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diff --git a/old/14587.txt b/old/14587.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0397b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14587.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23993 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Crest-Wave of Evolution, by Kenneth Morris + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Crest-Wave of Evolution + +Author: Kenneth Morris + +Release Date: January 4, 2005 [eBook #14587] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREST-WAVE OF EVOLUTION*** + + +E-text prepared by M. R. Jaqua + + + +THE CREST-WAVE OF EVOLUTION + +A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the +Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-1919.* + +by + +KENNETH MORRIS + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. INTRODUCTION + II. HOMER + III. GREEKS AND PERSIANS + IV. AESCHYLUS AND ATHENS + V. SOME PERICLEAN FIGURES + VI. SOCRATES AND PLATO + VII. THE MAURYAS OF INDIA + VIII. THE BLACK-HAIRED PEOPLE + IX. THE DRAGON AND THE BLUE PEARL + X. "SUCH A ONE" + XI. CONFUCIUS THE HERO + XII. TALES FROM A TAOIST TEACHER + XIII. MANG THE PHILOSOPHER, AND BUTTERFLY CHWANG + XIV. THE MANVANTARA OPENS + XV. SOME POSSIBLE EPOCHS IN SANSKRIT LITERATURE + XVI. THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME + XVII. ROME PARVENUE +XVIII. AUGUSTUS + XIX. AN IMPERIAL SACRIFICE + XX. CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW + XXI. CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW (Continued) + XXII. EASTWARD HO! +XXIII. "THE DRAGON, THE APOSTATE, THE GREAT MIND" + XXIV. FROM JULIAN TO BODHIDHARMA + XXV. TOWARDS THE ISLANDS OF THE SUNSET + XXVI. "SACRED IERNE OF THE HIBERNIANS" +XXVII. THE IRISH ILLUMINATION + +------------ +* Serialized in _Theosophical Path_ in 27 Chapters from +March, 1919 through July, 1921. +----------- + + + +I. INTRODUCTORY + +These lectures will not be concerned with history as a record +of wars and political changes; they will have little to tell +of battles, murders, and sudden deaths. Instead, we shall +try to discover and throw light on the cyclic movements of +the Human Spirit. Back of all phenomena, or the outward show +of things, there is always a noumenon in the unseen. Behind +the phenomena of human history, the noumenon is the Human +Spirit, moving in accordance with its own necessities and +cyclic laws. We may, if we go to it intelligently, gain some +inkling of knowledge as to what those laws are; and I think +that would be, in its way, a real wisdom, and worth getting. +But for the most part historical study seeks knowledge only; +and how it attains its aim, is shown by the falseness of what +passes for history. In most textbooks you shall find, probably, +a round dozen of lies on as many pages. And these in themselves +are fruitful seeds of evil; they by no means end with the +telling, but go on producing harvests of wrong life; which +indeed is only the Lie incarnate on the plane of action. The +Eternal _Right Thing_ is what is called in Sanskrit SAT, the +True; it opposite is the Lie, in one fashion or another, always; +and what we have to do, our mission and _raison d'etre_ as +students of Theosophy, is to put down the Lie at every turn, +and chase it, as far as we may, out of the field of life. + +For example, there is the Superior-Race Lie: I do not know +where it shall not be found. Races A, B, C, and D go on +preaching it for centuries; each with an eye to its sublime +self. In all countries, perhaps, history is taught with that +lie for mental background. Then we wonder that there are wars. +But Theosophy is called onto provide a true mental background +for historical study; and it alone can do so. It is the +mission of Point Loma, among many other things, to float a +true philosophy of history on to the currents of world-thought: +and for this end it is our business to be thinkers, using the +divine Manasic light within us to some purpose. H.P. Blavatsky +supplied something much greater than a dogma: she--like Plato +--gave the world a method and a spur to thought: pointed for +it a direction, which following, it might solve all problems +and heal the wounds of the ages. + +A false and foolish notion in the western world has been, +tacitly to accept the Greeks and Hebrews of old for the two +fountains of all culture since; the one in secular matter, +the other in religion and morality. Of the Hebrews nothing +need be said here; but that true religion and morality have +their source in the ever-living Human Spirit, not in any sect, +creed, race, age, or bible. I doubt there has been any new +discovery in ethics since man was man; or rather, all discoveries +have been made by individuals for themselves; and each, having +discovered anything, has found that that same principle was +discovered a thousand times before, and written a thousand times. + There is no platitude so platitudinous, but it remains to burst +upon the perceptions of all who have not yet perceived it, as a +new and burning truth; and on the other hand, there is no +startling command to purity or compassion, that has not been +given out by Teachers since the world began.--As for Greece, +there was a brilliant flaming up of the Spirit there in the +Fourth and Fifth Centuries B.C.; and its intensity, like the +lights of an approaching automobile, rather obscures what lies +beyond. It is the first of which we have much knowledge; so we +think it was the first of all. But in fact civilization has been +traveling its cyclic path all the time, all these millions of +years; and there have been hundreds of ancient great empires and +cultural epochs even in Europe of which we know nothing. + +I had intended to begin with Greece; but these unexplored eras +of old Europe are too attractive, and this first lecture must go +to them, or some of them. Not to the antecedents of Greece, in +Crete and elsewhere; but to the undiscovered North; and in +particular to the Celtic peoples; who may serve us as an example +by means of which light may be thrown on the question of racial +growth, and on the racial cycles generally. + +The Celtic Empire of old Europe affects us like some mysterious +undiscovered planet. We know it was there by its effects on +other peoples. Also, like many other forgotten histories, it has +left indications of its achievement in a certain spirit, an +uplift, the breath of an old traditional grandeur that has come +down. But to give any historical account of it--to get a +telescope that will reach and reveal it--we have not to come to +that point yet. + +Still, it may be allowed us to experiment with all sorts of +glasses. To penetrate that gloom of ancient Europe may be quite +beyond us; but guessing is permitted. Now the true art of +guessing lies in an intuition for guiding indications. There is +something in us that knows things directly; and it may deign at +times to give hints, to direct the researches, to flash some +little light on that part of us which works and is conscious in +this world, and which we call our brain-minds. So although +most or all of what I am going to say would be called by the +scientific strictly empirical, fantastic and foolish, yet I shall +venture; aware that their Aristotelio-Baconian method quite +breaks down when it comes to such a search into the unknown; and +that this guessing, guided by what seems to be a law, would not, +perhaps, have been sneered at by Plato. + +Guided by what seems to be a law;--guided, at any rate, by the +knowledge that there are laws; that "God geometrizes," as Plato +says: that which is within flows outward upon a design; that +life precipitates itself through human affairs as it does through +the forms of the crystals; that there is nothing more haphazard +about the sequence of empires and civilizations, than there is +about the unfolding of petals of a flower. In both cases it is +the eternal rhythm, the Poetry of the Infinite, that manifests; +our business is to listen so carefully as to hear, and apprehend +the fact that what we hear is a poetry, a vast music, not a +chaotic cacophony: catch the rhythms--perceive that there is a +design--even if it takes us long to discover what the design +may be. + +You know Plato's idea that the world is a dodecahedron or +twelve-sided figure. Now in Plato's day, much that every +schoolboy knows now, was esoteric--known only to the initiated. +So I think Plato would have known well enough that this physical +earth is round; and that what he meant when he spoke of the +dodecahedron, was something else. This, for example: that on +the plane of causes--this outer plane being that of effects +--there are twelve (geographical) centers, aspects, foci, +facets, or what you like to call them: twelve _laya centers,_ +as I think the Secret Doctrine would say: through which +the forces from within play on the world without. You have +read, too, in _The Secret Doctrine,_ Professor Crooke's theory, +endorsed by H.P. Blavatsky, as to how the chemical elements +were deposited by a spiral evolutive force, a creative impulse +working outward in the form of a caduceus or lemniscate, or +figure '8.' Now suppose we should discover that just as +that force deposited in space, in its spiral down-working, +what Crookes calls the seeds of potassium, beryllium, boron, +and the rest--so such another creative force, at work on the +planes of geographical space and time, rouses up or deposits +in these, according to a definite pattern, this nation and that +in its turn, this great age of culture after that one; and that +there is nothing hap-hazard about the configuration of continents +and islands, national boundaries, or racial migrations? + +H.P. Blavatsky tells us that the whole past history of the race +is known to the Guardians of the Secret Wisdom; that it is all +recorded, nothing lost; down to the story of every tribe since +the Lords of Mind incarnated. And that these records are in the +form of a few symbols; but symbols which, to those who can +interpret or disintegrate them, can yield the whole story. What +if the amount of the burden of history, which seems so vast to us +who know so very little of it, were in reality, if we could know +it all, a thing that would put but slight tax on the memory; a +thing we might carry with us in a few slight formulae, a few +simple symbols? I believe that it is so; and that we may make a +beginning, and go some little way towards guessing what these +formulae are. + +As thus: A given race flowered and passed; it had so many +centuries of history before its flowering; it died, and left +something behind. Greece, for example. We may know very little +--you and I may know very little--of the details of Greek history. +We cannot, perhaps, remember the date of Aegospotami, or what +happened at Plataea: we may have the vaguest notion of the +import of Aeschylus, or Sophocles, or Plato. But still there is +a certain color in our conscious perceptions which comes from +Greece: the 'glory that was Greece' means something, is a +certain light within the consciousness, to everyone of us. The +Greeks added something to the wealth of the human spirit, which +we all may share in, and do. An atmosphere is left, which +surrounds and adheres to the many tangible memorials; just as an +atmosphere is left by the glories of the Cinquecento in Italy, +with its many tangible memorials. + +But indeed, we may go further, and say that an atmosphere is +left, and that we can feel it, by many ages and cultures +which have left no tangible memorials at all; or but few and +uninterpretable ones, like the Celtic. And that each has +developed some mood, some indefinable inward color--which we +perceive and inherit. Each different: you cannot mistake the +Chinese or the Celtic color for the Greek; thought it might be +hard to define your perception of either, or of their difference. +It would be hard to say, for instance, that this one was crimson, +the other blue; not quite so hard to say that this one affects +us as crimson does, that other as blue does. And yet we can +see, I think, that by chasing our impressions to their source, +there might be some way of presenting them in symbolic form. +There might be some way of reducing what we feel from the Greeks, +or Chinese, or Celts, into a word, a sentence; of writing it down +even in a single hieroglyph, of which the elements would be such +as should convey to something in us behind the intellect just the +indefinable feeling either of these people give us. + +In the Chinese writing, with all its difficulty, there is +something superior to our alphabets: an element that appeals to +the soul directly, or to the imagination directly, I think. +Suppose you found a Chinese ideogram--of course there is no such +a one--to express the forgotten Celtic culture; and it proved in +analysis, to be composed of the signs for twilight, wind, and +pine trees; or wind, night, and wild waters; with certain other +elements which not the brain-mind, but the creative soul, would +have to supply. In such a symbol there would be an appeal to the +imagination--that great Wizard within us--to rise up and supply +us with quantities of knowledge left unsaid. Indeed, I am but +trying to illustrate an idea, possibilities.... I think there is +a power within the human soul to trace back all growths, the most +profuse and complex, to the simple seed from which they sprung; +or, just as a single rose or pansy bloom is the resultant, the +expression, of the interaction and interplay of innumerable +forces--so the innumerable forces whose interaction makes the +history of one race, one culture, could find their ultimate +expression in a symbol as simple as a pansy or rose bloom--color, +form and fragrance. So each national great age would be a flower +evolved in the garden of the eternal; and once evolved, once +bloomed, it should never pass away; the actual blossom withers +and falls; but the color, the form, the fragrance,--these remain +in the world of causes. And just as you might press a flower in +an album, or make a painting of it, and preserve its scent by +chemical distillation or what not--and thereby preserve the +whole story of all the forces that went to the production of +that bloom--and they are, I suppose, in number beyond human +computation--so you might express the history of a race in a +symbol as simple as a bloom... And that there is a power, an +unfolding faculty, in the soul, which, seeing such a symbol, +could unravel from it, by meditation, the whole achievement of +the race; its whole history, down to details; yes, even down to +the lives of every soul that incarnated in it: their personal +lives, with all successes, failures, attempts, everything. +Because, for example, the light which comes down to us as that of +ancient Greece is the resultant, the remainder of all the forces +in all the lives of all individual Greeks, as these were played +on by the conditions of place and time. Time:--at such and such +a period, the Mood of the Oversoul is such and such. Place:--the +temporal mood of the Oversoul, playing through that particular +facet of the dodecahedron, which is Greece. The combinations and +interplay of these two, plus the energies for good or evil of the +souls there incarnate, give as their resultant the whole life of +the race. There is perhaps a high Algebra of the Soul by which, +if we understood its laws, we could revive the history of +any past epoch, discover its thought and modes of living, as +we discover the value of the unknown factor in an equation. +Pythagoras must have his pupils understand music and geometry; +and by music he intended, all the arts, every department of life +that came under the sway of the Nine Muses. Why?--Because, as he +taught, God is Poet and Geometer. Chaos is only on the outer rim +of existence; as you get nearer the heart of thing, order and +rhythm, geometry and poetry, are more and more found. Chaos is +only in our own chaotic minds and perceptions: train these +aright, and you shall hear the music of the spheres, perceive the +reign of everlasting Law. These impulses from the Oversoul, that +create the great epochs, raising one race after another, have +perfect rhythm and rhyme. God sits harping in the Cycle of +Infinity, and human history is the far faint echo of the tune he +plays. Why can we not listen, till we hear and apprehend the +tune? Or History is the sound heard from far, of the marching +hosts of angels and archangels; the cyclic tread of their +battalions; the thrill and rumble and splendor of their drums and +fifes:--why should we not listen till the whole order of their +cohorts and squadrons is revealed?--I mean to suggest that there +are laws, undiscovered, but discoverable--discoverable from the +fragments of history we possess--by knowing which we might gain +knowledge, even without further material discoveries, of the lost +history of man. Without moving from Point Loma, or digging up +anything more important that hard-pan, we may yet make the most +important finds, and throw floods of light on the whole dark +problem of the past. H.P. Blavatsky gave us the clews; we owe it +to her to use them. + +Now I want to suggest a few ideas along these lines that may +throw light on ancient Europe; of which orthodox history tells us +of nothing but the few centuries of Greece and Rome. As if the +people of three thousand years hence should know, of the history +of Christendom, only that of Italy from Garibaldi onward, and +that of Greece beginning, say, at the Second Balkan War. That is +the position we are in with regard to old Europe. Very like +Spain, France, Britain, Germany and Scandinavia played as great +parts in the millennia B.C., as they have done in the times we +know about. All analogy from the other seats of civilization is +for it; all racial memories and traditions--tradition is racial +memory--are for it; and I venture to say, all reason and common +sense are for it too. + +Now I have to remind you of certain conclusions worked out in an +article 'Cyclic Law in History,' which appeared some time back in +_The Theosophical Path:_--that there are, for example, three +great centers of historical activity in the Old World: China and +her surroundings; West Asia and Egypt; Europe. Perhaps these are +major facets of the dodecahedron. Perhaps again, were the facts +in our knowledge not so desperately incomplete, we should find, +as in the notes and colors, a set of octaves: that each of these +centers was a complete octave, and each phase or nation a note. +Do you see where these leads? Supposing the note _China_ is +struck in the Far Eastern Octave; would there not be a vibration +of some corresponding note in the octave Europe? Supposing the +Octave _West Asia_ were under the fingers of the Great Player, +would not the corresponding note in Europe vibrate? + +Now let us look at history. Right on the eastern rim of the Old +World is the Chino-Japanese field of civilization. It has been, +until lately, under pralaya, in a night or inactive period of its +existence, for something over six centuries: a beautiful pralaya +in the case of Japan; a rather ugly one, recently, in the case +of China. Right on the western rim of the Old World are the +remnants of the once great Celtic people. Europe at large has +been very much in manvantara, a day or waking period, for a +little over six hundred years. Yet of the four racial roots or +stocks of Europe, the Greco-Latin, Teutonic, Slavic, and Celtic, +the last-named alone has been under pralaya, sound asleep, during +the whole of this time. Let me interject here the warning that +it is no complete scheme that is to be offered; only a few facts +that suggest that such a scheme may exist, could we find it. +Before Europe awoke to her present cycle of civilization and +progress, before the last quarter of the thirteenth century, the +Chinese had been in manvantara, very much awake, for about +fifteen hundred years. When they went to sleep, the Celts +did also. + +I pass by with a mere note of recognition the two dragons, the +one on the Chinese, the other on the Welsh flag; just saying +that national symbols are not chose haphazard, but are an +expression of inner things; and proceed to give you the dates of +all the important events in Chinese and Celtic, chiefly Welsh, +history during the last two thousand years. In 1911 the Chinese +threw off the Manchu yoke and established a native republic. In +1910 the British Government first recognized Wales as a separate +nationality, when the heir to the throne was invested as Prince +of Wales at Carnarvon. Within a few years a bill was passed +giving Home Rule to Ireland; and national parliaments at Dublin +and at Cardiff are said to be among the likelihoods of the near +future. The eighteenth century, for manvantara, was a singularly +dead time in Europe; but in China, for pralaya, it was a +singularly living time, being filled with the glorious reigns of +the Manchu emperors Kanghu and Kien Lung. In Wales it saw the +religious revival which put a stop to the utter Anglicization of +the country, saved the language from rapid extinction, and +awakened for the first time for centuries a sort of national +consciousness. Going back, the first great emperor we come to +in China before the Manchu conquest, was Ming Yunglo, conqueror +of half Asia. His contemporary in Wales was Owen Glyndwr, who +succeeded in holding the country against the English for a number +of years; there had been no Welsh history between Glyndwr and +the religious revival. In 1260 or thereabouts the Mongols +completed the conquest of China, and dealt her then flourishing +civilization a blow from which it never really recovered. About +twenty years later the English completed the conquest of Wales, +and dealt her highly promising literary culture a blow from which +it is only now perhaps beginning to recover. In the eleventh, +twelfth, and thirteenth centuries the great Sung artists of China +were painting infinity or their square feet of silk: painting +Natural Magic as it has never been painted or revealed since. In +those same centuries the Welsh bards were writing the Natural +Magic of the Mabinogion, one of the chief European repositories +of Natural Magic; and filling a remarkable poetical literature +with the same quality:--and that before the rest of Europe +had, for the most part, awakened to the spiritual impulses +that lead to civilization. In the seventh and eighth centuries, +when continental Europe was in the dead vast and middle of +pralaya, Chinese poetry, under Tang Hsuan-tsong and his great +predecessors, was in its Golden Age--a Golden Age comparable to +that of Pericles in Athens. In the seventh and eighth centuries, +Ireland was sending out scholars and thinkers as missionaries to +all parts of benighted Europe: Ireland in her golden age, the +one highly cultured country in Christendom, was producing a +glorious prose and poetry in the many universities that starred +that then by no means distressful island. In 420, China, after a +couple of centuries of anarchy, began to re-establish her +civilization on the banks of the Yangtse. In 410, the Britons +finally threw off the Roman yoke, and the first age of Welsh +poetry, the epoch of Arthur and Taliesin, which has been the +light of romantic Europe ever since, began. + +Does it not seem as if that great Far Eastern note could not +be struck