inse- cure their power, were absolute rulers ; and nothing points to a previous time when the people's life was not subject to a single will. Nor has capacity for free self-government ever been shown in any of these lands. Even the Chinese, with all their admirable thoughts of right conduct in the ruler and his ministers, never evolved an idea of political representative freedom in the people. A more general, less tangible, deficiency in the peoples of Egypt and Babylonia was the undiscriminating nature of their desires, and their failure to formulate distinct ideals. China's superiority lay in the Confucian ideal of EGYPT, CHALD^A, AND CHINA. S? character ; but this failed to break through its material encumbrances, and in the end became sheer ceremonial husk. This best ideal of China, bound as it was by for- malities prescribing each detail of conduct, lacked in the vital quality of freedom. Despite the conception of char- acter as inward, there was no trust placed in its spirit growth ; it must be bandaged, like the women's feet. Evidently, such character was doomed to final incom- pleteness. Possibly, had the Chinese been capable of holding to the thought of Heaven's personality, they would have had an ever-heightening standard of will and personality, rather than of form and law, from which continually to vitalize their ideal of character. Such power they lacked ; and Chinese limitations showed themselves in a race inability for spiritual concepts trans- cending the one clogged thought of a character correctly established in actions immemorially prescribed. They might not move onward in conception and endeavor toward ideals growing in correspondence to larger spir- itual judgments of the verities of human nature ; so they failed to know the freedom and the infinite crav- ing which is man. Together with the Egyptians and the peoples of Mesopotamia, they represent positive limitations, a personality matured, yet incomplete, in- capable of larger thought and fuller manhood. CHAPTER III. INDIA. AS excavation and research open new vistas of the human past, a larger estimate is formed of the gulfs of years, the accumulations of experience, and the greatness of attainment, separating the earliest recorded periods of the culture races of antiquity from their own beginnings. Though there be discovered no The Vedic t^ » » Arvans earlier monuments of a race than those al- ready known, light may be reflected on its past, and its extant records more correctly judged, from the standards of comparison afforded by increasing knowl- edge of the cruder thoughts of other peoples. The Rig- Veda is no new discovery. It is and may remain the oldest extant record of the Aryan spirit. India, at least, will have nothing more ancient to show. But wider knowledge of the ancient world, as well as better un- derstanding of the Vedic text, makes clear that the Vedic Aryans, through the times of their victorious establishment in India, were a race whose institutions and advanced humanity pre-suppose a lengthy past of growth in the qualities which make men men. The cir- cumstances of their previous life in mountain lands to the northwest of India had not evoked in them such monu- mental builder's faculties as built the temples and the tombs of Egypt, or such artistic skill as filled those tombs and temples with statuary and decoration ; nor had they the manufacturing or commercial experience of Babylon. It was not in such trappings of civilization that the Vedic 58 INDIA. 59 Aryans were rich ; but in human capacity, which is human attainment strictly speaking. The settings of their hves were simpler, but they were more of men. From the time of their first appearance in India, they possess quali- ties of mind and spirit out of the reach of Egyptians, Babylonians, or Chinese. A lack of direct knowledge of the primitive life of the Aryan race is but poorly compensated by knowledge of a number of institutions common to apparently early stages of all Indo-Germanic peoples.' Yet it may be inferred that prototypes of these institutions existed with the old Aryan stock before any group had begun its journey tow- ards a separate home and a distinct nationality. Ancient Aryan peoples show a like social and political organiza- tion. The tribal divisions are similar ; the final social unit is the family. The king or leader is chosen by the tribe, or the leadership is hereditary, but conditioned on popu- lar ratification. Wherever the Aryan tribes first appear, whether spreading through the Punjab, advancing into Greece, or wandering in the German forests, one race characteristic always asserts itself : there are no absolute rulers as against whom other members of the community have not rights, sanctioned by general recognition and maintained, if needs be, by the sword. Primitive Aryan peoples were free, free with such freedom as might not exist beneath the shadow of a Pharaoh's divinity, the spear of an Assyrian monarch, or the paternal rule of a Chinese emperor. The hymns of the Rig Veda were composed during the centuries while the Vedic Aryans were spreading through the Punjab to the heart of India and the Ganges land. It was a period of frequent wars, waged with the tribes of prior races whom the Aryans were subjugating or expel- ling, also among the Aryans themselves. The social insti- ' The word Aryan is properly applicable only to Iranians and Indians, who alone call themselves Aryans. Yet it is commonly used more loosely as equivalent to Indo-Germanic. 6o ANCIENT WEALS. tutions shown in the Veda ' are typical products of the Aryan genius ; and the political organization corresponds to the primitive organization of the German, Iranian, Slavic, and Italian races," the correspondence holding as well during war in the constitution of the host, as in peace. Kingships were hereditary or elective. The king had the right to command in war ; his was the duty to sacrifice for the people or host." The people on their side owed him obedience and gifts. To him fell a large share of booty, and of conquered lands and slaves ; splendid his attire, and great the household he maintained, wherein were bards who sang his praises. His power was limited by the people's will expressed in assemblies. The Vedic Aryans did not live in cities, nor is there evidence that they could write. The art which had reached excellence among them was the one least depen- dent on material conditions, but most imperatively de- manding the finer qualities of human nature, the art of poetry. The Rig Veda consists mainly of hymns to the gods for use at sacrifices.* They were not the spontaneous outpourings of nature's children,* but well-considered and artistic compositions. With great pains, and due regard to established metrical laws, the bards " stretch " and " weave " and " build " their poems, like careful artisans. But inspiration has its portion too : the thoughts rise in the poet's soul, or come to him from the gods ; he sees them — and then duly fashions them. In a hymn to Agni a young man must contend with an older poet — how shall he? Yet — that man who knows to reverence the god, knows aright how to weave the hymn to him : there is the ' Cf. Zimmer, Altindisches Leben ; Hopkins, Religions of India, ch. ii. ° See Maine's Village Communities, lecture iv ; Maine's Early Law and Custom, ch. viii. ^ Like the Homeric king. Compare Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 370, etc. ■* See Oldenberg, ib., p. 10, etc. ' See Pischel and Geldner, Vedische Studien, Einleitung, Heft ii, vol. i, p. xxi, etc. INDIA. 6 1 immortal light — Agni — in the singer's heart it breaks as well ; and afar draws his spirit in the quest of song.' The Vedic Aryans esteemed honesty and justice and liberality ; strong was their sense of chivalric honor ; they loved to meet in festivals, and there contend in chariot racing and in song, and enjoy music and the dance ; they loved gold and splendid garb, women and drinking. Among them also flourished lust and treachery and greed. Their thoughts were far from primitive. In the hymns, vices are satirized, as well as openly condemned." The Rig Veda is not the voice of the people, but courtly poetry in honor of the bright and high-born gods, rulers of the world, bringers of rain, bringers of wealth to noble and royal sacrificers. These great bright gods appear as nature's powers en- dowed with life and will. Some of them reach back to the times of Indo-Iranian, even Indo-Germanic, life; ° and in so far as Vedic people had traits common to all Aryans, the Vedic pantheon would reflect common Aryan traits. The Aryan man was first of all a freeman, and, whether Homer speaks or Vasishtha, man's conceived relationship to his gods is one of freedom and self-respect, even friendship. Otherwise the Vedic pan- theon is early Indian, with its conceptions developed in accordance with the Vedic temperament and the Indian environment. It was a period of advance and acquisition, growth and victory. No reason why the Vedic man should not with open trust face his gods and look to them for help. Ene- mies quailed before the Aryan hosts, and bountiful was the new home which was becoming theirs — and they its children. So speak the hymns to Indra, the very Vedic god, child of the Indian seasons, god of the towering storm, who swings the lightning, vanquishes the robber ' Rv., vi, 9. '' Rv., ix, 112 ; drunken Brahmans are satirized in vii, 103. " Cf. Oldenberg, ib., 26-38. 62 ANCIENT IDEALS. demons, brings back those cows, the clouds of heaven, breaks the drought with rain, increases the wealth of those who sacrifice to him, goes before them also in war — Indra, to whom the warrior calls in battle not in vain ; " the hero- god who as soon as born shielded the gods ; before whose might the two worlds shook — that, ye people, is Indra ; who made fast the earth and the heaving mountains, measured the space of air, upheld the heaven — that, ye people, is Indra ; who slew the serpent and freed the seven streams, rescued the cows, the pounder in battle — that, ye people, is Indra ; the dread god, of whom ye doubting^ ask, ' Where is he ? ' and sneer ' He is not,' he who sweeps away the enemy's possessions, have faith in him — that, ye people, is Indra ; in whose might stand horses, cattle, and armed hosts, to whom both lines of battle call — that, ye people, is Indra ; without whose aid men never conquer, whose arrow — little thought of ! — slays the wicked — that, ye people, is Indra." ' The Vedic people fashioned Indra out of the Indian rainstorm, a marked phenomenon, terrific yet benign. The storm winds became the Maruts, while the storm's destructive yet disease-dispelling force was the " howler," Rudra." These gods were personifications of phenomena marked in their appearance yet somewhat irregular in their action. The finer Indian poetic spirit would note their beauty, — call the Maruts " golden-breasted " ; and the Indian ethical consciousness would gradually attribute to all of them ethical qualities, making them punishers of sin. But it was to other more regular and all-compassing phenomena that the deifying Vedic spirit turned for per- sonifications with which to connect its broadening concep- tions of order, rule, custom, and right. These were the sky which overarched the earth and what took place thereon or in mid-air, and the unfailing light that from the sky flooded the world, wide fearless light, everywhere ' Rv., ii, 12. See also Rv., iv, ig ; iv, 24 ; iv, 30 ; i, 165. * Rudra is also interpreted as the Red God, lightning (Pischel). INDIA. 63 penetrating, and disclosing all. This was the home and elemental origin of Varuna and Mitra, and of the cognate gods of sure recurring light, the Riders (A^vin, Dioscuri), the first streams of gray light which lead in the Dawn ( 'Hooi, Aurora), close followed by the sun, Surya ("ilAzoj), the golden-haired, — the " eye " of Mitra- Varuna. The religions of Semitic races, culminating in Israel's conception of Jehovah, developed the thought of divine personal will as immediately all-efficient in the regulation of human affairs and all things. . The deity's will was not conceived as limited by any potency or law outside himself ; but only as self- limited by the righteousness of his personality. The ways and will of God remained the sole source and standard of human righteousness, morality, and rightly existing law. Hence with Semitic peoples — and here is Israel again the more than typical example — human guilt or criminality remained shortcoming or transgression de- termined by reference to the commands and ways of the deity ; that is to say, remained sin. Sin and righteous- ness continue a matter of personal relationship to God ; and the conception of that relationship grows with the growing compass and content of human life. Aryan races tended to form their deities by investing with life and personality the grand recurrent phenomena of nature. The personifications might be vague or mon- strous, as were many of the Indian gods, or distinct and only too human, like the gods of Greece. In the back- ground, however, was still the natural phenomenon, which, in so far as it was not the deity, existed of itself if subject to him. Moreover, if the deity's functions came to transcend the character of the phenomenon of which he was a personification, and became ethical, nevertheless the phenomenon remained visibly correlated with other phenomena ; and the observed manner of their occurrence would come to be regarded as arising from the nature of things and dependent thereupon as much as on the will of 64 ANCIENT IDEALS. the deity. With Indians as well as Greeks, the material order of the world became a linked and self-conditioned system. And the relationship between this outcome of the correlated nature of things and the power of the deity or deities touched both extremes, identity ' and in- dependence,^ and all intermediate modes of dependence. In the ancient Greek world the power of the co-ordinated nature of things came within the conception of unpersoni- fied fate, later becoming impersonal law, while the Vedic Indians regarded it as rita. The Vedic rita as well as the Greek fate — turning to law, — could form the starting- point of ethical systems based on the fitness and the nature of things, and not finding their standards in the will or ways of a personal god. And whatever names be applied to transgressions of such natural righteousness, they are not sins, because the criterion of transgression is not divine will. There is, however, an intermediate con- ception, when the standard is a god's command which, by its manifest correspondence to the fitness and nature of things, has come to coincide with fate or natural law. Rita, like the cognate words in Indo-Germanic tongues other than Sanscrit, had many meanings. It meant at all events what is set or ordered, in the sense of g. ordained for always. The primary emphasis lies in the fact of the ordainment, without regard to the cause or author or to the character of the matter which is ordered. That might be a physical event or condition, like the coming of dawn or the flowing of a river ; ° or it might be a matter of human conduct. In the world of physical phenomena invariable recurrence may have suggested the conception ; and in the moral world, observance of a custom. A like thought could apply in both provinces, since the Vedic gods, notwith- standing their ethical qualities, were personifications of ' Pantheism. ' Epicurianism (Democritus), Buddhism. ' Oldenberg, ib. , p. ig6. INDIA. 65 physical phenomena. The question of the relationship of rita to the gods is a question as to its source ; that which is rita throughout the world must be so by virtue of self- ordainment, or through the inherent principles of things, or by the ordinances of the gods. The Vedic poets spoke of rita simply, or of Varuna's rita, as indiscriminately as Homer speaks of Moipa or Moipa Bewv. Yet rita be- comes a universal principle of physical and moral order, and though by no means identical with the Greek " fate," it likewise served as starting-point for the conception of universal law, self-ordered or springing from the nature of things, at least not dependent on the will of any god. Varuna and Mitra, before all other gods, uphold the physical and moral order of the world ; they are " Lords of Rita," Watchers over it, its Charioteers and Guides. The more prominent is Varuna, who sees all, knows all, orders all; from whom nothing can be hid.' He is the protector of the good. Whoever transgresses, sins against Varuna," and may be punished by him. Yet he is a god of pity and forgiveness. His hymns express the loftiest ethics of the Veda. In the following a sinner prays for- giveness : " Wise and great is verily his being, who set apart the two worlds, uplifted the firmament, and spread out the stars and the earth. " And I say to myself. When shall I be near Varuna again ? What sacrifice will he accept without anger ? When shall I, encouraged, behold his pity ? " I search for my sins ; I long to see them. I go to enquire regarding them of such as understand. With one voice the wise answer me : It is Varuna who is angry with thee. " What was the great sin, Varuna, for which thou wilt slay thy singer, thy friend ? Tell me that, thou unfailing one, thou free ; through my devotion will I speedily atone. ' See e.g. Rv. i, 25. ' Transgression may be a sin against other gods as well. See Hv. ii, 27, 14 ; vii, 57, 4 ; vii, 58, 5. VOL I— 5 66 ANCIENT IDEALS. " It was not my own will,Varuna ; madness was it, drink, play, passion, thoughtlessness. From the youth's error, shall the older man take counsel. Even sleep frees us not from wrong. " As a servant will I satisfy the gracious one, the zealous god, so that I may be guiltless. The god of the Aryans has given foresight to the careless, the Wise One calls the intelli- gent to riches." ' The Veda contains no distinct authoritative formula- tion of belief as to life after death ; yet there vi^as an expectation of happiness for the good in the mmor- heaven where King Yama, the first mortal, tality. ruled.' Immortality might be conferred by Soma, the divine drink of Indra : " Where there is ex- haustless light, where is set the sun, place me there, O Soma, in the lasting world of immortality. Where Viva- sant's son (Yama) is king, where the eternal waters flow, where are the worlds of light, there make me immortal. Where there is joy and bliss and pleasure, where the wish's wish is reached, there make me immortal." ° The import of these phrases may not have been spiritual ; yet in their vague and abstract nature they are Indian. Long had the Vedic Aryans prayed to Indra and Varuna, and long had they conquered in battle, till there came rest and partial peace. Then had Vedic they time to doubt their gods and ponder on J life's mysteries, as in the extraordinary, perhaps still misunderstood, hymn to the god Who.' Vedic thought was often pleased to muse in modes of cos- mogonic speculation. Thus it broached the unanswerable queries, foundation stones of the edifice of human ques- tionings. The Veda speaks of the world's origin in various ways, alike illustrative of the primitive confusion of meta- phor and fact, which was not to pass away till its place in ^Hv., vii, 68. Trans, from Oldenberg, ib., p. 2g6. Cf. Rv., vii, 89. * There were also forming conceptions of hell. See Oldenberg, ib., p. 536, etc. 'Rv., ix, 113. *Rv., X, 121 ; cf. vii, 87, 4, and ii, 12. INDIA. 67 Indian thought had been taken by a symbolism and sub- jectivity disdainful of distinction between desire and real- ization, the symbol and the symbolized. The Vedic poets speak of the world as built, as a house is built by a car- penter ; they also use metaphors of generation as state- ments of fact ; and again the world is regarded as having been brought into being by the power of sacrifice.' The spirit of the brooding time to come dawns in a late Vedic hymn of vague and dreamful speculation as to first begin- nings : " Then was there neither Being nor not-Being ; neither the air nor the sky above. Did anything stir ? and where ? under protection of what ? Was there water and the Abyss ? " Neither death nor immortality was there. Only One breathed of itself, unbreathed on ; beyond this, there was nothing else. " Darkness sunk in darkness was in the Beginning, every- thing surged commingled ; the void rested on empty space, yet One came to life by the power of warmth. " In It arose desire, the mind's first seed. The Wise, with insight searching in the heart, found out the way of Being in not-Being. " Whence the creation came, whether made or not made, he only knows whose eye watches it from highest heaven — or he may know it not." " Vedic customs and the notions underlying them are more distinctly connected with the thoughts and institu- tions of later times through the sacrificial cul- tus, wherein the two central conceptions were Soma and the fire god, Agni, and Soma, the drink-offer- ^^"j = ^^"^J , ■ , . ,. , , ,,r , rificeand mg, which itself became a god. More than Subiec- any other members of the Indian pantheon, tivity. Soma and Agni represented, symbolized, and became other gods.' Vedic and subsequent priestly ' See Wallis, Cosmology of the Rig Veda. '' Sv., X, 129, Kaegi's Hig Veda, p. I2i ; Geldner and Kaegi, Siebenzig Lieder, Ixvii ; cf. Rv. , x, 72 ; x, 190. ' See e. g. Rv., v, 3 ; i, 91 ; ix, 77 ; cf. Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 105, etc. 68 ANCIENT IDEALS. thought regarding them, beginning in unconscious confu- sion, gives itself over to the unrestricted treatment of symbol as fact, and then to flights of subjective imagin- ings which become their own realization. Agni is twofold, the heavenly and the earthly : ' the heavenly Agni dwells in the fire and light of the sun, and, as the lightning fire, is born in the clouds. Various myths tell how he was brought down to earth.' His chief earthly origin is in the two sticks rubbed together to pro- duce the sacred fire. No kindlier friend of man than the Agni of the hearth and sacrificial fire. He was the wise priest-god, knowing well the natures of all the gods and means of moving them to favor sacrificers, the mediating god, descending from the lightning clouds, re-ascending from mankind with the propitiating sacrifice or moving prayer or god-compelling spell. When Indian thought but vaguely distinguished the personalities of gods, and often identified them because of like divine efficiency, Agni could not fail to be identified with all the gods whose functions he quickened to an activity accordant with their worshippers' desires. A god is the personifica- tion of power ; how sever from that power the power moving it to action, making it efficient? Quite naturally the moving power, the priestly god, unites with all the powers it moves, becomes identical with each of them, even with all of them. Agni, the bright, beneficent potency of fire, which drove the demons of disease from Aryan hearths, had been a god long before he became the priestly effectuator of the sacrificer's wish. Soma had been the sacrifice itself, the spirituous drink-offering poured to gods before the separa- tion of the Iranian and Vedic stock.^ In India it held its venerable place as the most sacred sacrificial substance : especially was it the sacrifice offered to that chief Vedic ' See Rv. , iii, i, translated and commented on by Geldner, in Pischel and Geldner's Vedische Studien, i, 157-170, ' See Oldenberg, ibid., p. 121. ' It is the Haoma of the Avesta. INDIA. 69 god, Indra ; it inspired him with benevolence towards sacrificing men and the fulness of strength needed in his tempest-conflict with the demon ravishers. From being the substance and the means of sacrifice, which imparted strength to the god as well as rendered him propitious, Soma became the active strength which Indra got from it, as well as the quick benevolence of will which it aroused in him ; so it was invested with his living efficiency and became Indra.' As a god its nature was moulded by the nature and the function of that of which it was the personification ; that is, by the spirituous, exhilarating, intoxicating nature of Soma as a drink, and certainly by its sacrificial function, which was to inspire Indra with power and good will. Like Agni, Soma the god became a deity which roused other gods to the activity desired by the sacrificer, and like Agni might be identified with all the gods whose efficiency it moved, whose efficiency it was. But the development and changes of Soma's divinity proceeded by a peculiarly symbolic and subjective process, which even in the Veda was sufficiently marked to form a connecting link between those ancient poems and the symbolism and subjectivity of the times which were to follow. With many comparisons and meta- phors is the sacrifice of Soma represented as effectu- ating its purpose ; then the metaphors became statements of facts." Again, Soma is the visible expression of the sacrificer's wish to move the god to whom it is offered ; and the sacrifice has the desired effect : then it becomes not only the symbol of the wish but the symbol of the wish realized, the symbol of the efficiency which brings that wish to realization : and then the symbolism passes away — if indeed there had ever been a clear conscious- ness that it was symbolism, — and there is left, Soma the wish. Soma the wish realized, Soma the efficiency which realized the wish. Soma the god. ' See Rv., i, 91. "^Cf. e. g. Rv., ix, 36 with Rv., ix, 28. 70 ANCIENT IDEALS. The Vedic composers had not passed beyond an ani- mistic conception of nature. The more prominent natural phenomena had been personified in gods whose Post- Vedic ^ , , . ^ ,v ^ J J * Th ht vague and changmg personahties tended to con- fusion with one another ; perhaps there may have been the thought of universal deity under many names and forms. Before there was a clearer appre- hension of nature, a contemplative, subjective trend set in, which should ring fantastic changes on crude appre- hensions of phenomena, and preclude observation or the drawing of clear inference from better apprehended fact. The Yajur Veda, put together in the period following the Rig, knows no difference between fact and symbol. This Veda of the sacrificial words and ritual, the oldest Indian prose composition,' is a dreary mass of foolishness, where- by men learn to conduct sacrifices requiring a lifetime for completion and a troop of priests.' Unless the officiating Brahman betrays him, the master of the sacrifice obtains cattle or offspring, or effects the destruction of those he fears or hates, or deprives them of cattle or food ! The various ceremonial parts of the sacrifice are more than symbolical of various gods and the desires of the sacri- ficers ; they are those gods and effect the sacrificer's will." The sacrifice has, in fact, become the greatest power, effi- cient and creative for men and gods ;* vitality, breath, eye, hearing, speech, the priest, the lights of heaven, and the sacrifice itself, — all come into being through the sacrifice.' And the Brahmans also, who conduct the sacrifices, have become gods.' 'Schroeder, Indiens Lileratur und Kultur, p. 88, etc. ' See ib., Vorlesung 8. ' See e. g. Satapatha-Brahmana, Sacred Books of the East, vol xii, pp. 78, 158, 159, 299. * ' ' Verily by means of the Great Oblation the gods slew Vitra ; by means of it they gained that supreme authority which they now wield ; and so does he (the sacrificer) thereby now slay his wicked, spiteful enemy, and gain the victory ; this is why he performs this sacrifice." — Satapatha-Brahmana, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xii, p. 417 ; cf. ib., pp. i6o, 437, 449. ' See Schroeder, ib., p. 137, etc. ' See Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 179. INDIA. 71 These notions were the lower products of the spirit which reached the summit of its course of subjectivity along another path. In the Rig Veda there Prayer appears a god called Brihaspati or Brahmanas- Becomes pati, the lord of prayer. This god by himself, or Very-God. with the priests, sang sacrificial songs, or spoke the prayer or magic words ; and as prayer and spell, like the warrior's arm, win battles, Brihaspati becomes priest war-god, along with hero war-god Indra.' In this conception there might be seen little peculiarly subjective if light were not thrown back upon it by the fortunes which awaited the word forming the first part of the name — Brahma, meaning " prayer." Prayer, persuasive utterance addressed to a being capable of graciousness, readily in India as else- where, passes to " spell," the rightly uttered word which compels action or directly compasses a result. This inter- change of meaning was analogous to the changing of the thought of sacrifice as a propitiatory offering to sacri- fice as magic means of forcing from a god the fulfil- ment of the sacrificer's wish. And, finally, as the sacrifice, from being efficacious as persuasion or compul- sion, itself became efficient, a potency and a god, so in more than corresponding manner, Brahma, prayer, spell, desire expressed, becomes desire attained, spell which has worked, prayer which has wrung its granting — from itself. Ignoring obstacles, ignoring facts, the all-compassing, desirous Indian will conceives its own fulfilment ; that con- ception takes to itself efficiency to do, become, or be, all, absolutely all. Brahma has become absolute, all-inclusive Deity. And Indian brooding, mystic subjectivity, having evolved Brahma, attains it for each man in the conception of the Absolute Self, the Atma." As a subject of thought death is not equally absorbing at all times. Men tend to think of the matter in hand ; and so long as a race is occupied in strenuous action, it ' See Oldenberg, ib., pp. 66, 67. ^ Cf. Deussen, System des Vedanta, p. 127 and p. 50 £f. 72 ANCIENT IDEALS. will not muse overmuch on death. While the Vedic Aryans were conquering India and establishing them- Deathand selves in their new home, they would hardly Imperma- pause to ponder on the shortness of life, which nence. indeed might continue in Yama's heaven. Yet the Vedic period had not passed before they began to muse on the world's origin and mysteries. They were an intel- lectual people, taking pleasure in contests of sharp ques- tion and clever answer, as well as in the contest of song with song. The age of conquest spent itself, and the influences of the physically enervating land told upon a race which had been fostered in a mountain home. As centuries went on, this people, having become contem- plative, appears as if repelled by the quick growth and quick decay of living things in India. That was all imper- manence and limitation ; the Indian spirit was questing immortality. The world without was a phantasmagoria wherein change and death seemed the sole realities. The Hindoo turned his mind upon his own desires set on immutability and deathlessness. He had never thought of closely scanning things without ; he had never distin- guished metaphor from fact ; nor was he now distinguish- ing symbolism from identity. The material and sacred mode of expressing his desires was the sacrifice, which had become all that it symbolized, all that it would effect. This was the priestly mode of effecting whatever was desired : and the sacrifice had become the chief concern of life. To the prevalent conception of it, which stands for the climax of Indian foolishness, there was a more rational counterpart in the philosophy of the metaphysi- cal treatises termed Upanishads. Here, still untrammelled by any sense of fact, the Hindoo genius reasons out its reasonings most profoundly. One expression of the Hindoo horror of impermanence was the doctrine of recurrent death which awaited hopeless Re-Death; rebirth in forms human or bestial. On re- Yearnings, death rather than rebirth fell the emphasis of the Indian conception of transmigration. The Hindoo INDIA. 73 spirit viewed all things from the side of their change and cessation ; hence they were valueless, only lures, torments, pitfalls of death : — Shall we be happy with maidens, horses, wealth, kingship, when we see thee, O Death ! ' — this is the Hindoo mood, the Hindoo negation. Its posi- tive side is the yearning for the imperishable and immu- table, a yearning to reach a condition not subject to change and death. The teaching of the Upanishads is that this absolute condition shall be attained by appre- hending and desiring it and nothing else. What and as men know and think and desire they are. Know Brahma, the universal Absolute ; know that man's self, the Atma, is It ; know and desire only It, and It is reached. The conception of an Absolute has teased the human mind in many lands. In two ways men have tried to reach the thought : by a positive accumulative Brahma process — the Absolute is this, and this, and this, the Abso- and all things ; by a negative, abstracting pro- 1"*^ : the cess — the Absolute is not that, nor that, n or that, ^^'^ '® ''• nor any particular thing." In India, Gotama Buddha was to drive the latter process through to its conclusion ; but in the meanwhile the Brahmanical composers of the Upanishads pursued for the most part the cumulative way.' Brahma, the universal Absolute, was all Being, all that really was, that really saw, heard or knew ; Brahma was the essential being and efficient principle of all things ; or, by means of the conception of reality as everywhere identical, Brahma might perhaps be conceived as the totality of existence. Having by a process of cumulative symbolism reached a conception of Brahma, the Hindoo genius after its own peculiar modes identified the veritable ' See the story of Naciketas in the Katha- Upanishad ; vol, xv. Sacred Books of the East, p. i, etc. ' Of the latter process the philosophy of Plotinus affords the great ancient example. See post, chap. xvi. 'See for a prime example the Chdndogya-Upanishad, passim ; vo\. i., Sacred Books of the East. The Indian commentators on the Upanishads, however, pursued both modes ; cf. Thibaut, Vedanta- Sutras, Introduction pp. xxiv-xxix, vol. xxxiv, Sacred Books of the East. 74 ANCIENT IDEALS. being of each man with this universal Absolute. It did not leap at once to a conclusion by means of a sweeping pantheistic syllogism : Brahma is all ; therefore man, with the rest of the apparent manifold of existence, is Brahma. It chose symbols for man's self, and then through modes of subjective thought it distended that self to identification with the sum of the objects of man's knowledge and desires. Thus the self was extended throughout all existence to mutually all-permeating uni- versal identity with Brahma, till the two conceptions became indistinguishable. All this may be traced in the Chdndogya-Upanishad. It opens with an injunction to meditate on the syllable p. . . _Om, the sacred syllable which must be pro- Upanishad • nounced before and after reading the Veda. Symbolism Om stands for the essence of the Veda, which and Sub- jg (-hg essence of speech, which is the essence J ive y. ^£ man, who is the essence of plants, which are the essence of water, which is the essence of the earth, which is the essence of all things. That is to say, the syllable Om may be meditated upon as the symbol of all these various types of being. Thereupon the Upanishad runs the symbolism up and down through all existences, in- cluding the elements of human being. " Om is all this " and " all this is Brahma." ' Then it proceeds : Let a man meditate on all the world as Brahma. " Now man is a creature of will. According to what his will is in this world, so will he be when he has departed this life. Let him therefore have this will and belief," that the intelli- gent, spirit-like, true-thinking, all-pervasive, all-effecting yet invisible and unspeaking Brahma is the self within the heart, smaller than a mustard seed, greater than the earth and sky.^ ' Sacred Books of the East, vol. i, p. iff., pp. 35, 45. ' lb., vol. I, p. 48. Tlie word " self" is perhaps the best English render- ing of Atma. Brahma having been declared to be the " self," a symbol for the self is named in a subsequent part of the Upanishad. ' ' The person INDIA. 75 Subsequently there is given furtiier explanation of what is Brahma, and the result of knowing it. It is said that the Vedas are a name ; '' he who meditates on name as Brahma is, as it were, lord and master as far as the name reaches. Speech is better than a name ; he who medi- tates on speech as Brahma is, as it were, lord and master as far as speech reaches. Mind is better than speech (repeating the " he who meditates," etc.). Will is better than mind. He who meditates on will as Brahma, he being himself safe, firm, and undistressed, obtains the safe, firm, and undistressed worlds which he has willed ; he is, as it were, lord and master as far as will reaches. Consideration is better than will (repeating the " he who meditates," etc.). Reflection is better than consideration. Understanding is better than reflection. Power is better than understanding. Food is better than power. He who meditates on food as Brahma, obtains the worlds rich in food and drink. Water is better than food. Fire is better than water. Ether (or space) is better than fire. Memory is better than ether. Hope is better than memory. He who meditates on hope as Brahma, all his desires are fulfilled by hope, his prayers are not in vain. Spirit (prana) is better than hope ; as the spokes of a wheel hold to the nave, so do names, speech, mind, will, etc., hold to the spirit. Father means spirit, mother is spirit, brother, sister, tutor, Brahman, all are spirit. For after the spirit has gone out of them, they are not to be regarded as father, mother, brother, sister, tutor, or Brahman." It is then suggested that there is yet a broader truth ; "The Infinite is bliss. There is no bliss in anything finite. Where one sees nothing else, understands nothing that is seen in the eye, that is the self. This is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahma.'' — lb., vol. i, p. 67; Chan.-Up., IV, 15, i. Another important symbol of the self was prana, the breath of man ; which indeed may have been at one time regarded as a satisfactory conception of life, and of the self. See Kaushitaki-Up., iii, 2 (vol. i, Sacred Books, p. 294). 76 ANCIENT IDEALS. else, that is the Infinite. The Infinite is indeed below, above, behind, before, right and left ; it is indeed all this. The Infinite is the I. I am below, I am above, I am behind, before, right and left — I am all this. The Infinite is the self ; self is below, above, behind, before, right and left ; self is all this. He who sees, perceives, and understands this, loves the self, delights in the self, revels in the self : he is lord and master in all the worlds. But those who think differently from this, live in perish- able worlds, and have other beings for their rulers. To him who sees, perceives, and understands this, the spirit springs from the self, hope springs from the self, memory springs from the self ; so do ether, fire, water, appearance and disappearance, food, power, understanding, reflection, consideration, will, mind, speech, names, sacred hymns and sacrifices, — all, all this, springs from the self." " It is elsewhere taught that there are two kinds of knowledge, first that of the Vedas and the sacrificial ceremonies ; through practice of these matters a man ad- vances to better conditions of existence ; but not to the best. That comes by the higher knowledge of Brahma,' by knowing which a man becomes Brahma. It is Brahma which is the self, which sent forth all existence in the beginning ; ° and it is the same self by which we see and hear and smell, and utter speech, and will and know :' that is the see-er which cannot be seen, the hearer which can- not be heard ; ' " the one eternal thinker, thinking non- eternal thoughts." ° He who fails rightly to conceive the self, will perish continually, unable to desire what he does not know.'' Let a man know that all is Brahma, let him ' Chandogya-Upanishad, Sacred Books, vol. i, pp. 109—125. ^ Mundaka-Upanishad, vol. xv, Sacred Books, pp. 27, etc. ^ Aiteraya-Aranyaka, ii, 4, I ; Sacred Books, vol. i, p. 237, etc. */*., 6, I. ^ Prasna-Up., iv, 7-10. *• Katha-Up., ii, 5-13 ; Sacred Books, vol. xv, p. ig. 'See Brihadaranyaka-Up., iv, 4, 19; Sacred Books, vol. xv, p. 179; Chandogya-Up., viii, 7-1 1. INDIA. "J-J fix his mind on that, understand it, and desire only it. Let him purify his mind from all desires for the manifold of sense, from all the apparent which is subject to change and death.' Thereby shall he attain Brahma : " It stirs and it stirs not ; it is far and likewise near. It is inside all this, and it is outside all this. And he who beholds all beings in the self, and the self in all beings, he never turns away from it. When to a man who understands, the self has become all things, what sorrow, what trouble, can there be to him who has once beheld that unity ? " " Thus has the Hindoo genius conceived Brahma and the self, at first perhaps as correlates, the universal Abso- lute and the temporarily apparently individu- alized part thereof, but as correlates never Abandon- ,,,...,, , , ment of In- clearly distmguished and soon to be con- diyidualitv founded to identity. The use of the term " self " must not disguise the fact that in the process of becoming free from death, from the transient and the perishable, the Hindoo has abandoned individuality and the natural desires of men, whereby they, as individual organisms which they are, must advance ,and fulfil their lives. The whole content of individual life, the whole content of all the life men know and have experience of or can conceive, this has been sacrificed for a blank dream of oneness with Brahma. Perception, reflection, knowl- edge, consciousness rest in duality : subject and object there must be. He who has reached the absolute All- one, no longer sees or thinks or knows, and therefore says the sage Yajnavalkya, in the Brakmana of a Hundred Paths, " There is no consciousness after death." " 'See e. g. Maitrayana-Brahmana-Up., vi, 34 ; vii, 7-8 ; Katha-Up., i, 2 ; Brihadaranyaka-Up., ii, 4. '' Isa-Up., 5-7 ; vol. I, Sacred Books, p. 312. ^ It is questionable whether the Upanishads commonly recognize this ul- timate conclusion. The thought of absorption in Brahma was of gradual growth, and throughout the Upanishads there is continual reversion to a hope of an immortality wherein the individual consciousness is not lost. Popular beliefs naturally would accord with this hope rather than with the ultimate teaching of the Upanishads. 78 ANCIENT IDEALS. The higher teachings of the Atma and Brahma, the absolute All-One, did not constitute part of Indian popu- lar religion.' Instead, there was a vague and opu ar various polytheism wherein the gods most Religion. ., r , ,/•, TT promment perhaps from the end of the Upani- shad period were Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, who were at a later time to be united in the threefold concept of Cre- ator, Preserver, and Destroyer." Brahma (masculine) was the personified popular counterpart of Brahma (neuter), and a final stage in the mutation of the word which had once meant " prayer." ' There are two Indian epics, into which have poured divers streams of all things Indian. The lesser poem, the Ramaydna, makes some approach to being an The Epics, organic whole. It is a priestly, sacrificial, magic, ascetic story, with slight genuine heroic motive. The Mahd-Bhdrata, however, has as its epic base the story of a war fought through with hero-valor to the end. This story of the struggle of two rival noble and related races for supremacy underwent extension and revision ; and in the course of centuries there was heaped upon it a mass of myth and legend, religious, priestly, and ascetic lore, interspersed with moral discourse and philosophic treatise, till the epic element was overladen, broken, and distorted. The Mahd-Bhdrata reached its present form through the opposing action of two forces, the epic motive, which spent itself in the composition of the central story, and the Brahmanical tendencies which turn the acts and words of the epic heroes to exemplifications of teachings of re- nunciation.' Both poems are filled with measureless and tedious exaggeration, whereby is rendered dreary com- pensation for the lack of human reality. Yet in them may be found Indian ideals of heroism, love and devotion, ' See Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 244, etc., and p. 349, etc. ' See Schroeder, Indiens Literatur und Kultur, pp. 321^., 359. ' ty. e. g. Schroeder, ib.^ p. 244 ; and ante. ^ See especially the Bhagavat-gita, which has been preserved as an episode in the Mahd-Bharata. It is translated in vol. viii, Sacred Books of the East. INDIA. 79 justice, self-restraint, and righteousness. It is their final teaching that even for the valiant and good, whose righteous deeds have been crowned with glorious success, life and its fruits crumble to derisive dust in the hand of the hero who, through high resolve and happy attainment, has grasped them at last. Valiant should the warrior be, because it is right for him to do his duty as a Kshatrya. Devoted must be the wife, tender must be the husband. Also, justice, truth, and open-handed giving are for all to follow, and the opposite of them brings misery and over- throw even on earth. But foolish is he whose just and righteous acts have for their motives visible good to the doer. And to the strong-armed and enduring hero who sees at last, fair before his eyes, the result of his life's toil and sweat, peace and rest come only when he turns his longing eyes aside, and renounces. It were not difficult, from the code of Manu and other legal writings, to obtain more precise expression of Brah- man ethics than has been given. But the ethics of pre-Buddhistic Brahmanism, as in the Brahman Bralunanas and Upanishads, are found taken Ethics, up and carried to sharper expression in early Buddhist writings, and afterwards are again formally ex- pressed in the law books, but with the Atma teachings in the place of Buddhist dogma. As the courtly pagan writers at Rome during the second and third centuries ignored the existence of Christianity, so this later Brah- manical literature ignores the existence of Buddhism, while owing to it the sharper development of ethical prin- ciples, which existed but crudely in the earlier Brahman compositions.' By the sixth century before Christ, the prestige of the Brahman caste had risen till its members were veritable gods. Hindoo society had become sharply separated into four castes, of each of which there were minor divisions, and had subjected itself to observance of an infinite web ' The doctrine of Karma is specially referred to here. 8o ANCIENT IDEALS. of ceremonial usages regulative of every act of daily life. These usages were in general related to conceptions of ceremonial purity and impurity connected with conditions indispensable for valid performance of sacrifice, and so with the obtaining of all imaginable good. The higher the caste, the greater the complex of performance and conformity required of its members. Above all, the life of the Brahman was prescribed from birth to death. After his childhood, he shall pass the first quarter of his life as a student in a teacher's house ; the second quarter as a married householder ; then, when he sees his skin wrinkled and the sons of his sons, he shall go to the forest ; and for the last part of all he shall, as an ascetic, wander home- less without desires till he die.' Austerities were frequently practised by hermits, to whom merely dwelling in the benign Indian forest was not sufficient purification. It was these wood-dwellers, vXo^ioi, that the Greek Megasthenes mentions as the most honored ascetics.'' But both to the hermit dwelling in a wood and to the beggar-wanderer, asceticism was the prime means of effecting freedom from desire. It had in Buddha's time become the chief Indian meritoriousness of life.^ ' The details of all these matters may be found in the sacred law books, mostly called Dharma Sutras ; Apastamba, Gautama, Vashistha, Vishnu, and Manu ; and more especially domestic matters in the Grihya Sutras. See for translations, vols, ii, vii, xiv, xxv, xxix, xxx, xxxiii, of Sacred Books of the East. The hermit and ascetic life was not for Brahmans alone, though only for them was it the rule. ^ Says he also, " Much of their talk is about death." — Fragments of Megasthenes, quoted by Strabo, xv, 59. Megasthenes was ambassador of Seleucus Nicator to Chandra Gupta. ^ In striking analogy to the conception of sacrifice had been the growth of the notion of the nature and effect of ascetic penance. The sacrifice is at first propitiatory or deprecatory with a tendency to become magical ; then it becomes a potency in itself. Likewise the penance began as an atonement for sin and means of purification, then was practised as a way to positive merit, and then it becomes a means whereby the person prac- tising it acquires might and power over natural phenomena as well as over gods and men. Penance, self-mortification finally, like the sacrifice, INDIA. 8 1 Union with Brahma could not be reached through any acts, not through good deeds, not even by sacrifices or austerities, except in so far as the latter brought cessation of desire. Acts were acts, and could not lift themselves out of the world of action to the Absolute. As the fixing of desire upon the Absolute reached that, so acts begot conditions of phenomenal existence, other states of action ; ' and according as they were good or bad, entailed in this" or succeeding lives a better or worse con- dition. The criterion of what was good and bad was the complex of domestic, social, and ceremonial precept, which had come into existence mainly through Brahman influences. It was a caste morality tempered by the principle that in succeeding lives the effect of good acts might overleap caste divisions.' And it was a code which inculcated self-restraint, mild and forgiving conduct, for- bade harshness and revenge, and urged charity and kind deeds," especially charity and boundless generosity towards Brahmans. " Not to commit corporal injury, to speak the truth, not to steal, to be pure, to restrain the senses, this condensed rule of duty Manu declared for the four castes." ^ One virtue is not enough ; all must be attained. " Austerity is useless to him who is destitute of sacred learning, and sacred learning to him who is destitute of austerity." " " The Vedas do not purify him who is defi- cient in good conduct, though he know them all." ' With unerring certainty every act brings its result,— a meritorious act, a good result in a succeeding life, a delin- becomes a cosmogonic power whereby Brahma creates the world. See Schroeder, Indiens Literatur und Kultur^ pp. 388-395. ' See Manu, xii, 88-gi. "See Vasishtha, vi, 6-8 ; Manu iv, 170-172. ^ Cf. Apastamba, ii, i, ii, 2. Dreadful was the retribution appointed for the misdeeds of a man of lower caste against a Brahman. A Brahman might vilify a Sudra as he chose. See Gautama, xii and xxi. ■■See^. ^. Vishnu, xci ; Gautama, viii, 23 ; i, 8, 22, 23 ; ii, 3, 7. ' See Manu, x, 63. ' Vasishtha, xxvi, 17 ; Sacred Books, vol. xiv. '7/5., vi. VOL r — 6 82 ANCIENT IDEALS. quent act, a bad result. This ethical code is a system of linked merit and demerit. Good acts accumulate a cer- tain quantity of good result ; bad acts diminish that result, or, if greater than the individual's good acts, pro- duce a minus result downward in the stages of exist- ence.' The ill results of evil deeds may also be counteracted by atonement or penance performed during the life in which the evil act is done." In such a system as this, by whatever name delinquent acts are called, and the tend- ency is to adhere to customary phraseology and call them sins, it is clear that they have ceased to come under the stricter conception of sin, as transgression of a deity's command, whereby his displeasure is incurred. In this Brahmanic code, delinquency is that which entails evil results. The effect entailed upon the doer by the act is the sole sanction of conduct ; while the criterion, or rather schedule, wherein all acts of life are tabled good or bad, is the complex of rules prescribed by the Brahmans. There is already ceasing to be a logical place for God, his will or ways, his pleasure and displeasure, recompense and punishment, in a world wherein man's good or ill is thus worked out. And already may be noticed, what becomes clearer in Buddhism, how that under this system of transmigration and this doctrine of Karma, — the power of the act over successive existences upward or down- ward, — human individuality has become relationship, the relationship of a sum of acts and their result to a doer. It is a matter of the connection of that doer's present existence to the next, to which the sum of his acts brings him. His acts are that connection, and keep the individual himself ; but no sum of acts leads to a heaven whence man will not be born again ; no acts can free from change and death. Such freedom comes through the abandon- ' See Manu, iv, 238-243 ; xi, 228-234 ; xii, 40 ; Apastamba, i, i, i, 5 ; ii, i, ii, 3 ; Gautama, xi, 2g, 30 ; Manu, ii, 2-5 ; Vishnu, xx, 28 ff. ° See e. g. Afastamba, i, g, 24, to 2^. , i, 10, 29 ; Manu, xi. INDIA. 83 ment of desire and all action done with desire of result, so that the mood may be centred on the final goal of oneness with the Absolute. Of necessity this path lay through renunciation of all acts done with purpose and " attachment to their fruits," — lay, that is, through the abandonment of that which was the cord of individuality. And the far goal of the final attainment of the absolute All-One meant for such thinkers as would carry the thought out to its conclusion, a merging of consciousness as well. The heart of India was set on an immortality which should attain the unchanging, the eternal, the absolute and infinite. The more strenuous modes of Indian reasonings abandon human individuality as ap- parently subject to change and death and an impediment to the attainment of the Absolute. CHAPTER IV. THE BUDDHA. THE sixth century before Christ was a time of mental activity in India. The Hindoo genius was pleasur- ably occupying itself with insoluble problems, the data of which were transcendent or did not exist ; the Hindoo spirit, the Hindoo heart, was sick with thinking upon change and death. This Hindoo heart, Buddmsm a yearning away from all things transient, has Resultant ^., ,^. ' . . .^ .\ ., . „ , Revolution ^ith desire creative in its intensity impelled the Hindoo mind to conceive Brahma and think the Self of man to be that Absolute. It was a dream. The Hindoo metaphysical genius might find ceaseless occupation in its elaboration ; but the Hindoo heart, subjectively creative as it was, found the dream vague and the phantom thereof such as might not be clasped. Desire may not forever satisfy itself on fanciful creations. If it do not dissipate to a dialectic and scholas- tic interest in the creatures of its ratiocinations, it cannot but find their insubstantiality a mockery. In the end, yearning that remains real will be strung to vision, and abandon fulfilments seen to be imaginary. So came it, though argument and metaphysical discussion, with wordy priestly jugglings as to significance of caste and rite and sacrifice, were taking up the minds of many men in India, that there were others whose spirits might not so be quenched. They had had enough of metaphysics ; and where was reality in all the fantastic symbolism and sub- jective fancy of attainment of the heart's desire ? Life's 84 THE BUDDHA. 85 manifold content of change and death was unsatisfying, loathsome, sorrow-stricken through and through. But recognize it ; cease from imaginings ; whatever refuge may yet be found, let it be real.' The needs of the time, and that answer to them which was rendered inevitable by the previous courses of Indian thought, reached " name-and-form " in Gotama Buddha. Under the inspiration of his greatness, a renewed reality enters Indian thought. Gotama's system was a marvel- lous exemplification of one of its fundamental principles. Karma, the power of the previous act. For in Buddhism the necessities of Indian thought reached their issue, and the needs of the tired Indian heart found the only refuge open to the pointings of its mood. It was a further and transcendent greatness of Gotama's teaching that, though an outcome of Indian thought and an answer to Indian needs, it burst through Indian bands of caste and custom, compassed certain broad human, or at least Asiatic, veri- ties, and so was fitted to become, not indeed a universal religion for mankind, but at all events a religious system, or rather congeries of religious systems, for a large part of Asia. In India, Buddhism was dogmatically a revolution, but a most consequent one, showing how the progress of race tendencies may quite suddenly produce doctrines diamet- rically opposed to those previously held. The chief practices of Brahmanism were sacrifice and ascetic pen- ance. Buddhism pronounced against both. Brahmanism held to an absolute All-One, Brahma, and to a Self which is It. In the place of a dethroned Absolute, Buddhism set up ceaseless change, nor recognized the existence of a self, or any imperishable entity in man. The deeper philosophic thought of India, having displaced the ancient ' Buddhism was not alone in finding all life suffering. The same thought underlies the Samkya philosophy of Kapila, not unlikely an earlier system than Buddhism. It was also atheistic, like Buddhism. See R. Garbe, ZlzV Samkya-P hilosophie , passim and pp. I'i'iff. and 191^. 86 ANCIENT IDEALS. semblances of gods with an impersonal Absolute, might not go back and pray to the old fancies. It must go on. And from the absolute Brahma onwards there was but one step, though it seems a large one — from Brahma to no Brahma, — a step which also involved abandoning the absolute Self in man. With no Absolute nor any god, man, whatever he was, had nothing to rely on but him- self. He was his own lord and refuge in a world of change and death, wherein was nothing worth. With this recog- nition, the Hindoo mood of pain at transitoriness intensi- fied and widened to include all life. So Buddha says all life is suffering ; for man there is only detachment. Herein is he lord indeed ; he may renounce — no other being for him — and thereby cease from sorrow. Said the young Brahman to Death : " Keep thou thy horses, keep dance and song for thyself. Shall we be happy with these things, seeing thee ? " ' " How is there laughter," says the Buddhist, " how is there joy, as the world is al- ways burning ? Why do ye not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness ? This body is wasted, full of sickness and frail ; this heap of corruption breaks to pieces, life indeed ends in death." " " Let no man love anything ; loss of the beloved is evil. Those who love nothing and hate nothing have no fetters. From love comes grief, from love comes fear ; he who is free from love knows neither grief nor fear." ^ So Buddhism has no god, no Absolute, and no imper- ishable human soul. The Blessed One is but the Teacher through whose teachings humanity attains release from suffering. He saves not ; each man must save himself : " Rouse thyself by thyself ; examine thyself by thyself ; for self is the lord of self." * Yet the personality of Gotama was of such ineffable comfort, that he was the ' Katha-Upanishad, i, I, 26 ; see ante, p. 73. ^ Dhammapada, xi, 146, 148. 2 Ibid., xvi, 211, 215. * Ibid., XXV, 379, 380. "Wise people fashion themselves." — IHd.,-n, So. THE BUDDHA. 8/ pattern and the type of human refuge, and Buddhism as a religion to which men cHng is the Hfe as well as teach- ing of Buddha ; " I take my refuge in the Blessed One, in his Teaching, and in the Brotherhood." ' Gotama the Buddha was born near the middle of the sixth century before Christ, of the Sakya race which dwelt in the northeastern part of India, where Brah- „ ^ . Gotama. man influence was weaker than in the west and south. Little is known of his youtti. He married and had a son. When about twenty-nine years old, he left his house, and became an ascetic. For seven years Gotama practised asceticism after the manner of the time. Yet no light came. Realizing the folly of austerities, he stopped them, and resumed an ordinary diet. At this apparent lapse, certain ascetics, who had been his fol- lowers, left him — alone. One night, seated beneath a tree in the forest, he saw the principle of causation ; he was loosed from cravings and became the Buddha. Moveless he continued in the bliss of contemplation with knowledge perfected. On the seventh evening he allowed to pass through his mind that course of inev- itable change to which all life is subject. " Then the Blessed One, during the first watch of the night, fixed his mind upon the chain of causation, in di- rect and in reverse order : ' From ignorance spring the samkharas (conformations, confec- causatio tions, puttings-together), from the samkharas springs consciousness, from consciousness springs name- and-form, from name-and-form spring the six provinces [of the six senses, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or touch, and mind], from the six provinces springs contact, from contact springs sensation, from sensation springs thirst ' Said by each Buddhist on becoming a monk. This sketch of Buddhism follows the Southern Canon of Pali Books, the Patimokkha, Mahavagga, Kullavagga, Dhammapada, and Buddhist Suttas, with a comparison of the later Questions of King Milinda, contained in Sacred Books of the East, vols. X, xi, xiii, xvii, xx, xxxv, xxxvi. The writer is much indebted to Prof. Oldenberg's Buddha. 88 ANCIENT IDEALS. (or desire), from thirst springs attachment, from attach- ment springs becoming, from becoming springs birth, from birth spring old age and death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. Again, by the destruction of ignor'ance, which consists in the complete absence of lust, the samkharas are destroyed ; by the destruction of the samkharas, consciousness is destroyed ; by the de- struction of consciousness, name-and-form is destroyed ; by the destruction of name-and-form, the six provinces are destroyed ; by the destruction of the six provinces, contact is destroyed ; by the destruction of contact, sensa- tion is destroyed ; by the destruction of sensation, thirst is destroyed ; by the destruction of thirst, attachment is destroyed ; by the destruction of attachment, becoming is destroyed ; by the destruction of becoming, birth is destroyed ; by the destruction of birth, old age and death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair are de- stroyed. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.' Knowing this, the Blessed One on that occa- sion pronounced this solemn utterance : ' When the real nature of things becomes clear to the ardent, meditating Brahman, then all his doubts fade away, since he realizes what is that nature and what its cause, since he has under- . stood the cessation of causation ; he stands, dispelling the hosts of Mara, like the sun that illumines the sky.' " ' The chain of causation was to Gotama the basis of his system. Life to him was very painful ; release from its suffering was the goal and purpose of the way which he set before men. He had no taste for fruitless metaphysi- cal discussion, nor cared for the philosophical establish- ment of his doctrines further than was needed to support them as a practical system. His followers in more dialec- tic mode attempted further to substantiate the principles stated in his teachings, or towards which his teachings pointed. His own system consisted in the establishment ^ Mahavagga, i, i, 1-3. Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii. THE BUDDHA. 89 of a rule of conduct and a way of life ; for the masses in after times it naturally became transformed to a religion. But it were a misnomer to apply the term " religion " to Gotama's system as he set it forth ; for it recognized no god nor any all-controlling power without the man, which he should seek to put himself in right relation with. Though hardly a philosophy, it might be called a philo- sophic way of life, inasmuch as knowledge was its means. An explanation of Buddha's chain of causation lies partly in the same Hindoo subjectivity that found expres- sion in the Upanishads. What one thinks, fixes his mind upon, and absorbingly desires, that he reaches or be- comes ; ' and conversely, by ceasing from personal desires he ceases from conditions of their fulfilment, that is, from states of individual existence. From desire of the sense- objects of life comes attachment ; from attachment comes becoming ; from becoming come birth and rebirth, old age and death, unto the continuance of the evil round, if the subject at death be not free from desires connected with individuality. In Buddhism this is the same as in Brah- manism ; except that the final attainment of Brahma differs dialectically from the final release unto Nirvana. The second part of the explanation is the doctrine of Karma and successive lives, which in Buddhism is stated with greater fulness and ethical precision than in the Upanishads, and is differentiated from the cpifhood corresponding Brahman doctrine by a different conception of being. If in Brahmanism, Karma was the cord of individual identity through successive lives, in Buddhism it was more, for it was the sole constituent of self, of individuality. There was nothing in individuality except Karma ; Karma is all there is to individual exist- ence." For Buddhism recognizes no essential being, but ' For a somewhat later application of this principle, see Questions of King Milinda, iii, 7, 9 (vol. xxxv, Sacred Books of the East, p. 129). 'See Questions of King Milinda, ii, 2, 6 ; iii, 4, 2 ; iii, 5, 6 (vol. xxxv, S. B. E., pp. 40, 71, 86, loi, III, 112). "What is it that is reborn I 90 ANCIENT IDEALS. only a universal linked order of combined causal relation- ship and ceaseless change. From this continuously, ceaselessly, with an absolute impermanence, result the " conformations," the " puttings-together," the samkharas, whence spring " consciousness " and that microcosm of all restlessness which Buddha called " name-and-form," but which is usually called a man. To this name-and- form there is no entity, no substantiality, either material or spiritual ; there is no body, there is no soul," but only a group of reciprocal causal relations temporarily bound together by Karma, which is the phase of the universal law of causality and ceaseless impermanence relating to this conscious " name-and-form." " Impermanent are all the samkharas — their vanishing is bliss " — their continu- ance in consciousness is suffering. The thought of Mara completes the group of ideas con- tained in the Buddhist conception of existence. To the simpler view, Mara is a personality, the Evil One, the Tempter, Prince of Death. Between him and the fol- lowers of Buddha there is war. But to philosophic Buddhist thought, Mara is the all-pervading principle of evil and of suffering, co-existent, co-extensive with all life. Wherever there is corporeal form, wherever there is life, there is also evil, there is also Mara. After seeing the chain of causation, Gotama lingered Preaching some days in solitude. He was disinclined of the to teach, lest he should have his pains for Doctrine, nothing. A great god descends, and kneeling beseeches him to proclaim his doctrine, and the Buddha Name-and-form is reborn. Is it this same name-and-form that is reborn ? No ; but by this name-and-form deeds are done, good or evil, and by these deeds {i.e. by this Karma) another name-and-form is reborn." — lb., ii, 2. 6. "Is there such a thing as the soul ? In the highest sense there is no such thing. Is there any being who transmigrates from this body to another ? No, there is not." — lb., iii, 5, 6. ' It is unlikely that Gotama ever permitted his own discourses to pass into the ultimate denial of any soul or self whatever ; he merely pointed out that all things connected with man, material or spiritual, were impermanent and were not the self. See e. g. Mahavagga, i, 6, 38-47 ; S. B. E., vol. xiii, p. 100. THE BUDDHA. 9 1 yields.' He resolves to preach to the five Bhikkhus, who had been formerly his followers, and sets out to Benares where they abode. When the Blessed One came to Ben- ares, to the deer-park, Isapatana, where the five Bhikkhus were, they, seeing him, say one to another ; " Here comes Gotama, who has turned to a life of abundance. Let us not salute him, nor rise when he approaches, nor take his bowl and robe. We will put there a seat ; if he likes, let him sit down." But when the Blessed One approached, they went forth to meet him. One took his bowl and his robe, another prepared a seat, a third brought water to wash his feet." Now they addressed him by his name, and called him Friend. But he said : " Do not address the Tathagata ' by his name, nor call him Friend. The Tathagata is the holy absolute Sambuddha.* Give ear, O Bhikkhus ! " the immortal has been won by me. I will teach you. If you walk in the way I show you, you will ere long have penetrated to the truth, and see it face to face ; and you will live in possession of that highest goal of the holy life, for the sake of which noble youths give up the world and go forth into the houseless state." Then the Blessed One convinced them, and they gave ear to him willingly. Whereupon he addressed them thus : " There are two extremes, O Bhikkhus, which he who has given up the world ought to avoid. What are these two extremes? A life given to pleasures and ^, p. ., lusts : this is degrading, sensual, vulgar, ignoble, foij p^th and profitless ; and a life given to mortifica- and the tions ; this is painful, ignoble, and profitless. ^°"'' Noble By avoiding these two extremes, O Bhikkhus, the Tathagata has gained the knowledge of the middle path, which leads to insight and wisdom, which conducts ^ Mahdvagga, i, v, i-ii. ^Ibid., i, vi, 9. 'This is the term applied by Buddha to himself ; it signifies the Com- pleted, Perfect One. ■* Universal Buddha. ' Bhikkhu signifies a beggar-monk, or brother. 92 ANCIENT IDEALS. to calm, to knowledge, to Nirvana.' Which, O Bhikkhus, is this middle path, the knowledge of which the Tatha- gata has gained ? It is the holy eightfold path, namely, Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavor, Right Memory, Right Meditation. " O Bhikkhus, the noble truth of suffering is this : Birth is suffering ; decay is suffering ; sickness is suffering ; death is suffering ; presence of objects we hate is suffer- ing ; separation from objects we love is suffering; not to obtain what we desire is suffering ; briefly, the fivefold clinging to existence is suffering. " O Bhikkhus, the noble truth of the cause of suffering is this : Thirst, that leads to rebirths accompanied by pleasure and lust, finding its delight here and there ; thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity. " O Bhikkhus, the noble truth of the cessation of suffer- ing is this : it ceases with the complete cessation of this thirst, — a cessation which consists in the absence of every passion, — with the abandoning of this thirst, with the doing away with it, with the deliverance from it, with the destruction of desire. " O Bhikkhus, the noble truth of the Path which leads to the cessation of suffering is this: that holy eightfold Path, that is to say. Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavor, Right Memory, Right Meditation."' The sermon at Benares illustrates Buddha's restric- tion of his teaching to the three subjects, suffering, the source of suffering, and how men may attain deliverance from suffering. Ignorance, as it were, of the way out, that is to say, of these four noble truths, is suffering's root. The immediate cause of suffering, which constitutes ' For an illustration of Buddha's conception of the " middle path," i. e., a life neither of luxury nor of ascetic penances, see the story of Sona, Mahdvagga, v, I, 12-iS. * Mahavagga, i, vi, 17-22. THE BUDDHA. 