without this little far western note vibrating in +sympathy? Very faintly; not in a manner to be heard clearly by +the world; because in historical times the Celtic note has been +as it were far up on the keyboard, and never directly under the +Master-Musician's fingers. And when you add to it all that this +Celtic note has come in the minds of literary critics rather to +stand as the synonym for Natural Magic--you all know what is +meant by that term;--and that now, as we are discovering the old +Chinese poetry and painting, we are finding that Natural Magic is +really far more Chinese than Celtic--that where we Celts have +vibrated to it minorly, the great Chinese gave it out fully and +grandly--does it not add to the piquancy of the 'coincidence?' + +Now there is no particular reason for doubting the figures of +Chinese chronology as far back as 2350 B.C. Our Western +authorities do doubt all before about 750; but it is hard to see +why, except that 'it is their nature to.' The Chinese give the +year 2356 as the date of the accession of the Emperor Yao, first +of the three canonized rulers who have been the patriarchs, +saints, sages, and examples for all ages since. In that decade a +manvantara of the race would seem to have begun, which lasted +through the dynasties of Hia and Shang, and halfway through the +Chow, ending about 850. During this period, then, I think +presently we shall come to place the chief activities and +civilization of the Celts. From 850 to 240--all these figures +are of course approximations: there was pralaya in China; +on the other side of the world, it was the period of Celtic +eruptions--and probably, disruption. While Tsin Shi Hwangti, +from 246 to 213, was establishing the modern Chinese Empire, the +Gauls made their last incursion into Italy. The culmination of +the age Shi Hwangti inaugurated came in the reign of Han Wuti, +traditionally the most glorious in the Chines annals. It +lasted from 140 to 86 B.C.; nor was there any decline under his +successor, who reigned until 63. In the middle of that time--the +last decade of the second century--the Cimbri, allied with the +Teutones, made their incursion down into Spain. Opinion is +divided as to whether this people was Celtic or Teutonic; but +probably the old view is the true one, that the word is akin to +Cimerii, Crimea, and Cymry, and that they were Welshmen in their +day. When Caesar was in Gaul, the people he conquered had much +to say about their last great king. Diviciacos, whose dominions +included Gaul and Britain; they looked back to his reign as a +period of great splendor and national strength. He lived, they +said, about a hundred years before Caesar's coming--or was +contemporary with Han Wuti. + +But the empire of the Celtic Kings was already far fallen, before +it was confined to Gaul, Britain, and perhaps Ireland. When +first we see this people they were winning a name for fickleness +of purpose: making conquests and throwing them away; which +things are the marks of a race declining from a high eminence it +had won of old through hard work and sound policy. We shall come +to see that personal or outward characteristics can never be +posited as inherent in any race. Such things belong to ages and +stages in the race's growth. Whatever you can say of Englishmen, +Frenchmen, Germans, now, has been totally untrue of them at some +other period. We think of the Italians as passionate, subtle of +intellect, above all things artistic and beauty-loving. Now +look at them as they were three centuries B.C.: plodding, self- +contained and self-mastered, square-dealing and unsubtle, above +all things contemning beauty, wholly inartistic. But a race may +retain the same traits for a very long time, if it remains in a +back-water, and is unaffected by the currents of evolution. + +So we may safely say of the Celts that the fickleness for which +they were famed in Roman times was not a racial, but a temporal +or epochal defect. They were not fickle when they held out (in +Wales) for eight centuries against the barbarian onslaughts which +brought the rest of the Roman empire down in two or three; or +when they resisted for two hundred years those Normans who had +conquered the Anglo-Saxons in a decade. This very quality, in +old Welsh literature, is more than once given as a characteristic +of extreme age; "I am old, bent double; I am fickly rash." says +Llywarch Hen. I think that gives the clew to the whole position. +The race was at the end of its manvantaric period; the Race Soul +had lost control of the forces that bound its organism together; +centrifugalism had taken the place of the centripetal impulse +that marks the cycles of youth and growth. It had eaten into +individual character; whence the tendency to fly off at +tangents. We see the same thing in any decadent people; by +which I mean, any people at the end of one of its manvantaras, +and on the verge of a pralaya. And remember that a pralaya, like +a night's rest or the Devachanic sleep between two lives, is +simply a means for restoring strength and youth. + +How great the Celtic nations had been in their day, and what +settled and civilized centuries lay behind them, one may gather +from two not much noticed facts. First: Caesar, conqueror of the +Roman world and of Pompey, the greatest Roman general of the day, +landed twice in Britain, and spent a few weeks there without +accomplishing anything in particular. But it was the central +seat and last stronghold of the Celts; and his greatest triumph +was accorded him for this feat; and he was prouder of it than +anything else he ever did. He set it above his victories over +Pompey. Second: the Gauls, in the first century B.C., were able +to put in the field against him three million men: not so far +short of the number France has been able to put in the field +in the recent war. Napoleon could hardly, I suppose, have +raised such an army--in France. Caesar is said to have killed +some five million Gauls before he conquered them. By ordinary +computations, that would argue a population of some thirty +millions in the Gaulish half of the kingdom of Diviciacos a +century after the latter's death; and even if that computation +is too high, it leaves the fact irrefutable that there was a very +large population; and a large population means always a long and +settled civilization. + +Diviciacos ruled only Gaul and Britain; possible Ireland as +well; he may have been a Gaul, a Briton, or an Irishman; very +likely there was not much difference in those days. It will be +said I am leaving out of account much that recent scholarship has +divulged; I certainly am leaving out of account a great many of +the theories of recent scholarship, which for the most part make +confusion worse confounded. But we know that the lands held by +the Celts--let us boldly say, with many of the most learned, the +Celtic empire--was vastly larger in its prime than the British +Isles and France. Its eastern outpost was Galatia in Asia Minor. +You may have read in _The Outlook_ some months ago an article by +a learned Serbian, in which he claims that the Jugo-Slavs of the +Balkans, his countrymen, are about half Celtic; the product of +the fusion of Slavic in-comers, perhaps conquerors, with an +original Celtic population. Bohemia was once the land of the +Celtic Boii; and we may take it as an axiom, that no conquest, +no racial incursion, ever succeeds in wiping out the conquered +people; unless there is such wide disparity, racial and +cultural, as existed, for example, between the white settlers in +America and the Indians. There are forces in human nature itself +which make this absolute. The conquerors may quite silence the +conquered; may treat them with infinite cruelty; may blot out +all their records and destroy the memory of their race; but the +blood of the conquered will go on flowing through all the +generation of the children of the conquerors, and even, it seems +probable, tend ever more and more to be the prevalent element. + +The Celts, then, at one time or another, have held the following +lands: Britain and Ireland, of course; Gaul and Spain; +Switzerland and Italy north of the Po; Germany, except perhaps +some parts of Prussia; Denmark probably, which as you know was +called the Cimbric Chersonese; the Austrian empire, with the +Balkan Peninsula north of Macedonia, Epirus and Thrace, and much +of southern Russia and the lands bordering the Black Sea. +Further back, it seems probable that they and the Italic people +were one race; whose name survives in that of the province of +Liguria, and in the Welsh name for England, which is Lloegr. So +that in the reign of Diviciacos their empire had already shrunk +to the meerest fragment of its former self. It had broken and +shrunk before we get the first historical glimpses of them; +before they sacked Delphi in 279 B.C.: before their ambassadors +made a treaty with Alexander; and replied to his question as to +what they feared: "Nothing except that the skies should fall." +Before they sacked Rome in 390. All these historic eruptions +were the mere sporadic outburst of a race long past its prime and +querulous with old age, I think Two thousand years of severe +pralaya, almost complete extinction, utter insignificance and +terrible karma awaited them; and we only see them, pardon the +expression, kicking up their heels in a final plunge as a +preparation for that long silence. + +Some time back I discussed these historical questions, particularly +the correspondence between Celtic and Chinese dates, with +Dr. Siren and Professor Fernholm; and they pointed out to +me a similar correspondence between the dates of Scandinavian +and West Asian history. I can remember but one example now: +Gustavus Vasa, father of modern Sweden, founder of the present +monarchy, came to the throne in 1523 and died in 1560. The last +great epoch of the West Asian Cycle coincides, in the west, and +reign of Suleyman the Magnificent in Turkey, from 1520 to 1566. +At its eastern extremity, Babar founded the Mogul Empire in India +in 1526; he reigned until 1556. On the death of Aurangzeb in +1707, the Moguls ceased to be a great power; the Battle of +Pultowa, in 1709, put an end to Sweden's military greatness. + +It is interesting to compare the earliest Celtic literature we +have, with the earliest literature of the race which was to be +the main instrument of Celtic bad karma in historical times--the +Teutons. Here, as usual, common impressions are false. It is +the latter, the Teutonic, that is in the minor key, and full +of wistful sadness. There is an earnestness about it: a +recognition of, and rather mournful acquiescence in, the +mightiness of Fate, which is imagined almost always adverse. I +quote these lines from William Morris, who, a Celt himself by +mere blood and race, lived in and interpreted the old Teutonic +spirit as no other English writer has attempted to do, mush less +succeeded in doing: he is the one Teuton of English literature. +He speaks of the "haunting melancholy" of the northern races--the +"Thought of the Otherwhere" that + + "Waileth weirdly along through all music and song + From a Teuton's voice or string: ..." + +Withal it was a brave melancholy that possessed them; they were +equal to great deeds, and not easily to be discouraged; they +could make merry, too; but in the midst of their merriment, they +could not forget grim and hostile Fate:-- + + "There dwelt men merry-hearted and in hope exceeding great, + Met the good days and the evil as they went the ways of fate." + +It is literature that reveals the heart of a people who had +suffered long, and learnt from their suffering the lessons of +patience, humility, continuity of effort: those qualities which +enable them, in their coming manvantaric period, to dominate +large portions of the world. + +But when we turn to the Celtic remains, the picture we find is +altogether different. Their literature tells of a people, in the +Biblical phrase, "with a proud look and a high stomach." It is +full of flashing colors, gaiety, titanic pride. There was no +grayness, no mournful twilight hue on the horizon of their mind; +their 'Other-World' was only more dawn-lit, more noon-illumined, +than this one; Ireland of the living was sun-bright and +sparkling and glorious; but the 'Great Plain' of the dead was +far more sun-bright and sparkling than Ireland. It is the +literature of a people accustomed to victory and predominance. +When they began to meet defeat they by no means acquiesced in +it. They regarded adverse fate, not with reverence, but with +contempt. They saw in sorrow no friend and instructress of the +human soul; were at pains to learn no lesson from her; instead, +they pitted what was their pride, but what they would have called +the glory of their own souls, against her; they made no terms, +asked no truce; but went on believing the human--or perhaps I +should say the Celtic--soul more glorious than fate, stronger to +endure and defy than she to humiliate and torment. In many sense +it was a fatal attitude, and they reaped the misery of it; but +they gained some wealth for the human spirit from it too. The +aged Oisin has returned from Fairyland to find the old glorious +order in Ireland fallen and passed during the three centuries of +his absence. High Paganism has gone, and a religion meek, +inglorious, and Unceltic has taken its mission thereto: tells +him the gods are conquered and dead, and that the omnipotent God +of the Christians reigns alone now.--"I would thy God were set on +yonder hill to fight with my son Oscar!" replies Oisin. Patrick +paints for him the hell to which he is destined unless he accepts +Christianity; and Oisin answers: + + "Put the staff in my hands! for I go to the Fenians, thou + cleric, to chant + The warsongs that roused them of old; they will rise, + making clouds with their breath. + Innumerable, singing, exultant; and hell underneath them + shall pant, + And demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them + in death." + +"No," says Patrick; "none war on the masters of hell, who could +break up the world in their rage"; and bids him weep and kneel in +prayer for his lost soul. But that will not do for the old +Celtic warrior bard; no tame heaven for him. He will go to +hell; he will not surrender the pride and glory of his soul to +the mere meanness of fate. He will + + "Go to Caolte and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair + And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or +at feast." + +So with Llywarch Hen, Prince of Cumberland, in his old age and +desolation. His kingdom has been conquered; he is in exile in +Wales; his four and twenty sons, "wearers of golden torques, +proud rulers of princes," have been slain; he is considerably +over a hundred years old, and homeless, and sick; but no whit of +his pride is gone. He has learnt no lesson from life excepts +this One: that fate and Karma and sorrow are not so proud, not +so skillful to persecute, as the human soul is capable of bitter +resentful endurance. He is titanically angry with destiny; but +never meek or acquiescent. + +Then if you look at their laws of war, you come to know very well +how this people came to be almost blotted out. If they had a true +spiritual purpose, instead of mere personal pride, I should say +the world would be Celtic-speaking and Celtic-governed now. Yet +still their reliance was all on what we must call spiritual +qualities. The first notice we get in classical literature of +Celts and Teutons--I think from Strabo--is this: "The Celts +fight for glory, the Teutons for plunder." Instead of plunder, +let us say material advantage; they knew why they were fighting, +and went to get it. But the Celtic military laws--Don Quixote in +a fit of extravagance framed them! There must be no defensive +armor; the warrior must go bare-breasted into battle. There are a +thousand things he must fear more than defeat or death--all that +would make the glory of his soul seem less to him. He must make +fighting his business, because in his folly it seemed to him that +in it he could best nourish that glory; not for what material +ends he could gain. Pitted against a people--with a definite +policy, he was bound to lose in the long run. But still he +endowed the human spirit with a certain wealth; still his folly +had been a true spiritual wisdom at one time. The French at +Fontenoy, who cried to their English enemies, when both were +about to open fire: _"Apres vous, messieurs! "_ were simply +practicing the principles of their Gaulish forefathers; the +thrill of honor, of _'Pundonor'_ as the Spaniard says, was much +more in their eyes than the chance of victory. + +Now, in what condition does a race gain such qualities? Not in +sorrow; not in defeat, political dependence or humiliation. The +virtues which these teach are of an opposite kind; they are what +we may call the plebeian virtues which lead to success. But the +others, the old Celtic qualities, are essentially patrician. You +find them in the Turks; accustomed to sway subject races, and +utterly ruthless in their dealings with them; but famed as clean +and chivalrous fighters in a war with foreign peoples. See +how the Samurai, the patricians of never yet defeated Japan, +developed them. They are the qualities the Law teaches us through +centuries of domination and aristocratic life. They are developed +in a race accustomed to rule other races; a race that does +not engage in commerce; in an aristocratic race, or in an +aristocratic caste within a race. Here is the point: the Law +designs periods of ascendency for each people in its turn, that +it may acquire these qualities; and it appoints for each people +in its turn Periods of subordination, poverty and sorrow, that it +may develop the opposite qualities of patience, humility, and +orderly effort. + +Would it not appear then, that in those first centuries B. C. +when Celts and Teutons were emerging into historical notice, the +Teutons were coming out of a long period of subordination, in +which they had learnt strength--the Celts out of a long period of +ascendency, in which they had learnt other things? The Teuton, +fresh from his pralayic sleep, was unconquerable by Rome. +The Celt, old, and intoxicated with the triumphs of a long +manvantara, could not repel Roman persistence and order. Rome. +too, was rising, or in her prime; had patience, and followed her +material plans every inch of the way to success. Where she +conquered, she imposed her rule. But whatever material plan were +set before the Celt, some spiritual red-herring, some notion in +his mind, was sure to sidetrack him before he had come half way +to its accomplishment. He had enough of empire-building; and +thirsted only after dreams. Brennus turned from a burnt Rome, his +pride satisfied. Vercingetorix, decked in all his gold, rode +seven times--was it seven times?--round the camp of Caesar: +defeat had come to him; death was coming; but he would bathe his +soul in a little pomp and glory first. Whether you threw your +sword in the scales, or surrendered to infamous Caesar, the main +thing was that you should kindle the pride in your eye, and puff +up the highness of your stomach. . . . So the practical Roman +despised him, and presently conquered him. + +Here is another curious fact: the greater number, if not all, of +the words in the Teutonic languages denoting social order and the +machinery of government, are of Celtic derivation. Words such as +_Reich_ and _Amt,_ to give two examples I happen to remember out +of a list quoted by Mr. T. W. Rollestone in one of his books. + +And now I think we have material before us wherewith to reconstruct +a sketch or plan of ancient European history. Let me remind you +again that our object is simply the discovery of Laws. That, in +the eyes of the Law, there are no most favored nations. That +there are no such things as permanent racial characteristics; +but that each race adopts the characteristics appropriate to +its stage of growth. + +It is a case of the pendulum swing, of ebb and flow. For two +thousand years the Teutons have been pressing on and, dominating +the Celts. They started at the beginning of that time with the +plebeian qualities--and have evolved, generally speaking, a large +measure of the patrician qualities. The Celts, meanwhile, have +been pushed to the extremities of the world; their history has +been a long record of disasters. But in the preceding period the +case was just the reverse. Then the Celts held the empire. They +ruled over large Teutonic populations. Holding all the machinery +of government in their hands, they imposed on the languages of +their Teuton subjects the words concerned with that machinery; +just as in Welsh now our words of that kind are mostly straight +from the English. It does not follow that there was any sudden +rising of Teutons against dominant Celts; more probably the +former grew gradually stronger as the latter grew gradually +weaker, until the forces were equalized. We find the Cimbri and +Teutones allied on equal terms against Rome. According to an old +Welsh history, the _Brut Tyssilio,_ there were Anglo-Saxons in +Britain before Caesar's invasion; invited there by the Celts, and +living in peace under the Celtic kings. To quote the _Brut +Tyssilio_ a short time ago would have been to ensure being +scoffed at on all sides; but recently professor Flinders Petrie +has vindicated it as against both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and +Caesar himself. English Teutonic was first spoken in Britain +probably, some two or three centuries B.C.; and it survived +there, probably, in remote places, through the whole of the Roman +occupation; then, under the influence of the rising star of the +Teutons, and reinforced by new incursions from the Continent, +finally extinguished the Latin of the roman province, and drove +Celtic into the west. + +But go back from those first centuries B.C. and you come at last +to a time when the Celtic star was right at the zenith, the +Teutonic very low. Free Teutons you should hardly have found +except in Scandinavia; probably only in southern Sweden: for +further north, and in most of Norway, you soon came to ice and +the Lapps and _terra incognita._ And even Sweden may have been +under Celtic influence--for the Celtic words survive there +--but hardly so as to affect racial individuality; just as +Wales and Ireland are under English rule now, yet retain their +Celtic individuality. + +And then go back a few more thousand years again, and you would +probably find the case again reversed; and Teutons lording it +over Celts, and our present conditions restored. It is by +suffering these poles of experience, now pride and domination, +now humiliation and adversity, that the races of mankind learn. +Europe is not a new sort of continent. Man, says one of the +Teachers, has been much what he is any time these million years. +History has been much what it is now, ebbing and flowing. +Knowledge, geographical and other, has receded, and again +expanded. Europe has been the seat of empires and civilizations, +all Europe, probably, for not so far short of a million years; +there has been plenty of time for it to multiply terrible karma-- +which takes the occasion to expend itself sometimes--as now. I +mistrust the theory of recent Aryan in-pourings from Asia. The +Huns came in when the