93 the sum of individual life, is thirst for life and pleasure : desire leads to rebirth. With the destruction of desire, the round of rebirth and suffering is stopped. The way to the cessation of suffering by the destruction of desire is the eightfold path of the fourth holy truth. The practical ethics of Buddhism burst through the bands of caste and the follies of asceticism, but were otherwise similar to the ethics of Brahmanism. The particular acts approved by a people or pfi,-'^ sect are often a matter of circumstance and character. A more fundamental question is as to the sanction of the conduct, the principle thereof. Only by understanding that, can one rightly comprehend the mean- ing of precepts enunciated in a system. It is evident that whatever phrase be used, there can be in Buddhism no principle of sin ; no adjudging of an act wrongful because transgressing the will of the doer's god, who is powerful to punish. In Buddhism all is law ; wrongful conduct sounds in ignorance with its attendant uncontrolled desires. Lust and anger, for example, represent craving and clinging to existence.' Conversely, the great prac- tical Buddhist virtue of benevolence logically sounds in realization that individuality is delusion, and in a conse- quent discarding of desire for self, a desire which is opposed to sacrifice for others. In fact, there can be no real love without elements forbidden by Buddhism, — attachment, real caring for another, devotion to another.' The law of human life, the universal principle of ethics, is Karma, the evil or good result of the act to the doer. The final object is cessation from all personal desire, which shall cut off Karma and rebirth. Logically in such ' The man who harbors no harsh thoughts within him, Who cares not whether things are thus or thus, His state of joy, freedom from grief or care, The very gods obtain not to behold. — KuUavagga, vii, i, 6 ; vol. xx, S. B. E., p. 233. ' From no Indian point of view could the love between a man and a woman be an ideal, but only temptation and debasement. Here Buddha sees only foulness. See «-. g. SuttaNipata, 835, etc. {S. B. E., vol. x.) 94 ANCIENT IDEALS. a system, devotion to others can be only devotion to abandonment of self. Nevertheless the Blessed One re- frained from entering Nirvana, and through a long devoted life exemplified his inculcation of " a love far-reaching, all-extending, all-embracing." By a like devotion must we think that his disciples were inspired. The precepts of Buddhist righteousness are usually ex- pressed negatively ; the Buddhist shall not destroy any living thing, shall take no man's goods, shall not commit adultery, tell no lies, nor drink intoxicating liquor. The precepts inculcating the positive virtue of charity and benevolence towards all living beings are noteworthy: " Do not speak harshly to anybody ; those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful ; blows for blows will teach thee." ' " For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time. Hatred ceases by love ; this is an old rule." " " Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good ; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth." ' There is a world of progress in the western or Christian acceptation of the thought of overcoming hatred by love ; nor are those elements of human truth absent from the Buddhist view.^ But soon, as with all things Indian, this human truth was carried into the ab- surd, and there arose the quasi-magical idea that by think- ing lovingly of each quarter of the world and all things therein, it was possible to disarm the hurtful power or inclination of all men and animals.' A more advanced stage of holiness, to which good deeds are pre-essential, is self-centred meditation, ° fortified with knowledge of the impermanence of all things and crown- ^ DhaviTnapada^ 133. ' li., 223. * See the moral narrative of Mahdvagga, x, 2. '^ Kullavagga, v, 6; i ; cf. ib., vii., 3, 12, and Questions of King 3H- Hnda, iv, 4, 16. ' " If he should desire,'' A kankheyya-Sutta (vol, xi, S. B. E., p. 210). THE BUDDHA. 95 ing watchfulness over temptations of sense. " Great is the fruit, great the advantage, of earnest contemplation, when set round with upright conduct. Great is the fruit, great the advantage, of intellect when set round with earnest contemplation. The mind set round with intelli- gence is freed from great evils, from sensuality, from individuality, from delusion and from ignorance." ' A little while after the sermon at Benares, when the disciples had reached the number of sixty, the Blessed One said to them : " I am delivered, O Bhikkhus, from all fetters, human and divine. So are you also delivered. Go ye now, out of compassion for the world, and wander for the gain of the many and the welfare of gods and men. Preach the doctrine which is glorious in the begin- ning, glorious in the middle, glorious in the end, in the spirit and in the letter ; proclaim a consummate, perfect, and pure life of holiness. There are beings whose mental eyes are covered by scarcely any dust, but if the doctrine is not preached to them they cannot attain salvation. They will understand the doctrine. And I will go also to preach." " It is a characteristic of race religions and all systems of thought showing no tendency to extend beyond national limits, that what there is in them of universal Universal truth and applicability is inseverable from con- Elements in ditions which only the race fulfils, or from Buddhism, peculiar thoughts and customs unsuited to other peoples. Buddhism was not thus limited. Recognizing no castes, it held itself fit for acceptance beyond the pale of Indian society. Suffering weighed on all men, Cudras as well as Brahmans ; all were in need of salvation. Caste was a thing of no real import in the way of life towards Nir- vana, which Gotama taught. In broad, enlightened, spir- ' Book of the Great Decease, i, 12. (vol. xi, S. B. E.) Buddha set forth dififerent stages of his teaching to householders (lay-brothers) and to monks {Bhikkhus). See ib., i, ii, 23, 24; and the beautiful story of the young man Yasa, Mahdvagga, i, 7. ^ Mahavagga, i, ii, I, 96 ANCIENT IDEALS. itual mode, early Buddhist writings refute the ethical efficacy of birth or form or ceremony. Not by birth is man an outcast or a Brahman ; but by his deed becomes one or the other ; the outcast is the angry, hateful man ; he who harms living beings, and has no compassion ; he who thieves, defrauds, murders ; who is an adulterer ; who is ingrate to his parents ; he who does wrong and con- ceals it, or pretends to be a saint, and is not, — he is an outcast.' It is not by his diet that a man is defiled ; nor purified by his formal observances, his tonsure, rough skin, his hymns or sacrifices.' He who has cut off all ties ; who being innocent, endures reproach ; who is free from anger, subdued, clings not to sensual pleasure ; who knows in this world the destruction of his pain ; he who, without desire for this world, wanders alone and house- less — he is a Brahman.' There was no place in Buddha's system for sacrifices or for prayer ; and the teaching that ascetic penances were degrading distinguished his followers not only from Brah- mans, but from the many sects and bands of ascetics that filled India. Yet he knew the difficulty of living in the world freed from its attachments ; and he may have real- ized the power which lay in organization. The complete disciple of Buddha must be a monk, a brother, a Bhikkhu. The Buddha himself founded the Order or brotherhood ; and the early books ascribed to him its elaborate organiza- tion and its many rules.* His forty-five years of teaching ' Vasalasutta, 7 ; S. B. E., vol. x, p. 20. ^ Kullavagga-Amagandha-Sutta, vol. x, S. B. E., p. 40. ^ Mahdvagga-Vasettha-Sutta (vol. x, 5. B. E., p. 112). As is plain from the import of these sayings, the word Brahman is not used in a caste sense. * It was proof of the greatness of Gotama's spirit that, after some mis- giving, he permitted women to form Buddhist communities, similar, though inferior, to those of the monks. See Kullavagga x, (vol. xx, S. B. E., p. 320, etc.). Compare Book of the Great Decease., v, 23 (^S. B. E. xi, p. gi). Absolute chastity was required of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis. For the activity of women in the early Buddhist movement see Tlu Women Leaders of the Buddhist Reformation, by C. A. Foley ; Trans, of Congress of Orientalists for i8q2, vol. i, p. 344. THE BUDDHA. 97 and leadership make this view credible. The brother- hood proved effective for the spread and maintenance of Buddha's teachings. By no means were its rules free from Indian peculiarities. Hindoos were habituated to minute regulations of daily life ; it was second nature for Buddhist communities to subject themselves to the like. But Gotama knew that no particular form or regulation was essential, and he is said to have given explicit per- mission to the Order to change its minor rules after his death.' When the Blessed One should be no more, the brethren, in matters touching the Order and all else as well, must heed his final exhortation : " Be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge unto yourselves. Be- take yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Look not for a refuge to any one beside yourselves. Let a brother as he dwells in the body so regard the body that he, being strenuous, thoughtful, and mindful, may whilst in the world overcome the grief which arises from the bodily craving ; so also, as he thinks, or reasons or feels, let him overcome the grief which arises from the craving due to ideas, or to reasoning, or to feeling." ' Soon after holding the discourse from which these words are taken, Buddha announced his ap- Death of the proaching decease : Buddha. " My age is now full ripe, my life draws to its close : I leave you, I depart, relying on myself alone ! Be earnest then, O brethren, holy, full of thought ! Be steadfast in resolve, keep watch o'er your own hearts ! Who wearies not, but holds fast to this truth and law. Shall cross the sea of life, shall make an end of grief." ' Speaking thus, the Blessed One turned to comfort the ' See Bookof the Great Decease, vi, 3 ; vol. xi, 5. B. £., p. 112. There were no prayers in the early Buddhist communities ; but frequent public confession as to delinquencies. ' Bmi of the Great Decease, ii, 28. ' lb., iii, 66. 98 ANCIENT IDEALS. disciple who was dear to him : " Enough, Ananda ! do not let yourself be troubled. Have I not often told you that it is in the very nature of all things most near and dear unto us that we must divide ourselves from them, sever ourselves from them ? Whereas everything born, brought into being, and organized, contains within itself the inherent necessity of dissolution, how can it be possi- ble that such a being should not be dissolved ? For a long time, Ananda, have you been very near to me by acts of love, kind and good, that never varies, and is be- yond all measure. You have done well ! Be earnest in effort, and you too shall soon be free from the great evils, — from sensuality, from individuality, from delusion, and from ignorance." ' Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren and said : " Brethren, there may be doubt or misgiving in the mind of some brother as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path. Enquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to re- proach yourselves afterwards with the thought, ' Our teacher was face to face with us, and we could not bring ourselves to enquire of the Blessed One when we were face to face with him.' " And when he had thus spoken, the brethren were silent. For the second and the third time the Blessed One addressed the brethren with the same words ; and they were silent. Then the Blessed One said : " It may be, brethren, that you put no questions out of reverence for the teacher. Let one friend communicate with another." And when he had thus spoken the brethren were silent. And Ananda exclaimed, " How wonderful a thing is it, Lord, and how marvellous ! Verily, I believe that in this whole assembly of the brethren there is not one brother who has any doubt or misgiving as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path." " ' lb., V, 38. ' The Ketokhila Sutta, on " Barrenness and Bondage" (vol. xi, S. B. E.), teaches that a brother cannot become free from spiritual barrenness while he has any doubt in respect of these matters. THE BUDDHA. 99 Then said the Tathagata to the brethren : " Behold now, I exhort you, saying, * Decay is inherent in all component things ! ' Work out your salvation with diligence ! " These were the last words of the Tathagata.' " Then the Blessed One entered into the first stage of deep meditation, and arising out of the first stage he passed into the second. And rising out of the second he passed into the third. And rising out of the third stage he passed into the fourth. And rising out of the fourth stage of deep meditation, he entered into the state of mind to which the infinity of space is alone present. And passing out of the mere consciousness of the infinity of space, he entered into the state of mind to which the infinity of thought is alone present. And passing out of the mere consciousness of the infinity of thought he entered into a state of mind to which nothing at all was specially present. And passing out of the consciousness of no special object, he fell into a state between conscious- ness and unconsciousness. And passing out of the state between consciousness and unconsciousness, he fell into a state in which the consciousness both of sensations and of ideas had wholly passed away." And then the Blessed One passed back by the same stages in reverse order till he reached the first stage of deep meditation, whence he again passed into the second, third, and fourth stage of deep meditation ; passing out of which last, he immediately expired.^ This account of the mode in which Buddha expired is interesting as paralleling the negative or abstracting pro- cess " by which a conception of the Absolute is reached ; only there is no suggestion of the Nirvana, attainment of the Absolute by the Blessed One. The account is also interesting for the man- ^ Book of the Great Decease ^ vi, 5—10. "^ Ibid., vi, 11-13. Compare with this "The Great King of Glory," Natra-Sudassana-Sutta ; vol. xi, S. B. E,, p. 247, etc., and especially p. 271, etc., and p. 284. ^ See ante, p. 73. ICX) ANCIENT IDEALS. ner in which it turns back just as one expects an account of Nirvana. Buddha's teachings did but make clear that Nirvana is a condition over which the law of causality, with its content of sorrow, death, and rebirth, has no sway.' In later Buddhist writings it is explicitly stated that Arahatship, the state of perfect enlightenment and detachment from the cravings of personality, is the attainment of Nirvana ; " and with this the earlier books accord. But no light is thrown on the condition, existent or non-existent, conscious or unconscious, of the Arahat after death. This question was asked by Buddha's dis- ciples ; and the answer was that the Blessed One had not declared it.' That condition being a state beyond the pale of the law of causation, nothing might be predi- cated of it which might be predicated of life, except in this negative mode, that all shortcoming, suffer- ing, need, desire, is satisfied or quenched. But con- sciousness was one of the links in the chain of causation ; and whatever made up that passing delusion, human individuality, was also part of the same chain. Clearly, death released the Arahat from individuality, likewise from consciousness. Buddha's teaching pointed towards extinction, and perhaps so clearly, that the Blessed One never felt called on to declare more explicitly that which was the outcome of his system : if men understood not that, they understood nothing. The whole long round of suffering and rebirth led up to Arahatship, a condition ' This point, clear in the early writings, comes to explicit discussion and statement later, e. g., in Questions of King Milinda, vi, 7, 13 et seq. Nir- vana is uncaused, unproduceable, not put together of any qualities. "^ Questions of King Milinda, i, 41 ; ii, 1 ; ii., 2, 9 ; Nirvana is "« state of mind to be realized and enjoyed by a man here, on this earth, in this life, and in this life only." — Rhys-Davids. ^ In the Suiia-Nipaia, 342-357 (vol. x, S.B.E.), a venerable Bhikkhu asks Buddha whether the Bhikku's teacher, who had gone to Nirvana, was blessed or not ; and whether he had been completely extinguished, or still retained some elements of existence. Buddha answers merely : " He cut off the desire for name-and-form in this world. Kanha's (Mara's) stream adhered to for a long time, he crossed completely birth and death." THE BUDDHA. lOI of intellectual calm and consciousness of release, preced- ing actual release in the final extinction of that congeries of confections, that conscious " name-and-form " which is called a man.' Such result is not preposterous from the standpoint of the long-cumulating Indian yearning for release from mutability and that embodiment of it, the human individuality. Only to the western mind is the system purposeless in its issue, failing to show any ulti- mate reason for any existence or becoming, or for any objectless law of causality to mould the whole pointless round. The best which can be is but the same as never to have been." The life of the man Gotama, the teachings of the Buddha, represent the sole true consequent ideal of Indian thought. Out of pity, in a world of suf- ... , . . T •! The Result. fermg, he taught through many years. Like- wise shall his disciples wander for the sake of men. In itself this pity, which exceeded that of all the Indian gods, was not effectual. The highest of beings, the holy and absolute Sambuddha, the self-enlightened man, the Perfect One, at whose feet the gods fell down, could only point out the way. The disciple must rely on himself. " Brother, thou shalt betake thyself to no external refuge. ' But along lines of Indian subjectivity, it may be that the Arahat's per- fect desire of release from individuality effects or is such a release. '' This outcome of the Blessed One's system was recognized only in India. Not in such guise might Buddhism promulgate itself in other lands. Not all of Asia would appreciate the strenuous intellectual character of the system, nor all of Asia be satisfied with such salvation. Transformed into strange transformations, frequently sensuous and unspiritual, adapted to the different times and countries, " Buddhism" evolved satisfactions of men's need of gods to pray to and of some life to come. Curiously changed in their long journeys were the teachings which were carried across the Himalayas, into the vale of Kashmir, the mountain jungle of Nepal, the snow-land of Thibet, and sowed throughout the Celestial Kingdom, Tartary, Corea, and Japan. For the history of Buddhism in India and of ' ' Northern Buddhism " outside of India, see Kern, Buddhismus ; Burnouf, Introduction 53) ^■'s not to be relied on. Mills's translation contains much not in the original ; and Darmesteter's is vitiated because of his view of the late composition of the Gathas. Portions of the Gathas are more surely, but somewhat unintelligibly, rendered by Geldner in numbers of Kuhn's Z eitschrift axiA Bezzenberger's Beitrdge. ' See Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur, p. 166. ' The name survived in Ariana, and the modern name Iran is not unrelated. Herodotus, vii, 62, says that in earlier times the Medes were called Aryans. As the Vedic Indians speak of themselves as Arja, the name Aryan must have existed when Indians and Iranians were one race. * Yasht, xviii, 2 ; xix, 68. I06 ANCIENT IDEALS. besides the religious, there is with them a race feeling, the sense of Aryan blood ; and their enemies were nomads mostly of other race, but with Aryans among them who would not accept the Avesta faith. These nomads were robbers of cattle and men. A place where the earth feels sorest grief is that where " the wife and child of one of the faithful are driven along the way of captivity, the dry and dusty way and lift up a voice of wailing." ' Socially and politically the people of ih^ Avesta resem- ble the Vedic Aryans. Lands and cattle were their chief possessions ; money they had none. Houses of great and low were simple. Their food was plain ; they drank milk, and perhaps freely of fermented liquor. A well-formed race, bodily strength was prized among them ; a man should be tall and broad-chested, his eye bright and pierc- ing. These are qualities to mark a king, who should also excel in high insight. Women should be beautiful, tall, with fair skin and shapely bosom, chaste and of good repute. A prophet arose to this people, Zarathushtra. The record of his faith, the Zend-Avesta, was composed dur- ing the course of centuries. Much therein " regarding him is later priestly formulation. But in the Avesta hymns, the Gathas, Zara- thushtra is a very real, brave man, with a high thought which he is struggling to make into a people's faith. A prophet's mind is his, a prophet's misgivings, a prophet's trust. One cannot doubt that to this picture of striving manhood there corresponded a great original. Prophets who establish faiths must needs live what their lips utter. The Buddha is a perfectly enlightened being, serene and sure from the beginning of his teach- ing : for him there is no further struggle — nor attainment ; all is reached. The Iranian prophet is nearer the reality of human life ; misgivings and discouragement, contend- ' Vend., iii., ii. See Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur, pp. 176-193, Soup to our times have Turcomans carried off Persians. IRAN. 107 ings with them, bringing fuller knowledge of Ahura, extend through the career of prophethood and passionate reform told in the Gathas. The life of Zarathushtra, as these heartfelt psalms suggest it, is the very grand, con- crete forthsetting of the spirit and principles of the Avesta religion. It has come to more than one inspired prophet of the foretime, in the course of his prophetic ministry, to see the purpose of his life set in an opening vision of his god and of his call. " And I beheld Jehovah, high and lifted up, heard the seraph voices — holy, holy, holy!" Then ring the words "Whom shall I send?" which overmaster Isaiah's sense of sin and unworthiness. "Send me!" answers the prophet's life.' So also answered the life of Zarathushtra. It accords with the sense of revelation and of call that the prophet's life should be throughout respon- sive to his god, a communion, a seeking of instruction from him, and power and aid. Like Isaiah's, Zara- thushtra's life is moulded on his thought of God; and in its seeking always unto him, knowing no other law, no other pattern, the life of Zarathusthtra appears Hebraic rather than Aryan. There is a Gathic hymn in which, as from a later period of his career, Zarathushtra looks back upon his early vi- sions. The working spirit of his faith is in the prophet's mind: " May men, following the laws of Ahura's Good Thought, work beneficence, and receive the supreme reward here and hereafter ; and especially may the teach- ers of righteousness so be rewarded. Yea, the reward be mine ! " And I will hold thee as mighty and benefi- cent in the justice to be rendered to the good and to the evil, and in the coming of the might of Good Thought to me."° Hereupon the assurance of Ahura's justice- rendering might recalls to the prophet's memory his vi- sion of judgment to be accomplished at the final day: " And I knew Thee as an holy one when I beheld Thee ' Isaiah vi. ' Yas. , xliii, 1-3. ^ /i. , 4 . I08 ANCIENT IDEALS. bringing to pass retribution for the wicked, reward for the good, at the world's last change, when Thou, holy spirit Mazda, shalt appear with the power of Right Order (Khshathra) and with Good Thought (Vohu Mano) through whose working men increase in Righteousness (Asha).'" Now the prophet sees again the sharper later vision, which was his call to a career of militant allegiance: " And I knew Thee as an holy one, Ahura Mazda, when Thou didst appear to me with Good Thought, asking. Who art thou ? To whom dost thou belong ? And I straightway answered, Zarathushtra. A foe will I be to the unbeliever, but a strong help to the righteous, that I may reach heaven. I praise and worship Thee, O Mazda!'" ' ' And I knew Thee as an holy one, O Mazda, when Thou with Good Thought didst appear, and to my questions as to Thy acceptance of my service and my sacrifice, and how I might understand Thy Truth (Asha), didst make answer : Thou shalt see my Asha. Make question as thou wilt." ' "And I knew thee as an holy one, Ahura Mazda, when appearing with Good Thought Thy words revealed assaults of men brought on me through my devotion to that which Thou hast declared to be the best. Zara- thushtra chooses for himself every holy spirit of thine. ' ' * Thus out of the struggles of his career, the prophet realizes the import of its opening visions. They are the lyric note, of which his life was rendering out the story. And the Gathas tell this story, yet in a lyric way. For they utter only crisis-notes. It is difficult to connect and set them in the circumstances of their utterance ; yet they suggest a period of preparation, a period, as it were, of gathering strength and clearer insight, of cumulating impulse becoming mastering purpose, all leading up to '7*., 5, 6. * /*.,?, 8. »iJ.,9, lo. ^ lb., n, l6. For translation of Yas., xliii, see Geldner in Kuhn's Zeit- schrift, i8go, p. 316. IRAN. iog the call when the man becomes the prophet. He has been long finding his god : now has his god found him. Ahura's efficient spirit, Good Thought, says to Ahura, the supreme Lord Wisdom, "One man only have I found who will hear Thy instruction and with accordant mind teach men Thy law and declare the faith of Mazda. ' ' ' So sounds the prophet call within this man who is but Zarathusthra. In first response from those who might have seemed in direst need of him, there comes a murmur of distrust.' Many a sterile word , „ , , ,. , , , Announce- shall he utter to understandmgs lost through ment evil.' But he is stanch in the faith within him and the assurance of the truth he preaches, — the conflict to the death between the good and evil principle, the triumph of good, and the resurrection of the just. He cries in the assembly, "Hear with your ears, and con- sider, that we, each for himself, man and woman, may choose against the final day when everyone shall receive the reward of his choice." * Zarathushtra's conviction of the verity of what he preached and of the lordship of Ahura was so intense and eager, so finely felt out to its full conclusions, that he could not but hold other religions false, and seek to uproot them. His religion was a reform ; it was also a new spiritual creation. As universally intended ° as Buddhism, it was as militant as Islam. For militancy lay in its dogma of the conflict of good with the evil, which the good does not convert, but destroys. Zarathushtra adjures his disciples to keep themselves from unbelievers and shut their ears against the lying ignorance of such as would bring death and ruin sheer to house and village. Nay, hew then down with the sword!" "To him who would deceive the just shall hereafter be groanings, long abode in darkness, noisome food and insult. To such a ' Yas., xxix, 7, 8. * lb., xxx, 2. ''lb., g. ' Cf. ib., xxxi, 3 ; xlvi, 12. ' lb., xxxi ; cf. Isaiah vi, g, ^ lb., xxxi, 17, 18. no ANCIENT WEALS. lot, ye wicked, your works and your religion shall bring you ! " ' While on the righteous shall Ahura and his min- isters bestow all blessing." It could not be but that the prophet of such a faith would soon experience the woes and buffets which his early vision had foretold. He has his followers r.L i -i? and supporters, among whom is a king, Vishta- of the Faith. ^^ ' , ° ° spa; but some of his own family or caste are hostile, ° and opposing teachers confound the progress of his work : ' ' The false teacher thwarts my doctrine and my life's object through his teachings; he hinders desires for righteousness. This I bewail to thee, Mazda and Asha. And that man thwarts my doctrine who hates the herds and destroys the herbage, and hurls his mace against the righteous. . . . Surely thou wilt do the very best to aid the endeavors of thy faithful one, thou who art stronger than him who threatens my destruction, if I assemble my beloved people to take vengeance on the unbelievers. ' ' ' So it comes to fighting, and sometimes the battle goes against the prophet : " To what land shall I turn, whither carry my prayer ? Followers and kinsmen forsake me, my neighbors wish me ill, and the wicked tyrants of the land. How can I advance thy cause, Ahura ? I am powerless, stripped of herds and men. I cry to thee. Help me, as a friend a friend. Thy counsel. Lord, I choose." ' Then, as if addressing men, he speaks : " He who does not move to aid the righteous, works for the Evil One ; he shall go to perdition. That one is wicked who succors the wicked; that one is righteous who befriends the righteous. This is thy law, Ahura." " And ^ lb., 20. 2 Jb., 21. ^ This would readily have been the case supposing Zarathushtra to have been a Magian, that is, a member of a priestly caste or tribe, who was in- troducing innovations. * Yas., xxxii, g, lo, t6. Geldner's rendering in YiafaxCs Zeitschrift, i886. " Yas., xlvi, 1-3, ^ lb., 5, 6. IRAN. 1 1 1 the prophet prays for the overthrow of his evil enemies, and promises paradise to those who aid him. Towards the end it seems as if the righteous cause had triumphed. These prayers of Zarathushtra have been answered, and he prays that blessings and eternal life may come to such as may thereafter be converted. " And Zarathushtra, he makes offering of his life. He gives to Mazda's spirits the guidance of his acts and words."' So is it through his consecrated life. In danger, discouragement, misgiving, he looks to Ahura for aid and enlightenment.^ He seeks unto no other law, no other wisdom ; would conform his life in all respects toAhura's commands and Ahura's nature; would resemble him and teach others that resemblance," — wherein is righteousness, wherein is belonging to the kingdom of the good, the realm of life, the portion of final resurrec- tion. The religion which Zarathushtra pressed on men was a dualism which looked forward across the plain of warfare to the final triumph of good over evil, life over death. Its supreme lord of good, Ahura Maz- ^ "gious da. Lord Wisdom, with the attendant personifi- cations of his attributes, or rather of human virtues regarded as the creations of Ahura, constituted a concep- tion grand and spiritual. No explanation of it beyond the personality of Zarathushtra has passed the stage of hypothesis. The mode, however, of the apprehension of this religion has no Indo-Germanic parallel ; for all is conceived as revelation and subsequent continuous, almost indwelling, enlightenment from God to his pro- phet. Neither would its ethical conceptions appear to have Indo-Germanic parallel, inasmuch as they remain contained within the nature, the creative power, and the ' Yas., xxxiii, 14. ' See Yas., xxviii, 6, 7 ; xxxiii, 7, 8 ; xxxiv, 12, 13 ; xlvi, 6; xlviii, 9-11 ; 1, 16. 'See Yas., xxxi, 16, 22 ; xliv, i, etc., cf. xxxiii, 4 ; xlviii, 3 ; xlix, 6 ; 1, 6. 112 ANCIENT IDEALS. ways of Ahura Mazda, and do not tend toward the evo- lution of a conception of ethical law based on the nature of things, and not dependent on the will and power of a personally conceived god. Consequently, moral wrong, transgression, wickedness, remain, strictly speaking, sin ; for the ways and nature of Ahura remain the standard of all righteousness. "Now shall I preach, and do you give ear and hear, ye who hither press from near and from afar ; therefore lay ye all these things to heart as clear, nor „ J ., ^° let the wicked teacher your second life destroy Spirits. . -' . , 1 ■ — the perverted smner your tongues with his false faith. "Now shall I preach of the world's two primal spirits, the holier one of which did thus address the evil: 'Neither do our minds, our teachings, nor our concepts, nor our beliefs, nor words, nor do our deeds in sooth, nor yet our consciences nor our souls agree in aught.' " ' These two spirits encountered at the first creation, the one bringing life, the other death ; and even so will it be to the world's end. The wicked spirit chooses to cause evil, the beneficent spirit chooses to cause good. The demons and their worshippers have not chosen righteous- ness, but evil.^ In the end the good spirit shall conquer, and reward with blessedness his righteous ones.' There can be no onlookers at this strife ; each man must choose his side ; he who chooses Mazda must fight the righteous fight against evil conduct and evil men. The righteous- ness of Zarathushtra had no benevolence towards the enemies of himself and his religion. They were followers of the evil spirit ; he dwelt in them. Kindness towards them favored evil,' and so was sin in its opposition to the nature of Ahura. But Zarathushtra had no thought of ' Yas., xlv, I, 2 (A. V. W. Jackson's translation) ; c/. Yas., xxx, 3-6. ' Yas.f xxx, 4—6. * See Yas., xxx and xlv, 2, etc. * See Yas., xxxi, 14, 15 ; xxxii, 10 ; xxxiii, 2, 3 ; xlv, H ; xlvii, 4. IRAN. 1 1 3 limiting his faith to a single people ; others naight accept it and fulfil its righteousness.' The first demand of Mazdaism is to follow it, protect, and extend it/ But Ahura and his ministers were right- eous, beneficent, and just. So his religion Righteous- made like demands on its adherents ; perdition ness of awaited the oppressor and the unjust judge,' ^^^^^^'s™! and those who maltreated the cattle.' Ahura ^^^' was the giver of life, the creator of all good ; his demands on men included righteousness ; nor was he satisfied with the hypocrite's professions, but demanded works.' Probably a worship of natural phenomena prevailed in Iran in Indo-Iranian times. Ahura Mazda likely was once a god of the sky.° In the Gathas there remains but faint suggestion of his origin.' He has become the Lord Wisdom, the creator of mankind and all things good,' the source or parent of all personified auxiliary or medi- ating divine principles. Ahura's activity, creative and beneficent, is that of spirit and intelligence : " Since thou, O Mazda, in the beginning for us our beings and con- sciences hast formed and our intelligence through thine own mind, since thou madest life clothed with a body, since thou gavest us the works and words whereby one freely may express his belief. ' ' ' Ahura is the creator and fosterer of all righteousness, and the bringer to pass of the reward of righteousness in his followers in the life to come, after the final overthrow of evil. And he is holy, that is, pure of evil, severed from it, the efficient power which works towards severance from it, towards holiness. The man who is holy and works righteousness, for him ' Cf. Vas., xlvi, 12. ^ See Yas., xxviii, 6-8 ; xlviii, 8 ; xlix, 5. ' Vas., xxxii, 10-14 ; xlix, 2, 3. * See Vas., xxix ; xxxii, 12, 14. * See Yas., xxxi, lO ; xxxiv, 9. ' See Darmesteter, Ze Dieu Suprlme des Indo-Europiens , Revtie des Re- ligions, 1880 ; and Darmesteter, Ormazd and Ahriman, passim. ' E. g. Yas., XXX, 5. * See Yas., xxxi, 13. ' lb., 11. VOL. I.— 8 114 ANCIENT IDEALS. there is no death hereafter, but only for the wicked,' those whose lives oppose Ahura's purpose, which is the effectu- ating of his righteous nature. For such awaits the por- tion of death ; ^ which also is a consequent self-effecting of the nature of evil. Ahura's nature, character, and ways are revealed in the Amesha-spentas or Amshaspands, the personified spirit- ual powers through which his purposes are .^^'. effected. Inasmuch as the Amshaspands are shaspands. . , , . , ^ , . Ahura s creations, they must represent his nature. But the point of departure of the process of personification is humanity or nature — the creation, not the creator. The Amshaspands are personifications of qualities which Ahura has created in mankind and nature. They are thus personifications of created principles of good operative in the creation,' and appear as personifica- tions of (i) human virtues and (2) the vital powers of natural life. The first are four in number : Vohu Mano, which signifies "Good Thought" from the intellectual as well as from the moral point of view ; Asha Vahista, which signifies "Holiness," or " Perfect Virtue " or " Right- eousness"; Khshathra vairya, the power, especially the kingly power, which accomplishes the way of good in social and political order, the genius of good government ; Spenta-Armaiti, " Perfect Thought," thought which stands for a right attitude of piety and submission to Ahura. This fourth Amshaspand is feminine, and ap- pears related to an anterior naturalistic conception of an earth spirit. The fifth and sixth, " Health " and " No- death," represent long life and health and material welfare.* ' Foj,, xxix, 5. ^ Yas., XXX, 8-1 1. ' Consider, e. g., Yas., xxxi, i ; Mazda reigns as Vohu Mano (Good Thought) increases, i. i>vxT} " flying from his body goes to Hades bewailing its fate, leaving strength and youth. ' ' ' The fluttering thing can- not even pass the hateful gates of the " abodes fearful, dank, ' ' ' until funeral rites are performed. Patroclus' shade comes in the night to Achilles: " ' Thou sleepest, and hast forgotten me, Achilles. Bury me quickly that I may pass the gates of Hades ; the shades drive me away, the phantoms of men outworn, nor suffer me to join them beyond the river. So I do but wander up to the wide- gated house of Hades. And now give me thy hand. I beseech thee with tears ; for never again shall I come back from Hades after ye have burned me on the pyre. ' Why, dear one, hast thou come hither, and why bid me do these things? Surely all thou Jiskest will I perform. But stand nearer; for a little let us throw our arms about each other, and take our fill of wailing.' So saying, Achilles reached out his hands, but grasped nothing; for like smoke the shade was gone beneath the ground with a faint cry. And Achilles sprang up, and smote his hands together in grief, 'Alas! so there exists even in Hades a breath {'pvxv), and a semblance, but nothing to it ! For all night long has the shade of wretched Patroclus stood over me, wailing and making moan, and marvellously like to himself.' " ' The shades were fluttering images of men outworn. Not only body and its strength were lacking; strength of mind and intelligence were gone. Unreal and senseless were the thoughts of shades — forgetful shades who must be given blood to drink before they can recognize Odys- ' //., x-fi, 856 ; 3cm, 362. ' //., xx, 65. * //., xxiii, 69, etc. Ftmeral rites were thedueof the dead (//., rvi, 457), wMch the living performed from affection or dread lest the unquiet shade draw on them the anger of the gods (Od., xi, 73). Their clear purpose was that the shade might enter Hades where it would have dolorous companion- ship. But it may be inferred from the rites that they had the further pur- pose of fitting out the shade for existence in Hades ; for the arms and things most dear to the dead man were burned with him, and in Hades the shade might use them. HOMER. 163 seus at the mouth of their dark pit. A certain wavering memory and thought have they, enough to tantalize, not enough to enable them to hold comfortable converse of their past lives — ' ' their utterance was like the twittering of bats." ' Only the shade of the prophet Teiresias had strength and intelligence, for " Persephone gives him mind even when dead and he alone has understanding. ' ' " Small chance for reward and punishment among such shadows! Desolate was the fate of the pious and the impious, hero and coward. Minos sits awarding shadowy dooms," — what mattered they to the phantoms! Three arrogant mortals, who had contemned the gods, were saved by them for infernal punishment.' But crimes against men met their retribution, if at all, on earth, where valor and prudence also had their reward. Thus Homeric views of existence after death outran but little primitive logical inferences from life's data. The two most clearly seeing of ancient peoples, the Hebrews and the Greeks, were slow to reach any fuller conception of a future life. Only the Greeks did not restrain their plastic imagination, must even here visualize their dark conceptions. "Then," says Odysseus, " I saw the shade of Heracles, and about him was the clamor of the dead as of birds, flying on all sides scared ; but he like black night held his naked bow and an arrow on the string, glancing fiercely as about to shoot." ' Homer's eager Achaeans had begun to think on life. They knew it was short, and hoped for little after it, so it sometimes seemed a slight thing. " Why dost thou ask my race?" says Glaucus ° to on L'f Diomede, " even as the generations of leaves are the generations of men. The wind scatters the leaves ' (?(/., xxiv, 6. » Od., xi, 568. ° Od., X, 492. ' Od., xi, 575, Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus. ' Od., xi, 605. ' //., vi, 146. Young Glaucus more than any other character in the Iliad is tinged with melancholy ; he was descended from one whom the gods' hatred drove crazed to wander apart from men. i 164 ANCIENT IDEALS. upon the ground, and in the spring the forest buds and puts forth others. So one generation of men blooms, anon it passes away." The epics often touch on life's brevity, and often comes the thought of inevitable death besetting men in myriad shapes.' Men are ill-fated;" " there is nothing more wretched than man among all things that breathe and creep upon the earth," says Zeus.' And besides the woe of its brevity, life was grievous in other respects. The tone of the Odyssey is given in two frequently recurring lines, " thence we sailed on afflicted in heart, glad to escape death, having lost our dear comrades." ■" The gods devise evil,' nor does Zeus accomplish the thoughts of man.° After many wander- ings, Menelaus is safe at home with Helen ; but he has not great joy in his possessions, — his brother Agamem- non had been murdered ! ' Human lots were but the sweepings of celestial mansions. Those men are fortu- nate into whose lives comes joy as well as sorrow. Yet the Achaeans loved life eagerly, never doubting the worth of its prizes. It was short, more the pity ; but how filled with joys and griefs, well worth shunning or striving for while life lasted. The great sorrow was death when it came. Others might tire of life because short and disap- pointing, but in Homer none are tired except the dead — oi najiovrss ; all are eager, feeling grief, yet knowing not its weariness ; hating death, yet not embittered with life because of it. Homer's was not a contemplative age. The wisdom of the epics is taught by the action of the heroes, the cur- rent of the story, and the outcome of it all. Some clear ethical utterances are there fitting the occasion, and a few general reflections are found — a man does not excel in everything — love catches womankind." Much more may ■ //., xii, 326. * OJ., ix, 62 ; x, 133. * Avdrr/voi, a frequent epithet. ' Od., i, 234. ' //., xvii, 446. • //., xviii, 328. ' Od., iv, go. ' //., xxiii, 670 ; Od., xv, 421 ; cf. II., xiii, 729 ; Od., viii, 167. HOMER. 165 be learned from the flashing light which makes up Achilles' life, or the noble picture of Odysseus, more complex, more slowly drawn. Only in the idea of fate the experience and knowledge of the age were combined in a judgment upon life of universal application. Nature and life offer to men's notice certain ordinary courses in the occurrence of phenomena, whence rise notions of usual results from given circum- stances, of consequent regularly following its ijeaofFate antecedent, cause regularly operative in effect. The normal courses of things had been observed by the Greeks, though they provided everything in nature with a guiding spirit. The actions of men depended immedi- ately upon the doers' wills, yet also generally followed usual courses. Human beings were born, grew up, had a share of sorrow, a taste of happiness, became decrepit with advancing years, and most inevitably died. In gen- eral, human affairs followed courses warranting prediction. If a stronger host went against a weaker one, though each had its heroes and its aiding deities, probably the stronger host would win. If an eager, valiant, over- weening youth went to a distant war, probably he would gain fame, and probably, though dear to the gods, his life would be short ; if an older man, valiant and strong, sagacious and cunning, went to the same war, it was likely that he would survive, likely even that he would see his home and prudent wife again. Such events, in accordance with probabilities, seemed to come from the nature and relations of things. But if the gods could affect human actions, and were also thought the mainspring of action in the world about man, why did natural phenomena as well as the actions of men follow usual courses? Each human being was an individ- ual living out his own life; each god was a superhuman individual subject to Zeus, yet in large part doing his own will. But all natural objects, brutes, and human beings had certain characteristics, natures, tendencies; l66 ANCIENT IDEALS. the general outcome was the observed course of affairs. And as human wills and actions followed usual courses, it was conceived that the wills and actions of the little more than human gods would also follow usual courses, harmonizing with the inherent natures and tendencies of men and gods and things. Moreover, if the action of individuals or of indepen- dent causes seemed arbitrary, there was an element of the inevitable contained in effects. Helius might threaten to mount the heavens no more ; but if he did, it was inev- itable that light for gods and men should issue from him. So the hero might stay his hand, or some god might turn his spear; but if the spear did strike, and was stopped by no sufficient armor, it would pierce. The elements of the inevitable might consist in results arising from the relations of men and things, or might inhere in their natures, as it inhered in the nature of man to die, of a stone to fall. Events whose necessity came from the inherent nature of things and men were certain ; those which inevitably sprang from contacts and relations could be prevented only by preventing such from taking place. Then finally men could act only in certain modes, and though gods could act in other and further modes, even they could not act in any mode. And as matter of fact, affairs went on in usual courses in accord with ante- cedent probabilities, which in their turn were inferences from former regular courses of events. These universal elements of the inevitable or probable constitute the fundamentals of the Homeric conception of fate as an all-pervading and ordinarily resistless power inherent in circumstances and in the natures of men and things and gods, a power essentially blind, brute, and implacable, and though almighty, yet from lack of con- sciousness, spontaneity, and intelligence, utterly helpless to be or act otherwise than as it does, — a necessity for all, a necessity unto itself. It was the early Greek phase of the Indo-Germanic tendency to discern potency outside the will and power of personally conceived divinity. HOMER. 167 It was a natural growth of the conception, that fate should be conceived not only as inevitable, but ascertain- able — by the gods at least — and declarable in advance.' Then one step more and the fate of the individual is con- ceived as determined and known from his birth, or before it. And with epic consistency the fate of each man har- monizes with his character. Then the conception drew to itself two connotations : First, human lives are hard, and the one sure event in them is death. So fate came to carry the idea of death as the most inevitable, fated, fatal event in life. Secondly, men become accustomed to the usual courses of events around them, become used to the relations and effects of things in life. What is usual tends to gain acquiescence and approval. The idea of fate was the broad expression of the usual and the inevitable, and thus acquired the connotation of proper. Therefore to disturb the course of fate was improper, to act against fate was wrong. The gods, who are wiser than men, are watchful over fate ; knowing that which is to come, and which ought to come, they help bring it about. Homer uses five words to express fate and the personal lot of man, — fxoipa, fiopoi, aiaa, nrjp and norfxo?. Ex- cepting the two first, these are neither identical in mean- ing nor from the same root. But they are sometimes used interchangeably, that is, some one of them in a sense more peculiar to another.'' Ilor^os and nr/p carry ' We might err in speaking of it as pre-ordained, for that would imply an antecedent cause, which Homer neither asserts nor denies. With him fate is simply there, and has been there from former times. ^ These different words indicate the complex origin of the Homeric idea of fate. Mo!'pQ:(judpoS) isfrom the same root -viith. fisipo/J-ai, to apportion or receive as a portion : aida is from the same root with i6oi, like, equal. Uor/ioS is from the root Tfer, found in TtiTtrao, to fall, and in Ttezojuaij to fly (perhaps also, to fall. Od., xii, 203), and so might mean the personal lot which falls out when the helmet is shaken (//., vii, 183). It has an evil meaning, carrying the signification of "death." A man meets "death" and icoT/xoi, or simply meets vcoTfioi, as we say " meets his fate." See //., ii, 359 ; vi, 412 ; xv, 495 ; xx, 337 ; cf. Od., xvii, 131 and //., xviii, g6. Ki^p is from the same root with MSipoo, to cut off, and in meaning is always l68 ANCIENT IDEALS. the notion of death, the most universal fact that touches man. -K'/p, however, is the usual word for man's personal lot, which, wind as it may, always ends in death. " My mother," says Achilles, " Thetis of the silver feet, said that one of two diverse fates (dixQctdiai xfipas) would bring me to my death : if abiding here I fight about the city of the Trojans, my return is cut off, though my fame shall be imperishable; but if I fare homewards to my dear native land, my great fame perishes, but my life shall be long.'" Homer's usual words to express destiny are fioipa [jj.opo?) and aiffa.' Both may mean portion or part, due portion, then that portion established or apportioned by fate, then fate itself, destiny; and both may carry the thought of "right." These meanings maybe followed in the epics.' connected with death, indeed usually means the death allotted to each mortal. In many places in the I/iad a prudent warrior, by retreating or dodging a spear-cast, escapes nr/p. See e. g. II., xiv, 462 ; cf. II., iii, 6, and //., xxiv, 82. Krjp is often joined with adjectives meaning evil or deadly, e. g. II., iii, 454 ; and //., xii, 326 speaks of xi/peS Qavdroio ftvpiai, the myriad dooms of death, which no mortal can escape. ' II., ix, 410. ' Moipa = XT/p (personal fated death) in Od., II. 100. So in Od., xvii, 326, iioipcc davdrmo seizes the dog Argos. It is frequently joined with adjectives of evil significance, e. g,, oXojf or xuktj. The deadly significa- tion of aida appears in the phrase ai6ifiov rjliap, the fated day. //., xxi, ICM. ' Moipa, c. g., means a part or portion, then due portion, as one's proper share of booty, or meat at a feast. See in succession Od. , iv, 97 ; //. , xvi, 68 ; Od., xi, 534 ; iii, 40 ; xvii, 258 ; xx, 171 and 260. Penelope tells Odysseus, "men may not stay awake always, for the immortals have set a time (juotpav) for everything," Od., xix, 591. Polyphemus milks his ewes in due order («a:ra jitoipav), Od., ix, 245, 309, 342 ; the Trojans flee from the Greek camp not Hard jnoipav, II., xvi. 367 ; cf. II., xii, 225. The Greeks listen respectfully (Hard fioipar) while Agamemnon takes his oath, //., xix, 250. To speak Hard fidipav is to say what is proper or just(//., i, 286), or as when Menelaus is asked to interpret an omen he pauses in order that he may answer aright. Hard fioipav, Od., XV, 170. And finally Odysseus referring to Polyphemus' violation of the rights of suppliants, and his bloody meal, tells him that he has acted not Hard fj-oipav , i. e., unrighteously, Od., ix, 352. HOMER. 169 It is doubtful whether fate is personified by Homer except as a manner of poetical speech.' With him it is merely a unification of all the inherent forces of things into a universal impersonal power. No prayer is ever addressed to it, nor is it ever said to doubt or hesitate or consider, as do all men and gods. Neither does it ever act with a motive.^ Destiny is over all, and the lot of each man is " spun for him" at birth;' Hector bids his wife not to grieve, ''for no man against fate shall hurl me to Hades, and I think no man escapes fate, coward or brave." * Such thoughts seem to compass every event, leaving nothing to chance or arbitrary will. But Ho- mer's idea of fate merely reflects the apparent course of events. A human lot hangs apparently on three matters — will, chance, and, lastly, there are events neces- sarily fated, like decrepitude and death. The conclu- sions of a more advanced time may exclude one or more of these factors. Not so Homer. Frequently events are on the point of turning out against fate, and twice unfated events occur.' When Agamemnon, to try the host, proposes to give up the war, and the men rise with a shout and rush to the ships, a return against fate would have happened had not ' Krfp is poetically personified in one of the scenes on Achilles' shield, //., xviii, 535. ' The various terms meaning fate are sometimes the subjects of active verbs. 'OXotj /noipez causes Hector to remain without the walls, //., xxii, 5; fioipa Hparatif urges Tlepolemus against Sarpedon, //., v, 629. See also //., V, 613 ; xiii, 602 ; xxi, 83 ; and compare //., xix, 87, 410 ; xvi, 849 ; xxiv, 49, 209 ; and Od., vii, 197 with //. , xx, 127. ©dvaroi was poetically personified quite as much as fate, c g. II., v, i-i\ xvi, 334, 580. We still say " death overtook him." There are clear instances of poetical personifi- cation in Homer, where no personality is really attributed. Thus the arrow leaps eager or raging to fly, //. , iv, 125. ^ Od., vii, 197 ; //., xx, 127 ; xxiv, 2to. * //., vi, 4S7. Cf. II., xviii, 117. ' The phrases are vnip u-oipav, vitip ai6av ; more common is the compound vitep/J-opov. I70 ANCIENT IDEALS. Hera sent Athene to prevent it.' In the sixteenth book of the Iliad, the ' ' sons of the Achseans would have taken high-gated Troy by the hands of Patroclus," had not Apollo forced him back from the wall, striking with his immortal hands the shining shield of the hero : ' ' Back, Zeus-born Patroclus ! it is not fated that Troy shall fall beneath thy spear, nor beneath the spear of Achilles, a far better man than thou."^ In these instances the course of fate was only threatened ; but in the same six- teenth book Patroclus kills Hector's charioteer, and the even conflict sways to and fro about the body till, as the sun is setting, the Achseans prevail over the Trojans against fate.' All these were occurrences affecting multitudes. Some- times an unfated event threatens or falls upon an indi- vidual. In the twentieth book of the Iliad, Apollo has roused .^neas to stay the slaughtering career of Achilles ; the heroes meet, and .^neas is like to be slain. At this point Poseidon tells Hera that it were shameful for ^neas, whose gifts were always pleasing to the gods, to die deceived by Apollo ; and he adds : "It is fated (jxopipLOv) for him to escape, that the race of Dardanus perish not."' So Poseidon sheds a mist over Achilles' eyes, snatches up .^neas and sets him again on the earth, far off at the edge of the battle, saying: " .^Eneas, what one of the gods is urging thee infatuate thus to contend with the son of Peleus, who is mightier than thou and dearer to the gods ? Rather give way whenever thou meetest him, lest against fate thou enter the house of Hades. But when Achilles has met death, then embold- ened do thou fight amongst the foremost, for none other of the Achaeans shall slay thee. " ^ In another instance ' //., ii, 155 ; the word trvx'^ is used, which strictly denotes happening by chance. ^ //., xvi, 698. See also //., xvii, 319 ; xx, 29 ; xxi, 515. ' //., xvi, 7S0 {xyitip ai6av). < //., XX, 302. 5 //., XX, 332, cf. Od., V, 436. HOMER. 171 the act contrary to fate is accomplished. Near the open- ing of the Odyssey ' Zeus exclaims to the gods about him: " Forsooth, how mortals blame the gods! For they say that evils come from us, but they even of them- selves have sorrows beyond (or contrary to) what is fated, just as now ^gisthus contrary to fate married the wife of Atrides, and slew him on his return, knowing the utter destruction [it would bring], since, having sent Hermes, we warned him not to kill the man nor marry his wife ; for vengeance should come from Orestes when he should reach manhood. So Hermes spoke, but prevailed not on the mind of ^gisthus, though advising him for his good. And now he has paid atonement in full measure. " Finally, in certain other instances, a man might have escaped his fate, but did not. Ajax Oileus, cast upon the rock, would have escaped his fate,'' though hated by Athene, had he not let fall a proud word, saying that, despite the gods, he had escaped the gulf of the sea ; then Poseidon smote the rock, and Ajax perished in the brine. Likewise had Patroclus regarded Achilles' behest not to pursue the Trojans, he would have escaped the evil fate of black death; " but always the mind {yoo?) of Zeus is stronger than the mind of men." ' The Olympians did not create the world and mankind. Accordingly Homer did not think of Zeus as having in all respects absolute power over beings which were not his creations. But the power of Zeus j r- ^ ^ and Fate. is tremendous to shape events. Its limita- tions lie in the qualities which inhere in things and con- stitute their natures, and in what is thereby necessitated. He did not create these qualities and he cannot change them, although he can often direct or hem in their effects. It is inherent in the nature of man to die ; within the range of fate nothing is more fated than death. Homer broadly states that " the gods cannot ward off' death common to all, even from a man who is dear, when the destroying ' Od., i, 32. ' Od., iv, 499, Eq>vyE Krjpa. ^ II-, xvi, 385. 172 ANCIENT IDEALS. fate of death takes him down. ' ' ' Yet Zeus, seized with pity at the sight of his son Sarpedon about to join battle with Patroclus, exclaims to Hera: " Alas me ! that Sar- pedon, dearest to me of men, is doomed to be overcome by Patroclus ! And my heart within me is divided, whether snatching him up safe from tearful battle I will set him down in rich Lycia, or whether I will now over- come him by the hands of the son of Menoetius." Hera answers : " Dread son of Saturn, what word hast thou spoken ! a mortal man long ago doomed by fate wouldst thou wish to loose from death ? Do it. But we other gods will not approve. ' ' ^ Just as human energy or lust might carry events against fate, much more might Zeus. But there is no suggestion that the gods can turn the courses of fate and make it operate in some changed way. The gods are wise, they respect the inherent nature of things and the fated order of events; and since the ultimate reason in Homer why every god and man refrains from carrying out his desire is the fear of evil to come upon himself, the inference, if somewhat far, is not unjustified that the gods respect fate lest by acting contrary to it they overthrow themselves along with the established order. Gods may have other — partisan — reasons for upholding the course of fate. They usually interfere to prevent vio- lations of it which would favor the side they hate. Had not Hera and Athene prevented the return of the Greeks, Troy, so hated by these goddesses, would have remained undestroyed. Apollo upholds fate by preventing the Greeks from capturing before its time the city dear to him. Poseidon's rescue of .(Eneas is more disinterested, for Poseidon was hostile to Troy, and saves jEneas because of the many sacrifices of that staid warrior, and also lest it anger Zeus, whose regard for fate is broad and impartisan.' Fate is more inevitable in so far as dependent exclu- ' Od., iii, 236. ' //., xvi, 431-433. See also //., xxii, 168. 'See //., xx. 30. HOMER. 173 sively on the innate nature of things which Zeus did not create. He is the ruler over all. Though innate quali- ties are beyond his power, the mutual relations and effects of men and things are within it. Universal is the ten- dency of all things, men as well, to act according to their natures. This tendency, which constitutes the less in- evitable element of fate, coincides, so far as mortals see, with the will of Zeus who wisely recognizes it. Conse- quently, fate sometimes appears a power above Zeus, and again subject to his will, or one and the same with it. It is said that Zeus knows all things, what is allotted and what is not allotted for mortals.' But he does not foreknow everything that is to happen, for he doubts as to what he shall do," and one feels that the series of events making up the Iliad were not foreknown to Zeus. The fSovXri, the will or plan of Zeus, was being accom- plished from the time when first Atrides and Achilles parted, having quarrelled ; ° but he had not conceived this plan before Thetis came a suppliant and begged him to avenge her son. The ftovXr) Aio? was accomplished,* — a will, however, no way contrary to fate. Achilles says, " I deem I have been honored by the decree of Zeus,"° /iioS aiaa, a phrase showing how fate and Zeus's will are so at one that fate may sometimes be regarded as coming from him. This frequent phrase always refers to matters within the province of Zeus to regulate." So speaks Odysseus over the slain wooers, i^oipa dewv overthrew them, and their ' Od., XX, 76. '//., ii, 3, he considers how he shall fulfil his promise to Thetis. //., i, 520, Zeus sends Thetis off secretly lest Hera find out ; but Hera does find out, which Zeus cannot have foreknown. ' //., i, 5. ' The phrase //rdS vorj/ta, II., xvii, 409, seems equivalent in meaning. ' 11., ix, Q08. • Thus in Od., ix, 52, the evil aiSa of Zeus was that the Cicones should put to flight Odysseus and his men ; in Od., xi, 61 it is the evil Sai/iovoi ai6a, which together vidth wine causes the death of Elpenor, who falls from the roof when drunk. In //., xvii, 321, again, through the /lioi aidar the Greeks get the better of the Trojans. 174 ANCIENT IDEALS. evil deeds ; ' and he says to the shade of Ajax, Zeus is to blame, he laid thy doom on thee." Lycaon tells Achilles, fjLoipa oXor) has placed me again in thy hands, I must be hated by Zeus/ And in answer to Achilles, Xanthus, the immortal steed, tells him that on that day they will bear him safe, though near him is the day of destruction, — neither are we to blame, but a great god and strong fate/ And how does Zeus himself speak of fate? In the fifth book of the Odyssey he sends Hermes to announce to Calypso the ' ' firm decree {vr/fj-Eprea ^ovkr^v) the return of Odysseus, how he is to come to his home with no escort of gods or men ; but, suffering hardship on a raft, on the twentieth day shall he arrive at the land of the Phaeacians, who shall send him with much treasure to his dear fatherland ; for in this manner is it fate for him (pi jxoipoL) to see his friends and come to his lofty house. ' ' '' Here the "firm decree " — presumably of Zeus — is in con- tents identical with what is fate for Odysseus ; the two correspond, yet may not have the same source.' Again is the full accord between fate and the will of Zeus seen in the passage where Zeus holds up the scales to announce that the moment for Hector's death is come. In the eager chase, pursuer and pursued have sped three times around Troy, "but when for the fourth time they reached ' Od., xxii, 413 ; see Od., xi, 292. ^ Od., xi, 560. 3^7., xxi, 83. * II., xix, 408. The god referred to is Apollo, but Apollo directed by Zeus. So the gods devise a man's doom for him, Od., iii, 242 ; compare Od., xxii, 14, when Odysseus prepares death and ycfjpa for the wooers. In //., xxii, 365, Achilles says he wUI accept his v^pa whenever Zeus and the other gods bring it about. ' Od., V, 30. For this use of oi /xoipa see also 17., vii, 52 ; xv, 117 ; xxiii, 80; Od., iv, 475. * Compare the phrase 6oi 6E(S(paToV, which means " it is a degree of god for thee, " which for men is equivalent to " it is fated for thee." — Od. , TV, 561 ; X, 473. See Nagelsbach, Homerischt Tkeohgie, 127 ; and cf. H., viu, 477. Throughout one is reminded of the relation of the Vedic rita to Varuna ; see ante, chap. iii. HOMER. 175 the springs, then did the Father poise the golden scales and place therein two lots of long-grievous death, the one of Achilles, the other of Hector, tamer-of-horses, and taking hold at the middle he lifted the scales; and fell Hector's fated day and went to Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him."' The fall of Hector's fated day announces the course of fate, and Zeus merely holds the balance aloft, influencing neither scale. Hector's fated day falls by the force of fate, by the power of the course and tendency of things, — his hour was come. On the other hand, it is not to ascertain whether Hector is then to be slain by Achilles that Zeus lifts the scales. The death of Hector is already resolved on by Zeus, and Athene has been sent to bring it to pass.^ And to this resolve of Zeus is the hero's death directly due, just as much as to the course of fate. The lifting of the scales announces the fated hour and shows the accord between fate and the will of Zeus. These two are here as always in perfect harmony : fate the huge force, the overwhelm- ing dumb tendency of events, and Zeus's will guiding on events along the course of fate.' It is evident that the Homeric view of fate meant no benumbing fatalism. In a solemn moment, Hector might pause and regard fate as all powerful, yet he uses the thought only to comfort his wife. At times mortals feel powerless to control the event. Telemachus, feeling his impotence to drive off the wooers, hopelessly tells his affairs to the disguised Odysseus, adding, "but now these things \i. e., the outcome] lie on the knees of the gods." * Here Telemachus seems to give up. But the same phrase is used by warriors about to join in desperate battle, and then means " I will do my best, the gods may direct the '//., xxii, 208. ^ See //., xxii, 166. ^ In //., viii, 69, Zeus also holds up the scales to show forth the fate of the battle, and the Greek lot falls ; Zeus thunders and the Greeks flee, as in outline Zeus had previously determined on. * Od., xvi, I2g. 176 ANCIENT IDEALS. event. ' ' ' Something may be read between the lines of a passage in the fourth book of the Iliad. Menelaus has overcome Paris in the duel, and demand has been made on the Trojans to fulfil the oaths and give up Helen. The truce still continues, and the hosts lie expectant. Now the gods hold council in Olympus, and the outcome is that Zeus sends Athene to make the Trojans break the oath. She darts from Olympus, and like a flaming me- teor drops between the hosts. " And wonder seized them looking on, horse-taming Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans ; and thus would one say to his fellow, ' Either again there will be evil war and furious strife, or else Zeus is about to establish friendship between the sides, even he who is the director of the war of men 1 ' " " So looking on this ball of fire, not recognizing a goddess, men felt that something was about to take place, and that they could not control what it should be. Men are helpless, whispers the passage. Yet no reference is made to fate ; it is Zeus who is so powerful that men have little hand in guiding their destinies. Homer and Hesiod made the gods.' The highest Greek revelation was the inspiration of the Muse. It is charac- teristic of the race from the beginning that it g. . . did not regard its knowledge or its rules of con- duct as revealed by God. In Homer the gods constantly communicate with mankind, love and hate them with varied feeling ranging through the whole scale of human affection, lust, and hate ; frequently the gods appear to mortals and command or warn them. But Zeus promulgates no code of righteousness; he com- mands or forbids specific acts. And it is clear that such dramatic presentations of the gods, which sprang from the Greek artist soul, afforded no standard of human right- ' //. , xvii, 514 ; XX, 435. In other places the phrase carries no other idea than that future events are in the hands of the gods. See Od., i, 267, 400. «//.,iv., 79. ' See Herod., ii, 53. HOMER. 177 eousness, or criterion of human sin. These gods were nature's children with all the frailties natural to men. And as for the righteousness of their governance, why, Zeus once sent Athene down from heaven to make the Trojans break an oath rendered inviolate by sacrifice to Zeus himself. Wherein then did the Greeks find the source and sanc- tion of their rules of conduct — often broken? Even in that which they saw, perceived, and knew. Directly, luminously, in ways open to the tests of reason, they fashioned rules of conduct from their store of experience. In the data of their ethics they included all their knowl- edge of man and his environment, and their judgments upon life ; herein entered their dismal views as to the outworn semblances which twittered out inane existence in the underworld, existence far too blank to hold reward or punishment ; herein entered their thoughts of the results of acts on earth, and also those farthest generali- zations upon life which made up the thought of fate; herein entered those more plastic expressions of the pow- ers which aid or thwart men's lives — those living, human, natural gods. These gods were part of life and not above it ; yet, since they were rulers of the world, it was impos- sible not to think that they stood for more than their own whims, even for those further active principles of retri- bution which, as the Greeks learned from life, awaited the ill-considered, overweening acts of men. Nothing is more displeasing to the gods than the insolent pride through which men ignore their mortality, and wantonly act out their cruel wills — till retribution comes.' " For the blessed gods do not love cruel deeds, but they honor justice and equitable acts in men."" Odysseus, dis- guised in rags, says to Amphinomus, the least evil of the wooers, warning him to remove from among them: " Of all that earth nourishes, nothing is feebler than man, who, so long as the gods give him might and sustain his ' This is the quality of vftpii which marks the wooers. ' Od., xiv, 83. VOL. 1. — 12 178 ANCIENT IDEALS. Strength of limb, thinks ill will never come upon him. But when the blessed gods bring on him woes, then he has to bear them with enduring heart. For I too might have been prosperous among men, but I did many infat- uate deeds, letting my strength do its pleasure, and rely- ing on my father and brothers. Therefore let no man do evil, but let him possess in silence the gifts of the gods whatever they may give. ' ' ' He then who is wise will reverence the gods in twofold mode ; will not forget propitiatory offerings to their human moods, pleasing them thus as men please men ; and will refrain from acts which revert upon the doers' heads. These Greeks knew life, understood mortal impo- tence, and realized the need to supplement it through propitiation of the higher powers. " Pray, stranger, to Lord Poseidon, for thou hast chanced on his feast, com- ing hither, and when thou hast poured to him and prayed, as is right, hand the goblet of sweet wine to thy companion to pour therefrom ; for I think he too prays to the deathless gods, and all men need the gods." '' Right conduct therefore was the fruit of wisdom,^ human at source, often aided by divine suggestion. Wrong conduct was the fruit of folly. The wise man respects the gods, finds out their wishes and obeys ; and he deals aright with men : — the foolish man does other- wise. Wrongdoing was blamed ; it brought retribution from gods or men ; and in its evil results to the doer lay the proof, if not the essence, of its being wrong. Wrong was folly; says Agamemnon to Nestor of his wrong to Achilles: " You have rightly named my folly; I was a fool, nor do I deny it." * Inasmuch as the Homeric Achaeans were most eager in their desires, and saw the sanction of their acts in the good or evil results to the doer, they admired nothing so much as success, that far success which, without tripping, wins and holds the thing desired. And it is this quality ' Orf., xviii, 130. ' Cf. Od.y xviii, 228. ' Od., iii, 43. ■* //., ix, 115 ; cf. II., xix, 86. HOMER. 