Chinese drove them; and the Turks and +Mongols have come in since; but there is nothing to show that +the Slavs, for example, when they first appear in history, had +come in from beyond the Urals and the Caspian. Slavs and Greco- +Latins, Teutons and Celts, I think they were probably in Europe +any time these many hundreds of thousands of years. + +Or rather, I think there were Europeans--Indo-Europeans, Aryans, +call them what you will--where they are now at any time during +such a period. Because race is a thing that will not bear +close investigation. It is a phase; an illusion; a temporary +appearance taken on by sections of humanity. There is nothing in +it to fight about or get the least hot over. It is a camouflage; +there you have the very word for it. What we call Celts +and Teutons are simply portions of the one race, humanity, +camouflaged up upon their different patterns. So far as flood +and ultimate physical heredity are concerned, I doubt there is +sixpenny-worth of difference between any two of the lot. "Oi +mesilf," said Mr. Dooley, speaking as a good American citizen, +"am the thruest and purest Anglo-Saxon that iver came out of +Anglo-Saxony." We call ourselves Anglo-Saxons because we speak +English (a language more than half Latin); when in reality we +are probably Jews, Turks, infidels or heretics, if all were +known. What is a Spaniard? A Latin, you answer pat. Yes; he +speaks a Latin-derived language; and has certain qualities of +temperament which seem to mark him as more akin to the French and +Italians, than to those whom we, just as wisely, dub 'Teutonic' +or 'Slavic.' But in fact he may have in his veins not a drop of +blood that is not Celtic, or not a drop that is not Teutonic, or +Moorish, or Roman, or Phoenician, or Iberian, or God knows what. + +Suppose you have four laya centers in Europe: four Foci through +which psychic impulses from the Oversoul pour through into this +world. A Mediterranean point, perhaps in Italy; a Teutonic +point in Sweden; a Celtic point in Wales-Ireland (formerly a +single island, before England rose out of the sea); and a Slavic +point, probably in Russia. The moment comes for such and +such a 'race' to expand; the Mediterranean, for example. The +Italian laya center, Rome, quickens into life. Rome conquers +Italy, Gaul, Spain, Britain, the East; becomes _Caput Mundi._ +Countries that shortly before were Celtic in blood, become, +through no material change in that blood, Latin; by language, +and, as we say, by race. The moment comes for a Teutonic +expansion. The laya center in Sweden quickens; there is a +Swedish or Gothic invasion of Celtic lands south of the Baltic; +the continental Teutons presently are freed. It is the expansion +of a spirit, of a psychic something. People that were before +Celts (just as Mr. Dooley is an Anglo-Saxon) become somehow +Teutons. The language expands, and carries a tradition with it. +Head measurements show that neither Southern Germany nor England +differs very much towards Teutonicism from the Mediterranean +type; yet the one is thoroughly Teutonic, the other Anglo-Saxon. +Sometimes the blood may be changed materially; often, I suppose, +it is changed to some extent; but the main change takes place in +the language and tradition; sometimes in tradition alone. There +was a minor Celtic quickening in the twelfth century A. D.; +then Wales was in a fervor of national life. She had not the +resources, or perhaps the will, for outside conquest. But her +Authurian legend went forth, and drove Beowulf and Child Horn out +of the memory of the English, Charlemagne out of the memory of +the French; invaded Germany, Italy, even Spain: absolutely +installed Welsh King Arthur as the national hero of the people +his people were fighting; and infused chivalry with a certain +uplift and mysticism through-out western Europe. Or again, in +the Cinquecento and earlier, the Italian center quickened; and +learning and culture flowed up from Italy through France and +England; and these countries, with Spain, become the leaders in +power and civilization. + +England since that Teutonic expansion which made her English was +spent, has grown less and less Teutonic, more and more Latin; +the Italian impulse of the Renaissance drove her far along that +path. In the middle of the eleventh century, her language was +purely Teutonic; you could count on the fingers of your hand the +words derived from Latin or Celtic. And now? Sixty percent of +all English words are Latin. At the beginning of the fifth +century, after nearly three hundred years of Roman occupation, +one can hardly doubt that Latin was the language of what is now +England. Celtic, even then I imagine, was mainly to be heard +among the mountains. See how that situation is slowly coming +back. And the tendency is all in the same direction. You have +taken, indeed, a good few words from Dutch; and some two dozen +from German, in all these centuries; but a Latin word has +only to knock, to be admitted and made welcome. Teachers of +composition must sweat blood and tears for it, alas, to get their +pupils to write English and shun Latin. In a thousand years' +time, will English be as much a Latin language as French is? +Quite likely. The Saxon words grow obsolete; French ones come +pouring in. And Americans are even more prone to Latinisms than +Englishmen are: they 'locate' at such and such a place, where an +English man would just go and live there. + +Before Latin, Celtic was the language of Britain. Finally, says +W.Q. Judge, Sanskrit will become the universal language. That +would mean simply that the Fifth Root Race will swing back slowly +through all the linguistic changes that it has known in the past, +till it reaches its primitive language condition. Then the +descendants of Latins, Slavs, Celts, and Teutons will proudly +boast their unadulterated Aryan-Sanscrit heredity, and exult +over their racial superiority to those barbarous Teutons, +Celts, Slavs, and Latins of old, of whom their histories will +lie profusely. + + + + +II. Homer + + +When the Law designs to get tremendous things out of a race of +men, it goes to work this way and that, making straight the road +for an inrush of important and awakened souls. Having in mind to +get from Greece a startling harvest presently, it called one +Homer, surnamed Maeonides, into incarnation, and endowed him with +high poetic genius. Or he had in many past lives so endowed +himself; and therefore the Law called him in. This evening I +shall work up to him, and try to tell you a few things about him, +some of which you may know already, but some of which may be new +to you. + +What we may call a European manvantara or major cycle of +activity--the one that preceded this present one--should have +begun about 870 B. C. Its first age of splendor, _of which we +know anything,_ began in Greece about 390 years afterwards; we +may conveniently take 478, the year Athens attained the hegemony, +as the date of its inception. Our present European manvantara +began while Frederick II was forcing a road for civilization up +from the Moslem countries through Italy; we may take 1240 as a +central and convenient date. The first 390 years of it--from 1240 +to 1632--saw Dante and all the glories of the Cinquecento in +Italy; Camoens and the era of the great navigators in Portugal; +Cervantes and his age in Spain; Elizabeth and Shakespeare in +England. That will suggest to us that the Periclean was not the +first age of splendor in Europe in that former manvantara; it +will suggest how much we may have lost through the loss of all +records of cultural effort in northern and western Europe during +the four centuries that preceded Pericles. Of course we cannot +certainly say that there were such ages of splendor. But we shall +see presently that during every century since Pericles--during +the whole historical period--there has been an age of splendor +somewhere; and that these have followed each other with such +regularity, upon such a definite geographical and chronological +plan, that unless we accept the outworn conclusion that at a +certain time--about 500 B. C.--the nature of man and the laws of +nature and history underwent radical change, we shall have to +believe that the same thing had been going on--the recurrence of +ages of splendor--back into the unknown night of time. And that +geographical and chronological plan will show us that such ages +were going on in unknown Europe during the period we are speaking +of. In the manvantara 2980 to 1480 B.C., did the Western Laya +Center play the part in Europe, that the Southern one did in the +manvantara 870 B.C. to 630 A.D.? Was the Celtic Empire then, +what the roman Empire became in the later time? If so, their +history after the pralaya 1480 to 870 may have been akin to that +of the Latin, in this present cycle; no longer a united empire, +they may have achieved something comparable to the achievements +of France, Spain, and Italy in the later Middle Ages. At least we +hear the rumblings of their marches and the far shoutings of +their aimless victories until within a century or two of the +Christian era. Then, what was Italy like in the heyday of the +Etruscans, or under the Roman kings? The fall of Tarquin--an +Etruscan--was much more epochal, much more disastrous, than Livy +guessed. There were more than seven kings of Rome; and their era +was longer than from 753 to 716; and Rome--or perhaps the +Etruscan state of which it formed a part--was a much greater +power then, than for several centuries after their fall. The +great works they left are an indication. But only the vaguest +traditions of that time came down to Livy. The Celts sacked +Rome in 390 B.C., and all the records of the past were lost; +years of confusion followed; and a century and a half and +more before Roman history began to be written by Ennius in his +epic _Annales._ It was a break in history and blotting out of +the past; such as happened in China in 214 B.C., when the ancient +literature was burnt. Such things take place under the Law. +Race-memory may not go back beyond a certain time; there is a +law in Nature that keeps ancient history esoteric. As we +go forward, the horizon behind follows us. In the ages of +materialism and the low places of racial consciousness, that +horizon probably lies near to us; as you see least far on a +level plain. But as we draw nearer to esotericism, and attain +elevations nearer the spirit, it may recede; as the higher you +stand, the farther you see. Not so long ago, the world was but +six thousand years old in European estimation. But ever since +Theosophy has been making its fight to spiritualize human +consciousness, _pari passu_ the horizon of the past has been +pushed back by new and new discoveries. + +What comes down to us from old Europe between its waking and the +age of Pericles? Some poetry, legends, and unimportant history +from Greece; some legends from Rome; the spirit or substance of +the Norse sagas; the spirit or substance of the Welsh Mabinogi +and the Arthurian atmosphere; and of the Irish tales of the Red +Branch and Fenian cycles. The actual tales as we get them were +no doubt retold in much later times; and it is these late +recensions that we have. What will remain of England in the +memory of three or four thousand years hence? Unless this +Theosophical Movement shall have lifted human standards to the +point where that which has hitherto been esoteric may safely be +kept public, this much:--an echo only of what England has +produced of eternal truth;--something from Shakespeare; something +from Milton; and as much else in prose and poetry from the rest. +But all the literature of this and all past ages is and will then +still be in being; in the hidden libraries of the Guardians of +Esoteric Science, from which they loose fragments and hints on +the outer world as the occasion cyclically recurs, and as their +wisdom directs. + +How do they loose such fragments of old inspiration? It may be by +putting some manuscript in the way of discovery; it may be by +raising up some man of genius who can read the old records on +inner planes, and reproduce in epic or drama something of a long +past splendor to kindle the minds of men anew. In that way Greece +was kindled. Troy fell, says H. P. Blavatsky, nearly five +thousand years ago. Now you will note that a European manvantara +began in 2980 B. C.; which is very nearly five thousand years +ago. And that this present European manvantara or major cycle was +lit up from a West Asian Cycle; from the Moors in Spain; from +Egypt through Sicily and Italy; and, in its greatest splendor; +when Constantinople fell, and refugees therefrom came to light +the Cinquecento in Italy. Now Constantinople is no great way from +Troy; and, by tradition, refugees came to Italy from Troy, once. +Was it they in part, who lit up that ancient European cycle of +from 2980 to 1480 B. C.? + +In the Homeric poems a somewhat vague tradition seems to come +down of the achievements of one of the European peoples in that +ancient cycle. Sometime then Greece had her last Pre-periclean +age of greatness. What form it took, the details of it, were +probably as much lost to the historic Greeks as the details of +the Celtic Age are to us. But Homer caught an echo and preserved +the atmosphere of it. As the Celtic Age bequeaths to us, in the +Irish and Welsh stories, a sense of style--which thing is the +impress of the human spirit triumphant over all hindrances to its +expression;--so that long past period bequeathed through Homer a +sense of style to the later Greeks. It rings majestically through +his lines. His history is perhaps not actual history in any +recognizable shape. + +Legends of a long lost glory drifted down to a poet of mightiest +genius; and he embodied them, amplified them, told his message +through them; perhaps reinvented half of them. Even so Geoffrey +of Monmouth (without genius, however) did with the rumors that +came down to him anent the ancient story of his own people; and +Spenser followed him in the _Faery Queen,_ Malory in his book, +and Tennyson in the _Idylls of the King._ Even in that last, +from the one poem _Morte D'Arthur_ we should get a sense of the +old stylish magnificence of the Celtic epoch; for the sake of a +score of lines in it, we can forgive Tennyson the rest of the +Idylls. But Tennyson was no Celt himself; only, like Spenser +and Malory, an anglicizer of things Celtic. How much more +of the true spirit would have come down to Homer, a Greek +of genius, writing of traditional Greek glory, and thrilled +with racial uplift. + +Where did he live? Oh, Goodness knows! When? Goodness knows +again. (Though we others may guess a little, I hope.) We have +Herodotus for it, that Homer lived about four hundred years +before his own time; that is to say, to give a date, in 850; +and I like the figure well; for if Dante came in as soon as +possible after the opening of this present manvantara, why not +Homer as soon as possible after the opening of the last one? At +such times great souls do come in; or a little before or a +little after; because they have a work of preparation to do; +and between Dante and Homer there is much parallelism in aims and +aspirations: what the one sought to do for Italy, the other +sought to do for Greece. But this is to treat Homer as if he had +been one real man; whereas everybody knows 'it has been proved' +(a) that there was no such person; (b) that there were dozens of +him; (c) that black is white, man an ape, and the soul a +fiction. Admitted. A school of critics has cleaned poor old +blind Maeonides up very tidily, and left not a vestige of him on +God's earth--just as they have, or their like have, cleaned up +the Human Soul. But there is another school, who have preserved +for him some shreds at least of identity. Briefly put, you can +'prove up what may be classed as brain-mind evidence--grammar, +microscopic examination of text and forms and so on--that Homer +is a mere airy myth; but to do so you must be totally oblivious +of the spiritual facts of style and poetry. Take these into +account, and he rises with wonderful individuality from the grave +and nothingness into which you have relegated him. The Illiad +does not read like a single poem; there are incompatibilities +between its parts. On the other hand, there is, generally +speaking, the impress of a single creative genius. One master +made the Homeric style. The Iliad, as we know it, may contain +passages not his; but--_he wrote the Iliad._ + +What does not follow is, that he ever sat down and said: "Now +let us write an epic." Conditions would be against it. A +wandering minstrel makes ballads, not epics; for him Poe's law +applies: that is a poem which can be read or recited at a single +sitting. The unity of the Iliad is one not of structure, but of +spirit; and the chances are that the complete works of any great +poet will be a unity of spirit. + +Why should we not suppose that in the course of a long life a +great poet--whose name may not have been Homer--that may have +been only _what he was called_--his real name may have been (if +the critics will have it so) the Greek for Smith, or Jones, or +Brown, or Robinson--but he was _called_ Homer anyhow--why should +we not suppose that he, filled and fascinated always with one +great traditionary subject, wrote now one incident as a complete +poem; ten years later another incident; and again, after an +interval, another? Each time with the intention to make a +complete and separate poem; each time going to it influenced by +the natural changes of his mood; now preoccupied with one hero or +god, now with another. The Tennyson in his twenties, who wrote +the fairylike _Lady of Shalott,_ was a very different man in mood +and outlook from the Mid-Victorian Tennyson who wrote the +execrable _Merlin and Vivien;_ but both were possessed with the +Arthurian legend. At thirty and at fifty you may easily take +different views of the same men and incidents. The Iliad, I +suggest, may be explained as the imperfect fusion of many poems +and many moods and periods of life of a single poet. It was not +until the time of Pisistratus, remember, that it was edited into +a single epic. + +Now these many poems, before Pisistratus took them in hand, had +been in the keeping for perhaps three centuries of wandering +minstrels--Rhapsodoi, Aoidoi, Citharaedi and Homeridae, as they +were called--who drifted about the Isles of Greece and Asiatic +mainland during the long period of Greek insignificance and +unculture. The first three orders were doubtless in existence +long before Homer was born; they were the bards, trouveurs and +minnesingers of their time; their like are the instruments of +culture in any race during its pralayas. So you find the +professional story-tellers in the East today. But the Homeridae +may well have been--as De Quincey suggests--an order specially +trained in the chanting of Homeric poems; perhaps a single +school founded in some single island by or for the sake of Homer. +We hear that Lycurgus was the first who brought Homer--the works, +not the man--into continental Greece; importing them from Crete. +That means, probably, that he induced Homeridae to settle +in Sparta. European continental Greece would in any case +have been much behind the rest of the Greek world in culture; +because furthest from and the least in touch with West Asian +civilization. Crete was nearer to Egypt; the Greeks of Asia +Minor to Lydia; as for the islanders of the Cyclades and +Sporades, the necessity of gadding about would have brought them +into contact with their betters to the south and east, and so +awakened them, much sooner than their fellow Greeks of Attica, +Boeotia, and the Peloponnese. + +Where did Homer live? Naturally, as a wandering bard, all over +the place. We know of the seven cities that claimed to be +his birthplace: + + _Smyrna, Chias, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodos, Argos, Athenae + Orbis de patria certat, Homere, Tua._ + +Of these Smyrna probably has the best chance of it; for he was +Maeonides, the son of Maeon, and Maeon was the son of Meles; and +the Maeon and the Meles are rivers by Smyrna. But De Quincey +makes out an excellent case for supposing he knew Crete better +than any other part of the world. Many of the legends he +records; many of the superstitions--to call them that;--many of +the customs he describes: have been, and are still, peculiar to +Crete. Neither the smaller islands, nor continental Greece, were +very suitable countries for horse-breeding; and the horse does +not figure greatly in their legends. But in Crete the friendship +of horse and man was traditional; in Cretan folk-lore, horses +still foresee the doom of their masters, and weep. So they +do in Homer. + +There is a certain wild goat found only in Crete, of which he +give a detailed description; down the measurement of its horns; +exact, as sportsmen have found in modern times. He mentions the +_Kubizeteres,_ Cretan tumblers, who indulge in a 'stunt' unknown +elsewhere. They perform in couples; and when he mentions them, +it is in the dual number. Preternatural voices are an Homeric +tradition: Stentor "spoke loud as fifty other men"; when +Achilles roared at the Trojans, their whole army was frightened. +In Crete such voices are said to be still common: shepherds +carry on conversations at incredible distances--speak to, and are +answered by, men not yet in sight.--Dequincey gives several other +such coincidences; none of them, by itself, might be very +convincing; but taken all together, they rather incline one to +the belief that Smith, or Brown, or Jones, _alias_ Homer, must +have spent a good deal of his time in Crete;--say, was brought +up there. + +Now Crete is much nearer Egypt than the rest of Greece is; and +may very likely have shared in a measure of Egyptian culture at +the very beginning of the European manvantara, and even before. +Of course, in past cycles it had been a great center of culture +itself; but that was long ago, and I am not speaking of it. In +the tenth century A.D., three hundred years before civilization, +in our own cycle, had made its way from the West Asian Moslem +world into Christendom, Sicily belonged to Egypt and shared in +its refinement--was Moslem and highly civilized, while Europe +was Christian and barbarous; later it became a main channel +through which Europe received enlightenment. May not Crete +have played a like part in ancient times? I mean, is it +not highly probable? May it not have been--as Sicily was +to be--a mainly European country under Egyptian influence, +and a seat of Egyptianized culture? + +Let us, then, suppose Homer a Greek, born early in the ninth +century B.C., taken in childhood to Crete, and brought up there +in contact with cultural conditions higher than any that obtained +elsewhere among his own people. + +But genius stirs in him, and he is Greek altogether in the deep +enthusiasms proper to genius: so presently he leaves Crete and +culture, to wander forth among the islands singing.-- + + _En delo tote Proton ego Kai Homeros aoidoi + Melpomen,_ + +says Hesiod: "Then first in Delos did I and Homer, two Aoidoi, +perform as musical reciters." Delos, of course, is a small island +in the Cyclades. + +He would have had some training, it is likely, as an Aoidos: a +good founding in the old stories which were their stock in trade, +and which all pointed to the past glory of his race. In Crete he +had seen the culture of the Egyptians; in Asia Minor, the +strength and culture of the Lydians; now in his wanderings +through the isles he saw the disunion and rudeness of the Greeks. +But the old traditions told him of a time when Greeks acted +together and were glorious: when they went against, and +overthrew, a great West Asian Power strong and cultured like the +Lydians and Egyptians. Why should not he create again the glory +that once was Greece? + + _Menin aeide, Thea, Peleiadeo Achileos!_ + +--Goddess, aid me to sing the wrath (and grandeur) of a Greek +hero!--Let the Muses help him, and he will remind his people of +an ancient greatness of their own: of a time when they were +united, and triumphed over these now so much stronger peoples! +So Dante, remembering ancient Rome, evoked out of the past and +future a vision of United Italy; so in the twelfth century a +hundred Welsh bards sand of Arthur. + +I think he would have created out of his own imagination +the life he pictures for his brazen-coated Achaeans. It +does not follow, with any great poet, that he is bothering +much with historical or other accuracies, or sticking very +closely even to tradition. Enough that the latter should give +him a direction; as Poet-creator, he can make the details +for himself. Homer's imagination would have been guided, +I take it, by two conditions: what he saw of the life of +his semi-barbarous Greek country men; and what he knew of +civilization in Egyptianized Crete. He was consciously picturing +the life of Greeks; but Greeks in an age traditionally more +cultured than his own. Floating legends would tell him much +of their heroic deed, but little of their ways of living. +Such details he would naturally have to supply for himself. +How would he go to work? In this way, I think. The Greeks, +says he, were in those old ages, civilized and strong, not, +as now, weak, disunited and half barbarous. Now what is strength +like, and civilization? Why, I have them before me here to +observe, here in Crete. But Crete is Egyptianized; I want a +Greek civilization; culture as it would appear if home-grown +among Greeks.--I do not mean that he consciously set this plan +before himself; but that naturally it would be the course that +he, or anyone, would follow. Civilization would have meant for +him Cretan civilization: the civilization he knew: that part of +the proposition would inhere in his subconsciousness. But in his +conscious mind, in his intent and purpose, would inhere a desire +to differentiate the Greek culture he wanted to paint, from the +Egyptianized culture he knew. So I think that the conditions of +life he depicts were largely the creation of his own imagination, +working in the material of Greek character, as he knew it, and +Cretan-Egyptian culture as he knew that. He made his people +essentially Greeks, but ascribed to them also non-Greek features +drawn from civilized life. + +One sees the same thing in the old Welsh Romances: tales from of +old retold by men fired with immense racial hopes, with a view to +fostering such hopes in the minds of their hearers. The bards +saw about them the rude life and disunion of the Welsh, and the +far greater outward culture of the Normans; and their stock in +trade was a tradition of ancient and half-magical Welsh grandeur. +When they wrote of Cai--Sir Kay the Seneschal--that so subtle was +his nature that when it pleased him he could make himself as tall +as the tallest tree in the forest, they were dealing in a purely +celtic element: the tradition of the greatness of, and the +magical powers inherent in, the human spirit; but when they set +him on horseback, to ride tilts in the tourney ring, they were +simply borrowing from, to out do, the Normans. Material culture, +as they saw it, included those things; therefore they ascribed +them to the old culture they were trying to paint. + +Lying was traditionally a Greek vice. The Greek lied as +naturally as the Persian told the truth. Homer wishes to set +forth Ulysses, one of his heroes, adorned with all heroic +perfections. He was so far Greek as not to think of lying as a +quality to detract; he proudly makes Ulysses a "lord of lies." +Perhaps nothing in Crete itself would have taught him better; if +we may believe Epimenides and Saint Paul. On the other hand, he +was a great-hearted and compassionate man; compassionate as +Shakespeare was. Now the position of women in historical Greece +was very low indeed; the position of women in Egypt, as we know, +was very high indeed. This was a question to touch such a man to +the quick; the position he gives women is very high: very much +higher than it was in Periclean Athens, with all the advance that +had been made by that time in general culture. Andromache, in +Homer, is the worthy companion and helpmeet of Hector; not a +Greek, but Egyptian idea. + +Homer's contemporary, Hesiod, tells in his _Works and Days_ of +the plebeian and peasant life of his time. Hesiod had not the +grace of mind or imagination to idealize anything; he sets down +the life of the lower orders with a realism comparable to that of +the English Crabbe. It is an ugly and piteous picture he gives. +Homer, confining himself in the main to the patrician side of +things, does indeed give hints that the lot of the peasant and +slave was miserable; he does not quite escape some touches from +the background of his own day. Nor did Shakespeare, trying to +paint the life of ancient Athens, escape an English Elizabethan +Background; Bully Bottom and his colleagues are straight from +the wilds of Warwickshire; the Roman mob is made up of London +prentices, cobblers and the like. Learned Ben, on the other +hand, contrives in his _Sejanus_ and his _Catiline,_ by dint and +sheer intellect and erudition, to give us correct waxwork and +clockwork Romans; there are no anachronisms in Ben Johnson; +never a pterodactyl walks down _his_ Piccadilly. But Shakespeare +rather liked to have them in his; with his small Latin and less +Greek, he had to create his human beings--draw them from the +life, and from the life he saw about him. The deeper you see +into life, the less the costumes and academic exactitudes matter; +you keep your imagination for the great things, and let the +externals worry about themselves. Now Homer was a deal more +like Shakespeare than Ben; but there was this difference: +he was trying to create Greeks of a nobler order than his +contemporaries. Men in those days, he says, were of huger +stature than they are now. And yet, when his imagination is not +actually at work to heighten and ennoble the portrait of a hero, +real Greek life of his own times does not fail sometimes--to +obtrude on him. So he lets in bits now and again that belong to +the state of things Hesiod describes, and confirm the truth of +Hesiod's dismal picture. + +Well, he wandered the islands, singing; "laying the nexus of his +songs," as Hesiod says in the passage from which I quoted just +now, "in the ancient sacred hymns." As Shakespeare was first an +actor, then a tinkerer of other men's plays, then a playwright on +his own account; so perhaps Homer, from a singer of the old +hymns, became an improver and restorer of them, then a maker +of new ones. He saw the wretched condition of his people, +contrasted it with the traditions he found in the old days, and +was spurred up to create a glory for them in his imagination. +His feelings were hugely wrought upon by compassion working as +yoke-fellow with race-pride. You shall see presently how the +intensity of his pity made him bitter; how there must have been +something Dantesque of grim sadness in his expression: he had +seen suffering, not I think all his own, till he could allow to +fate no quality but cruelty. Impassioned by what we may call +patriotism, he attacked again and again the natural theme for +Greek epic: the story of a Greek contest with and victory over +West Asians; but he was too great not to handle even his West +Asians with pity, and moves us to sympathy with Hector and +Andromache often, because against them too was stretched forth +the hand of the great enemy, fate. In different moods and at +different times, never thinking to make an epic, he produced a +large number of different poems about the siege of Troy. + +And the Odyssey? Well, the tradition was that he wrote it in his +old age. Its mood is very different from that of the Iliad; and +many words used in it are used with a different meaning; and +there are words that are not used in the Iliad at all. Someone +says, it comes from the old age of the Greek epic, rather than +from that of Homer. I do not know. It is a better story than +the Iliad; as if more nearly cast at one throe of a mind. Yet +it, too, must be said not to hang together; here also are +discrepant and incompatible parts. + +There is all tradition for it that the Homeric poems were handed +down unwritten for several centuries. Well; I can imagine the +Aoidoi and Citharaoidoi and the rest learning poems from the +verbal instruction of other Aoidoi and Citharaoidoi, and so +preserving them from generation to generation to generation. But +I cannot imagine, and I do think it is past the wit of man to +imagine, long poems being composed by memory; it seems to me +Homer must have written or dictated them at first. Writing in +Greece may have been an esoteric science in those times. It is +now, anywhere, to illiterates. In Caesar's day, as he tells us, +it was an esoteric science among the Druids; they used it, but +the people did not. It seems probable that writing was not in +general use among the Greeks until long after Homer; but, to me, +certain that Homer used it himself, or could command the services +to those who did. But there was writing in Crete long before the +Greco-Phoenician alphabet was invented; from the time of the +first Egyptian Dynasties, for example. And here is a point to +remember: alphabets are invented; systems of writing are lost +and reintroduced; but it is idle to talk of the invention of +writing. Humanity has been writing, in one way or another, since +Lemurian days. When the Manasaputra incarnated, Man became a +poetizing animal; and before the Fourth Race began, his divine +Teachers had taught him to set his poems down on whatever he +chanced at the time to be using as we use paper. + +Now, what more can we learn about the inner and real Homer? What +can I tell you in the way of literary criticism, to fill out the +picture I have attempted to make? Very little; yet perhaps +something. I think his historical importance is greater, for us +now, than his literary importance. I doubt you shall find in him +as great and true thinking, as much Theosophy or Light upon the +hidden things, as there is in Virgil for example. I doubt he was +an initiate, to understand in that life and with his conscious +mind the truths that make men free. Plato did not altogether +approve of him; and where Plato dared lead, we others need not +fear to follow. I think the great Master-Poets of the world have +been such because, with supreme insight into the hidden, they +presented a great Master-Symbol of the Human Soul. I believe +that in the Iliad Homer gives us nothing of that sort; and that +therefore, in a certain sense, he is constantly over-rated. He +pays the penalty of his over-whelming reputation: his fame is +chiefly in the mouths of those who know him not at all, and +use their hats for speaking-trumpets. We have in English no +approximately decent translation of him. Someone said that Pope +served him as Puck served Bully Bottom, what time Peter Quince +was moved to cry: "Bless thee Bottom, how thou art translated!" +It is not so; to call Pope an ass would be to wrong a faithful +and patient quadruped; than which Pope was as much greater in +intellect as he was less in all qualities that call for true +respect. Yet often we applaud Homer, only upon a knowledge of +Pope; and it is safe to say that if you love Pope you would +loathe Homer. Pope held that water should manifest, so to say, +through Kew or Versailles fountains; but it was essentially to +be from the Kitchen-tap--or even from the sewer. Homer was more +familiar with it thundering on the precipices, or lisping on the +yellow sands of time-forgotten Mediterranean islands. Which +pronunciation do you prefer for his often-recurring and famous +sea-epithet: the thunder-on-the-precipices of + + _poluphloisboio thalasses,_ + +or the lisping-on-the-sands of + + _ poluphleesbeeo thalassace?_ + +(pardon the attempted phonetics).--For truly there are advocates +of either; but neither I suppose would have appealed much to +Mr. Pope. + +As to his style, his manner or movement: to summarize what +Mathew Arnold says of it (the best I can do): it is as direct +and rapid as Scott's; as lucid as Wordsworth's could be; but +noble like Shakespeare's or Milton's. There is no Dantesque +periphrasis, nor Miltonian agnostic struggle and inversion; but +he calls spades, spades, and moves on to the next thing swiftly, +clearly, and yet with exultation. (Yet there is retardation +often by long similes.) And he either made a language for +himself, or found one ready to his hand, as resonant and sonorous +as the loll and slap of billows in the hollow caverns of the sea. +As his lines swing in and roll and crash, they swell the soul in +you, and you hear and grow great on the rhythm of the eternal. +This though we really, I suppose, are quite uncertain as to the +pronunciation. But give the vowels merely a plain English value, +certain to be wrong, and you still have grand music. Perhaps +some of you have read Mathew Arnold's great essay _On Translating +Homer,_ and know the arguments wherewith wise Matthew exalts him. +A Mr. Newman had translated him so as considerably to out-Bottom +Bottom; and Arnold took up the cudgels--to some effect. Newman +had treated him as a barbarian, a primitive; Arnold argued that +it was Homer, on the contrary, who might have so looked on us. +There is, however, perhaps something to be said on Mr. Newman's +side. Homer's huge and age-long fame, and his extraordinary +virtues, were quite capable of blinding even a great critic to +certain things about him which I shall, with great timidity, +designate imperfections: therein following De Quincey, who read +Greek from early childhood as easily as English, and who, as a +critic, saw things sometimes. _Bonus dormitat Homerus,_ says +Horace; like the elder Gobbo, he "something smacked." He was +the product of a great creative force; which did not however +work in a great literary age: and all I am going to say is +merely a bearing out of this. + +First there is his poverty of epithets. He repeats the same ones +over and over again. He can hardly mention Hector without +calling him _megas koruthaiolos Hector,_--"great glittering- +helmeted Hector"; or (in the genitive) _Hectoros hippodamoio_-- +"of Hector the tamer of war-steeds." Over and over again we have +_anax andron Agamemnon;_ or "swift-footed Achilles." Over and +over again is the sea _poluphloisbois-terous,_ as if he could say +nothing new about it. Having discovered one resounding phrase +that fits nicely into the hexameter, he seems to have been just +content with the splendor of sound, and unwilling so to stir his +imagination as to flash some new revelation on it. As if Hamlet +should never be mentioned in the play, without some such epithet +as "the hesitating Dane."...... But think how the Myriad-minded +One positively tumbles over himself in hurling and fountaining up +new revelatory figures and epithets about everything: how he +could not afford to repeat himself, because there were not enough +hours in the day, days in the year, nor years in one human +lifetime, in which to ease his imagination of its tremendous +burden. He had Golconda at the root of his tongue: let him but +pass you the time of day, and it shall go hard but he will pour +you out the wealth of Ormus or of Ind. A plethora, some have +said: never mind; wealth was nothing to him, because he had it +all. Or note how severe Milton, almost every time he alludes to +Satan, throws some new light of majestic gloom, inner or outer, +with a new epithet or synonym, upon his figure or his mind. + +Even of mere ancillaries and colorless lines, Homer will make you +a resounding glory. What means this most familiar one, think you: + + _Ten d'apameibomenos prosephe koruthaiolos Hector?_ + +--Surely here some weighty splendid thing is being revealed? But +no; it means: "Answering spake unto her great glittering-helmeted +Hector;" or _tout simplement,_ 'Hector answered.' And hardly can +anyone open his lips, but it must be brought in with some +variation of that sea-riding billow, or roll of drums: + + _Ton d'emeibet epeita anax andron Agamemnon. + Hos phato. Ten d'outi prosephe nephelegereta Zeus_ + +--whereafter at seven lines down we get again: + + _Ten de meg' ochthesas prosephe nephelegereta Zeus;_ + +--in all of which I think we do get something of primitivism and +unskill. It is a preoccupation with sound where there is no +adequate excuse for the sound; after the fashion of some orators, +whom, to speak plainly, it is a weariness to hear. But you will +remember how Shakespeare rises to his grandest music when he has +fatefullest words to utter; and how Milton rolls in his supreme +thunders each in its recurring cycle; leads you to wave-crest +over wave-trough, and then recedes; and how the crest is always +some tremendous thing in vision, or thought as well as sound. So +he has everlasting variation; manages his storms and billows; and +so I think his music is greater in effect than Homer's--would +still be greater, could we be sure of Homer's tones and vowel- +values; as I think his vision goes deeper into the realm of the +Soul and the Eternal. + +Yet is Homer majestic and beautiful abundantly. If it is true +that his reputation gains on the principle of _Omne ignotum pro +magnifico_--because he is unknown to most that praise him--let +none imagine him less than a wonderful reservoir of poetry. His +faults--to call them that--are such as you would expect from his +age, race, and peculiar historic position; his virtues are +drawn out of the grandeur of his own soul, and the current from +the Unfathomable that flowed through him. He had the high +serious attitude towards the great things, and treated them +highly, deeply and seriously. We may compare him to Dante: who +also wrote, in an age and land not yet literary or cultured, with +a huge racial inspiration. But Dante had something more: a +purpose to reveal in symbol the tremendous world of the Soul. +Matthew Arnold speaks of the Homeric poems as "the most important +poetical monument existing." Well; cultured Tom, Dick and Harry +would say much the same thing; it is the orthodox thing to say. +But with great deference to Matthew, I believe they are really a +less important monument than the poems of Aeschylus, Dante, +Shakespeare, or Milton, or I suppose Goethe--to name only poets +of the Western World; because each of these created a Soul- +symbol; which I think the Iliad at any rate does not. + +Here, to me, is another sign of primitivism. If there is paucity +of imagination in his epithets, there is none whatever in his +surgery. I do not know to what figure the casualty list in the +Iliad amounts; but believe no wound or death of them all was +dealt in the same bodily part or in the same way. Now Poetry +essentially turns from these physical details; her preoccupations +are with the Soul. + +"From Homer and Polygnotus," says Goethe, "I daily learn more +and more that in our life here above the ground we have, properly +speaking, to enact Hell." A truth, so far as it goes: this +Earth is hell; there is no hell, says H.P. Blavatsky, but a man- +bearing planet. But we demand of the greatest, that they shall +see beyond hell into Heaven. Homer achieves his grandeur +oftenest through swift glimpses of the pangs and tragedy of human +fate; and I do not think he saw through the gloom to the +bright Reality. Watching the Greek host from the walls of Troy, +Helen says: + + "Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia; + Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember; + Two, two only remain whom I see not among the commanders, + Castor, fleet in the car, Polydeukes, brave with the cestus-- + Own dear brethren of mine,--one parent loved us as infants. + Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved + Lacedaimon? + Or, though they came with the rest in the ships that bound + through the waters, + Dare they not enter the fight, or stand in the council of heroes, + All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened?" + +And then: + + _Hos phato. Tous d'ede kalechen phusizoos aia, + En Lakedaimoni authi, phile en patridi gaie._ + + "--So spake she; but they long since under Earth were + reposing + There in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedaimon." + + [From Dr. Hawtrey's translation, quoted by +Matthew Arnold in _On Translating Homer._] + +There it is the sudden antithesis from her gentle womanly inquiry +about her brothers to the sad reality she knows nothing, that +strikes the magical blow, and makes the grand manner. Then there +is that passage about Peleus and Cadmos: + + "Not even Peleus Aiacides, nor godlike Cadmos, might know +the happiness of a secure life; albeit the highest happiness +known to mortals was granted them: the one on the mountain, +the other in seven-gated Thebes, they heard the gold-snooded +Muses sing." + +You hear the high pride and pathos in that. To be a poet, he +says: to have heard the gold-snooded Muses sing: is the highest +happiness a mortal can know; he is mindful of the soul, the +Poet-creator in every man, and pays it magnificent tribute; he +acknowledges what glory, what bliss, have been his own; but not +the poet, he says, not even he, may enjoy the commonplace +happiness of feeling secure against dark fate. It is the same +feeling that I spoke of last week as so characteristic of the +early Teutonic literature; but there it appears without the +swift sense of tragedy, without the sudden pang, the grand +manner. The pride is lacking quite: the intuition for a +divinity within man. But Homer sets the glory of soul-hood and +pet-hood against the sorrow of fate: even though he finds the +sorrow weighs it down. Caedmon or Cynewulf might have said: "It +is given to none of us to be secure against fate; but we have +many recompenses." How different the note of Milton: + + "Those other two, equal with me in fate, + So were I equal with them in renown--" + +or: + + "Unchanged, though fallen on evil days; + On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, + In darkness, and by dangers compassed round." + +And Llywarch, or Oisin, would never have anticipated the blows +of fate; when the blows fell, they would simply have been +astonished at fate's presumption. + +We might quote many instances of this proud pessimism in Homer: + + _Kai se, geron, to prin men, akouomen, olbion einai_-- + + "Thou to, we hear, old man, e'en thou was at once time happy;" + + _Hos gar epeklosanto theoi deiloisi brotoisin + Zoein achnumenous. Autoi de l'akedees eisin_-- + + "The Gods have allotted to us to live thus mortal and mournful, + Mournful; but they themselves live ever untouched by mourning." + +Proud--no; it is not quite proud; not in an active sense; +there is a resignation in it; and yet it is a kind of haughty +resignation. As if he said: We are miserable; there is nothing +else to be but miserable; let us be silent, and make no fuss +about.