179 of success that from Homer onwards gradually gathers round itself a divineness, and sanctifies the man's life if it abide with him to the end. With Homer, quite con- sistently, human excellence lay within the compass of the two heroic virtues, otpetr) and nivvrt) ; the first, physical strength and valor; the second, that mental insight and capacity, that prudentia, which combines cunning and wisdom as to men, and wisdom and respect as to the gods. Under all circumstances the possessor of Tiivvrrf will see what is best to do, therefore will not err, will not do wrong. He will know how rightly to treat his friends, how by guile to overthrow his enemies, and how duly to respect and obey the gods. It was thought to follow, as of course, that this excellent understanding would find fitting expression in words, — indeed was it clearly distinct from the faculty of speech? — and that as its possessor knew good counsels so would he be eloquent. Thus the Homeric Achaeans, being Greeks, reasoned on life and fashioned its ideals. Aperrj was the physical energy of valorous desire ; nivvrr) the clear intelligence which reached mortality's far ends. Eagerness to gain these ends became in the Achaean soul a burning shame of acts which tripped the man pressing along the path of far success, or spotted the fair fame which the Greek was ever to love more than life. The heroic passion is to do mighty deeds of warfare or adventure, and so win fame and wealth. But around it, in the epics, circles a play of trait and motive, love and sympathy, which completes the fair contents of mortal life. In Homer the genius of the Greek race shows its early cherishings of all that should enlarge the life of man. So a full round of human interest comes to expression in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is all fresh and youthful; but it is the youth of a full man. The Epic In simple mode. Homer's men and women are ?"° ° Human moved by many human sympathies and feel- Trait. ings; quick their joy, quick their tears; an- other's sorrow wakes remembrance in the friendly heart l8o ANCIENT IDEALS. of like sorrows of its own. Terrific is the pathos of the scenes of utter heart-break, as that of Hector's death and Andromache's fearful hasting to the wall — to see his body dragged at Achilles' wheels. Lovely and subtle is the pathos of the scenes of mingled feeling — the San. pvoEv yskdaaaa of Andromache receiving her child back from Hector's arms — or that scene of mingled joy and woe when in the halls of Circe the loathsome swine- forms drop from Odysseus' comrades, and they embrace their rescuer, loudly lamenting, till even the goddess is moved to pity ; ' — or that picture of great, unknown Odysseus sitting at the Phseacian banquet, while Demodo- cus sings of the fierce quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles, which had been foretold in the days when the woe was about to roll upon the Trojans and Danaans. " Such was the song the famous minstrel sang; but Odys- seus, with his mighty hands, pulled his cloak over his head, for he was ashamed to weep before the Phaeacians. And whenever the divine minstrel paused, Odysseus would uncover his head and taking a goblet pour a liba- tion to the gods. But when the song began again, he would cover his head and moan."' This bard himself, blind Demodocus, shows life's compensations, he whom "the Muse loved exceedingly, and gave him good and ill, for she took away his sight and gave him sweet song. ' ' The quick social nature of the Achseans showed itself in the glad hospitality extended to all strangers — and no wanderers more welcome than " the tribe of minstrels," ' who sang at feasts the famous deeds of men ; — the gods fashioned the fall of Troy that it might be a theme of song for future men.* But others sang besides the bards — Achilles quells his heart singing to his lyre of the deeds of heroes.' And apart from minstrelsy, sweet is joy of simple human intercourse between understanding men. ' Od., X, 388. » Od., viii, 479. ' Od„ viii, 62. * Od., viii, 579 ; cf. Od., ix, 5 ; xvii, 270. »//.,ix, 186. HOMER. l8l Odysseus and trusty swineherd Eumaeus are supping in Eumaeus' hut; Odysseus asks Eumaeus' story, how he came to wander from his country, whether his city had been sacked, or wherefore. Eumseus answers : "Friend, since you ask me these things, sit now quietly, and be glad and drink your wine. The nights are long, and there is both time to sleep and time to listen for those who like. The others who wish may go forth and sleep till dawn, when let them break their fast and follow the master's swine. But we two will drink and eat and enjoy the story of each other's troubles, recalling them ; for afterwards a man gets pleasure from his trials, one who has suffered much and wandered far." ' Among such people there were trusty comrades and dear friends. The essence of comradeship is mutual confi- dence and common occupation ; friendship adds the finer element of love. The two Ajaces represent comrade- ship. In the dark hours when, 'midst the adverse battle, such of the Greek leaders as remain unwounded are hold- ing off the Trojans from slain Patroclus, the greater Ajax tells Menelaus with Meriones to bear away the body, while we two, the Ajaces, " in your rear will fight the Trojans and divine Hector, having the same mind and one name, as heretofore we have often withstood the sharp fight standing by each other." " Men and women in the epics love their children. For- ever glowing is Hector's caress and warrior prayer that his son's fame surpass his own.' Achilles, at the sight and words of Priam, weeps for his absent father; and in Hades the feeble shade of him once mighty asks to learn of that same aged father, longs for life and strength again to ward off dangers from his dear head ; asks also of his son Tlepolemus, is he valiant, famous? And when told ' Od. , XV, 3go. " //., xvii, 718. "As in this glorious'and well-foughten field, we held together in our chivalry." — Shak., Henry V. ^11., vi, 476. 182 ANCIENT IDEALS. of Tlepolemus' brave deeds, off strides the shade rejoic- ing.' And does not Odysseus love Telemachus, and he love and almost worship that great father, whom at first he thinks some god ! The poet pictures him sitting silent amidst the taunts of the wooers, watching his father, expecting the signal." Yet not for veneration for their fathers would the Greeks close their eyes to facts. In the Iliad Agamem- non foolishly reproaches Diomede with being an un- worthy son of a valiant father, and Diomede's follower answers : ' ' We boast ourselves to be far better men than our fathers. We took seven-gated Thebes, though we led a smaller host against a stronger wall, trusting in the omens of the gods and the help of Zeus ; but they perished in their impiousness. Do not, therefore, ascribe equal honor to our fathers." ' As Telemachus, respectful, modest in speech, abashed at the thought of addressing the venerable Nestor, is the youth of the epics, Nausicaa is the maiden. The poet has given her the sweetest modesty and innocence. At the river, like Artemis among her wood-nymphs, is she fair among her fellow-maids. Odys- seus, seeing her, exclaims : " Thrice happy are her parents — if she be really mortal — beholding her so fair entering the dance, but most blessed he who shall prevail with ■wooing gifts and lead her to his home ! " Of Odysseus, on Tvhom Athene sheds grace, Nausicaa muses softly, as he sits on the shore. Then while her maidens give him food, she yokes the mules and speaks to him: " Rouse thee now, stranger, to go to the city, so that I may send thee to my father's house, where thou wilt see the noblest of the Phaeacians. And do as I tell thee, for thou seemest not indiscreet. While we are passing through the fields, do thou walk with the attendants behind the wagon. ' Od., xi, 538. = Cla'.,xx, 385. ' //. , iv, 405. Their fathers had attacked Thebes against the warnings of the gods. HOMER. 183 But when we come to the city I would avoid the ungra- cious speech of men, who might say, — who is this goodly stranger with Nausicaa ? where did she find him ? Now he will be her husband. Verily she regards not the noble youths of the Phseacians who woo her. — And indeed I would blame another girl who conversed before marriage with men without her parents' knowledge." The poet gives a last glimpse of Nausicaa ; she is standing by the door-post in the hall of the palace, and sees coming from the bath anointed and fairly clad the great stranger who has shown himself so courteous, wise, and strong of arm. Her eyes wonder at him as she speaks: " Hail, guest! and when thou art in thy fatherland sometime think of me, for first unto me thou owest the ransom of thy life." ' The epics know well the tender love between a man and wife. Noble is Hector's love for Andromache; and through what terrors, and away from what sweet lures does Odysseus strain towards his home ! What were his yearnings? To see his old father and mother, should they still linger on earth ; stronger may have been the wish to see his son, and the longing which is child of manifold remembrance, to look once more upon the land of his youth ; and yet above all he yearned to hold his dear wife in his arms. Calypso would keep him on her island, make him her husband, give him immortality; she tells him of the trials of his voyage, the dangers of his return, and adds that she boasts herself to be no less fair than that wife of his whom he longs all the days to see : — what says the hero to her ? " Goddess, be not angry with me. And I know that wise Penelope is less fair than thou, for she is a mortal, and thou an immortal ever young. Yet all the days I long to journey homewards and see the day of my return. And if some god shall wreck me in the sea I will endure, possessing my soul steadfast in evil, for I have already suffered much from waves and war, and let this be added thereto."" The same hero thus tells ' Od., viii, 457. Od., vi, contains the tale of Nausicaa. ^ Od., v, 214. 184 ANCIENT IDEALS. Nausicaa his thought of wedded life: " May the gods give thee thy desire, husband and home and concord therein ; for nothing is stronger or better than a man and wife who dwell together in unison, — a sight to make their enemies grieve and their friends rejoice, but most of all they know their happy lot themselves. ' ' ' And how is it with the wife? Does not Penelope love and remember and hope ? With what devices does she put off her stormy, cruel wooers, hoping, intending never to marry one of them. And Odysseus twenty years away ! Yet she remembers all, the clothes he wore when he set out for evil Ilium ; night and day she pines and weeps, and her tears pour forth at the sight of the bow — of anything which once was his. Intercourse was marked by courtesy of manner, show- ing high regard between men. Rarely does a Homeric personage address another without some title I, of respect, and courteous terms are used even Thought . , A 1 Ml 1 r 1 of Beauty °^ enemies. Ajax and Achilles speak of the great Trojan hero as divine Hector. Charm- ing is the courtesy with which a chief receives who- ever may come to his abode. Achilles greets the trem- bling heralds with, " Hail, Heralds, messengers of Zeus and men ! Come near. I do not blame you, but Aga- memnon, who has sent you for the girl Briseis. " " And still nobler is the courtesy with which the bereaved hero treats the suppliant Priam. ^ This formal epic courtesy of intercourse not only marks the high consciousness of the personal worth of heroes, but is a phase of that which is with Homer the broadest thought and loveliest desire, the thought of beauty, of beauty intellectual and physi- cal, gratifying the mind or the eye or ear. Conceptions of intellectual and moral beauty were the reflex of Ho- meric far-sighted views of life as to what was fitting, right, or proper, as to what was broadly well for man ; the reflex, too, of Homer's mind and love of knowledge. ' Od., vi, 180. ' //., i, 334. 3 ^^^post. HOMES. 185 Homer's mental power, performing its perfect function, and so conforming itself to the mould of intellectual beauty, manifests itself in the structure of the epics, in their plan and arrangement, their artistic form and splen- did movement, and in the fitness of their episodes. The use of the word uakoi, whose primary meaning is " beautiful," shows the wide associations and extensions of the thought of beauty, even in these earliest times. KaXov in the epics is used in the sense of fittingly, prop- erly, becomingly; says Odysseus to the Phaeacian who would taunt him into taking part in the sports, " thou dost not speak xaXov.^ Again it is said it is not becom- ing [xaXov) to boast loudly;" and Penelope declares that it is not fitting (xakov) nor just {Siuaiov) for the wooers to ill-treat a guest of Telemachus.^ Poseidon challenges Apollo to combat, but says, " Begin thou ; it is not fitting {huXov) for me to begin : I am older and know more than thou."* Again Poseidon tells certain of the Achaean chiefs that it is not proper {naXov) for them longer to shun the battle.' Priam, meeting Hermes in the night and hearing from him about Hector's body, asks, " Who art thou that tellest me so fairly about my son? ' ' ' And in other places the word means "well." ' Naturally it often means charming or delightful: " Nor [at the banquet of the gods] was there lacking the lovely (jtapiKoXXeoi) lyre which Apollo had, nor the Muses, who sang in turn with a beautiful voice." ° And Odysseus says that it is most delightful [KaXXiatov) to hear songs, feasting at a ban- quet.' ' Od., viii, 166 ; cf. Od., xvii, 381. ' Od., xvii, 19 ; cf. Od., xviii, 287. '' Od., xxi, 312 ; see Od. xx, 294. * //. , xxi, 440. ' //., xiii, 166 ; cf. II., vi, 326 ; viii, 400 ; ix, 615. «//., xxiv, 388. ' See Od., xv, 10 ; xvii, 397, 460, 483 ; cf. Od., xiv, 253, 299. ' //., i, 604 ; cf. II., xviii, 570 ; Od., a, 227. ' Od., ix, II ; see Od., i, 370 ; ix, 3. 1 86 ANCIENT IDEALS. The primary meaning of the word is ' ' fair to see. ' ' Transition to it is made by a passage wherein the poet shows the intimate connection between the idea of what is hideous to behold and what is shocking mentally and morally. From the walls of Troy, Priam is entreating Hector not to await Achilles ; he speaks of his many good sons already slain, and how much more will be the grief of all if Hector falls. Then he implores Hector to pity him entering on the path of old age, whose life Zeus is making so hard, with the slaughter of sons and the drag- ging away captive of daughters and the casting down on the earth of little children : "And perhaps I shall last of all be torn by dogs before my doors, when the spear has taken my life. It befits a young man killed in battle to be gashed with the spear, and all is seemly (Kokoi) for him when dead, whatever may come to him. But when dogs defile the gray head and beard of an old man slain, that is indeed the thing most pitiable that comes to wretched mortals." ' What could be uglier than the naked body of an old man, gashed and torn? What could be more shocking, too, to every moral and intellectual feeling? Everything prized by him would the Homeric Achaean have beautiful : his horses and chariot, his garments and his arms. The splendid detailed description of Achilles' shield shows how the poet loved a beautiful object. And in human beings nothing was more prized, more loved, than beauty. Athene pours grace (japzf) over Odys- seus, makes him taller and fairer, that he may find favor in Phseacian eyes.'' Beauty (noihXo'C) is a gift from the gods ; " and how they loved it in mortals Ganymede might tell, snatched up by Zeus for his beauty, and lovely Cli- tus, whom the Dawn carried away to live among the im- ' //., xxii, 37. ^ Od., VI, 235 ; vii, 19 ; see Od., ii, 12 ; xvii, 63 ; xxiii, 162. ' Ibid, and see //., vi, 156 ; Od., vi, 18 ; Od., viii, 457 ; Od., xviii, 192 ; Od., xvi, 211. HOMER. 187 mortals.' Other good qualities join with it, as, of course, " large and beautiful," " tall and fair," " tall, fair, and accomplished," — thus does the poet speak of his heroes and his women." Achilles was most beautiful as well as mightiest of the Achseans." And nothing in Paris so shocks the noble Hector as that his brother should be so splendid of form and so unvaliant." In the night scene in Achilles' tent, stricken Priam perforce marvels at the beauty of the slayer of his son ; stricken Achilles admires the noble dignity of the father of his dear one's slayer. But it is of chilling interest to note how the Homeric Greeks could sometimes sever their admiration for beauty of form from kind feeling towards the possessor; how they could admire and hate. The Achasans throng around to marvel at the splendid form of dead Hector, " nor did any one draw near that did not wound him." ° Only Helen is so fair that no one of the Achaeans or Trojans blames her, and the poet never. Fate and her divine beauty justify Helen. Erring perhaps, fate-driven, is she, rather than sinning of her own free will. Ever goes she clothed in beauty, ever are her thoughts most beautiful ; she is divine of women, whether we see her on the wall of Troy when the cracked voices of old men declare it no wonder Greeks and Trojans fight for such a woman, whether we see her at her loom weaving in a mighty web the deeds of heroes, or verily even when she ascends the couch of him with whom she had fled home, husband, child. Could Helen resist fate? Ah, no! Would sh-Ql The poet does not say; only we know her beauty and her grace, her words and movements. Who * //., XX, 235 ; Od., XV, 251. Od.yvi, 42, describes Olympus, the abode of the gods, in a way showing how much lovely localities were prized by the old Greeks, although they had no sentimentality as to nature. * Od., xiii, 287 ; xv, 418 ; x, 396. ^ See//., 673. So in //., xiii, 432, is Ka'AAo? naturally joined with sflya. Compare the phrase ijvi rs )ieyai re, Od.,ix, 508. "//., iii, 3g. * //., xxii, 369. 1 88 ANCIENT IDEALS. moves us more than Helen, the unhappy cause of all the woe? Whose lament for Hector is so touching? Not wifely Andromache's. And lovely are her self-reproaches, in which mingles a pity for herself and Paris, ' ' on whom Zeus has placed such an evil fate that we shall be a theme of song to men in times to come." ' Yet she feels her shame quite as much as the hard will of the gods that put it on her ; and the shame which she has brought on her brothers. Looking from the wall, she does not see them. " Either they did not follow from loved Lacedse- mon, or they did follow in their sea-sailing ships, but now will not mingle in the battle of men, dreading the shame and the many reproaches which are mine." So she spoke ; but them the life-giving earth had, even in Lace- daemon, their dear fatherland." Another final Hellenic thought presents itself through the range of epic story, — that of the greatness of the heroic man despite his mortality. The epics The Great- , . , ^ %, r^ u nessofMan.'^^'&"*^" every human quality, by no means the moral qualities alone or even pre-eminently. They greaten manhood altogether. Humanity is beheld glorified, not by circumstances or capacities unhuman, but in the greatness of human trait. No hero is ever lifted out of his essential humanity. Of this essential humanity the gods are but the reflex ; and consequently, not the gods, but Achilles and Odysseus, are the crown- ing glories of epic creation. In them, heroic ideals are incarnate. Yet the two heroes are very real. Nowhere exist characters defined in stronger line. Achilles is swift and radiant human force ; in his glowing heart molten passions surge and swell, burst forth in fiery words, trans- form the hero to a raging bane; and when the rage is past, Achilles is again a gracious demi-god. Odysseus is courageous intelligence and enduring strength, which win success and fame, gain their end as does the force of Achilles, and without giving up life therefor. The Greek ' //., Vi, 357. 2 //_^ iii, 236. HOMER. 189 race loved Achilles as a son of promise who was too young to die ; not less did they regard Odysseus, whom they more instinctively imitated. For Achilles was what the Greeks wondered at ; Odysseus was what they ad- mired and were. As one reads and feels the Greek epic, a unique impres- sion is produced by Achilles, this marvellous being, so vehement, passionate, wrathful, tender in love of friend, convulsive in grief, cruel in revenge, then graciously pitying. In every bodily quality he sur- passes the other heroes ; no one else can wield the Pelean spear; no other man alone can lift the bar of Achilles' door. But for his swiftness and grace, he might be colossal ; but colossal he is not, only tall and goodly, fairest of men. Likewise in every passion, spiritual qual- ity, and mental trait that is his, Achilles is great. Patro- clus is the dear friend of the hero, that is his role, that is his character; he is an accessory and a foil to Achilles, waits expectant on his moods, does his behests, acts only for his glory, except when carried along by his own impet- uous valor. And yet, notwithstanding that Patroclus' personality has its centre and its bounds in this devotion, Achilles' love for Patroclus was greater, was an affection reaching beyond anything the lesser man Patroclus was capable of. This is but a single illustration in the topic of Achilles' grandeur; for he is fierce in his wrath, strong also in self-restraint, lofty in his indignation, in sorrow exceeding the comprehensions of other men, a very tor- rent of avenging hate, and sublime in his gracious moods. In nothing is he small ; his greatness is beautiful in its completeness. Glory is a continuing, mighty motive with Achilles. It was born with him and made his boyhood swift and eager, led him to choose warfare around mighty Troy rather than a dullard's lengthened years. Easily was he first in deeds among the Achseans until the outrage put upon him by Agamemnon ; then anger thrusts glory 190 ANCIENT IDEALS. from his mind. For a time this anger is dominant, hold- ing him in inactivity which he whiles away singing the famous deeds of men ; and under the dulling influence of anger he thinks of loathsome Hades, and questions whether it were not better to sail home to Phthia, com- fort himself with a wife, and live those long years once promised him. The imminent destruction of the fleet moves him to send Patroclus to his death. Then grief and avenging hate bury anger out of sight, overwhelm the horror of an early death; and Achilles chooses re- venge and death, as before glory and death had been his choice. Again the glory motive comes. If he breathes revenge, mightily is his heart set on fame ; and with him glory and the love of fame forbade his being infamous in any way. Greek is he to the core, Greek in his calm fearlessness which rational confi- dence inspires, Greek in his self-restraint and his obedi- ence to the gods, Greek in his love and hate, and Greek in his mercy at the end, sprung from an under- standing of the pitiableness of men. As from the height of larger personality the heart-stricken hero comforts Priam. It is night ; Achilles sits in his tent ; two com- rades are removing the remains of the evening meal. Suddenly Priam enters, passes by the two, clasps Achilles' knees, and kisses the hands which have slain so many of his sons. Wonder seizes them while the old man speaks : " Think of thy father, godlike Achilles, who with me is entering on the dreary path of old age. Perhaps neigh- boring chiefs are pressing hard upon him, and there is none to ward off the war. Yet he, hearing of thee as yet alive, rejoices in the hope of seeing his loved son some day return from Troy. But I am all bereft, for of my bravest sons, not one is left. Fifty had I when came the sons of the Achaeans. Most of them fierce conflict has laid low ; there was one who protected the city, and now thou hast slain him as he fought for his country, even Hector. For him am I come to the ships of the Achaeans, HOMER. 191 bringing thee a ransom. Reverence the gods, Achilles, and pity me, as thou rememberest thy father. I am more pitiable. I have endured as no other earthly mor- tal has, to lift up my hands to the slayer of my son." ' Achilles gently pushed him back, and both wept aloud, — Achilles for his father and Patroclus, Priam for his son. Then he sprang forward and raised the old man in pity of his gray hair: " Ah, hapless! Many ills hast thou endured. How didst thou dare to come to the ships of the Achseans alone, and meet the eyes of him who has slain many and the brave ones among thy sons? Iron is thy heart ! But sit, and our sorrows will we let rest in our breasts, grieved as we are. No help will come from chill lament ; for the gods have made it the lot of wretched mortals to live in affliction while they are without sorrow. Two jars stand on the floor of Zeus filled with evil gifts, and another with blessings. He to whom Zeus gives a mingled lot, at one time encounters evil, at another, good. But him to whom Zeus gives of the evil kind, he makes a wretch of; hunger drives him over the broad earth, and he wanders honored neither by gods nor mortals. Thus the gods gave splendid gifts to Peleus from his birth ; for he excelled all in fortune, and was king of the Myrmi- dons, and though mortal, had a goddess for a wife. But even to him did god allot evil, for no race of mighty sons was born in his palace, only one son, who was to bring no joy. For I do not tend him now as he grows old, but am here at Troy, bringing sorrow to thee and thy children. And thou, old man, heretofore have we heard thou wert fortunate, that thou didst surpass in wealth and sons all throughout Lesbos, Phrygia, and by the boundless Hel- lespont. But then the heavenly ones brought bane to thee, that always is there battle and the slaughter of men about thy city. Endure, nor make such unappeasable lament. Grief for thy brave son is unavailing. Thou canst not raise him up. ' ' ' ' //., xxiv, 485. 5 //., xxiv, 518. 192 ANCIENT IDEALS. Priam's thoughts are with his son : "Bid me not to sit, O Zeus-born, while Hector Hes uncared for by the tents, but release him now, that I may see him with my eyes, and do thou receive the ransom." Whereat Achilles, moved, replied: " Trouble me no more, old man. I mean to release Hector; for there came a messenger from Zeus, even the mother who bore me. And I know, O Priam, that one of the gods has brought thee to the ships of the Achaeans. So vex not my soul in its grief, lest I respect thee not though a sup- pliant, and transgress the commands of Zeus." ' So he spoke, and the old man feared; and Achilles sprang forth through the door, and took the precious ransom from the wagon, except two robes which he left to cover the body. Then he bade the maid-servants wash the body away from Priam's sight, lest seeing his son the old man should not restrain his wrath, and anger Achilles to kill him. When the body was washed and anointed, AcTiilles lifted it upon the wagon, calling with a moan on his dear comrade : " Be not angered at me, Patroclus, if thou dost hear in Hades that I have given up noble Hector to his father; for not unworthy is the ransom, which I will duly share with thee."" And he went back into the tent, sat down, and spoke to Priam : " Thy son is released, old man, as thou hast wished, and lies on a bier. Thou shalt see him in the morning when carrying him away. Now let us have a thought of food. For even fair-haired Niobe bethought her of food, although her twelve children had perished in her halls, six daughters and six sons in their prime. Apollo angered with Niobe slew the sons, and archeress Arte- mis the daughters, because Niobe compared herself with Leto, saying she had borne only two children and herself many. And the two destroyed the many. Nine days they lay in their gore, for there was none to bury them, as Zeus turned the folk to stone ; on the tenth the heav- ' //., xxiv, 560. ^ II., xxiv, 5gi. HOMER. 193 enly gods buried them, and Niobe bethought her of food when she was weary with weeping. So let us also think of eating, noble old man. Hereafter shalt thou mourn thy son carrying him to Ilion." ' Achilles and his comrades prepared the meal, and when desire for meat and drink was satisfied, then Priam mar- velled at Achilles, to see how great and fair he was, for his face was like the gods, and Achilles marvelled at Priam, beholding his noble aspect and hearing his voice. When they had gazed for a while on one another, Priam asked for a couch, for he had neither slept nor tasted food since Hector's death. Achilles had a fair bed spread for him beyond the inner room; then said: " Lie thou there without, dear old man, lest some of the Achaean chiefs, who are always coming to consult, find thee here and tell Agamemnon, and there be delay in giving up the dead. But tell me how many days wouldst thou have for Hec- tor's burial, so that I may keep back the host." " Priam answered: " If indeed thou art willing that I should per- form the rites for Hector, thou dost a welcome deed for me, Achilles. For as thou knowest we are pent within the city, and the wood is far on the mountain. Nine days would we mourn, and bury him on the tenth, on the eleventh raise his mound. On the twelfth we will fight again, if needs be." These things shall be as thou biddest, aged Priam; and for the time thou sayest I will hold back the battle. ' ' ' So he spoke and clasped the old man's hand that he might have no fear. And Priam and his herald slept by the entrance, but Achilles in the inner room, and by his side lay fair-haired Briseis. So by mercy, culminating in an act of kindness unbe- sought, the wild heart of Achilles finds a calm, — an act of kindness done by a hero looking in the face of his own death. Many tears have fallen at the story of the woes of Priam, and the hard death of Hector, the hero who ' //., xxiv, SQQ. » //., xxiv, 651. ' //., xxiv, 669. VOL. I.- r ! 194 ANCIENT IDEALS. loved his wife and country and fell for them. There is subtler pathos in the fate of Achilles, which the poet does not bring to pass, though holding it ever in view. The life of the hero, to his knowledge fated to be short, is all unhappy, despite the glory of it. Toils are there in it, and enough ; his reward is outrage ; and his indignation brings on him the sorrow for which he is to find no solace. Far from home is he, and soon to die ; bereaved will be aged Peleus, bereaved in the thought is Achilles ; dead is the friend he cherished. Who can comfort him ? Who can fitly sympathize ? None of his good friends in the Achaean host comprehends him and his great grief, yet withal, in his loftiness he comforts Priam, as he can ; for his nature is greater than Priam's. Priam understands it not, else would he not have pressed again for Hector's body. Achilles comforts Priam ; but who is to comfort Achilles ? ' The Odyssey is the glorification of a man representing heroic intelligence ; it celebrates mind and wiles and stead- fastness. Yet the hero has a heroic body, wherewith he may excel others in valor and strength. Odysseus represents every virtue which to Homer's mind intelligence implies — piety towards the gods, proper and just dealing towards men, and strong affection for such objects — wife and child and parents — ' The Odyssey gives a glimpse of the hero's shade in Hades, coining up through the murkiness accompanied by the shade of Patroclus and other heroes. Odysseus, to whom the shades appear, cries Achilles hail, in that the Argives honored him while living as a god, and that he now rules the dead. Achilles answers, speaking largely as in life, that he would rather be the thrall of a poor farmer upon earth than king of all the dead. Then he asks whether his son has distinguished himself, and of his father, and thinks how, were he but alive, he would defend him, should need be. Odysseus can tell him nothing of Peleus, but praises the valor of AchUles' son at Troy, and tells his deeds. Hearing this, the shade moves away with great strides, rejoiced that his son is illustrious. Od. , xi, 467-540. Other shades moan in Hades. Achilles makes no lament ; he is still the mighty semblance of a mighty self, and the only shade that is glad at anything in Hades. In Od., xxiv, 93, the shade of Agamemnon congratulates the shade of Achilles on his enduring fame. HOMER. 195 as a right-minded man cherishes. His intelligence con- sists of knowledge of what is wise and right to do, readi- ness of mind, fertility of device. He is ever the ready man, good at word and deed ; ' he is ever the perfectly courageous man who keeps his presence of mind. And he is steadfast, will neither be turned aside nor dis- couraged. A man of large experience, versed in all the knowledge of the world was he, — ■" Tell me. Muse, of the man, the ready one, who wandered afar after he had destroyed the mighty citadel of Troy, and saw the habitations of diverse men and learned to know their minds ; much did he suffer on the deep, striving to win his life and the return of his comrades. " ^ This man had known the perils of war, the perils of the deep, perils among savage men, more than other men had he suffered: " Alkinous, " says he, " have no such thought ; for neither in form nor feature am I like the immortals who possess the wide heaven, but to mortal men who die. Whomsoever ye know who has suffered most grievously, to him do I liken myself in sor- rows. "° He had experienced what of good or ill the world had to offer ; he had learned what it had to teach ; would tell it all too, this most companionable hero.* Odysseus' character is complex, but consistent through- out, and the Odysseus of the Iliad is the Odysseus of the Odyssey. In the Iliad it is to the ready man that Athene comes seeking some one to check the rush of the Achae- ans to their ships ; ' it is he who chastises Thersites and with apt words turns the people's minds to the war." His speeches are the most skilful and persuasive in the Iliad,'' though in fiery directness below those of Achilles or Diomede. He is also a man of wiles." Diomede selects him for a companion on the perilous night espial, and cunning is his conduct to the Trojan spy." He is also a ' Od., ii, 272, *So Menelaus says, Od., iv, 104. ' See //., iii, 216, ' Od., i, I. ' //., ii, 165. « //., iii, 200. ' Od., vii, 208. « //., ii, 240-330. »//., A, 240, etc.. 196 ANCIENT IDEALS. busy man, careful, always attending to some matter. Priam in the truce, watching the Achaeans from the wall of Troy, sees Odysseus not at rest, but moving about inspecting the ranks.' He is always valiant in battle, not a humble or submissive man ; quickly he resents Aga- memnon's unjust reproach;^ and ready enough is he to oppose and chide the monarch proposing to abandon the war.^ In the games, by skill and cunning he foils the greater strength of Ajax wrestling,* and ever mindful of his friend Athene wins the foot-race through her aid." The Odyssey gives the fuller picture of the man ; there- in is he seen tried in every emergency, and the iron strength of his character appears, and its height and goodness. As he is strong, steadfast for his own pur- pose, so is he faithful and valorous for his comrades, until they perish by their impious folly." Through the perils of the Return was Odysseus just to them, no one lacked his share of food and booty,' even as he had been a just king in Ithaca, kind as a father, before they all set out for Troy.' Trusty swine-herd Eumseus loves and reveres him so that he shuns to call his name in his absence, but speaks of him as the " loved one." ° Odysseus' large experience has taught him caution ; he distrusts others frankly, without bitterness. Calypso comes to him as he sits on the shore, bids him not to grieve, and says that she will do the wish of his heart, and send him away to his fatherland on a raft. He an- swers quickly : "Another thought is in thy mind, goddess, when thou dost bid me on a raft attempt the great gulf of the sea, which not even ships pass over. Nor would I embark — thou misliking it — without thy oath not to plan evil against me. '"° Neither are his eyes to be blinded by the flash of heavenly divinity. Athene comes to him in ' //., iii, ig6. * //., xxiii, 725. ' Od., ix, 42, 549. ' //., iv, 349. 5 //., xxiii, 755. " Od., ii, 234 ; iv, 690. '//., xiv, 82. • See Od., x, 135 ; xii, 112, 225. ' Od., xiv, 147. "• Od., V, 171 ; cf. ii., 355. HOMER. 197 Ithaca when he first awakens on his native shore ; after a little she takes her true form, and smiling, with compli- ments for his shrewd fabricated tales, she adds in gentle reproach, " Yet thou knewest not me, Pallas Athene, who am always at thy side in perils and made thee dear to all the Phaeacians. " Odysseus answers: " Hard is it for a mortal, though a wise one, to know thee, goddess, in thy many shapes. This I know, that thou wast good to me of old, so long as we sons of Achaeans warred about Troy. But after we had sacked the city and set sail, and some god had scattered the Achaeans, then I never saw thee, child of Zeus, nor did I perceive thee com- ing aboard my ship to ward off trouble from me." ' But when Athene tells him she will now be his helper, he trusts her gratefully, and is ready to fight hundreds, alone with her aid. And yet the only bitter words that pass his lips are those in which he answers when she has said now she will go to Lacedaemon to fetch Telemachus, whom she sent thither for tidings of his father: " Why then, didst thou not tell him, thou who knowest all things? was it that he too might suffer sorrows wandering on the barren sea, and eat the bread of strangers ? " " Odysseus' nerve is iron. In the hollow horse he restrains the chiefs from making outcry when they hear the voice of Helen. ° Reaching Ithaca, he keeps his own counsel, finds out who are faithful to him — whether his own wife is still faithful — and, except to Telemachus, dis- closes nothing till the event is ripe. The trusty Eumaeus in his swine-herd hut tells the beggar monarch of all his loving respect for his long-absent king, and the waning hope of his return. Not even to him does Odysseus open his heart. Yet the hero-spirit flashes from the rags. When Telemachus has told of shameful wooers' doings, out speaks Odysseus: " How is it thou dost stand these shames, being such as thou art ? do the people hate thee ? do thy kin hold off ? Were I the son of Odysseus, might ' Od., xiii, 312. ' Od., xiii, 416. ^ Od., iv, 280. 198 ANCIENT IDEALS. my head be cut off if I made not myself a bane to them all ; and if by numbers they overcame me single-handed, then would I die, slain in my palace, rather than behold strangers insulted, maid-servants vilely treated, wine spilled, and food devoured — all vainly. ' ' ' Ragged in his palace, he can bear the insults of the wooers ; one of them strikes him with a stool ; Odysseus stands unmoved, shak- ing his head, musing evil.^ That night, lying by his pal- ace door, he sees the shameless maid-servants going to the insolent wooers with sly laughter— shall he slay them? and his heart growls within him. Yet he smites his breast : ' ' Endure, heart ! A shamef uller thing hast thou borne, on that day when Cyclops was devouring thy brave comrades. Then didst thou endure till thy cunning brought thee from the cave where thou thoughtest to die." ' Day comes, and the infatuate revelling goes on. A wooer throws an ox's hoof at the beggar; the beggar moves his head to avoid it, and smiles.'' At last the hour is at hand, the bow is brought, Odysseus discovers himself to the two faithful herdsmen, and he tells them bid the women make fast the doors, and not look in if they hear a din and groaning in the hall." Odysseus is also a shrewd and thrifty Greek, he awaits Cyclops in his cave to behold the giant and see whether he will give him gifts of hospitality." He tells Alkinous that, longing as he is for home, he would wait a year for splendid gifts such as the king and his nobles might give him ; ' awakening in Ithaca, ignorant where he is, first of all he counts these gifts and bestows them safely ; ' and even with the still white heat of vengeance in his breast, in rags in his palace, he is pleased when the wooers give his wife gifts of the wooing which was not to be accom- plished.' Zeus says Odysseus excels all others in wisdom [yoov) ' Od., xvi, 91. ■> Od., XX, 300. ' Od., xi, 356. ' Od., xvii, 462. » Od., xxi, 235. ' Od., xiii, 200. ' Od., XX, 18. • Od., ix, 229. 9 Od., xviii, 281. HOMER. 199 and in sacrificing to the gods.* That is to say, he was a pious, god-fearing man. There is no higher word in the epics than that with which he checks the old nurse's shrill rejoicing at the death of the wooers: " In thy soul, old woman, be glad, and restrain thyself, nor cry aloud. It is not right to exult over slain men. These the fate of the gods overcame and their deeds. For they honored no one of mortal men, neither high nor low, who came to them. Wherefore through their wicked folly have they met a shameful death.*' ' Throughout the tale one marks Odysseus' love of ad- venture, and his eagerness to see and learn. To see and learn was one motive leading him to the Cyclops' cave, where, indeed, he learned bitter things ; and wherever he comes he will learn what manner of men may be there. ^ So will he, bound to the mast, hear the deadly Siren peril. Borne from where they sit 'midst whitening bones, over the hushed sea, the clear song rises ; " Oh! come hither, far-famed Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans ; stay thy ship and hear our voices. For none has ever driven past in his black ship till he has heard from our lips the sweet lay ; but having had the joy of it, he sails on, and knowing more. For we know all that in the wide Troy-land Argives and Trojans underwent at the will of the gods ; and we know whatever happens on the teeming earth."' So the straining hero tugs at his bonds, that he may hear this lay and know more. And, after all, when this mighty knowledge-and adven- ture-loving wanderer has reached his home, when he has sprung upon his threshold bow in hand, intent to slay and slay in fierce revenge, when he has slain, and has stridden like a lion over the corpses, seeking if perchance one might still breathe, and when he has once more felt around him the arms of his wife, has seen his father, and at last has become fixed on the throne of sea-girt Ithaca, • Od., i, 66; cf. Od., xiii, 297. ' See e. g. Od., ix, 172. ' Od., xxii, 411. « Od., xii, 184. 200 ANCIENT IDEALS. is he then for all his latter days quietly to sit and eat and sleep? Such were an inconsequent fate. After all these struggles and accomplishments, he is again to set forth bearing on his shoulder an oar, and with it wander on till he come to a people ignorant of the sea and its ships, who shall take the oar on his strong shoulder for a winnowing- f an ; there shall he fix it in 'the earth and sacrifice to Po- seidon. Then he shall return to his home and offer a hecatomb to the immortal gods. When this pious adven- ture is all accomplished he may rest. And a gentle death shall come to him from the sea and slay him when overburdened with a smooth old age, and all the people shall be blest about him.' ' Od.^ xi, 121. This sacrifice to Poseidon and extension of his cult was to reconcile him to Odysseus for the blinding of Polyphemus. CHAPTER VIII. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. EAGERLY the Achaeans desired the full contents of life ; they would excel in valor, overcome their foes, get the fame thereof, and therewithal goodly pos- sessions and fair women. He was the hero who attained success, only far-sightedly, not with the insolence of dis- regard which reaped return of evil in the end. The longing for it all, and the full fame thereof, r ^l p ' ? the lasting praise of fellow-men, roused in the Spirit, hero-heart a sense of shame of each untoward act. So would he respect such rights of others as he recognized, be courteous, cognizant of others' merit, guest-reverencing, jealous of the favor of the gods, in comradeship good at need, in friendship devoted unto death, in enmity a bane to hateful men. Helpful to all these ends were valor, iron endurance, cunning, sagacity, and all such knowledge as brought wisdom and preserved from folly. And the heroes burned to hear song of famous deeds, those the memory of which still throbbed. Beyond this, Greek nature was already instinct with wish to find out and to learn. Knowledge is becoming an ele- ment of life; and already throbs that creative artist soul which cannot but love loveliness, figure what it loves, and hold it to be true for reason of its beauty. Hellenic qualities, ardent in the epics, become clearer, more spiritual, and are builded to a perfectness mature and all-proportioned in the life, the literature and art, and the philosophy of classic Greece. Throughout 20I 202 ANCIENT IDEALS. appears the all-compassing vision, the acquisitive and pro- portioning mind, and that imagination, creative, plastic, ethical, which in the drama enacts furthest mortal truth, and in sculpture makes visible the perfect human form, holding soul as the flower holds life, and in philosophy discloses intellectual conceptions visualized, and set as beacons on the heights of reason. \\'ith the Greeks, so long as lasted the great days of Greece, life was a whole whereof all things that might MriSiv enter it were elements, indispensable to life's ayav. completeness, but so distinct as to admit of proportioning in relationship. This relationship of pro- portion carries as a consequence a universal principle of Greek life and thought, one stated in many forms. It lies in the avoidance of the extreme, self-control so guided by reason as to avoid excess— temperance, measure, propor- tion, fitness. This principle inhered in the Greek concep- tion of beauty, and moulded Greek ideals of conduct. It was the outcome of the many-sided Greek nature com- bined with Greek insight into the proportionate worth of things. Homer does not state it broadly, for the Iliad and Odyssey are from a time not given to generalizing. But the course of the epics points to it, and it appears in Homer's horror of oLxr} and v^pis, folly brought by the insolence of pride, sure to meet overthrow. The wicked, ill-starred wooers of Penelope are £J^\•ays insolent, vftpiv i'xovre;. After Homer, the idea found general expression in the phrase fMrjSkv ayav — nothing too much ; then in the word, GGocpposvvrj, — wise temperance. Hesiod bids men preser\'e moderation ; the half is better than the whole.' Theognis applies the principle to feelings — do not be stirred too much by good or evil ; it is the part of man to bear all.^ Take measure of thyself, says Pindar." Pegasus threw Bellerophon seeking to soar to heaven.* Desire moderate things,' not such as befit only the immor- ' ^rga, 692, 720. » PytJi., ii, 34- »72., v, 71. ' Theognis, 657. * Isthm., vi, 44. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 2O3 tals,' and set God above all." Is not he the supreme ordainer, hence of gravest importance to man ? So one must duly weigh advantages ; some gains may not be worth while/ There is danger in too great prosperity, lest it beget pride, which surely brings ruin. Upon him who is puffed up the gods send folly, and he perishes." The moderate lot is to be preferred.' Thoughts like these pervaded all Greek life as principles of action which Greeks should follow. They showed themselves in love of harmony, proportion, beauty, in desires for the best that life offered ; yet nothing too much, nothing too costly, nothing entailing too great ill ; but a weighing of all things. To all peoples come moods in which life is but a slight, fhtting thing. Some races, like the Hindoo, are over- powered by a sense of life's shortness, and cease to see anything in mortal life worthy of ^p ^^ endeavor. Happily, the Greeks were eager, and in their full desire for the all-proportioned most of life, they loved perfection, loved men and objects beauti- ful or noble in themselves. The fact that man had few years to live did not make against the absolute worth of noble achievement. Greek philosophy recognized this principle, while with men whose lives were eager action, the enduring element of their achievement, so far as con- cerned themselves, was the fame of it ; and that was felt to be enough by all Greek heroes from Achilles to Timo- leon.° It is evident that men feeling the transcendent worth of mortal achievement could not be fatalists. Yet, to the Greeks of classic times, fate was even more inviola- ble than with Homer. It continued to hold the broad- est Greek generalizations upon human life ; and, as with ' Pyth., iii, 59-62 ; cf. Nem., xi, 13, and Euripides, Alcestis, 799. ' Pyth., V, 25. ' Nem., xi, 47. ■* See ^sch., Persce, 804, 817. • iEsch., Agam., 456. ' See Pindar, passim, and Pyth., viii, 92 ; also Simonides of Keos, iv. 204 ANCIENT IDEALS. Homer, through these more mature periods, Greek ethical thought remains inseverable from the rational knowledge on which it is based. Thoughts of fate pervaded all Greek literature and influenced Greek life. The literature contains no single expression conveyinsr an adequate notion of Fate and ^, ^ ^. , , ^ . r ^i, Zeus conception; and often expressions ot tne same writer are inconsistent.' Life is no simple matter; no human formula applies to all its phases. Fate, the motive power of events, or the movement itself, evades formulation. There are also, of course, through Greek literature such general exclamations as are common with all peoples,- — expressions of unhappiness or despair, — Me miserum ! — Oh, my unhappy lot ! Alas, cruel fate ! loo ! too ! jxoipa ! jxoipa ! ' or expressions of the inevitableness of what is to come, of what is fated,' such phrases as ' ' Nothing is stronger than necessity. ' ' * Whether fate was above the gods, or the gods — rather more and more Zeus — above fate, was not determined by the lyric and dramatic poets more definitely than by Homer. From many phrases fate would seem to be over all; from many others, Zeus would seem the supreme ordainer, acting through fate as an instrument. The general result is that Zeus and fate ordinarily move together, and either one or the other may be regarded as the ordainer of events. Pindar speaks of Zeus guiding the San/^cov of those he loves,' and the phrase, /xoipa ' The Greeks had moods, like other men. Archilochus, Frag., 15, speaks of toil and painstaking doing all for mortals, and in the next Frag- ment imputes all events to chance and fate. ' jEsch., Prom., 713. ^ E.g., TO fteXXov ?}^si. .^sch., Agam., 1211 ; cf. .^sch., Choeph., 95 ; Euiip., Andromache, 1204. *'Exin.-^.,Akestis,<^t2;cf. dvayKfj S'ovxi Sv6/iax^T£ov, Soph., Aniig., 1 106, which Mr. Jebb renders. We must not wage a Tain war with destiny ! The words signifying fate retain nearly the same meaning as in Homer. Motpai in the plural are more frequently spoken of than in the epics. See Soph. Aniig.,t)Z'] ; JEscii.,£umen.,<)20; Find., /'_)'/,4., iv, 145 ; Kalli- nos, 9. » Pyth., V, 122. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 20$ Qiwv or aiSa Aioi is frequent as in Homer.' Theognis uses fj-oipa or Zeus or deoi almost equivalently in speak- ing of the powers controlling men's lots." And the com- plete accord, for men practical identification, of fate and Zeus appears from such a phrase as to )xopaip.ov AioBev TtBTtpGOfisvov, — destiny ordained of Zeus.' Yet many phrases make fate or necessity superior to the gods. Even God cannot escape what is fated, said the Delphic oracle.* But the question thus crudely put, whether Zeus was above fate or fate above him, cannot be answered from Greek literature ; neither one nor the other was ^,, . , _ ' Ethical De- true simply. A solution may be had, however, velopment by considering the ethical as well as the physi- of the cal side of the development of the idea of fate Thought after Homer's time. Pindar, in the seventh Isthmian ode, speaks of the oracle told by Themis, how it was fated that Thetis should have a son mightier than his father ; so Zeus and Poseidon refrained from the marriage each had desired. Here fate would have been stronger than Zeus, had he, by doing a certain act, brought himself within its opera- tion. By refraining from the marriage, Zeus might keep his throne. The whole story is not yet told, for the • ' See Solon, Frag., 4, and 13, 30; Pindar, 01,, ii, 23, 01., ix, 4, 5 ; Pyth., V, 5. ' Theognis, 133, 149, 157, 171, 1033 ; cf. ^sch., Agam., 886; ^sch., Pers,je, 102, 893 ; vEsch., Suf., 657 ; Soph., (Ed. Col., ^11. Soph., Frag., 786; Eurip., Androm., 1268; Eurip., Elek., 1248; Eurip., Orestes, 7g ; jEsch., Choeph., 298. ' Find., Nem., iv, 61 ; cf. Nem., vi, 16, and references in the last note. Plato has the phrase 6eia /uoTpa, ApoL, xxii, or Beov jioipa. Rep., 492 e. These phrases with Plato refer to providential agency and facts which occur through divine action. See note 20 to page 176 of Zeller's Plato. ^ Herod., i, 91. " Art is weaker than necessity. Who steers necessity? The Fates and mindful Erinyes. Is Zeus weaker than these ? He cannot escape what is fated." — .(Esch., Prom., 519. Cf. Simonides, 5, 21 ; Soph., Frag., 236. Parmenides uses oivaym^ in the sense of fioipa, lines gi and 98. See Ritter and Preller, Hist, Phil. Gracue, 96, loi B, loi D, 141 A, 121 b, 149 Bb. 2o6 ANCIENT IDEALS. reason lay far back in the curse of Cronus on the son who had overthrown him.' So this fate had its origin in a curse, and was entailed on Zeus for impiety towards his father. It was still conditioned on some further act, then unknown to Zeus, but lying like a sunken rock in his path. Likewise, in regard to men, the moral nature of fate, the part identity of fate with right, with Themis, grad- ually becomes clearer, until fate, with Zeus, becomes the great awarder of punishment. The original pointing of man's destiny is in his own hands; only the consequences of his act, his future acts and sufferings, are fated." Fate does not take the absolute initiative, but is always, or has been once on a time, conditioned on something with- in the power of the man or his ancestors. Art} brought by great prosperity, may lead the man to do the fatal act ; fate itself comes into operation afterwards. The family being a unit in ancient times, succeeding generations were involved in the crimes of ancestors, so Th A - ^^ ^° inherit and effectuate a curse,' which cursed Act; had been called forth by some deed of the per- Houses of son cursed, and might be conditioned on some Laius and further act. No curse is uttered against in- nocence, nor is there any suggestion that it would be operative. A curse may be regarded as the im- precation by the injured person of what might be the fit and fated consequences of the wrong. The effect of a curse may be followed in the two houses of Laius and Atreus. The story of the house of Laius is variously given, but the central strain is this. Laius had been warned by the Delphic oracle that he should have a son who should kill ' See ^sch., Prom., 932. ^ This of course resembles Bralrman and Buddhist doctrines, the power of the act in entailing consequences. Indeed, these thoughts only express universal truth, open to the observation of all mankind : the consequences abide for all wrong-doers. — .(Esch., Eumemdes, 511-515. ' See Solon, 13, 30 ; Eurip., Her. Fur., 1261 ; cf. the Biblical " Visiting the sins of the fathers," etc. — Ex. xx, 5. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 20/ him ; and his son CEdipus brought the oracle to pass, and, having slain Laius, unknowingly wedded Jocasta, his own mother. By her he had two sons and two daughters, and then the matter came to light. Jocasta hanged herself, and CEdipus put out his eyes. Thereafter his sons im- prisoned him ; and he cursed them that they might divide their heritage with the sword. To avoid the curse, they agreed to rule alternate years ; but when the time came, at the first year's end, for Eteocles to give the rule over to Polyneices, he refused ; and Polyneices, having obtained aid from Argos, assaulted Thebes, but only to perish at his brother's hand, whom he also slew. This outline of crime and hate requires supplementing. Why should such an oracular curse have been pronounced over Laius, that he should have a child only to perish at its hands, or incur the great ill of leaving no issue ? There was a reason, though the reason which has come down may not be as old as the original myth.' Laius, the son of Labdicus, and great-grandson of Cecrops, carried off Chrysippus, the son of Pelops, and was the first among men to practise the custom which among gods Zeus in- itiated with Ganymede. For this, Pelops invoked on him the curse that he might never have a child, or if he should that the child might slay him. The Erinyes enter into the carrying out of the curse in its secondary stages, but not yet, for apparently they act only as blood avengers or at the call of a parent who has been dealt with impiously.^ Afterwards, Laius, being very long childless, sent to Del- phi, and received an oracle that he should have a son who should slay him. The oracle was not in the nature of a ' For the incidents about to be mentioned, see generally the preface of Aristophanes the Grammarian to Euripides' Phcenicians. The crime of Laius is referred to by Plato, Laws, 836 C. It is not referred to in ^schy- lus, Sophocles, or Euripides, but was not pertinent to their extant dramas. The earliest version of the story of CEdipus, Odyssey, xi, 271, etc., does not mention the crime of Laius. There is nothing in the epics suggesting the existence of this kind of immorality. "^ See //. , xi, 454. 2o8 ANCIENT IDEALS. warning to beget no children, but simply that he should be a father, and die by his son's hand.' The wrong to Pelops had been done, and the curse was already hanging over him, sure to fall, yet still conditioned on his begetting a child, an act which apparently he might abstain from. He did for a time abstain from intercourse with his wife, until he forgot the oracle, or drunken desire overcame him, and CEdipus, his fateful son," saw the light. Still endeavoring to escape the oracle, he pierced the babe's feet with golden rings, and exposed it on Mount Cithse- ron. But CEdipus was preserved, and afterwards hearing an oracle that he should kill his father and marry his mother, he fled from Corinth, where dwelt those whom he thought his parents. While making his way to Thebes, he met and killed Laius. Then, having solved the riddle of the Sphinx, he entered Thebes, where he was made king and given to wife his own mother Jocasta. Thus CEdipus is trebly polluted, born under a curse, then slay- ing his father, and marrying his mother. Now, according to the Odyssey, the Erinyes enter, for Jocasta hanged herself, " bequeathing to him many ills, even as many as a mother's Erinyes might bring to pass." ' Pindar has it otherwise. Laius meeting death at the hands of his son, "the swift Erinyes beheld it, and slew his (CEdipus') sons each with the other's sword."' This is the vengeance on the patricide. The dramatic version is different. In that the sons do impious wrong to their self-blinded father, by imprison- ing him (.lEschylus) " or (Sophocles) by driving him from '^sch., Septem., 743, makes this oracle a warning against begetting children, — a divergence here. — Cf. Soph., (Ed, T., 712. ' Mopdifioi vioi, Pindar, 01., ii, 35. » Od., xi, 719. * 0/., ii, 35. ' This is what is said in the preface of The Seven against Thebes, gyHaraxXEioveiv oiHi6H(a avrov. Compare, however, Seven against T/ieies, 783. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 20g the state; and for this he curses them.' Hence there are two curses working themselves out on the sons of CEdi- pus, the original curse on the race, and the curse from CEdipus. Each infatuate act {artj) brings a new curse or deepens the effect of the old one, which the first infatuate act {Ttpwtapxos arrj) '' occasioned. If the sons of CEdi- pus had not ill-used their father, perhaps they might have escaped ; yet they could not have escaped their racehood. And if Eteocles had not unjustly refused to give up the kingship to his brother at the end of the year, perhaps there might_^ have been no strife between them ; or per- haps he was doomed through the curse to be thus unjust. As it is, when Polyneices has invaded the land, Eteocles yields to his fate: "Since God so hurries on the business, let the whole race of Laius, hateful to Phoebus, drift with the breeze upon Cocytus' wave. . . . Aban- doned by the gods, why longer fawn upon the doom of death? " ' As he rushes forth, the chorus moralizes: " I fear the destroying goddess, the Erinyes, lest she accom- plish the wrathful curse of their father. But the bane urges on these things." * And they mutter over the old crime of Laius, when warned by Apollo that, dying child- less, he should save the state ; nevertheless, he begot in CEdipus doom for himself.' The working out of the curse on the two sons in Sophocles' CEdipus Coloneus differs only in detail from the version of the Seven against Thebes. CEdipus curses them for having cast him out." Never- ' According to the Cyclic poem of the Thebaid, CEdipus cursed his sons for disobediently setting on his table the wine-cups of Laius, "and the Erinyes failed not to hear." See Dr. Jebb's introduction to his CEdipus Tyrannus, p. i6. ^ jEsch., Agam., 1163. 3 ^sch., Sept., 686, 699. *ib.,in. ' lb., 739, etc. ' But the curse is pronounced at a later period, when Polyneices comes to Colonus to seek his father's aid, knowing the oracle that the side favored by OEdipus would win. See (Ed. Col., 421, etc. ; hvA cf. ib., 1375. 2IO ANCIENT IDEALS. theless, with Sophocles, more entirely than with ^schy- lus, the doom of the two sons is dependent on the curse from their father, and less intimately connected with the accursedness of the race/ Still, after the sons have slain each other, the hard lot of the house is referred to in the Antigone, how there is no help for the house of Lab- dicus, which some god casts down from generation to generation. Antigone herself had not been cursed by CEdipus; she had only acted with loving courage, but she also belonged to the curse-stricken house/ Likewise, with the house of Atreus, it is the curse-born daifxaov which causes all the woe,^ though the Saip.wv was but the agent of Zeus/ A curse lay on this house; yet it is not so prominently the working of this curse that causes the ruin, as the very nature of the crimes committed, which avenge themselves in new-begotten crime/ Cries Cassandra, as Agamemnon's murder is on the verge, "I scent the track of crimes done long ago. That harsh chorus never leaves this house, but bolder, having drunk men's blood, that revelling band abides of sister Erinyes, not to be cast out. One strain they sing, that primal impious act, loathing that brother's couch so cruel found to its defiler/' ° A brother's bed defiled, the defiler's children slain and fed to him, — should not this engender evil in a house forever ? Besides, there were murders, incests many in the race sprung from Tantalus, himself punished by the gods for evil deeds. So was the race fostered on all crimes. What escape could there be ' A usual advance to individual discrimination in the award of punish- ment ; cf. Jeremiah xxxi, 29, and Theognis, 731, etc. ^ Antigone, 584, 593, 860. The Antigone was written before the CEdipus Coloneus, and in the latter play perhaps Sophocles was more deeply influenced by the later moral doctrine of the subject's responsibility solely for his own wrong-doing, and perhaps only for crimes done knowingly. ^ Agam., 1444, etc. * Agam., 1461. ' Still Thyestes had cursed the whole race of Atreus. — Agam., 1578. ' Agam., 1155, etc., and see ib., 1185, etc. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 211 for any scion of it ? Ancient outrage breeds other out- rage sporting in human ills, and so on and on.' And when Paris came to Menelaus' house, and took away Helen, and the two brothers assembled all Greece to re- cover her, and bring untold woes, — not on Ilium alone ; and when the war had worn on, and the murmurs for Greeks slain at Troy because of private feud had been rising many years, were these not to do the work of a people's curse on those two headstrong kings ? " And to have slain guiltless Iphigenia in order that guilty Helen might be brought back, was not this a crime fitted to bring its own retribution, even though in foresight Agamemnon bound his daughter's mouth, that dying she might utter no curse against the deed-cursed race ? ' And Clytemnes- tra with ^gisthus conspired against Agamemnon and slew him. The chorus of old men hardly know how to bewail the murdered chief, who pays the penalty of his own and of ancestral deeds, as is the law of Zeus.* So the evil genius of the house causes the woe,' working out the old curse in new crimes, and their evil consequences to the doers, among whom is now Clytemnestra, who shall also atone. It was from adulterous hate, as well as desire of vengeance for the sacrifice of Iphigenia, that Clytem- nestra killed Agamemnon. But as to Orestes, the com- mand of Apollo laid on him the sacred duty to avenge his father. So the curse ends here. He is pursued by his mother's Erinyes, but is absolved from blame and freed from their pursuit in the end. An effective curse must be occasioned by a wrong done, ' Agam., 738. In Agam., 1194, Cassandra speaks of the murder of Agamemnon as about to take place in vengeance for those children whose spectral forms she saw holding their hearts and entrails, on which their father fed. ' Agam.,^^2. ' Agam., 227. * Agam., 1530. ^ Agam., 1444. An idea that Clytemnestra eagerly takes up as freeing her from guilt. — lb., 1451. 212 ANCIENT IDEALS. whereupon the curse uttered ' becomes as fate to the wrong-doer, and his family it may be, — becomes Retributive ^j^g Saiuoav, the evil spirit, or the particular Nature of , i- , , a , ti ■ ■ •, p^jg doom of the house. Above all, it is retribu- tive. So is the fate of man generally condi- tional upon his nature and especially upon his deeds. All men are mortal, that is, fated to die — an instance of fate dependent on the nature of man or his inherent limita- tions." There are also special individual lots or fates de- pendent, in the first place, on some voluntary act of the individual or his ancestors, as has been seen. But that a crime is fated does not absolve the doer. Says Cly- temnestra, asking Orestes for life, " Fate, my child, was the cause of these things." Replies Orestes, sardoni- cally, "And Fate prepared this doom for thee." ' Again he tells his mother, "My father's fate, your deed, pre- scribes this fate for thee. ' ' * The course of a man's life may be placid and fortunate, in which case it is likely he has led a good life and is loved by the gods." A man's evil fate takes its start from his ocrrf or vftfni, causing him to commit wrong or crime. The Greeks generally felt that too great pros- perity might incur the envy of the gods and bring the ' While we comprehend the ethical notions surrounding the conception of a curse, the power of the curse itself, the deadly spoken word, is very re- mote from us. It is related to all beliefs in spells and incantations, the power of which consisted in the words themselves, and was dissipated by deviation from the formula. The prayer of the wronged may be equivalent to a curse in working destruction or vengeance. See .^Esch., Choeph., 455. ^ Thus Pindar says men are an sSvoS raxvitOTfiov, 01., i, 66. So it might be the nature of other beings, — i.e., fated for them — not to die. See .(Esch., Prom., 772, 954. 3 Choepk., 896. '' Choeph., 913 See also Agam., 1482, where the chorus admit that the Saifioav of the house had been at work, yet no one will absolve Clytem- nestra. Cf. Soph., Aias, 925 ; Soph., Frag., 842. ' Zeus guides the Sainwv of those he loves. 'P'va.d..,Pyth., v, 124 ; Find., OL, ii, 39, speaks of /toipa holding the happy TtoTfioi of a race, and in Pyth., V, 17 and 26, lioipa and ai6a are both used in a good sense. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 213 possessor ruin.' This, however, was but the belief of those who failed to see the intervening link : prosperity brings ocrr}, and that brings overthrow. Says .^schylus : "It is an old saw that great prosperity does not die child- less, but brings insatiable woe on a race. I hold differ- ently ; for it is the impious act that bears more evil deeds ' like to the parent stock. The fate of righteous houses is blessed with fair children." ' Yet ^schylus knew the danger that prosperity would cause insolence and crime, and thus he elsewhere lets his chorus speak: " Be man's life free from misery with enough to satisfy the wise ; for wealth is no protection to a man when he has spurned the altar of right. A wretched impulse drives him on, the irresistible, far-scheming child of folly. ' ' ' Wrong- doing brings ill on the doer. Solon expresses the broad doctrine — a man atones for evil deeds sooner or later, or if not, then his children atone.' These dramas of the houses of Laius and Atreus are dramatic embodiments of the ethical truth that no man can elude the retributive consequences of his acts, or even the result of his nature and racehood. The consequence or denouement works itself out in the form of immediate or final calamity ; or when the person has himself wittingly committed crime, it works itself out in further crimes, which at last entangle him in ruin. This conception of the retributive nature of fate con- nects it with the Erinyes, who are sisters of the jxoipai' or even identified with them ' As far back as Hesiod, the fioipai and nfjpss pursue with vengeance the trans- ' Herod., iii, 40 ; ib,, vii, 10, 46. ' Involuntary crimes may be a punishment for previous crimes. Soph. , (Ed. Col.., 965, etc. ' Agam., 727, etc. * Agam., 370, etc, ; ib., 1302. ' Solon, 13, 30. So the Trojans atone for Paris's crime, which they up- held. Agam,, 353, etc. See Eum., 511-515. ^ Eutnenides, 920. '' Eumenides, 165. In ^uvip., EUktra, 1252, the Erinyes are called HTfpe 5. 214 ANCIENT IDEALS. gressions of gods and men." ^schylus says, the dark Erinyes execute sure vengeance,' and Sophocles says, " the Erinyes of the gods are in wait to ensnare Creon in the crimes which he has committed." ° But it is not with justice of a retributive nature only that fate is con- nected. Hesiod makes the three Fates the daughters of Themis by Zeus, who gave them the greatest honor, that they distribute good and evil to mortals.* So from their birth are the fxoipai connected with right and wrong, ^schylus calls them opdovofAOi, " justly award- ing, ' ' ' and Pindar suggests their ethical nature, saying they stand apart to hide their shame at enmity among kin.° Conversely, there is the idea of fate in some of the uses of the word defiis. It was deixts that after Achilles' death no one should take Troy but his son.' To live without ills is diixis only for the gods.' In these instances de/xiS could be rendered "fated," and the intimate rela- tion of the two ideas appears in the phrase, fiopaijxa ovTS (pvyetv Osfxts, "It is not right to shun what is fated."' The nature of the Erinyes, or Eumenides, throws light on the Greek idea of expiation. The chorus of Eumen- ides in .iEschylus' play say of themselves: „ J "We are the eternal children of night, and Erinyes ; Expiation, called curses under the earth. " '° "All-pervad- ing destiny assigned us the lot to pursue mur- derers of kindred till the earth covers them, and dying they are not freed from us." " Towards the end of the same drama" Athene says, " They manage all things hu- 1 Theogony, 22a " Eumen., g2i. '^ A gam., in?,. ' Pyih-, iv, 145. ^ Antigone, 1075. ' Soph., Philok., 340 ; cf. Autig., 880. •* Theogony, 904. ' Soph., Frag., 861. ' Eurip., Heraclidte, 615, The righteousness of fate's retributions is indicated by a phrase like this : ovStvi iioipiSia Ti6ii epxerai oor npoKoSy TO rivEiv. (Ed. Col., 228, which Jebb translates, " No man is visited by fate if he requite deeds which were first done to himself." '" Eumen., 394. " Eumen., 320. '" Eumen., 8go. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 21$ man, and he who has not found them hostile (has not of- fended them) knows not why a sudden blow strikes him ; but it is on account of his ancestors' crimes." The Erinyes are avenging goddesses. Athene herself, fearing their bane, by wise words propitiates them towards her people, and wins them to dwell propitious and honored under Mars's Hill. They were true Greek personifications of the powers that punish, and were a conception which became spiritual with the progress of ethical thought gradually laying stress on the intent with which an act is done, making that the test of crime. Far older than the notion of a human conscience, they may at an early period have been conceived to execute punishment through the mental self-torturings of the criminal. In time, however, they were almost transformed into human consciences. Thus the Eumenides of vEschylus become the visions of a fevered imagination with Euripides. Ores- tes — the same Orestes, but how different !