--It is the restraint--a very Greek quality--the depth +hinted at, but never wailed over or paraded at all--that make in +these cases his grand manner. His attitude is, I think, nearer +the Teutonic than the Celtic:--his countrymen, like the Teutons, +were accustomed to the pralaya, the long racial night. But he +and the Celts achieved the grand manner, which the Teutons did +not. His eyes, like Llywarch's or Oisin's, were fixed on a past +glory beyond the nightfall. + +But where does this Homeric mood lead us? To no height of truth, +I think. Katherine Tingley gave us a keynote for the literature +of the future and the grandest things it should utter,--for the +life, the art, the poetry of a coming time that shall be +Theosophical, that is, lit with the splendor and beauty of the +Soul--when she spoke that high seeming paradox that "Life is +Joy." Let us uncover the real Life; all this sorrow is only the +veil that hides it. God knows we see enough of the veil; but +the poet's business is to tear it down, rend it asunder, and show +the brightness which it hides. If the personality were all, and +a man's whole history were bounded by his cradle and his grave; +then you had done all, when you had presented personalities in +all their complexity, and made your page teem with the likenesses +of living men, and only shown the Beyond, the Governance, as +something unknowable, adverse and aloof. But the Greater Part of +a man is eternal, and each of his lives and deaths but little +incidents in a vast and glorious pilgrimage; and when it is +understood that this is the revelation to be made, this grandeur +the thing to be shadowed forth, criticism will have entered upon +its true path and mission. + +I find no such Soul-symbol in the Iliad: the passion and +spiritual concentration of whose author, I think, was only enough +to let him see this outward world: personalities, with their +motive-springs of action within themselves: his greatness, his +sympathy, his compassion, revealed all that to him; but he +lacked vision for the Meanings. I found him then less than +Shakespeare: whose clear knowledge of human personalities-- +ability to draw living men--was but incidental and an instrument; +who but took the tragedy of life by the way, as he went to set +forth the whole story of the soul; never losing sight of Karma, +and that man is his own adverse destiny; finishing all with the +triumph of the soul, the Magician, in _The Tempest._ And I count +him less than that Blind Titan in Bardism, who, setting out to +justify the ways of God to men, did verily justify the ways of +fate to the Soul; and showed the old, old truth, so dear to the +Celtic bards, that in the very depths of hell the Soul has not +yet lost all her original brightness; but is mightily superior +to hell, death, fate, sorrow and the whole pack of them;--I count +him less than the "Evening Dragon" of _Samson Agonistes,_ whose +last word to us is + + "Nothing is here for tears; nothing to wail + Or knock the breast; no weakness or contempt." + +And I found him less that One with the grand tragic visage, whose +words so often quiver with unshed tears, who went forth upon his +journey + + .... _pei dolci pomi + Promessi a me per lo verace Duca; + Ma fino al centro pria convien ch'io tomi:_-- + +"to obtain those sweet apples (of Paradise) promised me by my +true Leader; but first is"--convien--how shall you translate the +pride and resignation of that word?--"it behoves," we must say, +"it convenes"--"first it is convenient that I should fall as far +as to the center (of hell);"--who must end the gloom and terror +of that journey, that fall, with + + _E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle,_ + +"And then we came forth to behold again the Stars;" and who came +from his ascent through purifying Purgatory with + + _Rifatto si, come piante novelle + Rinnovellate di novella fronda, + Puro e disposto a salire alle stelle_-- + +"So made anew, like young plants in spring with fresh foliage, I +was pure and disposed to come forth among the Stars;"--and who +must end his _Paradiso_ and his life-work announcing + + _L'amor che muove il sole e le altre stelle,_ + +"The Love that moves the sun and the other Stars." Ah, glory +to this Dante! Glory to the man who would end nothing but +with the stars! + + + + +III. GREEKS AND PERSIANS + + +Now to consider what this Blind Maeonides did for Greece. +Sometime last Century a Black Potentate from Africa visited +England, and was duly amazed at all he saw. Being a very +important person indeed, he was invited to pay his respects to +Queen Victoria. he told her of the many wonders he had seen; +and took occasion to ask her, as the supreme authority, how such +things came to be. What was the secret of England's greatness? +--She rose to it magnificently, and did precisely what a large +section of her subjects would have expected of her. She solemnly +handed him a copy of the Bible, and told him he should find his +answer in that. + +She was thinking, no doubt, of the influence of Christian +teaching; if called on for the exact passage that had worked the +wonder, very likely she would have turned to the Sermon on the +Mount. Well; very few empires have founded their material +greatness on such texts, as _The meek shall inherit the earth._ +They take a shorter road to it. If a man ask of thee thy coat, +and thou give him thy cloak also, thou dost not (generally) build +thyself a world-wide commerce. When he smiteth thee on they left +cheek, and thou turnest to him thy right for the complementary +buffet, thou dost not (as a rule) become shortly possessed of his +territories. Queen Victoria lived in an age when people did not +notice these little discrepancies; so did Mr. Podsnap. And yet +there was much more truth in her answer than you might think. + +King James's Bible is a monument of mighty literary style; and +one that generations of Englishmen have regarded as divine, a +message from the Ruler of the Stars. They have been reading it, +and hearing it read in the churches, for three hundred years. +Its language has been far more familiar to them than that of any +other book whatsoever; more common quotations come from it, +probably, than from all other sources combined. The Puritans +of old, like the Nonconformists now, completely identified +themselves with the folk it tells about: Cromwell's armies saw +in the hands of their great captain "the sword of the Lord and of +Gideon." When the Roundhead went into battle, or when the +Revivalist goes to prayer meeting, he heard and hears the command +of Jehovah to "go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper"; to "smite +Amalek hip and thigh." Phrases from the Old Testament are in the +mouths of millions daily; and they are phrases couched in the +grand literary style. + +Now the grand style is the breathing of a sense of greatness. +When it occurs you sense a mysterious importance lurking behind +the words. It is the accent of the eternal thing in man, the +Soul; and one of the many proofs of the Soul's existence. So +you cannot help being reminded by it of the greatness of the +soul. There are periods when the soul draws near its racial +vehicle, and the veils grow thin between it and us: through all +the utterances of such times one is apt to hear the thunder from +beyond. Although the soul have no word to say, or although it +message suffer change in passing through the brain-mind, so that +not high truth, but even a lie may emerge--it still comes, often, +ringing with the grand accents. Such a period was that which +gave us Shakespeare and Milton, and the Bible, and Brown, and +Taylor, and all the mighty masters of English prose. Even when +their thought is trivial or worse, you are reminded, by the march +and mere order of their words, of the majesty of the Soul. + +When Deborah sings of that treacherous murderess, Jael the wife +of Heber the Kenite, that before she slew her guest and ally +Sisera, "He asked water and she gave him milk; she brought +forth butter in a lordly dish,"--you are aware that, to the +singer, no question of ethics was implied. Nothing common, +nothing of this human daily world, inheres in it; but sacrosanct +destinies were involved, and the martialed might of the Invisible. +It was part of a tremendous drama, in which Omnipotence itself +was protagonist. Little Israel rose against the mighty of +this world; but the Unseen is mightier than the mighty; and +the Unseen was with little Israel. The application is false, +unethical, abominable--as coming through brain-minds of that +kind. But you must go back behind the application, behind +the brain-mind, to find the secret of the air of greatness that +pervades it. It is a far-off reflection of this eternal truth: +that the Soul, thought it speak through but one human being, can +turn the destinies and overturn the arrogance of the world. When +David sang, "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered; +yea, let all his enemies be scattered!" he, poor brain-mind, was +thinking of his triumphs over Philistines and the like; with +whom he had better have been finding a way to peace;--but the +Soul behind him was thinking of its victories over him and his +passions and his treacheries. So such psalms and stories, +though their substance be vile enough, do by their language +yet remind us somehow of the grandeur of the Spirit. That +is what style achieves. + +Undoubtedly this grand language of the Bible, as that of Milton +and Shakespeare in a lesser degree--lesser in proportion as they +have been less read--has fed in the English race an aptitude, an +instinct, for action on a large imperial scale. It is not easy +to explain the effect of great literature; but without doubt it +molds the race. Now the ethic of the Old Testament, its moral +import, is very mixed. There is much that is true and beautiful; +much that is treacherous and savage. So that its moral and +ethical effects have been very mixed too. But its style, a +subtler thing than ethics, has nourished conceptions of a large +and seeping sort, to play through what ethical ideas they might +find. The more spiritual is any influence--that is, the less +visible and easy to trace--the more potent it is; so style in +literature may be counted one of the most potent forces of all. +Through it, great creative minds mold the destinies of nations. +Let Theosophy have expression as noble as that of the Bible--as +it will--and of that very impulse it will bite deep into the +subconsciousness of the race, and be the nourishment of grand +public action, immense conceptions, greater than any that have +come of Bible reading, because pure and true. Our work is to +purify the channels through which the Soul shall speak; the +Teachers have devoted themselves to establishing the beginnings +of this Movement in right thought and right life. But the great +literary impulse will come, when we have learned and earned the +right to use it. + +Now, what the Bible became to the English, Homer became to the +Greeks--and more also. They heard his grand manner, and were +billed by it with echoes from the Supermundane. _Anax andron +Agamemnon_--what Greek could hear a man so spoken of, and dream +he compounded of common clay? Never mind what this king of men +did or failed to do; do but breathe his name and titles, and you +have affirmed immortality and the splendor of the Human Soul! +The _human_ Soul? + +"Tush!" said they, "the Greek Soul! he was a Greek as we +are!".... And so Tomides, Dickaion and Harryotatos, Athenian +tinkers and cobblers, go swaggering back to their shops, and +dream grand racial dreams. For this is a much more impressionable +people than the English; any wind from the Spirit blows +in upon their minds quickly and easily. Homer in Greece +--once Solon, or Pisistratus, or Hopparchus, had edited and +canonized him, and arranged for his orderly periodical public +reading (as the Bible in the churches)--had an advantage even +over the Bible in England. When Cromwell and his men grew mighty +upon the deeds of the mighty men of Israel, they had to thrill to +the grand rhythms until a sort of miracle had been accomplished, +and they had come to see in themselves the successors and living +representatives of Israel. But the Greek, rising on the swell of +Homer's roll and boom, had need of no such transformation. The +uplift was all for him; his by hereditary right; and no +pilfering necessary, from alien creed or race. We have seen in +Homer an inspired Race-patriot, a mighty poet saddened and +embittered by the conditions he saw and his own impotence to +change them.--Yes, he had heard the golden-snooded sing; but +Greeks were pygmies, compared with the giants who fought at +Ilion! There was that eternal contrast between the glory he had +within and the squalor he saw without. Yes, he could sing; he +could launch great songs for love of the ancients and their +magnificence. But what could a song do? Had it feet to travel +Hellas; hands to flash a sword for her; a voice and kingly +authority to command her sons into redemption?--Ah, poor blind +old begging minstrel, it had vastly greater powers and organs +than these! + +Lycurgus, it is said, brought singers or manuscripts of your +poems into Sparta; because, blind minstrel, he had a mind to +make Sparta great-souled; and he knew that you were the man to +do it, if done it could be. Then for about two hundred and sixty +years, without much fuss to come into history, you were having +your way with your Greeks. Your music was ringing in the ears of +mothers; their unborn children were being molded to the long +roll of your hexameters. There came to be manuscripts of you in +every city: corrupt enough, many of them, forgeries, many of +them; lays fudged up and fathered on you by venal Rhapsodoi, +to chant in princely houses whose ancestors it was a good +speculation to praise. You were everywhere in Greece: a great +and vague tradition, a formless mass of literature: by the time +Solon was making laws for Athens, and Pisistratus was laying the +foundations of her stable government and greatness. + +And then you were officially canonized. Solon, Pisistratus, or +one of the Pisistratidae, determined that you should be, not a +vague tradition and wandering songs any longer, but the Bible of +the Hellenes. From an obscure writer of the Alexandrian period +we get a tale of Pisistratus sending to all the cities of Greece +for copies of Homeric poems, paying for them well; collating +them, editing them out of a vast confusion; and producing at +last out of the matter thus obtained, a single more or less +articulate Iliad. From Plato and others we get hints leading to +the supposition that an authorized state copy was prepared; that +it was ordained that the whole poem should be recited at the +Panathenaic Festivals by relays of Rhapsodoi; this state copy +being in the hands of a prompter whose business it was to see +there should be no transgression by the chanters.* The wandering +songs of the old blind minstrel have become the familiar Sacred +Book of the brightest-minded people in Greece. + +------ +* For a detailed account of all this see De Quincey's essay Homer +and the Homeridae. +------ + +Some sixty years pass, and now look what happens. A mighty Power +in Asia arranges a punitive expedition against turbulent +islanders and coast-dwellers on its western border. But an old +blind minstrel has been having his way with these: and the +punitive expedition is to be of the kind not where you punish, +but where you are punished;--has been suggesting to them, from +the Olympus of his sacrosanct inspiration, the idea of great +racial achievement, till it has become a familiar thing, ideally, +in their hearts.--The huge armies and the fleets come on; Egypt +has gone down; Lydia has gone down; the whole world must go +down before them. But there is an old blind minstrel, long since +grown Olympian in significance, and throned aloft beside +Nephelegereta Zeus, chanting in every Greek ear and heart. +Greeks rise in some sort to repel the Persian: Athens and +Sparta, poles apart in every feeling and taste, find that under +the urge of archaic hexameters and in the face of this common +danger, they can co-operate after a fashion. The world is in a +tumult and threatens to fall; but behind all the noise and +ominous thunder, by heaven, you can hear the roll of hexameters, +and an old blind sorrow-stricken bard chanting. The soul of a +nation is rising, the beat of her wings keeping time to the music +of olden proud resounding lines. Who led the Grecian fleet at +Salamis?--Not Spartan Eurygiades, but an old blind man dead these +centuries. Who led the victors at Marathon? Not sly Athenian +Miltiades, but an old dead man who had only words for his wealth: +blind Maeonides chanting; and with his chanting marshaling on +the roll of his hexameters mightier heroes than ever a Persian +eye could see: the host that fought at Ilion; the creatures of +his brain; Polymechanos Odysseus, and Diomedes and Aias; +Podargos Achilles; Anas andron Agamemnon. + +The story of the Persian Wars comes to us only from the Greek +side; so all succeeding ages have been enthusiastically +Prohellene. We are to think that Europe since has been great and +free and glorious, because free and cultured Greeks then held +back a huge and barbarous Asian despotism. All of which is great +nonsense. Europe since has not been great and free and glorious; +very often she has been quite the reverse. She has, at odd +times, been pottering around her ideal schemes of government; +which Asia in large part satisfied herself that she had found +long ago. As for culture and glory, the trumps have now been +with the one, now with the other. And the Persians were not +barbarians by any means. And when you talk of Asia, remember +that it is as far a cry from Persia to China, as from Persian to +England. Let us have not more of this preoccupation with +externals, and blind eyes to the Spirit of Man. I suppose +ballot-boxes and referenda and recalls and the like were +specified, when it was said _Of such is the kingdom of Heaven?_... + +But Persia would not have flowed out over Europe, if Marathon, +Salamis, and Plataea had gone the other way. Empires wax and wane +like the moon; they ebb and flow like the tides; and are governed +by natural law as these are; and as little depend, ultimately, +upon battle, murder, and sudden death; which are but effects that +wisdom would evitate; we are wrong in taking them for causes. Two +things you can posit about any empire: it will expand to its +maximum; then ebb and fall away. Though the daily sun sets not on +its boundaries, the sun of time will set on its decay; because +all things born in time will die; and no elixer of life has been +found, nor ever will be. There is an impulse from the inner +planes; it strikes into the heart of a people; rises there, and +carries them forward upon an outward sweep; then recedes, and +leaves them to their fall. Its cycle may perhaps be longer or +shorter; but in the main its story is always the same, and bound +to be so; you cannot vote down the cycles of time. What hindered +Rome from mastery of Europe; absolute mastery; and keeping it +forever? Nothing--but the eternal Cyclic Law. So Persia. + +She was the last phase of that West Asian manvantara which began +in 1890 and was due to end in 590 B. C. As such a phase, a +splendor-day of thirteen decades should have been hers; that, we +find, being always the length of a national illumination. She +began under Cyrus in 558; flowed out under Cambyses and Darius to +her maximum growth--for half the thirteen decades expanding +steadily. Then she touched Greece, where a younger cycle was +rising, and recoiled. She should have been at high tide precisely +three years before-Marathon--a half-cycle after the accession of +Cyrus, or in 493;--and was. Then the Law-pronounced its _Thus +far and no further;_ and enforced it with Homer's songs, and +Greek valor, and Darius' death, and Xerxes' fickle childishness +(he smacked the Hellespont because it was naughty). These things +together brought to naught the might and ambition and bravery of +Iran; but had they been lacking, the Law would have found other +means. Though Xerxes and Themistocles had both sat at home doing +nothing, Alexander would still have marched east in his time, +and Rome conquered the world. So discount all talk of Greece's +having saved Europe, which was never in danger. But you may say +Persia saved Greece: that her impact kindled the fires--was used +by the Law for that purpose--which so brilliantly have illumined +Europe since. + +Persia rose in the evening of that West Asian manvantara; the +empires of its morning and noon, as Assyria chiefly, had been +slower of growth, longer of life, smaller of expanse; and for her +one, had several periods of glory. A long habit of empire +-building had been formed there, which carried Persia rapidly and +easily to her far limits. Assyria, the _piece de resistance_ of +the whole manvantara, with huge and long effort had created, so +to say, an astral mold; of which Persia availed herself, and +overflowed its boundaries, conquering regions east and west +Assyria never knew. But if she found the mold and the habit +there to aid her, she came too late for the initial energies of +the morning, or the full forces of the manvantaric noon. Those +had been wielded by the great Tiglath Pilesers and Assurbanipals +of earlier centuries; fierce conquerors, splendid builders, +ruthless patrons of the arts. What was left for the evening and +Persia could not carry her outward her full thirteen decades, but +only half of them: sixty-five years her tides were rising, and +then she touched Greece. Thence-forward she remained stationary +within her borders, not much troubled internally, until the four +-twenties. To a modern eye, she seems on the decline since +Marathon; to a Persian of the time, probably, that failure on +the Greek frontier looked a small matter enough. A Pancho Villa +to chase; if you failed to catch him, pooh, it was nothing! +Xerxes is no Darius, true: Artaxerxes I, no Cyrus, nor nothing +like. But through both their reigns there is in the main good +government in most of the provinces; excellent law and order; +and a belief still in the high civilizing mission of the +Persians. Peace, instead of the old wars of conquest; but you +would have seen no great falling off. Hystaspes himself had +been less conqueror than consolidator; the Augustus of the +Achaemenids, greater at peace than at war;--though great at +that too, but not from land-frontiers; and indeed, had ample +provocation, as those things go, for his punitive expedition that +failed. For the rest, he had strewn the coast with fine harbors, +and reclaimed vast deserts with reservoirs and dikes; had +explored the Indus and the ocean, and linked Egypt and Persia by +a canal from the Red Sea to the Nile. Well; and Xerxes carried +it on; he too played the great Achaemenid game; did he not send +ships to sail round Africa? If there was no more conquering, it +was because there was really nothing left to conquer; who would +bother about that Greece?