- — is frenzied with a sense of what he has done. Menelaus asks him what disease is destroying him, and he answers, "Con- science, because I know that I have done dreadful deeds." ' A related phase of ethical development may be traced in the broadening of the idea of punishment. Even down to ^schylus' time, punishment was ven- geance — -that is, something concerning only a umsn- person injured by the crime, ^schylus does intent' not feel that some one must punish Clytemnes- tra and .lEgisthus ; rather, Orestes must avenge the mur- der of his father. Otherwise, the Erinyes of a father unavenged will pursue him." On the other hand, if he slay his mother, her Erinyes will pursue him, as they do in the two last plays of the trilogy. In time the idea of punishment broadened with the spiritualizing of the Erinyes. They ceased to be the curses hurled by the in- dividual dead because he was wronged, and became the ' Eurip., Orestes, 396. ' See Choeph., 260-297. 2l6 ANCIENT IDEALS. conscience of the wrong-doer, stinging him because he had committed a crime. Thus the idea of wrong out- grew mere thought of injury to the individual alone, and the thought came that, apart from the demand of ven- geance by the wronged, the wrong-doer ought to be punished. A person might be injured irrespective of the intent of the wrong-doer; and justifiable intent or absence of intent would be no plea to his demand for vengeance. Otherwise as to the general sense that a man who has done an injury ought to be punished, and here was the path by which advanced the thought that intent was the criterion of guilt, with which thought the conception of expiation came to be connected. In ^schylus, Clytemnestra's Erinyes pursue Orestes. Vengeance is sought ; in the end he is delivered from them and absolved from guilt because matricide in ven- geance for a father's death was justifiable, it being a greater crime to kill a husband than to kill a mother.' Here the old and the new are combined, the old idea of vengeance for wrong suffered, and the new idea of a deed justifiable, or the reverse, on general ethical principles. Sophocles shows clear ethical advance: " There is no guilt in involuntary wrong; " ' " for those who err unwit- tingly, anger is softened. ' ' ' The CEdipus Coloneus is a drama of expiation, and in it CEdipus exculpates himself on the ground that crimes unwittingly commited are not blameworthy. " My acts have been sufferings rather than deeds," ■* says he. "Bloodshed, incest, misery, — all this thy lips have launched against me, all this that I have borne, woe is me ! by no choice of mine ! For such was the pleasure of the gods, wroth, haply, with the race from of old. Take me alone, and thou couldst find no sin to upbraid withal, in quittance whereof I was driven to sin thus against myself and against my kin. Tell me now, if by voice of oracle some divine doom was coming ' See Eumen., 203, etc. ^Soph., Track., 727. 'Soph., Frag., 599. " CEd. Col., 266. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 217 on my sire, that he should die by a son's hand, how couldst thou justly reproach me therewith, who was then unborn, whom no sire had yet begotten, no mother's womb conceived ? And if, when born to woe, as I was born, I met my sire in strife and slew him, all ignorant of what I was doing and to whom, how couldst thou justly blame the unknowing deed ? " ' CEdipus asserts that he had himself committed no former crime, as punishment for which he should have been driven, even unwittingly, to commit other heinous crimes ; and he completes his defence by saying, what- ever he did, he did not willing it. When a man errs, however, life and the consequences of the wrong may not ask as to intent, and retribution often follows on the act itself. CEdipus has unwittingly done frightful deeds. Life will not wholly remit their penalties. His subse- quent life is to be one long expiation, with the result that he die at peace with God, yet himself unforgiving towards his own sons, who had wronged him knowingly. His curses on them still echo while the story of his " pass- ing " is told. There is no forgiveness taught for inten- tional crime, nor any notion that enemies should be forgiven. Yet the A ntigone contains the idea that repent- ance is always well." Teiresias tells Creon, to err is human, but he who turns to repentance may not be unblest. These, then, were phases of Greek ethical development : a broadening of the conception of vengeance to that of punishment, a growth of the idea of expiation phases of out of that of reparation to the person injured, Greek a recognition of the injustice of entailing a Ethical De- curse on children for the crimes of parents, and ^^ opnien . a clearer thought that crimes unwittingly committed might ' CEd. Col., 965, etc., Jebb's translation. CEdipus is on the verge of the problem how to reconcile God's foreknowledge with human freedom of will. ' Soph., Antig., 1023, etc. A further note of the growing spiritualization of Greek ethics is found in Sophocles' conviction that prayer is more im- portant than rites, CEd. Col., 481; ; and he conceives that a god may under- stand even unuttered prayers. — Elektra, 657 ; cf. Frag., 854. 2l8 ANCIENT IDEALS. be expiated, finally that they were not crimes at all.' So blamelessness or guilt should depend on the intent of the doer of the deed. This principle, however, did not see the ethical criterion solely in the intent accompanying an act, but rather included the general sum of personal in- tentions, motives, and tendencies constituting self, fully recognizing the responsibility of the human being for his character and all acts springing from it. The Greeks as- serted this responsibility, not to be evaded, of the human individual for himself, and they recognized differences of character and faculty in men as facts of which reasonable ethics should not complain but take account. So Pindar, a great ethical poet, sang in many notes, how that the mightiest factor of a man's achievement was his inborn nature (epva), the inborn virtue of a scion of noble stock ; " that is, as it were, the divine favoring fate within him.' Says Heraclitus finally, r/doS avdpojTto) dai)A,oov, — Char- acter is a man's genius. So, then, a man's lot is in part conditional upon his acts, and fate avenges, punishes. But the ethical mo- ment is not the sole factor in destiny. Human life lies not altogether within the pale of ethi- cal considerations. Mortality binds it with necessity — avocyKT}. This is also fate, and never ceases to be fate. So fate never became entirely ethical, but always stood for those limitations on humanity proceeding from man's mortal nature and circumstances out of his control. From the early epic representations of the gods, where- in theogonic function had been transformed to all manner of human immorality, the higher modes of later Gods Greek poetry, as well as Greek philosophy, each in its own way, should clear itself, and more readily because of the plastic excellence of these ' Says Demosthenes, De Corona, 338, " Men bestow anger and punish- ment on those who do wrong knowingly, pardon on those who err un- wittingly.'' ' See 01., ii, 94 ; ix, 100 ; xiii, 13. ^ See 01., ix, 28, no. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 219 early artist creations. Nevertheless, certain fundamental conceptions did not cease to be a wellnigh determining factor in all modes of Hellenic thinking, artistic as well as philosophic. These appear first in the Homeric limi- tations of the functions and power of the gods, supple- mented by the Homeric idea of fate. Homer's gods did not create the universe, and in everything there was the brute force over which the gods had scant control. Here were thoughts which should maintain themselves as the physically necessary, unethical elements of fate, till, through Greek philosophy, they should be shaped to conceptions of natural law. To the Greeks their gods might never represent all the powers outside of man and stronger than him; events might not be brought com- pletely within divine governance. As thoughts of the gods, finally of Zeus almost single and supreme, were purified, they might maintain themselves in correspond- ence with lofty ethical ideas ; the gods might become the upholders of all righteousness, and identify them- selves with the ethical side of fate. But fate's brute, necessary modes endured despite the gods, admitting no ethical solvent. They were rigid facts, data which human conduct, to be reasonable, fully ethical, must take ac- count of. Since the functions of Greek gods never broadened to control all life, Greek thought constantly varies, now bringing more of life, now less, and again noth- _,. ing, it may be, within the scope of deity's con- of the trol. The poets hold the gods personified, and Gods and tend to see most of life lying in divine hands. Thoughts The philosophers take from the gods distinct ° ' ^' individuality, anon all personality, and tend to see law everywhere and over all. Greek ideals of life, in their ethical development and spiritualization, may be followed in the poets' thoughts of the gods and human conduct. It will be plainly noticeable how the Greek ideal of con- duct and the best good for man comes with increasing 220 ANCIENT IDEALS. clearness to inhere in the man himself, not in his circum- stances, — another phase, indeed, of Greek spiritualization. Even in the Homeric hymns, the gods have begun to lay aside human frailty.' The hymn to Ares shows far loftier thought of that god than the epics, and another hymn tells how Hephaestus with Athene taught mortals to live like civilized beings, not in caves like beasts." With Hesiod, times are changed. No longer is sung the splendor of great and cruel deeds, but justice and temper- ance and industry. The Theogonia, with all the horrible necessities of its myths of monstrous engenderings, pre- sents the picture of progress from chaos to divine rule. In the Erga there is already the idea of punishment, not personal vengeance, from God ; and Zeus has become a just awarder of rewards and punishments to men, — Zeus, who implanted justice in men, while he ordained that fishes, birds, and beasts should devour each other.' Hesi- od disapproves evil strife, yet approves another kind of contention for mortals, — emulation, one neighbor trying to outdo another in wealth.* He has many maxims of homely prudence : Take thought for the winter. Have thine own wagon ; when thou needest to borrow, it may be refused. He advises work : Hunger attends the idle; labor is no shame, but idleness,' and — for Zeus is just — wealth obtained by force and fraud prospers not,' and a man devising ill for another fashions it for himself.' Hesiod is still far from prizing toil as a discipline and means of improvement ; better if one could live without it, like the blessed beings of the Golden Age, when the earth brought forth of her free will.' On the whole, he counsels moderation." Bravest of the lyric poets, Tyrtaeus sings the praise of valor. He praises not mere size and strength, but cour- ' Hardly in the hymn to Hermes ! ^ Erga, 302, 311. ' Hymns viii and xx. ^ Erga, 320, 352. ^ See Erga, 239, 267, 276-281. ''Erga, 265. *Erga, II. ^ Erga, 109, etc. ^Erga, 694, 720 ; cf. Erga, 40, 41. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 221 age and readiness to die for one's country." The lyric poets do not sustain this strong note. Many of them lived in the all too happy islands of Ionia, where the spirit of civic freedom might not maintain itself as in Hellas. Soon comes Mimnermus, bewailing the short- ness of life/ yet he has moral ideas, and cares for truth." Sage Solon is more wholesome in his esteem of heaven- bestowed prosperity and good repute. He wishes to be dear to his friends, terrible to his enemies, and possessed of riches rightly acquired ; for god-given wealth abides, but arr} soon mingles with what comes through evil deeds, and sharply the anger of Zeus descends on the evil-doer, or his children atone.* The abstract worth of justice is now coming to be appreciated.' Much attributed to Theognis shows a growing complexity of life.^ He has many clear- headed worldly precepts, often is pessi- mistic, and finds fault with the apparent course of things : Who can honor the gods, seeing the evil prosper? ' And he shows small hope of anything after death.' Simonides lambograph has also dreariness enough. Life is short, and death ends the matter, say many of the lyric poets ; but Simonides of Keos presents another immortality, as he sings the fame and fair fortune of those who died at Thermopylae and Platea.° To conquer in the contest drives away care, says Pin- ' Tyrtaeus, 12, i ; ib., 10, l, are the well-known lines : TeBva^Evai ydp xaXov iiti npo/xdxotSi 7Cs6ovTa dvS/i dyaBov jtspi y itarpiSt /lapvocfievov. * Mimnermus, i, 10 ; 2, 5 ; 5. '16., 8. * Solon, 13, I, etc. ' See Phocylides, 17. * Cf. Kvpve, qyiXovi Hard itdvrai iitt(3Tpe(pe TtoixiXov ijBoi, opyijv 6vtitii'6ya>v rjvrtv 'dxadToi cxei, Theognis, 213. ^ Theognis, 743 ; see ii., 425 ; but cf. ib., 687. ^ KEi6oixai a>6tt Azflo5, Theog., 568. SeeJi.,973, 1047. ' Simonides of Keos, 4 ; and Mackail, Greek Anthology, p. 140. 222 ANCIENT IDEALS. dar;' he who has achieved does not think of death.' Victory in the games loves song, the fittest in ar. follower of crowns and valiant deeds/ which hide ye not in silence.* The report living after a man reveals his life to the poets ; ' but one who has achieved, if his deeds are unsung, goes to Hades having breathed vainly and gained short joy." What is man ? A shadow dream, a thing of a day ; yet god-given glory may make his life serene.' Fame compensates for life's shortness; mortal achievement is of absolute worth despite mortality. The Greeks of Pindar's time hardly conceived of anything as fine which was unknown to fame. Clearly the Greeks viewed achievement, saw wherein it consisted and its difficulties. Well they knew what endeavor was needed to excel among Greeks, and how hard to gain was all wise skilfulness.' So was valorous endeavor one noble element of the fair deed. The deified incarnation of this was Heracles, the hero-god,' leader in the commonalty of toil. Sluggish capacities, faculty and strength which court not dangers, have no honor." The poet praises toil, which, to be perfect, must attain suc- cess. " We win in the games, as in battle, as in life, by the favor of God, ourselves not lacking in valor." " The favor of God gives and sanctifies success, itself the proof of merit ; for God favors only the worthy. Who will do, must suffer ;'" no happiness comes without toil ;" delight follows the swifter for it." Pindar did not look on the toil itself as joyful: toil was toil." The victory brought ' 01., ii, 56. ^ Nem., iii, 7. ' 01., viii, 72. * Nem., ix, 6. ' Pyth., i, 92. *0/., X, 100. The dead beneath the earth hear of the glory of their descendants. — Pyth., v, 100. ' Pyt/i., viii, 92. '1 0/., viii, 68 ; c/. 01., ix, 118. ^2o., viii. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 237 therefore, that includes and is the totality of the pur- poses and attainments which their lives may compass. The right of the citizen to participate in the government of the state is then a right to participate in the control and freedom, the higher life, of this supreme and com- prehensive organism. The evolution of Athenian de- mocracy presents the most luminous illustration of this principle, a principle, however, which Aristotle thought should remain subject to limitations set by the citizens' fitness to participate in the government. The state, says he, " is an association of households and families in well- being with a view to a complete and independent exist- ence ... in a life of felicity and nobleness. The object of the political association is not merely a com- mon life but noble action. And from this it follows that they who contribute most to the association, as so con- ceived, possess a larger interest in the state than they who are equal or superior in personal liberty, or birth, or wealth, but inferior in political virtue." ' But democrats " hold that justice is equality; and so it is, but not for all the world, but only for equals," while oligarchs hold that " inequality is justice; and so it is, but only for unequals. Both put out of sight one side of the relation. . . . The oligarchs, if they are superior in a particular point, viz. , in money, assume themselves to be superior altogether ; while the democrats, if they are equal in a particular point, viz., in personal liberty, assume themselves to be equal altogether." '^ Each party represents but a partial justice. Were the state an association for increasing the multitude of possessions, the oligarchs would be right. Thereupon he points out the fallacy in the view that in- feriority in one respect, wealth for instance, implies infe- riority in all respects, and renders a man unfit to share in the government,' and he argues conversely that not ' Politics, iii, 9, Weldon's translation. ' lb., iii, 9 ; see also v, I. ^ lb., iii, 13. 238 ANCIENT IDEALS. every superiority entitles its possessor to a larger share in the government.' With Aristotle, ethics, the well-being of the individ- ual, leads up to politics, the well-being of the state: " We have seen that in all sciences and arts the end proposed is some good, that in the supreme of all sciences and arts, i.e., the political faculty, the end is pre- eminently the highest good, and that justice, or in other words, the interest of the community, is the highest good."" He thought every form of government per- verted which did not aim at the well-being of the entire community, but sought only to benefit an individual or a class ; tyranny — a perversion of kingship — is for the benefit of the tyrant ; oligarchy — a perversion of aris- tocracy — for the benefit of the rich ; democracy — a per- version of the polity— for the benefit of the poor.^ He always had in mind an ideal polity, consisting in a right mingling of aristocratic and democratic elements, making a mean between the two.* Love of the mean follows him through his political discussions, in which he regards the middle class as most fortunate, and as the class which should hold the balance of power between the poor and the rich.' He speaks of the occasional advisability of getting rid of pre-eminent individuals — as Periander sagely cut off the tallest heads — even in governments which are not perversions. No painter, says he, admits anything, however beautiful in itself, out of proportion ' Politics, iii, 12. ' lb., iii, 12, Weldon's translation ; see also Nick. Ethics, i, I. Though Aristotle was not a man of affairs, a grasp of political matters was given him by his knowledge and his aptitude for systematizing. While not always free from prejudices, he could be impartial. Not conservative him- self, he saw the value of conservatism and the import of initial changes. ' ' There is no parallel in altering an art and altering a law. For all the potency of a law to receive obedience depends upon habit, and habit can only be formed by lapse of time." — Politics, ii, 8. On the other hand, he remarks, it is not what is ancient, but what is good, that the world wants. — lb. ^ lb., iii, 7. * See lb., iv, 9, 11 ; v, 9. ' lb., iv, 11. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 239 to the rest of his picture." In discussing political matters, Aristotle seems to be drawn by the exigencies of the sub- ject from his idea that a life of contemplation is the best. Such a life it were futile to expect from a community." Yet although when laying stress, as he needs must, on virtue as the chief good for a state, he lets the contempla- tive life pass from his view, he ever and again returns to the thought that the highest life is the speculative, and finds truth in this thought for states as well as individuals.'' Like the individual, then, of which it is the greater counterpart, the state cannot have happiness without the qualities on which it depends, — valor, justice, prudence, and temperance — nor the highest happiness without phil- osophy.'' So speaks Aristotle. It was no peculiar view of his that the well-being of the state and of the individ- ual are the same. The ideal conduct for the state was the same as for the citizen, and when success and glory came to states, it was through the same qualities that made the statesman great. In the various Greek city- commonwealths these qualities existed in different de- grees, some communities possessing more of one good quality, others more of another, and through the same besetting sins which ruined statesmen, came the fall of states. Athens is ever the example; she had the intelli- gence and she had the courage, she set her heart on her- self and her glory as worthy of all hazard and exertion. Therefore she overcame at Marathon ; therefore, giving up her city, she saved herself and Greece, and all of us to-day, it may be, from pernicious Asia; therefore she would never join with Persia to enslave Greece; therefore she rose to empire, and crowned herself with garlands of great ' Politics, iii, 13. Yet, after all, Aristotle returns to his logic as to the rightful grounds of political authority, and asserts that an individual over- whelmingly pre-eminent in virtue ought to rule. — lb. '' The best life for the state " is one which possesses virtue furnished with external advantages to such a degree as to be capable of actions according to virtue." — lb., viii, i, "lb., vii, 3. ^ lb., vii, I. 240 ANCIENT IDEALS. deeds and fame, and made her city beautiful. And after this, ready enough was she to fight that she might hold her empire and her glory. But Athens failed to keep her poise ; she aspired to conquests beyond her strength, she too was guilty of arrj and vfipv;. The racial superiority of Aryan peoples of Europe over their Asiatic kin markedly appears in their capacity for developing the free institutions of self- Libertv government, after emerging from early rude intolerance of restraint. No Asiatics made this advance. As Vedic Indians or Persians laid aside their first mountain bravery, they laid their liberty aside. Their strength of character, their power of civic self-ordering, did not reach to the compli- cated exigencies of civilized life. In Europe, peoples of kindred stock have passed out of savagery and thence under primitive kingships. At this stage, with Asiatic Aryans, the limitations on the king's power make impo- tent surrender to absolute monarchy. With Greeks and Romans, like early limitations gather strength, and posi- tively assert themselves as rights of other members of the community to participate in its direction. Thenceforth the irresponsible rule of a monarch is held a thing unreas- onable, monstrous, and unjust. " That is not a city which belongs to one man." ' In Greece, this was primarily a matter of rational, stren- uous self-assertion of the individual — of the mass of indi- viduals constituting the city-state. First, the better few assert themselves against the single king ; then comes the self-assertion, often bloody, of wider circles of individuals against the grasping oligarchs. Along with this primary mode of the struggle goes endeavor to remove the arbi- trary element from authority, and in its place compel ruling individuals or bodies, in the use of their powers, to follow not their good pleasure or peculiar lust, but that which had been formulated as right and recognized as law, whether declared in the form of codes or existing in the ' Soph., Antig., 735. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 24 1 definite consciousness of the community. Tiiis endeavor, if successful, issues in constitutional government adminis- tering law. Such a government is the highest expression of consensual civic freedom ; and the liberty of the citizen consists in maintaining it, holding it to unfailing corre- spondence with the varying needs and advancing life of the community, and in obeying it. Civic liberty did not absolve from duties, but imposed them: " Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that here, obedient to their laws, we lie." This immortal epitaph is a consummate expression of Greek liberty. That the Greek city-states were enabled to evolve these modes of self-government and maintain liberty, was due to Greek rational intelligence ordering the full compass of Greek desires, and to the strength of those desires ordered thus, and thus transformed into the energy of character which, through the great days of Greece, empowered Greeks to do the dictates of their reason. In lowly mode this strength of character showed itself in laying aside the luxuriant flowing eastern garb, and turning to a hardier, more athletic dress. First this change was made in Sparta, when her citizens imposed on themselves the terrific Lycurgan regime of life ; ' then were like changes made at Athens, as her spirit rose and chastened itself. So throughout Greece such reforms accorded with the intelligent strength of mind with which the Greek set about purposefully to perfect his physique. In mode sublime this same energy was shown in the sacrifice of hearth and home whereby Athens guarded her trust of liberty from the Persian. The relation of duty on the part of the citizen towards his city was a matter of this strength of character directed by intelligence. It is well summed by such a word as aiSwi, which is a twofold sentiment. Temper- reverence for all things to be desired and ^°", Beauty, revered, and shame at all things shortsighted, evil, shameful, unreasonable, and so cowardly. It was ' Thucyd. , i, 6. 242 ANCIENT IDEALS. the Greek honor, a reflex of the sum of ethical approvals become instinctive in the strong character which they had moulded.' It was a sentiment of intelligence, a child of forethought, as Pindar most Greekly calls it, npo/xadio? aid CO? which puts valor in men." Education should accustom Greek youths to aiSooe,' as a habit of the soul, whereby habitually and instinc- tively they might shun base things, and obey the dictates of reverence. This principle touched all parts of life; but especially from its inculcation should youths gain devotion to the city and courage to die for it. Despite much intractable individuality and selfishness among the Greeks, and the frequent partisan hatred which narrowed Greek souls, nevertheless, till times of decadence, all-mas- tering was the sentiment of standing steadfast unto death for that higher unity of interest, the city, which held the citizen and all his interests within its greater worth.' They fled from dishonor," says Pericles over the fallen Athenians, "but on the battle-field their feet stood fast." ' And the dominant note of the great funeral ora- tion is honor, glory, and the undying fame won by en- lightened and courageous discharge of duty to the state. Athens's bitter enemies had said of her citizens: " Their ' Thus it appears in Homer. " ^^^ly, Glaucus,'' says Sarpedon, " is high honor paid to thee and me in Syria, and all look on us as gods? and for what do we hold a great and fair demesne by the hanks of Xanthus ? Where- fore now foremost among the Lycians must we withstand the burning fight, so that they may say, not inglorious are these kings of ours who rule in Lycia and eat fat sheep and drink sweet wine." — Iliad, xii, 13. With a like sense of noblesse s' oblige Odysseus feels that he must rescue his vanished comrades on Circe's island. 2 01., vii, 44. ' Cf. Hermann, Handbtuh, vol. iv., § 34. * The absorbing interest of the Greek in his city showed itself in his loving adornment of it with fair buildings, while throughout all the great days of Greece private dwellings remained slight and unadorned. Indeed the home-life seems meagre compared with civic life. Greeks lived in the market-place, in the law-courts and political assemblies, in the gymnasia, and later in the schools of philosophy. ' Thucydides, ii, 42 ; cf. Thucyd., i, 144. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 243 bodies they devote to their country as though they belonged to other men ; their true self is their mind, which is most truly their own when employed in her serv- ice. " ' Love of the state is the most enlightened love of self. " I would have you day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens, until you become filled with the love of her; and when you are impressed with the specta- cle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it, who in the hour of conflict had the fear of dishonor always present to them, and who, if ever they failed in an enterprise, would not allow their virtues to be lost to their country, but freely gave their lives to her as the fairest offering which they could present at her feast. The sacrifice which they collectively made was individ- ually repaid to them ; for they received again each one for himself a praise which grows not old and the noblest of all sepulchres. I speak not of that in which their remains are laid, but of that in which their glory survives, and is proclaimed always and on every fitting occasion both in word and deed. For the whole world is the sep- ulchre of famous men." ° Shame was the spur, fame the goal. Achilles in his boyhood made great deeds his play,'' and in his manhood gave his life for fame. Says Pindar, oihoOev jxarsve," " seek at home," look to your virtues and accomplish- ments; these, which are yourself, — nothing else,— shall give you glory. Greeks cared much for wealth ; wise Greeks saw there could come much good from it, when the possessor had also wisdom. Yet wealth was recog- nized as but an accessory and possession. Possessions might satisfy a barbarian,' give him glory, but not a ' Thucyd. , i, 70. Speech of Corinthian envoys at Sparta. 'Thucyd., ii, 43. These extracts from Thucydides are from Jowett's translation. ' Pind., JVem., iii, 43. * Ii., iii, 31. ' Great was Persian wonder that Greeks strove for olive crowns. — Herod., viii, 26. 244 ANCIENT IDEALS. Greek. Glory and fame came to Greeks from deeds done, not from things possessed.' Fame was the crown of toil, making men immortal. " To all men equally Cometh the wave of death ; and falleth on the fameless and the famed; howbeit honor ariseth for them whose fair story God increaseth to befriend them when dead. ' ' ^ He whose heart is set on valor, giving up wealth and toiling therefor and doing noble deeds, deserves the meed of praise and fame; ' meet for such deeds is divine song,* which adds to fame, itself beautiful, the element of formal beauty. The spiritual splendor, fame, is brought by success, the fitting outcome of endeavor. It was not natural with a Greek to think of merit without thinking of it as completed by success. Success made beautiful the man's endeavor; it came from the union of virtue with good fortune: "When a man hastens, God joins him,"' a principle of Homer as well as ^schylus. It is possible to feel the beauty of a career like Timoleon's, of com- plete divine success, and the perfectness of it. Feeling its beauty, if we think how the Greeks regarded such success as the stamp of divine recognition of excellence, we shall understand how it called forth their reverence. To the Greeks of the best Greek days, all sides of life and modes of viewing it were so correlated in the bonds of reason that the several virtues and excellences appear as aspects of each other; they were different phases of the same rationally sanctioned principles which based themselves upon intelligent, comprehensive, all-propor- tioning consideration of life. In manner brave and open- ' See Pindar, Pyth., viii, 85-100. 'Find., Nem., vii, 30, Myer's translation. So god-given glory may bless man who is but a shadow-dream. — Pyth., viii, 92. ' Find., Isth., i, 43 ; iii, 7 '' Find., Nem., ix, 6. '^sch.. Pen., 738. Demosthenes, ii Olynthiac, expresses the same thought ; a man who is inert cannot expect his friends, much less the gods, to help him. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 245 eyed, Greek ethics would take account of all life's facts. With reference to life's full content, Greek principles of conduct slowly shape themselves. These, followed stren- uously, become elements of character and issue in the sense of at'dcaf, and this aiSooi is begotten of intelligence and so relates itself to the proportioning principle of con- duct — nothing too much — and of the best the most. Then these same principles, as man's inner nature, represent the condition of a mind sane and safe, moderate, propor- tioning, Gaxppoav (gw; and cppr/v), whose is the quality of ffoo(ppoGvvr], moderation, temperance, self-restraint, that which lusts for nothing overmuch. '2a>(ppoffvvtf,' as well as aiSoo?, was an aim in the edu- cation of youth. To aid the youth to subject his body to his mind, give him temperance and self-control, and finely harmonize his complex being, mathematics, music, harmony, and rhythm were taught." Plato and Aristotle thought music had great influence in moulding character, and found in it encouragement to duty, incitement to fight and die therefor, or calm influence, toning and attuning the character, freeing it from all excess, and bringing it into a state of rhythmical, harmonious, beautiful activity.' Says Plato : ' ' Rhythm and harmony sink into the recesses of the soul, and make the man graceful, if rightly trained therein ; but if not, the reverse. He who has been duly nurtured in these matters will have the keenest eye for defects, whether failures of art or misgrowths of nature ; and, feeling a just disdain for them, will admire beautiful objects and gladly receive them into his soul, and nourish himself on them and grow to be fair and good ; and, reach- ' Plato in the Charmides makes this word elude a round of definitions. ' A musical education would include a knowledge of pvBjUoi, measured time, and apixovia ; it would include playing on the lyre, singing, and keeping step as in a chorus. — Plato, Aldb., i, 108 d. ' Plato, Rep., iii, 398-403 ; Aristotle, Pol., viii, chaps, v-viii. Of the modes of melody or music, they approved most of all the Dorian ; and dis- approved the Lydian, as tending towards voluptuousness. Cf. D. B. Monro, Modes of Ancient Music, p. 7, etc. 246 ANCIENT IDEALS. ing the age when reason comes to men, will welcome her as akin to himself, because he has been thus nurtured. Men never become truly musical until they know the essential forms (or ideas) of temperance and courage and liberality and munificence and all akin to these, and their opposites. Surely, then, what fairer spectacle can there be to him who has an eye to see, than that of a man who, with beauty of soul, combines beauty of form corresponding and harmonizing with the beauty within, because having share in the same pattern? He who is truly musical will love only such men, and will not love him in whom there is dissonance." ' The principle of aiScoi holds many of life's weightier matters; but life's lighter, subtler, lovelier phases escape its loftiness. l,wq>poffvvr) is somewhat negative, keeping men from excess. And these principles are not altogether final, inasmuch as neither holds the thought of the all- complete perfection which gives joy. There was, however, applicable to conduct a thought final, positive, and all- inclusive; all-inclusive, in that it compassed whatever aiSooi held and all the joy-inspiring loveliness which did not clearly come within its scope ; positive, in that, while of a surety it forbade excess, it meant also fulness, the presence of everything which should be there ; and it was final in that it held perfection. This was the thought of beauty. In the works of poets, artists, and philosophers this crowning Hellenic thought appears enlarged, enlight- ened, its elements clear and distinguishable. It also lived beyond these works. No act of life but presented itself to the Greek consciousness as beautiful or ugly. This thought was the stamp of what was Greek; herein Ho- mer's Achaeans prove themselves Hellenes; and in times of degeneracy, by failing to keep the thought of beauty inclusive of all life, those who were Greek by race belied their racchood, fell from the large pattern of their heri- tage. ' Plato, Rep., iii, 401 e-402 e ; cf. Timaeus, 87 c. GREEK PRINCIPLES OF LIFE. 247 Wide was the ethical significance carried in the epics by the word naXoi; ' in later literature its meaning ranged from beautiful to the eye or ear to " right." " Applied to conduct, it meant honorable, that which conformed to aiSws, and it might carry the notion of being best for the doer too. This twofold significance appears in words spoken by Antigone, uakov /xoi rovro Tcoiovffr] daveiv-/ " it will be well for me to die doing this," for "I shall rest a loved one with him I loved, sinless in my breach of human law; duties more enduring than to the living I owe to those below, where I shall be forever."