--Darius Hystaspes was the last strong +kind, yes; but Datius Nothus was the first gloomy tyrant, or at +least his queen, bloodthirsty Parysatis, was; which was not til +434. So that Persia too had her good thirteen decades of +comfortable, even glorious, years. + + Whereafter we see her wobbling under conflicting cyclic +impulses down to her final fall. For lack of another to take her +place, she was still in many ways the foremost power; albeit +here and there obstreperous satraps were always making trouble. +When Lysander laid Athens low in 404, it was Persian financial +backing enabled him to do it; but Cyrus might march in to her +heart, and Xenophon out again, but two years later, and none to +say them effectually nay. Had there been some other West Asian +power, risen in 520 or thereabouts, to outlast Persia and finish +its day with the end of the great cycle in 390, one supposes the +Achaemenids would have fallen in the four-twenties, and left that +other supreme during the remaining years. But there was none. +The remains of Nineveh and Babylon slept securely in the Persian +central provinces; there was nothing there to rise; they had +their many days long since. Egypt would have done something, if +she could; would have like to;--but her own cycles were against +her. She had the last of her cyclic days under the XXVIth +Dynasty. In 655 Psamtik I reunited and resurrected her while his +overlord Assurbanipal was wrecking his--Assurbanipal's--empire +elsewhere; thirteen decades afterwards, in 525, she fell before +Cambyses. Thirteen decades, nearly, of Persian rule followed, +with interruptions of revolt, before she regained her independence +in 404;--stealing, you may say, the nine years short from +the weakness of Persia. Then she was free for another half +-cycle, less one year; a weak precarious freedom at best, lost to +Artaxerxes Ochus in 340. All but the first fourteen years of it +fell beyond the limits of the manvantara; the West Asian forces +were spent. Egypt was merely waiting til the Greek cycle should +have sunk low enough and on to the military plane; and had not +long to wait. She paid back most of her nine years to Persia; +then hailed Alexander as her savior; and was brought by him, to +some extent, under the influence of European cycles; to share +then in what uninteresting twilight remained to Greece, and +presently in the pomps and crimsons of Rome. + +Persia, too, was waiting for that Greek military cycle; until it +should rise, however, something had to be going on in West Asia. +The Athenian first half-cycle--sixty-five years from the +inception of the hegemony--ended in 413, when the Peloponnesian +War entered its last, and for Athens, disastrous, phase. Another +half-cycle brings us to the rise of Philip; who about that time +became dominant in Greece. But not yet had a power consolidated, +which could contest with Persia the hegemony of the world. +Having enabled Sparta to put down Athens, the western satraps +turned their attention to finding those who should put down +Sparta. Corinth, Thebes, Argos and Athens were willing; and +Pharnabazus financed them for war in 395. A year after, he and +Conon destroyed the Spartan fleet. In 387 came the Peace of +Antalicidas, by which Persia won what Xerxes had fought for of +old; the suzerainty of Greece. But she was not strong; her +cycle was long past; she stood upon the wealth and prestige of +her better days, and the weakness of her contemporaries. +Internally she was falling to pieces until Artaxerxes Ochus, +between 362 and 338, wading through blood and cruelty, restored +her unity, wore out her resources, and left her apparently as +great as under Xerxes, but really ready to fall at a touch. He +prepared the way for Alexander. + +So ended an impulse that began, who knows when? on a high +spiritual plane in the pure religion of the Teacher we call +Zoroaster; a high system of ethics expressed in long generations +of clean and noble lives. From that spirituality the impulse +descending reached the planes of intellect and culture; with +results we cannot measure now; nothing remains but the splendor +of a few ruins in the wilderness--the course the lion and the +lizard keep. It reached the plane of military power, and flowed +over all the lands between the Indus and the Nile; covering them +with a well-ordered, highly civilized and wisely governed empire. +Then it began to ebb; meeting a counter-impulse arising in +Eastern Europe. + +Which, too, had it source on spiritual planes; in the heart and +on the lyre of blind Maeonides; and worked downward and outward, +till it had wrought on this plane a stable firmness in Sparta, an +alertness in Athens. It contacted then the crest of the Persian +wave, and received from the impact huge accession of vigor. It +blossomed in the Age of Pericles on the plane of mind and +creative imagination. It came down presently on to the plane of +militarism, and swelled out under Alexander as far as to the +eastern limits of the Persian Empire he overthrew. Where it met +a tide beginning to rise in India; and receded or remained +stationary before that. And at last it was spent, and itself +overthrown by a new impulse arisen in Italy; which took on +impetus from contact with Greece, as Greece had done from contact +with Persia. + +The Greeks of Homer's and Hesiod's time, before the European +manvantara, elsewhere begun, had reached or quickened them, were +uncouth and barbarous enough; they may have stood, to their +great West Asian neighbors, as the Moors of today to the nations +of Europe; they may have stood, in things cultural, to the +unknown nations of the north or west already at that time +awakened, as the Chinese now and recently to the Japanese. Like +Moors, like Chinese, they had behind them traditions of an +ancient greatness; but pralaya, fall, adversity, squalor, had +done their work on them, developing the plebeian qualities. Now +that they have emerged into modern history, as then when +they were emerging into ancient, we find them with many like +characteristics; a turn for democracy, for example; the which +they assuredly had not when they were passing into pralaya under +the Byzantine Empire. A turn for democracy; plebeian qualities; +these are the things one would expect after pralaya, if that +pralaya had been at all disastrous. With the ancient Greeks, +the plebeian qualities were not all virtues by any means; +they retained through their great age many of the vices of +plebeianism. They won their successes for the most part on +sporadic impulses of heroism; shone by an extraordinary +intellectual and artistic acumen. But taking them by and large, +they were too apt to ineffectualize those successes, in the +fields of national and political life, by extraordinary venality +and instability of character. I shall draw here deeply on +Professor Mahaffy, who very wisely sets out to restore the +balance as between Greeks and Persians, and burst bubble-notions +commonly held. Greek culture was extremely varied, and therein +lay its strength; you can find all sorts of types there; and +there are outstanding figures of the noblest. But on the whole, +says Mahaffy--I think rightly--there was something sordid, +grasping, and calculating: _noblesse oblige_ made little appeal +to them--was rather foreign to their nature. Patricianism did +exist; in Sparta; perhaps in Thebes. Of the two Thebans we know +best, Pindar was decidedly a patrician poet, and Epaminondas was +a very great gentleman; now Thebes, certainly, must have been +mighty in foregone manvantaras, as witness her five cycles of +myths, the richest in Greece. In her isolation she had doubtless +carried something of that old life down; and then, too, she had +Pindar. Nor was Sparta any upstart;--of her we have only heard +Athenians speak. But outside of these two, you hardly find a +Greek _gentleman_ in public life; hardly that combination of +personal honor, contempt of commerce, class-pride, leisured +and cultured living;--with, very often, ultra-conservatism, +narrowness of outlook, political ineptitude and selfishness. The +Spartans had many of these instincts, good and bad. They reached +their cultural zenith in the seventh century or earlier; +probably Lycurgus had an eye to holding off that degeneration +which follows on super-refinement; and hence the severe life he +brought in. My authority makes much of the adoration the other +Greeks accorded them; who might hate and fight with Sparta, but +took infinite pride in her nonetheless. Thus they told those +tales of the Spartan mothers, and the Spartan boy the fox +nibbled; thus their philosophers, painting an Utopia, took +always most of its features from Lacedaemon. + +All of which I quote for the light's sake it throws on the past +of Greece: the past of her past, and the ages before her history. +Or really, on the whole history of the human race; for I think it +is what you shall find always, or almost always. I spoke of the +Celtic qualities as having been of old patrician; they are +plebeian nowadays, after the long pralaya and renewal. As a +pebble is worn smooth by the sea, so the patrician type, with its +refinements and culture, is wrought out by the strong life +currents that play through a race during its manvantaric periods. +Pralaya comes, with conquest, the overturning of civilization, +mixture of blood; all the precious results obtained hurled back +into the vortex;--and then to be cast up anew with the new +manvantara, a new uncouth formless form, to be played on, shaped +and infused by the life-currents again. In Greece an old +manvantara had evolved patricianism and culture; which the +pralaya following swept all away, except some relics perhaps in +Thebes the isolated and conservative, certainly in Sparta. +Lycurgus was wise in his generation when he sought by a rigid +system to impose the plebeian virtues on Spartan patricianism. + +Wise in his generation, yes; but he could work no miracle. +Spartan greatness, too, was ineffectual: there is that about +pouring new wine into old bottles. Sparta was old and conservative; +covered her patrician virtues with a rude uncultural exterior; +was inept politically--as old aristocracies so commonly are; +she shunned that love of the beautiful and the things of +the mind which is the grace, as Bushido--to use the best +name there is for it--is the virtue, of the patrician. You +may say she was selfish and short-sighted; true; and yet she +began the Peloponnesian War not without an eye to freeing the +cities and islands from the soulless tyranny an Athenian +democracy had imposed on them: when there is a war, some men +will always be found, who go in with unselfish high motives.-- +Being the patrician state, and the admired of all, it was she +naturally who assumed the hegemony when the Persian came. But +she had foregone the graces of her position, and her wits, +through lack of culture, were something dull. She lost that +leadership presently to a young democratic Athens endowed +with mental acumen and potential genius; who, too, gained +immeasurably from Sparta, because she knew how to turn everything +to the quickening of her wits--this having at her doors so +contrasting a neighbor, for example.--Young? Well, yes; I +suspect if there had ever been an Athenian glory before, it was +ages before Troy fell. She plays no great part in the legends of +the former manvantara; Homer has little to say about her. She +had paid tribute at one time to Minos, king of Crete; her +greatness belonged not to the past, but to the future. + +As all Greeks admired the Spartans--what we call a 'sneaking' +admiration--so too they admired the Persians; who were gentleman +in a great sense, and in most moral qualities their betters. Who +was _Ho Basileus, The King_ par excellence? Always 'the Great +King, the King of the Persians.' Others were mere kings of +Sparta, or where it might be. And this Great King was a far-way, +tremendous, golden figure, moving in a splendor as of fairy +tales; palaced marvelously, so travelers told, in cities +compared with which even Athens seemed mean. Greek drama sought +its subjects naturally in the remote and grandiose; always in +the myths of prehistory, save once--when Aeschylus found a +kindred atmosphere, and the material he wanted, in the palace of +the Great King. To whom, as a matter of history, not unrecorded +by Herodotus, his great chivalrous barons accorded a splendid +loyalty,--and loyalty is always a thing that lies very near the +heart of Bushido. Most Greeks would cheerfully sell their native +city upon an impulse of chagrin, revenge, or the like. Xerxes' +ships were overladen, and there was a storm; the Persian lords +gaily jumped into the sea to lighten them. Such Samurai action +might not have been impossible to Greeks,--Spartans especially; +but in the main their eyes did not wander far from the main +chance. You will think of many exceptions; but this comes as +near truth, probably, as a generalization may. We should +understand their temperament; quick and sensitive, capable of +inspiration to high deeds; but, en masse, rarely founded on +enduring principles. That jumping into the seas was nothing to +the Persians; they were not sung to it; it was not done in +defense of home, or upon a motive of sudden passion, as hate or +the like; but permanent elements in their character moved them +to it quietly, as to the natural thing to do. But if Greeks +had done it, with what kudos, like Thermopylae, it would have +come down! + +They were great magnificoes, very lordly gentlemen, those Persian +nobles; _hijosdalgo,_ as they say in Spain; men of large lives, +splendor and leisure, scorning trade; mighty huntsmen before the +Lord. Of the Greeks, only the Spartans were sportsmen; but +where the Spartans hunted foxes and such-like small fry, The +Persians followed your true dangerous wild-fowl: lions, +leopards, and tigers. A great satrap could buy up Greece almost +at any time; could put the Greeks to war amongst themselves, and +finance his favorite side out of his own pocket. On such a scale +they lived; and travelers and mercenaries brought home news of +it to Greece; and Greeks whose wealth might be fabulous strove +to emulate the splendor they heard of. The Greeks made better +heavy armor--one cause of the victories; but for the most part +the Persian crafts and manufactures outshone the Greek by far. +All these things I take from Mahaffy, who speaks of their culture +as "an ancestral dignity for superior to, and different from, the +somewhat mercantile refinement of the Greeks." The secret of the +difference is this: the West Asian manvantara, to which the +Persians belonged, was more than a thousand years older than the +European manvantara, to which the Greeks belonged; so the +latter, beside the former, had an air of _parvenu._ The Greeks +dwelt on the Persian's borders; and fought him when they must; +intrigued with or against him when they might; called him +barbarian for self-respect's sake--and admired and envied him +always. Had he been really a barbarian, in contact with their +superior civilization, he would have become degraded by the +contact; in such cases it always happens that the inferior sops +up the vices only of his betters. But Alexander found the +Persians much the same courtly-mannered, lordly-living, mighty +huntsmen they had been when Herodotus described them; and was +ambitious that his Europeans should mix with them on equal terms +and learn their virtues. + +Where and when did this high tradition grow up? There was not +time enough, I think, in that half cycle between the rise of +Cyrus and Marathon. In truth we are to see in these regions +vistas of empires receding back into the dimness, difficult to +sort out and fix their chronology. Cyrus overthrew the Assyrian; +from whose yoke his people had freed themselves some fifteen +years or so before. The Medes had been rising since the earlier +part of that seventh century; sometime then they brought the +kindred race of Persians under their sway. Sometime then, too, I +am inclined to think, lived the Teacher Zoroaster: about whose +date there is more confusion than about that of any other World +Reformer; authorities differ within a margin of 6000 years. But +Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Pythagoreanism all +had their rise about this time; the age of religions began then; +it was not a thing of chance, but marked a definite change in the +spiritual climate of the world. The _Bundahish,_ the Parsee +account of it, says that he lived 258 years before Alexander; +almost all scholars reject the figure--once more, "it is their +nature to." But you will note that 258 is about as much as to +say 260, which is twice the cycle of thirteen decades; I think +the probabilities are strong that the _Bundahish_ is right. The +chief grounds for putting him much earlier are these: Greek +accounts say, six thousand years before the Greek time; and +there are known to have been kings in those parts, long before +Cyrus, by the name or title of Mazdaka,--which word is from +Mazda, the name of the God-Principle in Zoroastrianism. The +explanation is this: you shall find it in H.P. Blavatsky: there +were many Zoroasters; this one we are speaking of was the last +(as Gautama was the last of the Buddhas); and of course he +invented nothing, taught no new truth; but simply organized as a +religion ideas that had before belonged to the Mysteries. Where +then did his predecessors teach?--Where Zal and Rustem thundered +as they might; in the old Iran of the _Shah Nameh,_ the land of +Kaikobad the Great and Kaikhusru. Too remote for all scholars +even to agree that it existed; set by those who do believe in it +at about 1100 B.C.--we hear of a "Powerful empire in Bactria"-- +which is up towards Afghanistan; I take it that it was from this +the Persian tradition came--last down to, and through, the period +of the Achaemenidae. What arts, what literature, these latter +may have had, are lost; nothing is known of their creative +and mental culture; but, to quote Mahaffy once more, it is +exceedingly unlikely they had none. Dio Chrysostom, in the first +century B.C., says that "neither Homer nor Hesiod sang of the +chariots and horses of Zeus so worthily as Zoroaster"; which may +mean, perhaps, that a tradition still survived in his time of a +great Achaemenian poetry. Why then is this culture lost, since +if it existed, it was practically contemporary with that +of the Greeks? Because contemporaneity is a most deceiving +thing; there is nothing in it. Persia now is not contemporary +with Japan; nor modern China with Europe or America. The +Achaemenians are separated from us by two pralayas; while +between us and the Greeks there is but one. When our present +Europe has gone down, and a new barbarism and Middle Ages have +passed over France, Britain and Italy, and given place in turn to +a new growth of civilization--what shall we know of this Paris, +and Florence, and London? As much and as little as we know now +of Greece and Rome. We shall dig them up and reconstruct them; +found our culture on theirs, and think them very wonderful for +mere centers of (Christian) paganism; we shall marvel at their +genius, as shown in the fragments that go under the names of +those totally mythological poets, Dante and Milton; and at their +foul cruelty, as shown by their capital punishment and their +wars. And what shall we know of ancient Athens and Rome? Our +scholars will sneer at the superstition that they ever existed; +our theologians will say the world was created somewhat later. + +Or indeed, no; I think it will not be so. I think we shall have +established an abiding perception of truth: Theosophy will have +smashed the backbone of this foolish Kali-Yuga as a little, +before then. + +So that Creasy is all out in his estimate of the importance +of Marathon and the other victories. Wars are only straws +to show which way the current flows; and they do that only +indifferently. They are not the current themselves, and they do +not direct it; and were men wise enough to avoid them, better +than the best that was ever won out of war would be won by other +means that the Law would provide. And yet the Human Spirit will +win something out of all eventualities, even war, if Kama and the +Cycles permit. In a non-political sense the Persian Wars bore +huge harvest for Greece; the Law used them to that end. The +great effort brought out all the latent resources of the Athenian +mind: the successes heightened Greek racial feeling to a pitch. +--What! we could stand against huge Persia?--then we are not +unworthy of the men that fought at Ilion, our fathers; the race +and spirit of _anax andron Agamemnon_ is not dead! Ha, we can do +anything; there are no victories we may not win! And here is the +dead weight and terror of the war lifted from us; and there is +no anxiety now to hold our minds. We may go forth conquering and +to conquer; we may launch our triremes on immaterial seas, and +subdue unknown empires of the spirit!--And here is Athens the +quick-witted, hegemon of Greece; her ships everywhere on the +wine-dark seas; her citizens everywhere; her natural genius +swelled by an enormous sense of achievement; her soul, grown +great under a great stress, now freed from the stress and at +leisure to explore:--in contact with opposite-minded Sparta; in +contact with conservative and somewhat luxuriously-living slow +Thebes;--with a hundred other cities;--in contact with proud +Persia; with Egypt, fallen, but retaining a measure of her old +profound sense of the Mysteries and the reality of the Unseen; +--from all these contacts and sources a spirit is born in Athens +that is to astonish and illumine the world. And Egypt is now in +revolt from the Persian; and intercourse with her is easier than +ever before in historical times; and the triremes, besides what +spiritual cargoes they may be bringing in from her, are bringing +in cargoes of honest material papyrus to tempt men to write down +their thoughts.--So the flowering of Greece became inevitable; +the Law intended it, and brought about all the conditions. + + + + + +IV--AESCHYLUS AND HIS ATHENS + + +Greece holds such an eminence in history because the Crest-Wave +rolled in there when it did. She was tenant of an epochal time; +whoever was great then, was to be remembered forever. But the +truth is, Greece served the future badly enough. + +The sixth and fifth centuries B. C. were an age of transition, in +which the world took a definite step downward. There had been +present among men a great force to keep the life of the nations +sweet: that which we call the Mysteries of Antiquity. Whether +they had been active continuously since this Fifth Root Race +began, who can say? Very possibly not; for in a million years +cycles would repeat themselves, and I dare say conditions +as desolate as our own have obtained. There may have been +withdrawals, and again expansions outward. But certainly they +were there at the dawn of history, and for a long time before. +What their full effect may have been, we can only guess; for when +the history that we know begins, they were already declining:--we +get no definite news, except of the Iron Age. The Mysteries were +not closed at Eleusis until late in the days of the Roman Empire; +and we know that such a great man as Julian did not disdain to be +initiated. But they were only a remnant then, an ever-indrawing +source of inspiration; already a good century before Pericles +they must have ceased to rule life. Pythagoras--born, probably, +in the five-eighties--had found it necessary, to obtain that with +which spirituality might be reawakened, to travel and learn what +he could in India, Egypt, Chaldaea, and, according to Porphyry +and tradition, among the Druids in Gaul--and very likely Britain, +their acredited headquarters. From these countries he brought +home Theosophy to Greek Italy; and all this suggests that he--and +the race--needed something that Eleusis could no longer give. +About the same time Buddha and the founder of Jainism in India, +Laotse and Confucius in China, and as we have seen, probably also +Zoroaster in Persia, all broke away from the Official Mysteries, +more or less, to found Theosophical Movements of their own; +--which would indicate that, at least from the Tyrrhenian to the +Yellow Sea, the Mysteries had, in that sixth century, ceased to +be the efficient instrument of the White Lodge. The substance of +the Ancient Wisdom might remain in them; the energy was largely +gone. + +Pisistratus did marvels for Athens; lifting her out of obscurity +to a position which should invite great souls to seek birth in +her. He died in 527; two years later a son was born to the +Eupatrid Euphorion at Eleusis; and I have no doubt there was some +such stir over the event, on Olympus or on Parnassus, as happened +over a birth at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, and one in Florence +in the May of 1265. In 510, Hippias, grown cruel since the +assassination of his brother, was driven out from an Athens +already fomenting with the yeast of new things. About that time +this young Eleusinian Eupatrid was set to watch grapes ripening +for the vintage, and fell asleep. In his dream Dionysos, God of +the Mysteries, appeared to him and bade him write tragedies for +the Dionysian Festival. On waking, he found himself endowed with +genius: beset inwardly with tremendous thoughts, and words to +clothe them in; so that the work became as easy to him as if he +had been trained to it for years. + +He competed first in 499--against Choerilos and Pratinas, older +poets--and was defeated; and soon afterwards sailed for Sicily, +where he remained for seven years. The dates of Pythagoras are +surmised, not known; Plumptre, with a query, gives 497 for his +death. I wonder whether, in the last years of his life, that +great Teacher met this young Aeschylus from Athens; whether the +years the latter spent in Sicily on this his first visit there, +were the due seven years of his Pythagorean probation and +initiation? "Veniat Aeschylus," says Cicero, "non poeta solum, +sed etiam Pythagoreus: sic enim accepimus ";--and we may accept +it too; for that was the Theosophical Movement of the age; +and he above all others, Pythagoras having died, was the great +Theosophist. They had the Eleusinian Mysteries at Athens, and +Most of the prominent Athenians must have been initiated +into them--since that was the State Religion; but Aeschylus +alone in Athens went through life clothed in the living power +of Theosophy. + +Go to the life of such a man, if you want big clues as to the +inner history of his age;--the life of Aeschylus, I think, can +interpret for us that of Athens. There are times when the +movement of the cycles is accelerated, and you can see the +great wheel turning; this was one. Aeschylus had proudly +distinguished himself at Marathon; and Athens, as the highest +honor she could do him for that, must have his portrait appear in +the battle-picture painted for a memorial of the victory. He +fought, too, at Artemisium and Salamis; with equal distinction. +In 484 he won the first of thirteen annual successes in the +dramatic competitions. These were the years during which Athens +was really playing the hero; the years of Aristides' ascendency. + In 480 Xerxes burned the city; but the people fought on, +great in faith. In 479 came Plataea, Aeschylus again fighting. +Throughout this time, he, the Esotericist and Messenger of the +Gods, was wholly at one with his Athens--an Athens alive enough +then to the higher things to recognize the voice of the highest +when it spoke to her--to award Aeschylus, year after year, the +chief dramatic prize. Then in 478 or 477 she found herself in a +new position: her heroism and intelligence had won their reward, +and she was set at the head of Greece. Six years later Aeschylus +produced _The Persians,_ the first of the seven extant out of the +seventy or eighty plays he wrote; in it he is still absolutely +the patriotic Athenian. In 471 came the _Seven against Thebes;_ +from which drama, I think, we get a main current of light on the +whole future history of Athens. + +Two men, representing two forces, had guided the city during +those decades. On the one hand there was Aristides, called the +Just--inflexible, incorruptible, impersonal and generous; on the +other, Themistocles--precocious and wild as a boy; profligate as +a youth and young man; ambitious, unscrupulous and cruel; a +genius; a patriot; without moral sense. The policy of Aristides, +despite his so-called democratic reforms, was conservative; he +persuaded Greece, by sound arguments, to the side of Athens: he +was for Athens doing her duty by Greece, and remaining content. +That of Themistocles was that she should aim at empire by any +means: should make herself a sea-power with a view to dominating +the Greek world. Oh, to begin with, doubtless with a view to +holding back the Persians; and so far his policy was sane enough; +but his was not the kind of mind in which an ambitious idea fails +to develop in ambitious and greedy directions; and that of +mastery of the seas was an idea that could not help developing +fatally. He had been banished for his corruption in 471; but he +had set Athens on blue water, and bequeathed to her his policy. +Henceforward she was to make for supremacy, never counting the +moral cost. She attacked the islands at her pleasure, conquered +them, and often treated the conquered with vile cruelty. The +_Seven against Thebes_ was directed by Aeschylus against the +Themistoclean, and in support of the Aristidean, policy. +Imperialistic ambitions, fast ripening in that third decade of +the fifth century, were opposed by the Messenger of the Gods. + +His valor in four battles had set him among the national heroes; +he had been, in _The Persians,_ the laureate of Salamis; by the +sheer grandeur of his poetry he had won the prize thirteen times +in succession.--And by the bye, it is to the eternal credit of +Athenian intelligence that Athens, at one hearing of those +obscure, lofty and tremendous poems, should have appreciated +them, and with enthusiasm. Try to imagine _Samson Agonistes_ put +on the stage today; with no academical enthusiasts or eclat of +classicism to back it; but just put on before thirty thousand +sight-seers, learned and vulgar, statesman and cobbler, tinker +and poet; the mob all there; the groundlings far out-numbering +the elite:--and all not merely sitting out the play, but roused +to a frenzy of enthusiasm; and Milton himself, present and +acting, the hero of the day. That, despite Mr. Whistler and the +_Ten O'Clock_--seems really to have been the kind of thing that +happened in Athens. Tomides was there, with his companions-- +little Tomides, the mender of bad soles--and intoxicated by the +grand poetry; understanding it, and never finding it tedious;-- +poetry they had had no opportunity to study in advance, they +understood and appreciated wildly at first hearing. One cannot +imagine it among moderns.--And Milton is clear as daylight beside +remote and difficult Aeschylus. To catch the latter's thought, we +need the quiet of the study, close attention, reading and +re-reading; and though of course time has made him more difficult; +and we should have understood him better, with no more than our +present limited intelligence, had we been his countrymen and +contemporaries; yet it remains a standing marvel, and witness to +the far higher general intelligence of the men of Athens. The +human spirit was immensely nearer this plane; they were far more +civilized, in respect to mental culture, than we are. Why?--The +cycles have traveled downward; our triumphs are on a more brutal +plane; we are much farther from the light of the Mysteries than +they were. + +And yet they were going wrong: the great cycle had begun +its down-trend; they were already preparing the way for our +fool-headed materialism. In the _Seven against Thebes_ Aeschylus +protested against the current of the age. Three years later, +Athens, impatient of criticism, turned on him. + +He is acting in one of his own plays--one that been lost. He +gives utterance, down there in the arena, to certain words-- +tremendous words, as always, we must suppose: words hurled out of +the heights of an angry eternity-- + + _"Aeschylus' bronze-throat eagle-bark for blood,"_ + +--and Athens, that used to thrill and go mad to such tones when +they proclaimed the godlike in her own soul and encouraged her to +grand aspirations--goes mad now in another sense. She has grown +used to hear warning in them, and something in alliance with her +own stifled conscience protesting against her wrong courses; +and such habituation rarely means acquiescence or soothed +complacency. Now she is smitten and stung to the quick. A yell +from the mob; uproar; from the tiers above tiers they butt, +lurch, lunge, pour forward and down: the tinkers and cobblers, +demagogs and demagoged: intent--yes--to kill. But he, having yet +something to say, takes refuge at the altar; and there even a +maddened mob dare not molest him. But the prize goes to a rising +star, young Sophocles; and presently the Gods' Messenger is +formally accused and tried for "Profanation of the Mysteries." + +Revealing secrets pertaining to them, in fact. And now note this: +his defense is that he did not know that his lines revealed any +secret--was unaware that what he had said pertained to the +Mysteries. Could he have urged such a plea, had it not been known +he was uninitiated? Could he have known the teachings, had he not +been instructed in a school where they were known? He, then, was +an initiate of the Pythagoreans, the new Theosophical Movement +upon the new method; not of Orthodox Eleusis, that had grown old +and comatose rather, and had ceased to count.--Well, the judges +were something saner than the mob; memory turned again to +what he had done at Marathon, what at Arternisium and Plataea; +to his thirteen solid years of victory (national heroism on +poetico-dramatic fields); and to that song of his that "saved +at Salamis": + + _"O Sons of Greeks, go set your country free!"_ + +--and he was acquitted: Athens had not yet fallen so low as to +prepare a hemlock cup for her teacher. But meanwhile he would do +much better among his old comrades in Sicily than at home; and +thither he went. + +He returned in 458, to find the Age of Pericles in full swing; +with all made anew, or in the making; and the time definitely +set on its downward course. 'Reform' was busy at abolishing +institutions once held sacred; was the rage;--that funeral speech +of Pericles, with its tactless vaunting of Athenian superiority +to all other possible men and nations, should tell us something. +When folk get to feel like that, God pity and forgive them!--it +is hard enough for mere men to. Aeschylus smote at imperialism in +the _Agamemnon_--the first play of this last of his trilogies; +and at the mania for reforming away sacred institutions in the +_Eumenides_--where he asserts the divine origin of the threatened +Areopagus. Popular feeling rose once more against him, and he +returned to Sicily to die. + +Like so many another of his royal line, apparently a failure. +And indeed, a failure he was, so far as his Athens was concerned. +True, Athenian artistic judgment triumphed presently over the +Athenian spite. Though it was the rule that no successful play +should be performed more than once, they decreed that 'revivals' +of Aeschylus should always be in order. And Aristophanes +testifies to his lasting popularity--when he shows little Tomides +with a bad grouch over seeing a play by Theognis, when he had +gone to the theater "expecting Aeschylus";--and when he shows +Aeschylus and Euripides winning, because his poetry had died with +him, and so he had it there for a weapon--whereas Aeschylus's was +still alive and on earth. Yes; Athens took him again, and +permanently, into favor: took the poet, but not the Messenger +and his message. For she had gone on the wrong road in spite of +him: she had let the divine force, the influx of the human +spirit which had come to her as her priceless cyclic opportunity, +flow down from the high planes proper to it, on to the plane of +imperialism and vulgar ambition; and his word had been spoken to +the Greeks in vain--as all Greek history and Karma since has been +proclaiming. But in sooth he was not merely for an age, but for +all time; and his message, unlike Pindar's whom all Greece +worshiped, and far more than Homer's or that of Sophocles--is +vital today. Aeschylus, and Plato, and Socrates who speaks +through Plato, and Pythagoras who speaks through all of them, are +the Greeks whose voices are lifted forever for the Soul. + +Even the political aspect of his message--the only one I have +touched on--is vital. It proclaims a truth that underlies all +history: one, I suspect, that remains for our Theosophical +Movement to impress on the general world-consciousness so that +wars may end: namely, that the impulse of Nationalism is a holy +thing, foundationed upon the human spirit: a means designed by +the Law for humanity's salvation. But like all spiritual forces, +it must be kept pure and spiritual, or instead of saving, it will +damn. In its inception, it is vision of the Soul: of the Racial +or National Soul--which is a divine light to lure us away from +the plane of personality, to obliterate our distressing and +private moods; to evoke the divine actor in us, and merge us in +a consciousness vastly greater than out own. But add to that +saving truth this damning corolary: _I am better than thou; my +race than thine; we have harvests to reap at your expense, and +our rights may be your wrongs:_--and you have, though it appear +not for awhile, fouled that stream from godhood:--you have +debased your nationalism and made it hellish. Upon your ambitions +and your strength, now in the time of your national flowering, +you may win to your desire, if you _will;_ because now the +spirit is quickening the whole fiber of your national self; and +the national will must become, under that pressure, almost +irresistibly victorious. The Peoples of the earth shall kneel +before your throne; you shall get your vulgar empire;--but you +shall get it presently, as they say, "where the chicken got the +axe": _Vengeance is mine, saith the Law; I will repay._ The +cycle, on the plane to which you have dragged it down, will run +its course; your high throne will go down with it, and yourself +shall kneel to races you now sniff at for 'inferior.' You have +brought it on to the material plane, and are now going upward on +its upward trend there gaily-- + + "Ah, let no evil lust attack the host + Conquered by greed, to plunder what they ought not; + For yet they need return in safety home, + Doubling the goal to run their backward race" + [_Agamemnon,_ Plumtre's translation] + +The downtrend of the cycle awaits you--the other half--just as +the runner in the foot-races to win, must round the pillar at the +far end of the course, and return to the starting-place.--That is +among the warnings Aeschylus spoke in the _Agamemnon_ to an +Athens that was barefacedly conquering and enslaving the Isles of +Greece to no end but her own wealth and power and glory. The +obvious reference is of course to the conquerors of Troy. + +I have spoken of this Oresteian Trilogy as his _Hamlet;_ with the +_Prometheus Bound_--another tremendous Soul-Symbol--it is +what puts him in equal rank with the four supreme Masters of +later Western Literature. I suppose it is pretty certain that +Shakespeare knew nothing of him, and had never heard of the plot +of his _Agamemnon._ But look here:-- + +There was one Hamlet King of Denmark, absent from control of his +kingdom because sleeping within his orchard (his custom always of +an afternoon). And there was one Agamemnon King of Men, absent +from control of his kingdom because leading those same Men at the +siege of Troy. Hamlet had a wife Gertrude; Agamemnon had a wife +Clytemnestra. Hamlet had a brother Claudius; who became the lover +of Gertrude. Agamemnon had a cousin Aegisthos, who became the +paramour of Clytemnestra. Claudius murdered Hamlet, and thereby +came by his throne and queen. Clytemnestra and Aegisthos murdered +Agamemnon, and Aegisthos thereby became possessed of his throne +and queen. Hamlet and Gertrude had a son Hamlet, who avenged his +father's murder. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had a son Orestes, +who avenged his father's murder. + +There, however, the parallel ends. Shakespeare had to paint the +human soul at a certain stage of its evolution: the 'moment of +choice,' the entering on the path: and brought all his genius to +bear on revealing that. He had, here, to teach Karma only +incidentally; in _Macbeth,_ when the voice cried 'Sleep no +more!' he is more Aeschylean in spirit. That dreadful voice +rings through Aeschylus; who was altogether obsessed with the +majesty and awfulness of Karma. It is what he cried to Athens +then, and to all ages since, reiterating _Karma_ with terrible +sleep-forbidding insistency from dark heights.--I have quoted the +wonderful line in which Browning, using similes borrowed from +Aeschylus himself, sums up the effect of his style: + + 'Aeschylus' bronze-throat eagle-bark for blood,' + +which compensates for the more than Greek--unintelligibility of +Browning's version of the _Agamemnon:_ it gives you some color, +some adumbration of the being and import of the man. How shall we +compare him with those others, his great compeers on the Mountain +of Song? Shakespeare--as I think--throned upon a peak where are +storms often, but where the sun shines mostly; surveying all +this life, and with an eye to the eternal behind: Dante--a +prophet, stern, proud, glad and sorrowful; ever in a great pride +of pain or agony of bliss; surveying the life without,--only to +correlate it with and interpret it by the vaster life within +that he knew better;--this Universe for him but the crust and +excoriata of the Universe of the Soul. Milton--a Titan Soul +hurled down from heaven, struggling with all chaos and the deep +to enunciate--just to proclaim and put on everlasting record-- +those two profound significant words, _Titan_ and _Soul,_ for a +memorial to Man of the real nature of Man. Aeschylus--the +barking of an eagle--of Zeus the Thunderer's own eagle out of +ominous skies above the mountains: a thing unseen as Karma, +mysterious and mighty as Fate, as Disaster, as the final Triumph +of the Soul; sublime as death; a throat of bronze, superhumanly +impersonal; a far metallic clangor of sound, hoarse or harsh, +perhaps, if your delicate ears must call him so; but grand; +immeasurably grand; majestically, ominously and terribly grand;-- +ancestral voices prophesying war, and doom, and all dark +tremendous destinies;--and yet he too with serenity and the +Prophecy of Peace and bliss for his last word to us: he will not +leave his avenging Erinyes until by Pallas' wand and will they +are transformed into Eumenides, bringers of good fortune. + +Something like that, perhaps, is the impression Aeschylus leaves +on the minds of those who know him. They bear testimony to the +fact that, however grand his style--like a Milton Carlylized in +poetry--thought still seems to overtop it and to be struggling +for expression through a vehicle less than itself. + +Says Lytton, not unwisely perhaps: "His genius is so near the +verge of bombast, that to approach his sublime is to rush into +the ridiculous"; and he goes on to say that you might find the +nearest echo of his diction in Shelley's _Prometheus;_ but of his +diction alone; for "his power is in concentration--that of +Shelley in diffuseness." "The intellectuality of Shelley," he +says, "destroyed; that of Aeschylus only increased his command +over the passions. The interest he excites is startling, +terrible, intense." Browning tried to bring over the style; but +left the thought, in an English _Double-Dutched,_ far remoter +than he found it from our understanding. The thought demands in +English a vehicle crystal-clear; but Aeschylus in the Greek is +not crystal-clear: so close-packed and vast are the ideas that +there are lines on lines of which the best scholars can only +conjecture the meaning.--In all this criticism, let me say, one +is but saying what has been said before; echoing Professor +Mahaffy; echoing Professor Gilbert Murray; but there is a need +to give you the best picture possible of this man speaking from +the eternal.--Unless Milton and Carlyle had co-operated to make +it, I think, any translation of the _Agamemnon_--which so many +have tried to translate--would be fatiguing and a great bore to +read. It may not be amiss to quote three lines from George Peel's +_David and Bethsabe,_ which have been often called Aeschylean +in audacity:-- + + "At him the thunder shall discharge his bolt, + And his fair spouse, with bright and fiery wings, + Sit ever burning on his hateful wings;" + +His--the thunder's--fair spouse is the lightning. Imagine +images as swift, vivid and daring as that, hurled and flashed out +in language terse, sudden, lofty--and you may get an idea of what +this eagle's bark was like. And the word that came rasping and +resounding on it out of storm-skies high over Olympus, for Athens +then and the world since to hear, was KARMA. + +He took that theme, and drove it home, and drove it home, and +drove it home. Athens disregarded the rights and sufferings of +others; was in fact abominably cruel. Well; she should hear about +Karma; and in such a way that she should--no, but she _should_-- +give ear. Karma punished wrong-doing. It was wrong-doing that +Karma punished. You could not do wrong with impunity.