* This incidental meaning of ultimate advantage, is often absent. Neoptolemus says : I had rather fail, doing nobly {HaXoos), than conquer dishonorably (TtaKOOs)." dej^iS, the eternal right, is the Beautiful (jo nakov), with the divine sanction added. "Thou art Polyneices' sire," says Antigone to CEdipus, " and though he may have wronged thee, it is not de^iii for thee to wrong him." ° This word may contain the idea of what is fated,' and thus what is dkfxv; and uakov is brought into relation with the moral order, a breach of which is surely avenged by fate. Many years before Plato, had Sappho cried: " He who is beautiful to look upon is good ; and who is good will ' See ante, p. 185. ^ The word has also idiomatic meanings ; e.g., vvv yap t v naXm ,', ,, An action fashioned, wrought out, and commented upon, creatively presented in a drama, is become a con- crete instance of the working of life's universal factors. The actions and utterances of the chorus are evoked natu- rally and inevitably by the course of the drama, in which the chorus also should be involved.' Their utterances point the drama's universality, relate its events to uni- versal laws of life, and display the fortunes of the actors set in the moral laws which bring them to their issue. This is the dramatic function of the chorus." But the true drama, that is to say, the action itself, displays its universality in its own consistent consequence of event, wherein life's laws display themselves. This consistency is displayed externally in deeds which accord not only with the doer's situation, but with his character, the other determining factor in his fortune.' More spiritually ' The chorus, e.g., in the Agamemnon or the (Edifus, is concerned in the action of the piece more closely than as a mere sympathetic spectator. ^ The choral utterances of the CEdipus and Agamemnon strikingly per- form this function. See e.g. the CEdipus, 863, ct seq. ' This consistency makes a drama just, with such justness as is shown in the dramas of ^schylus and Sophocles, as well as in the epics. Notice the VOL. I, — 19 290 ANCIENT IDEALS. this consistency appears, as the effect of fortune upon character is seen in the changed man. The chorus in the Agamemnon sings of the divine law whereby men, through suffering, are led to knowledge without their willing it.' Sophocles' dramas embody this way of the divine. In CEdipus, even in the more stubborn-minded Creon of the Antigone, is shown the poet's beautiful artistic apprehension of the humbling and enlightening effect of calamity on a not ignoble man. Thus the Greeks dramatized this depth of truth, human and divine, even showing how through suffering man is brought nearer God." It is part of Aristotle's definition, that tragedy imitates or sets forth an action through persons acting it out,' and not through narrative. Greek taste did not permit hor- rors to be enacted on the stage, and the necessity of informing the audience of these events, and of others which it was not practicable to present, put the dramat- ists to the makeshift of the inessenger — the ayyskoi — so frequent in Greek plays. Here Aristotle's critical requirement that the drama should be wrought out through action, and not by narrative, was infringed, and most flagrantly by Euripides. The messenger-device meant incomplete dramatic presentation, it was undra- Agamemnon, the summit of all tragedy. Therein life is just. Nothing unmerited happens ; every one in the drama has sinned. The chorus knows not whether to sympathize with Agamemnon, yet knows well to condemn Clytemnestra. The reader of the play does not ask why Cassandra gave no warning, but rather feels the weight of destiny that sealed her lips. She could not speak, even if she clearly knew what was to happen. But did she know? In her, prophecy is a dark and overwhelming foreboding, which stifles utterance, then frenzies to hardly articulate speech. She foresaw her own fate too ; she was not guiltless ; had she not deceived Apollo ? She moves us strongly, but with no vrish to save her. She is so tragic, so held by doom, that her only proper action is to forebode her death and die. Finally, it was meet that the murderers should boast their foolish day, before they too went their way appeasing fate. ' Agamemnon, 184, etc. "^ This in the CEdipus Colonetts ; compare Wolsey in Shakespeare's Henry VIII — " I feel my heart new opened," etc. ' Apmvroiv, Poetics, vi, 2. GREEK ART AND POETRY. 29 1 matic and a flaw in the construction of the plot. It was sometimes avoided by making the narrative of what had taken place off the stage a part of the essential action of the drama; Clytemnestra's announcement to the Argive Elders of her murder of Agamemnon is very drama, being a part of the catastrophe. It goes without saying that the structure of the plot should be artistically and imaginatively probable. Says Aristotle, touching the veriest trait of Greek artistic genius, the dramatist should see his plot, keep its scenes before his eyes ; then he will be unlikely to fall into in- consistencies or improbabilities which a spectator of the play would notice." Each succeeding incident must be the proper, nay, the inevitable, outcome of what has gone before, though coming in a striking and unexpected man- ner, like the admirable revolution {nepiTisreia) and dis- covery {avayvoopifftg) which come in the Qidipus Tyran- nus." The catastrophe must rise as of necessity from out the operation of the laws of life embodied in the drama." The elements of a tragedy next in importance after the plot are what Aristotle calls f;dos (sometimes in the plu- ral, rd rjdrj) and Siavoia. His definitions of these two matters are not clear, perhaps from Human failure adequately to express his meaning and Freedom also because his analysis was incomplete. But ^ Bondage^ there is most suggestive significance in what he says. 'Hdog, as here used by Aristotle, is usually ^ Poetics^ xvii, ^ A revolution is a change to the reverse of what was expected ; i.e., any event where the agent's action has produced an effect the opposite of his intention. A discovery is a change from the unknown to the known, taking place between those whose fortunes form the catastrophe of the piece. A beautiful revolution and discovery is contained in the story of Joseph and his brethren — as Twining remarks. ^ For instance, Aristotle says the best kind of discovery is not that from a visible sign or feature suddenly recognized, nor one invented or adventi- tious, nor even the discovery springing from inference, but that which arises, out of the action of the piece, i| dvrmv r£v itpayfidroov, as in the. Qidipus. Poetics, xvi and xi. 292 ANCIENT IDEALS. rendered character, and Sidcvoia primarily means thought, viewed in its activity or energizing, not as quiescent capacity, which is vovt (mind). It were well to follow his explanations of the terms. Since tragedy is the imitation of an action, there must be persons to carry the action on ; and these dramatis per- sonm are what they are by virtue of their ^00? and diavoia, which determine likewise the nature of their acts. More especially ijdog signifies the man's underlying determinant qualities, which make him such a person as he is ; while Siavoia is that intelligent faculty through which, in speaking, he sets forth his sentiments and opin- ions as circumstances require. Through the latter, ac- cordingly, he effects whatever is to be accomplished by speech, demonstrates or refutes, rouses in others feelings of pity, fear, anger, and such like, and shows a matter's importance or insignificance.' As for the rjdri of the dramatis persona, the underlying qualities of character, they should be good, that is, should show goodness of motive; they should be appropriate — a man may be drawn valorous, but not a woman. Moreover, they should be natural, and each character drawn consistently throughout, even in its inconsistencies.' And further, since tragedy is the imitation of what is above the com- mon level, the poet should follow the example of good portrait-painters, who veritably reproduce the distinctive form and features of the subject, yet make them more beautiful. So in making dramatis personce hot-tempered, easy-minded, or with other such like traits, the poet, while making them of such a temper, should make them noble, like Homer's Achilles for example.' From the above it is clear that by f)Sos Aristotle intended the abiding elements of personality or character. * Poetics, vi, 5, 6, 16 ; xix, I, 2. ^ lb., XV, 1-5. An illustration of a character consistent in its inconsis- tencies is Cloten in Shakespeare's Cymbeline. 3 XV, 8. GREEK ART AND POETRY. 293 There lies, moreover, in his words the further impHcation that qualities of character, to constitute r]Bo? proper to poetry and art, must be large, strong, and comprehensive, must represent good motives; and in Greek eyes good motives were such as were not narrow, not shortsighted, not ignoble, but took account of life in its height and breadth. In such a broad sense as this, dramatic r]Q.< xrr, 6. ' See post. GREEK ART AND POETRY. 295 of his character to his fortunes, he gains a sense of conse- cration to some purpose over him, and he is satisfied. The r]Qo?, the perfect beauty, of Antigone is clear. The weaker sister Ismene is a foil to Antigone's great- ness ; yet even she does not narrow her dissuading argu- ments to small personal motive ; she argues from what she would regard as right.' But Antigone's greatness is such that she sees the matter absolutely — she will honor her brother's corpse: " Well is it for me to die doing this ! " '^ This is Antigone, the note that tells her very self. Thereafter, when brought before Creon, the whole thought of her great justification " is of the divine laws of righteousness. Quietly she looks upon herself with ref- erence to these laws, not to her desires. Creon tells her she will be hateful to the brother who slew Polynices and was slain by him. Antigone rises above this argument — " I loved them both, but joined not in their hates."' As she passes to her tomb her womanhood feels her fate sadly, almost hopelessly, but so fittingly, so beautifully always," and so true: " Behold, princes of Thebes, the last daughter of the house of your kings, and what I suffer and from whom ! because I revere what must be revered. ' ' ° Antigone's conduct in this last drama of her unhappy house was but one part of what she was. Many other and further deeds she might have done ; further capacities were hers of loving and revering. What a wife she could have been, and what a mother ! what strength of love and duty was in her, untold by the story ! ' Her love is love free born ; its strength works free with all the laws of righteousness which it honors so duteously. Love with Euripides is passion's slave, which galls itself against the laws of righteousness. ■ Sue e.^. Antigone, 49, etc. * lb., 523 ; cf. ib., 559, 560. * lb., 72. s See ib., 824, etc. ^ lb., 450, etc.; ante, p. 228. '• lb., 940. ' Antigone is frequently spoken of as statuesque, and rightly in at least this respect, that, like Phidian statues, her actions are well within her capacities. 296 ANCIENT IDEALS. It is even so. With Euripides there has come spiritual bondage. Passion's slaves are neither great nor free. Quick rise the waves of shallow waters. Passion had not so violently moved the men and women of Euripides had they been stronger men and women, greater, better, more self-controlled, more clearly seeing, more righteous. In heightening passion, he thus lowers character, and narrows motives down to self and self's loves and hates. Medea, in his great drama of hate, has no thought beyond her sufferings and her hatred, no slightest consideration of things broader, ethical. Even the chorus seems scarcely to relate Medea's situation and conduct to broad laws of life, but concerns itself with the personal hard lots of women — touching, but not sublime. What another sort of passion's slave is Phaedra in the Hippolytus, every one knows, or readily can see by reading the play. Again, the Ion is a lovely piece in many ways ; it concludes hap- pily, but with no good or broad motive having once worked in it. One turns at last to the lovely pathos of the Alcestis, to find what ? That she is just the reverse of Medea in every way ; instead of personal hatred, here is personal love, and very lovely love, of husband and children ; but how much less in compass than Antigone's ! In Alcestis' speech with Admetus it is always personal matters that she recalls, how much more she has done for him than he for her, for instance. Then she bespeaks his kindness to their children with utmost sweetest pathos. And when she has passed for the moment to her tomb, it is solely from the point of view of personal regret that Admetus bewails his lot and counts Alcestis dead as better off than he.' Euripides was the progenitor of the love-motive in literature, the motive of passionate love between a man and woman with all its pangs. But as treated by this great delineator of passion and his Hellenistic succes- sors,' love might move to pity, even to fear; it would ' Alcestis, 935, etc. ' See chap, xi, post. GREEK ART AND POETRY. 297 seldom rouse admiration, for it was seldom admirable, or noble, or broad, or iinely, highly human ; it lacked ffdos, was not ethical, at most might be unethically pathetic. The reason is clear. That cannot be distinctively and highly human which is not free. And this love in Euripi- des and later Greek literature stands for no free human choice on the part of either man or woman. It may bring tumultuous joy, likely will bring affliction. But it is always something put on mortals by Eros or Aphro- dite, a thing with which men and women are smitten, no part of their will, no part of their highest, distinctively human, self-determining character. This passionate slave-thing, love, lacks rfios — is unethi- cal — from another point of view, in that it can consider but itself, takes no account of life's full contents, is a shortsighted, haphazard, unproportioning thing in man. The nobility of Greek tragedy lies in its presentation of the greatness of humanity inwardly free, however thwarted or cast down by mightier forces ; nay, human greatness is shown forth through the dark power of hidden fate which casts it down. Love's passion was treason from within, a Delilah bondage of human greatness unto its own destruction. Besides the tragic elements just now spoken of, Aris- totle finds three others needful to tragedy : the scenic setting of the piece (ofiS) the music {^lekonoia, fiiXo?), and the diction {Xi$i?y With Aris- ^"^l^^^ totle music had educational and ethical import : " melodies contain in themselves representations of moral qualities." ' As for diction, its excellence lay in per- spicuity and in its being neither below nor above the dignity of the subject. ° Consequently the diction of tragedy, to be suited to the dignity of weighty actions, should be noble ; the virtue of such style is to be clear without being mean. The poet must avoid that super- abundance of metaphor which obscures, and yet make ■ PoeHcs,-n, 7. ^ Politics, viii, 5 ; cf. ib., viii, 6, 7. ^Rhet., iii, 2 ; iii, 17. 298 ANCIENT IDEALS. use of language sufficiently figurative, novel, and distin- guished, to preserve his style from the commonplace.' Thus will his diction be fatting and beautiful. In all of these respects Homer's style is perfect." The effect of tragedy — its proper effect though not its conscious end— is tiirough .pity and fear to purge the soul of such emotions. The word nadapais ' Effect of used by Aristotle, is a metaphor apparently .. £ .' taken from medicine, and signifies primarily Character, the expulsion from the human soul of pity and fear regarded as hurtful things. Aristotle's thought, however, here incompletely expressed, must be gathered from the relation of this remark to the rest of his views on tragedy.' The thought of purging implies expulsion of what is detrimental. It is to be inferred that tragedy will purge of evil things, not of what is good. Nothing is more evil than to be a slave, an inner, spiritual slave ; for the quality of being free is essential to human virtue. Passions produce just this inward slavery, for they nullify the will. Hence it were well that the soul should be purged of fear and pity regarded as emo- tions which sway where reason and man's self-determining will should rule. Tragedy exhibits the principles of things pitiable and dreadful, exhibits dreadful and pitiable acts and conditions in their universal aspects, and thereby instructs the soul, widens its vision, experiences it in things of fear and pity, so enables it to apprehend and know, whereby it shall not suddenly be made a slave in ignorance. So shall the man be calm and free in presence of the like. But again, tragedy purges the soul of such emotions considered as hurtful, painful, and disturbing elements. It draws the feelings forth, relieves the man of them, and gives him calm. That a great tragedy has 1 Poetics, xxii. ^ lb., xxiv, 1,2. ^ lb., -vi, 2; cf. Politics, v, 7. * Cf. the discussion of the matter in Butcher's Aristotle's Theory of Art and Poetry, ch. vi. In //., xxiv, Achilles tells the stricken Priam the story of Niobe, and the passionate scene ends in perfect peace (ante, pp. 190-193) — an epic forerunner of the Aristotelian catharsis. GREEK ART AND POETRY. 299 this effect is proved by experience, which we may know as well as Aristotle. Moreover, a Greek tragedy usually closes in quiet tones with such incident, or comment of the chorus, as is fitted to lower the excited feelings of the spectators and divert their minds to a consideration of other matters than the tragic event seen in its sheer fearfulness. Finally, in a sense intermediate between these two conceptions of the tragic purge, it can be said that the sight of things dreadful and pitiable purifies the fears and pities of the soul from sentimentality, connection with objects trivial or unworthy ; also from too exclusively egotistic direction, taking them beyond the bounds of the individual and particular, affording view of what is universal and typical in such matters; and thus, freeing them from the extremes of extravagance and apathy, it induces the mean and increases the philosophic virtue of the soul. But that things should be truly dreadful and pitiable, having this right tragic effect upon the soul, it is neces- sary that they should be such and bear such relationship to life, that their presentation will not affect the soul per- versely. The action dramatized must be such, have such consistency throughout, and eventuate in such result, that it will altogether square with life's truest, broadest laws. It must not be inconsequent, untruly related to those principles which hold life's height and depth, and so con- trol. In this broad sense the tragedy must not be un- ethical ; for it must be a true and veritable instance of life's broad, controlling, fateful forces; thus will it pres- ent life in its farthest verity and power. So may we see how Aristotle's view of what is rightly dreadful and pitiable, and of the character and fortune best suited for tragedy, reflect broad Hellenic judgments upon life, life not in its accidents but in its ultimate necessities of law. These shall be represented in the hero of the tragedy. He must not be a perfectly good 3CX3 ANCIENT IDEALS. man, not an absolutely flawless character; there must be some flaw to which destiny may attach its tendrils. For, that ruin should come upon an absolutely flawless man, flawless in himself and in his ties of blood which also tell, did not accord with Greek judgment as to what was nor- mal, as to what was fit. Hence, says Aristotle, such a spectacle upon the stage is senseless and abominable ; ' it is too out of relation to the ways of life — life's universal ways, not its accidents — to present itself rightly as dread- ful and pitiable ; it has no lesson, no effect ; the spec- tator's soul is simply shocked. Again, a bad man passing from evil to good fortune is not a fit subject for tragedy. That were most untragic (arpocYOiSorarov), it rouses neither pity nor fear, nor is it fit to see.' Conversely, the downfall of an utterly bad man does not fulfil the conditions of tragedy. It satisfies our humane senti- ments ; ° but rouses no pity, since we feel that the misfor- tune was deserved ; and it rouses no dread, since it does not touch us ; we feel dread only of what might happen to such as we ourselves are. The proper tragic personage is the man between these two moral extremes, neither flawless nor wicked ; one whose downfall is occasioned through some fault.' These short paragraphs of the Poetics are far from exhausting tragic possibilities; indeed they hardly take account of all the noblest works of Greek tragedy, as, for instance, the Antigotie of Sophocles; and yet that tragic heroine accords with Aristotle's furthest views of tragic fitness. Her fate presents truly the relationship of such a personality to the ways, the laws, of life. Given an Antigone in like circumstances, and she must do as did this perfect flower of pagan womanhood, and meet a fate like hers. The veritable tragic spectacle is that of human downfall, wrought out, not through wickedness nor yet blamelessly, which last in tragedy means inconsequen- ' Miapov, a pollution. ' I.e., it is gnXdvQpcoiCor. ' itXavOpoanov. * Poetics, siii, 2, 3. GREEK ART AND POETRY. 30I tially ; but wrought out by virtue of the veritable action of all . the factors, intrinsic human quality and extrinsic circumstances, in mutual interaction and inevitable issue.' We notice finally that Aristotle's definition of tragedy includes no mention of the beautiful as a tragic or artistic end. This is simply Greek. All things of weight and perfect excellence were beautiful, as of course ; else lacked they excellence. ' The element of the terrible must not be lacking to a tragedy ; hence a " happy ending " is not a proper tragic ending. And Aristotle commends Euripides for the unhappy ending of his plays. Such plays presented on the stage produce the most tragic effect, and in this respect, that is in the tragically moving ending of his plays, Euripides shows himself most tragic of poets, faultily as he manages other matters. — Poetics, xiii, 6. CHAPTER X. GREEK PHILOSOPHY. THE desire of knowledge, and the faculty of know- ing, and distinguishing between the known and unknown, were peculiarly characteristic of the Greek race. Most ancient peoples did not perceive and know with sufficient clearness to distinguish what they saw from what they did not see, and what they The Greek knew from all the rest whereof they were igno- Desire for j.^jj|- jj^ ^j^g mental stores of Egypt and edee Babylonia, chaff never ceased to be as good as grain; and India saw and knew all things through the mist of her desires. Greek knowledge was destined to know itself. Because of its ever clearer rec- ognition of its sources, its modes and means, its evidence and bounds, it was to show the same unique and definite progress through reasoning selection and discrimination, which Greek art discloses alone among the arts of ancient peoples. The desire to know has various motives. Any savage wants to know how to capture his prey and kill his ene- mies. And the anxiety to keep in safe relationship to everything having power to hurt or benefit, is a sufficient motive for the lore of sorcerer and priest and seer. With the Greeks appears a desire to know, having no immedi- ate practical reason, nor motive beyond the satisfaction which the knowledge gives. This is a trait of Odysseus in the Odyssey, and is recognized as a normal trait of man by the Siren-song which would allure to destruction with 302 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 303 its cadences of promised knowledge. Homer's Achaeans were absorbed with earth's eager Hfe. But Hesiod's Theogony reflects a more contemplative desire to know those things anterior and transcendent which account for man and his environment. With the advent of historic times many Greeks appear wandering abroad simply from human curiosity to learn whatever might be of interest in foreign countries. In Herodotus, Croesus says to Solon that he has heard how, from love of knowledge {cpiXo- Qocpeoov) Solon has travelled far to see what might be seen.' It was exactly what the Father of History was doing, and what was done by many of those early Greeks who afterwards were called philosophers. The fact that wise Greeks, from Thales on, were wont to travel in order to increase their knowledge, raises the question whether Greek philosophy was not in its origin largely an ingathering of thoughts Greek from other peoples. Of a truth he was no ^^°P '^ Greek who would not learn from every one he ^^^ Greek met ; and many a suggestion Thales, and those Spirit. who followed quick upon him, took from non- Hellenic sources. But these men were Greeks; Greek were their faculties ; Greek, the spirit of their inquiry, the mode of their investigation and their reasoning, and Greek were their deductions ; — those broad results which have survived to represent the views of these early think- ers. Thales' s opinion that the origin of things was water, like Anaximander's that it was undifferentiated matter, was an hypothetical explanation of the world.'' We know of the results they reached ; and time has spared just enough of their reasonings to show that these results were inferences, and not baseless guesses or borrowings. So, in general, whatever hints came from abroad, and they were unimportant, Greek philosophy was, like Greek art, a self-wrought thing, a matter of consecutive Greek ' Herod., i, 30. ' See Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, Introduction, § x. 304 ANCIENT IDEALS. reasoning upon the content of Greek observation, a pure expression of the Greek discriminating and constructive intelligence. Greek philosophy began in the Greek desire to know for the sake of knowing and the satisfaction brought. It stood for Greek desire to know and understand the visible world, to explain it in the sense of ascertaining its underlying and abiding reason — what is the primordial constituent and factor of the world ? This it sought to ascertain, to present, to picture. It was open-minded and objective, undistorted by wishes as to how things should be. Its initial motive was not the yearning to adjust the universe to man according to his personal desires, but to find out about it fundamentally. Yet the Greeks through their periods of growth kept their lives whole, the elements thereof related, unified. From the beginning Greek ethics had been inclusive of Greek practical wisdom and broadest views of life. Hence, as philosophy was a search for knowledge broad and fun- damental, the philosopher would not be true to the wholeness of his character as Greek if he did not en- deavor to relate his practical view of life, and his thoughts of conduct, to his view of the world's funda- mental facts. Philosophy, moreover, the search for knowledge, was itself broadening to more complete inclusiveness of experience. Its borders must encroach on life's practical affairs. The two provinces of life, conduct and the search for knowledge, could not but join. Thus, with fuller maturity of thought, philosophy took life unto itself, and life took to itself philosophy ; a process which was to complete itself when, with Socrates, philosophic investigation turned to man. Thenceforth more completely, with wider scientific wisdom, man should understand himself, and on that knowledge base his life. So comes it that at Delphi, in Apollo's temple, the precept. Know yourself, yvwdi aavrov, was fitly set beside the broadest maxim of Greek conduct, fxr/div ayav,^ ' Cf. Plato Protagoras, 343. GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 305 nothing in excess, to wit, of you ; for the which, know yourself. Philosophy became a part of life, a way of life indeed. Only when in later Hellenistic times is broken the full unity of human activity, — which is very life, — knowledge loses its final value as an element thereof, and philosophy becomes a thing of practical utility, a guide of life. It exists not for its own proper sake, as a high part of life, but only as a means of holding oneself poised amid life's storms. So should philosophy ascertain the fundamental far- thest facts of the world's constituency and of human life, and all its ascertainments it should recognize, and then discriminate the best, the most, the veriest, and sanction such for man. Herein in process it was art's converse, but in its goal, art's analogue. For art — sculpture, paint- ing, poetry — presented Greek ideals in concrete exemplifi- cations ; while philosophy was the search critical therefor. " The gods have not shown men all things from the beginning, but seeking in time they find out what is better."' These lines of Xenophanes tell the position which philosophy was to hold toward religion and the traditionary view of the world and man. Philosophy did not feel itself opposed to religion ; its task was investiga- tion. When that led to matters touching man's relation- ship to the gods, philosophy would consider popular views. In so far as these were disproved by broader consideration of the matter, they would be rejected. Tradition was itself a fact ; accepted religious views and practices were not to be set aside without a reason. And it bears witness to the subtle Greek appreciation of the secrecy of life, that Greek philosophy remained conscious that its hypotheses were not exhaustive, and therefore bore itself reverently toward all which it could not explain. The Greek nature cared for life's myriad con- tents ; Greek philosophers might not disregard whatever their natures recognized instinctively. Feeling these ' Xenophanes, Frag., 16 ; Ritter and Preller, Historia Philosophies Graca, 87 b. 306 ANCIENT IDEALS. longings and interests within them, recognizing the com- plex manifold of life to which these longings related, they realized that as their speculation was born of won- der, so it still progressed amid mysteries. "Nature loves to hide " ; ' man shall not exhaust her riddles. " The god whose oracle is at Delphi neither declares nor conceals, but suggests by a sign."" From Heraclitus to Plato philosophy fails not in hints that all may not be known, nor all of that be told. High its endeavor to know farthest knowledge, and grasp the secret of the universe. In the meanwhile it is no iconoclast. Greek philosophy begins with Thales of Miletus. As accounts remain he was the first to put the question : the world is what ? ' what is its source ? For he g . , did not distinguish between the source and moving cause. Thales knew that Homer had called Oceanus the source (yivsais) of gods and men. Perhaps, being a philosopher as Homer was a poet, he divested Oceanus of his personality, and then said : water is the source — the world is made of water. It was an answer based on observation ; for to a sea-dwelling Greek, water was exhaustless, boundless its reaches ; and more palpably than anything else, water takes many shapes, descends in rain, ascends in mist, congeals in snow and ice, and moisture is wherever there is life. Anaximander followed. The world is various, holding many elements in opposition to each other — wet and dry, hot and cold ; and it is unlimited. Its source must cor- respond, must be unlimited ; and cannot be any element which men perceive ; for had any one of these opposing elements been unlimited, all else but it had ceased long since. The source then is just matter unlimited, infinite, undistinguished, unapposed to anything, imperishable — ' Heraclitus, Frag. , 10 (Bywater's edition). '^ lb.. Frag., ii. ' See Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 43. Zeller's History of Greek Philosophy is not specially cited in the following pages because a study of it underlies them all. GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 307 TO ansipov; whence by separation rise the distinguish- able and opposite elements of the visible world and all things therein ; into which again all things return, making reparation and requital to each other at the set time for the wrong done of temporary opposition and predomi- nance. He held that there were innumerable worlds, and had hypotheses to explain the heavenly bodies, and the phenomena of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain. The earth hangs in mid-air, held by nothing, but remaining where it is because of its equal distance from everything. We walk on one of its surfaces, and there is an opposite side.' Living animals arose from moisture under evapo- ration by the sun. Man was something like a fish in the beginning." The third great Milesian was Anaximenes, who, like Thales, sought a source which could be perceived ; for speculation might not yet free itself from the aid of sense. He saw this source in air, or more especially that thick mistiness wherein air makes itself visible. From out of its encircling boundlessness all things are formed by con- densation and rarefaction, cooling and heating. The in- troduction of this latter thought offered an explanation of how a single substance might attain to manifold differ- entiation, and herein lay an advance upon the views of Thales. = These lonians of Miletus may have been the heads of a " school " whose members were connected by close ties of friendship and like interest. Their philosophy, never- theless, has come down as physical speculation with no social or ethical bearing. Thereafter, however, philoso- phy should touch on ethical matters; though it was not to concern itself directly with the nature of man and the ' Ritter and Preller, 14 c. '' Ritter and Preller, 16 a ; cf. Burnet, p. 47, etc. The same spirit of free investigation appears in the historian Hekatseus of Miletus, the contempo- rary of Anaximander. See Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, vol. ii, § 465. 3 See Burnet, § 25. 308 ANCIENT IDEALS. validity of knowledge, until physical speculation was felt to be baffling and contradictory. This early speculation, which mainly regarded the visible world and its phenomena, appears to have been brought into more palpable relationship with Pythagoras gQ^-j^i ^j^j political life by Pythagoras, and to and the , , ^ ,.,,.. , . , Eleatics. have been connected with a religious basis of ethics by Xenophanes. Both men were of Ionia, the one from Samos, the other from Colophon. But both early left their homes, the Samian emigrating to Kroton in Magna Graecia, the man of Colophon wan- dering through European Greece and Sicily, leaving a name most closely connected with Italian Elea. In the sixth century, life and thought were freer in Ionia than in Hellas or Magna Grsecia. On the Asia Minor coast and its adjacent islands there were fewer Dorians, and the lonians had not been so sorely pressed upon by Dorian encroachment. Near them, back from the coast of Asia Minor, were ancient civilizations not antagonistic to their own and yet sufficiently distinct to afford standards of comparison and an outside point of view, from which these lonians might consider their own institutions and opinions. Many strains of foreign influence mingled in Ionia, and at this time its cities were less provincial and more liberal-minded than those of European Greece. Speculation there was free, perhaps left undisturbed because it was sheer speculation, affecting neither politics nor religion; while in Athene's city, free thinking was not without its perils until the sacrificial death of Socrates liberalized Greece forever. Of Pythagoras it is known only that he left Samos, and thereafter made his home at Kroton in Magna Grsecia. It is not possible to separate the teachings of the master from those of the sect who reverenced him and bore his name. Certainly many Pythagorean doctrines grew up in the school long after the first forefather of the ipse dixit ' had passed away. The master, however, founded ' 'AvToi 'e