--The common +thought was that any extreme of good fortune was apt to rouse the +jealousy of the Gods, and so bring on disaster. This was what +Pindar taught--all-worshiped prosperous Pindar, Aeschylus' +contemporary, the darling poet of the Greeks. The idea is +illustrated by Herodotus' story of the Ring of Polycrates. + +You remember how the latter, being tyrant of Samos, applied to +Amasis of Egypt for an alliance. But wary Amasis, noting his +invariable good luck, advised him to sacrifice something, lest +the Gods should grow jealous: so Polycrates threw a ring into +the sea, with the thought thus to appease Nemesis cheaply; but +an obliging fish allowed itself to be caught and served up for +his supper with the ring in its internal economy; on hearing of +which, wary Amasis foresaw trouble, and declined the alliance +with thanks. Such views or feelings had come to be Greek +orthodoxy; you may take it that whatever Pindar said was not far +from the orthodoxies--hence his extreme popularity: we dearly +love a man who tells us grandly what we think ourselves, and +think it right to think. But such a position would not do for +Aeschylus. He noted his doctrine only to condemn it. + + "There live an old saw framed in ancient days + In memories of men, that high estate, + Full grown, brings forth its young, nor childless dies, + But that from good success + Springs to the race a woe insatiable. + But I, apart from all, + Hold this my creed alone: + Ill deeds along bring forth offspring of ill + Like to their parent stock." + +Needless to say the translation--Dean Plumptre's in the main-- +fails to bring out the force of the original. + +We must remember that for his audiences the story he had to tell +was not the important thing. They knew it in advance; it was +one of their familiar legends. What they went to hear was +Aeschylus' treatment of it; his art, his poetry, his preaching. +That was what was new to them: the thing for which their eyes +and ears were open. We go to the theater, as we read novels, for +amusement; the Athenians went for aesthetic and religious ends. +So Aechylus had ready for him an efficient pulpit; and was not +suspect for using it. We like Movies shows because they are +entertaining and exciting; the Athenian would have damned them +because they are inartistic. + +I said, he had a pulpit ready for him; yet, as nearly as such a +statement can come to truth, it was he himself who invented the +drama. It was, remember, an age of transition: things were +passing out from the inner planes: the Mysteries were losing +their virtue. The Egyptian Mysteries had been dramatic in +character; the Eleusinian, which were very likely borrowed or +copied or introduced from Egypt, were no doubt dramatic too. +Then there had been festivals among the rustics, chiefly in +honor of Dionysos not altogether in his higher aspects, with +rudimentary plays of a coarse buffoonish character. By 499, in +Athens, these had grown to something more important; in that +year the wooden scaffolding of the theater in which they were +given broke down under the spectators; and this led to the +building of a new theater in stone. It was in 499 Aeschylus first +competed; the show was still very rudimentary in character. Then +he went off to Sicily; and came back with the idea conceived of +Greek Tragedy as an artistic vehicle or expression--and something +more. He taught the men who had at first defeated him, how to do +their later and better work; and opened the way for all who came +after, from Sophocles to Racine. He took to sailing this new ship +of the drama as near as he might to the shore-line of the +Mysteries themselves;--indeed, he did much more than this; for he +infused into his plays that wine of divine life then to be found +in its purity and vigor only or chiefly in the Pythagorean +Brotherhood.--And now as to this new art-form of his. + +De Quincey, accepting the common idea that the Dionysian Theater +was built to seat between thirty and forty thousand spectators +(every free Athenian citizen), argues that the formative elements +that made Greek Tragedy what it was were derived from these huge +dimensions. In such a vast building (he asks) how could you +produce such a play as _Hamlet?_--where the art of the actor +shows itself in momentary changes of expression, small byplay +that would be lost, and the like. The figures would be dwarfed by +the distances; stage whispers and the common inflexions of the +speaking voice would be lost. So none of these things belonged to +Greek Tragedy. The mere physical scale necessitated a different +theory of art. The stature of the actors had to be increased, or +they would have looked like pygmies; their figures had to be +draped and muffled, to hide the unnatural proportions thus +given them. A mask had to be worn, if only to make the head +proportionate to the body; and the mask had to contain an +arrangement for multiplying the voice, that it might carry to the +whole audience. That implied that the lines should be chanted, +not spoken;--though in any case, chanted they would be, for they +were verse, not prose; and the Greeks had not forgotten, as we +have, that verse is meant to be chanted. So here, to begin with, +the whole scheme implied something as unlike actual life as it +well could be. And then, too, there was the solemnity of the +occasion--the religious nature of the whole festival. + +Thus, in substance De Quincey; who makes too little, perhaps, +of the matter of that last sentence; and too much of what +goes before. We may say that it was rather the grand impersonal +theory of the art that created the outward condition; not the +conditions that created the theory. Mahaffy went to Athens and +measured the theater; and found it not so big by any means. They +could have worked out our theories and practice in it, had they +wanted to, so far as that goes. Coarse buffoonish country +festivals do not of themselves evolve into grand art or solemn +occasions; you must seek a cause for that evolution, and find it +in an impulse arisen in some human mind. Or minds indeed; for +such impulses are very mysterious. The Gods sow their seed in +season; we do not see the sowing, but presently mark the +greening of the brown earth. The method of the Mysteries--drama +serious and religious--had been drifting outwards: things had +been growing to a point where a great creative Soul could take +hold of them and mold them to his wish. If Aeschylus was not an +Initiate of Eleusis, he had learnt, with the Pythagoreans, the +method of the Mysteries of all lands. He knew more, not less, +than the common pillars of the Athenian Church and State. I +imagine it was he, in those thirteen consecutive years of his +victories, who in part created, in part drew from his Pythagorean +knowledge, those conventions and circumstances for Tragedy which +suited him--rather than that conventions already existing imposed +formative limits on him. His genius was aloof, impersonal, +severe, and of the substance of the Eternal; such as would need +precisely those conventions, and must have created them had they +not been there. Briefly, I believe that this is what happened. +Sent by Pythagoras to do what he could for Athens and Greece, he +forged this mighty bolt of tragedy to be his weapon. + +The theory of modern drama is imitation of life. It has +nothing else and higher to offer; so, when it fails to imitate, +we call it trash. But the theory of Aeschylean Tragedy +is the illumination of life. Illumination of life, through +a medium quite unlike life. Art begins on a spiritual plane, +and works down to realism in its decadence; then it ceases +to be art at all, and becomes merely copying what we imagine +to be nature,--nature, often, as seen through a diseased liver +and well-atrophied pineal gland. + +True art imitates nature only in a very selective and limited +way. It chooses carefully what it shall imitate, and all to the +end of illumination. It paints a flower, or a sunset, not to +reproduce the thing seen with the eyes, but to declare and set +forth that mood of the Oversoul which the flower or the sunset +expressed. Flower-colors or sunset-colors cannot be reproduced +in pigments; but you can do things with pigments and a brush that +can tell the same story. Or it can be done in words, in a poem; +or with the notes of music;--in both of which cases the medium +used is still more, and totally, unlike the medium through which +the Oversoul said its say in the sky or the blossom. + +Nature is always expressing these moods of the Oversoul; but we +get no news of them, as a rule, from our own sight and hearing; +we must wait for the poets and artists to interpret them. Life +is always at work to teach us life; but we miss the grand +lessons, usually, until some human Teacher enforces them. His +methods are the same as those of the artists: between whose +office and his there was at first no difference;--_Bard_ +means only, originally, an Adept Teacher. Such a one selects +experiences out of life for his pupils, and illumines them +through the circumstances under which they are applied; just as +the true artist selects objects from nature, and by his manner of +treating them, interprets the greatness that lies beyond. + +So the drama-theory of Aeschylus. He took fragments of possible +experience, and let them be seen through a heightened and +interpretative medium; with a light at once intense and somber- +portentous thrown on them; and this not to reproduce the +externalia and appearance of life, but to illumine its inner +recesses; to enforce, in plays lasting an hour or so, the +lessons life may take many incarnations to teach. This cannot be +done by realism, imitation or reproduction of the actual; than +which life itself is always better. + +What keeps us from seeing the meanings of life? Personality. +Not only our own, but in all those about us. Personality dodges +and flickers always between our eyes and the solemn motions, the +adumbrations of the augustness beyond. We demand lots of +personality in our drama; we call it character-drawing. We want +to see fellows like ourselves lounging or bustling about, and +hear them chattering as we do;--fellows with motives (like our +own) all springing from the personality. Human life is what +interests us: we desire to drink deep of it, and drink again and +again. The music that we wish to hear is the "still, sad music +of humanity";--that is, taking our theory at its best, and before +you come down to sheer 'jazz' and ragtime. But what interested +Aeschylus was that which lies beyond and within life. He said: +'You can get life in the Agora, on the Acropolis, any day of the +week; when you come to the theater you shall have something +else, and greater.' + +So he set his scenes, either in a vast, remote, and mysterious +antiquity, or--in _The Persians_--at Susa before the palace of +the Great King: a setting as remote, splendid, vast, and +mysterious, to the Greek mind of the day, as the other. Things +should not be as like life, but as unlike life, as possible. The +plays themselves, as acted, were a combination of poetry, dance, +statuesque poses and motions and groupings; there was no action. +All the action was done off the scenes. They did not portray the +evolution of character; they hardly portrayed character--in the +personal sense--at all. The _dramatis personae_ are types, +symbols, the expression of natural forces, or principles in man. +In our drama you have a line, an extension forward in time; a +progression from this to that point in time;--in Greek Tragedy +you have a cross-section of time--a cutting through the atom of +time that glimpses may be caught of eternity. There was no +unfoldment of a story; but the presentation of a single mood. +In the chanted poetry and the solemn dance-movements a situation +was set forth; what led up to it being explained retrospectively. +The audience knew what was coming as well as the author did: +that Agamemnon, for instance, was to be murdered. So all +was written to play on their expectations, not on their surprise. +There was a succession of perfect pictures; these and the +poetry were to hold the interest, to work it up: to seize +upon the people, and lead them by ever-heightening accessions +of feeling into forgetfulness of their personal lives, and +absorption in the impersonal harmony, the spiritual receptivity, +from which the grand truths are visible. The actors' masks +allowed only the facial expression of a single mood; and +it was a single mood the dramatist aimed to produce: a unity; +one great word. There could be no grave-diggers; no quizzing +of Polonious; no clouds very like a whale. The whole drama +is the unfoldment of a single moment: that, say, in which +Hamlet turns on Caudius and kills him--rather, leads him out to +kill him. To that you are led by a little sparse dialog, ominous +enough, and pregnant with dire significance, between two or three +actors; many long speeches in which the story is told in +retrospect; much chanting by the chorus--Horatio multiplied by a +dozen or so--to make you feel Hamlet's long indecision, and to +allow you no escape from the knowledge that Claudius' crime +would bring about its karmic punishment. It is a unity: one +thunderbolt from Zeus;--first the growl and rumbling of the +thunders; then the whirr of the dread missile,--and lo, the man +dead that was to die. And through the bolt so hurled, so +effective, and with it--the eagle-bark--Aeschylus crying _Karma!_ +to the Athenians. + +So it has been said that Aeschylean Tragedy is more nearly allied +to sculpture; Shakespearean Tragedy to the Epic. + +Think how that unchanging mask, that frozen moment of expression, +would develop the quality of tragic irony. In it Clytemnestra +comes out to greet the returning Agamemnon. She has her +handmaids carpet the road for him with purple tapestries; she +makes her speeches of welcome; she alludes to the old sacrifice +of Iphigenia; she tells him how she has waited for his return;-- +and all the while the audience knows she is about to kill him. +They listen to her doubtful words, in which she reveals to them, +who know both already, her faithlessness and dire purpose; but +to her husband, seems to reveal something different altogether. +With Agamemnon comes Cassandra from fallen Troy: whose fate was +to foresee all woes and horror, and to forthtell what she saw-- +and never to be believed; so now when she raises her dreadful +cry, foreseeing what is about to happen, and uttering warning-- +none believe her but the audience, who know it all in advance. +And then there are the chantings of the chorus, a group of Argive +elders. They know or guess how things stand between the queen +and her lover; they express their misgiving, gathering as the +play goes on; they recount the deeds of violence of which the +House of Atreus has been the scene, and are haunted by the +foreshadowings of Karma. But they many not understand or +give credence to the warnings of Cassandra: Karma disallows +fore-fending against the fall of its bolts. Troy has fallen, they +say: and that was Karma; because Paris, and Troy in supporting +him, had sinned against Zeus the patron of hospitality,--to whom +the offense rose like vultures with rifled nest, wheeling in +mid-heaven on strong oars of wings, screaming for retribution. +--You may not that Aeschylus' freedom from the bonds of outer +religion is like Shakespeare's own: here Zeus figures as symbol +of the Lords of Karma; from him flow the severe readjustments +of the Law;--but in the _Prometheus Bound_ he stands for the +lower nature that crucifies the Higher. + +Troy, then, had sinned, and has fallen; but (says the Chorus) +let the conquerors look to it that they do not overstep the mark; +let there be no dishonoring the native Gods of Troy; (the +Athenians had been very considerably overstepping the mark +in some of their own conquests recently;)--let there be no +plundering or useless cruelty; (the Athenians had been hideously +greedy and cruel;)--or Karma would overtake it own agents, the +Greeks, who were not yet out of the wood, as we say--who had not +yet returned home. This was when the beacons had announced the +fall of Troy, and before the entry of Agamemnon. + +Clytemnestra is not like Gertrude, but a much grander and more +tragical figure. Shakespeare leaves you in no doubt as to his +queen's relation to Claudius; he enlarges on their guilty +passion _ad lib._ Aeschylus never mentions love at all in +any of his extant plays; only barely hints at it here. It +may be supposed to exist; it is an accessory motive; it +lends irony to Clytemnestra's welcome to Agamemnon--in which +only the audience and the Chorus are aware that the lady +does protest too much. But she stands forth in her own eyes +as an agent of Karma-Nemesis; there is something very terrible +and unhuman about her. Early in the play she reminds the +Chorus how Agamemnon, is setting out for Troy, sacrificed +his and her daughter Iphigenia to get a fair wind: a deed +of blood whose consequences must be feared--something to +add to the Chorus's misgivings, as they chant their doubtful +hope that the king may safely return. In reality Artemis +had saved Igphigenia; and though Clytemnestra did not know +this, in assuming the position of her daughter's avenger +she put herself under the karmic ban. And Agamemnon did +not know it: he had intended the sacrifice: and was therefore, +and for his supposed ruthlessness at Troy, under the same ban +himself. Hence the fate that awaited him on his return; and +hence because of Clytemnestra's useless crime--when she and +Aegisthos come out from murdering him, and announce what they +have done, the Chorus's dark foretellings--to come true presently +--of the Karma that is to follow upon it. + +And here we must guard ourselves against the error--as I think it +is that Aeschylus set himself to create the perfect and final +art-form as such. I think he was just intent on announcing Karma +to the Athenians in the most effective way possible: bent all +his energies to making that--and that the natural result +of that high issue clear and unescapable; purpose was this +marvelous art-form--which Sophocles took up later, and in +some external ways perhaps perfected. Then came Aristotle after +a hundred years, and defining the results achieved, tried to make +Shakespeare impossible. The truth is that when you put yourself +to do the Soul's work, and have the great forces of the Soul to +back you therein, you create an art-form; and it only remains for +the Aristotelian critic to define it. Then back comes the Soul +after a thousand years, makes a new one, and laughs at the +Aristotles. The grand business is done by following the Soul--not +by conforming to rules or imitating models. But it must be the +Soul; rules and models are much better than personal whims; +they are a discipline good to be followed as long as one can.-- +You will note how Aeschylus stood above the possibilities of +actualism with which we so much concern ourselves; in the course +of some sixteen hundred lines, and without interval or change of +act or scene, he introduces the watchman on the house-top who +first sees the beacons that announce the fall of Troy, on the +very night that Troy fell,--and the return of Agamemnon in his +chariot to Argos. + +In the _Choephori_ or _Libation-Pourers,_ the second play of the +trilogy, Orestes returns from his Wittenberg, sent by Apollo to +avenge his father. The scene again is in front of the house of +Atreus. Having killed Aegistlios within, Orestes comes out to +the Chorus; then Clytemnestra enters; he tells her what he has +done, and what he intends to do; and despite her pleadings, +leads her in to die beside her paramour. He comes out again, +bearing (for his justification) the blood-stained robe of +Agamemnon;--but he comes out distraught and with the guilt of +matricide weighing on his soul. The Chorus bids him be of good +cheer, reminding him upon what high suggestion he has acted; but +in the background he, and he alone, sees the Furies swarming to +haunt him, "like Gorgons, dark-robed, and all their tresses hang +entwined with many serpents; and from their eyes is dropping +loathsome blood." He must wander the world seeking purification. +In the _Eumenides_ we find him in the temple of Loxias (the +Apollo) at Delphi, there seeking refuge with the god who had +prompted him to the deed. But even there the Furies haunt him-- +though for weariness--or really because it is the shrine of +Loxias--they have fallen asleep. From them even Loxias may not +free him; only perhaps Pallas at Athens may do that; Loxias +announces this to him and bids him go to Athens, and assures him +meanwhile of his protection. + +To Athens then the scene changes, where Orestes' case is tried: +Apollo defends him; Pallas is the judge; the Furies the +accusers; the Court of the Areopagus the jury. The votes of +these are equally divided; but Athene gives her casting vote in +his favor; and to compensate the Erinyes, turns them into +Eumenides--from Furies to goddesses of good omen and fortune. +Orestes is free, and the end is happy. + +No doubt very pretty and feeble of the bronze-throated Eagle- +barker to make it so. What! clap on an exit to these piled-up +miseries?--he should have plunged us deeper in woe, and left us +to stew in our juices; he Should have shunned this detestable +effeminacy, worthy only of the Dantes and Shakespeares. But +unfortunately he was an Esotericist, with the business of +helping, not plaguing, mankind: he must follow the grand +symbolism of the story of the Soul, recording and emphasizing and +showing the way to its victories, not its defeats. He had the eye +to see deep into realities, and was not to be led from the path +of truth eternal by the cheap effective expedients of realism. +He must tell the whole truth: building up, not merely destroying; +and truth, at the end, is not bitter, but bright and glorious. +It is the triumph and purification of the soul; and to that +happy consummation all sorrow and darkness and the dread Furies +themselves, whom he paints with all the dark flame-pigments +of sheerest terror, are but incidental and a means. + +And the meaning of it all? Well, the meaning is as vast as the +scheme of evolution itself, I suppose. It is _Hamlet_ over +again, and treated differently; that which wrote _Hamlet_ +through Shakespeare, wrote this Trilogy through Aeschylus. I +imagine you are to find in the _Agamemnon_ the symbol of the +Spirit's fall into matter--of the incarnation (and obscuration) +of the Lords of Mind--driven thereto by ancient Karma, and the +result--of the life of past universes. Shakespeare deals with +this retrospectively, in the Ghost's words to Hamlet on the +terrace. The 'death' of the Spirit is its fall into matter. + +And just as the ghost urges Hamlet to revenge, so Apollo urges +Orestes; it is the influx, stir, or impingement of the Supreme +Self, that rouses a man, at a certain stage in his evolution, +to lift himself above his common manhood. This is the most +interesting and momentous event in the long career of the soul: +it takes the place, in that drama of incarnations, that the +marriage does in the modern novel. Shakespeare, whose mental +tendencies were the precise opposite of Aeschylus's--they ran to +infinite multiplicity and complexity, where the other's ran to +stern unity and simplicity (of plot)--made two characters of +Polonius and Gertrude: Polonius,--the objective lower world, +with its shallow wisdom and conventions; Gertrude,--Nature, the +lower world in it subjective or inner relation to the soul +incarnate in it. Aeschylus made no separate symbol for the former. +Shakespeare makes the killing of Polonius a turning-point; +thenceforth Hamlet must, will he nill he, in some dawdling +sort sweep to his revenge. Aeschylus makes that same turning-point +in the killing of Clytemnestra, whereafter the Furies are let +loose on Orestes. If you think well what it means, it is +that "leap" spoken of in _Light on the Path,_ by which a +man raises himself "on to the path of individual accomplishment +instead of mere obedience to the genii which rule our earth." +He can no longer walk secure like a sheep in the flock; he +has come out, and is separate; he has chosen a captain within, +and must follow the Soul, and not outer convention. That +step taken, and the face set towards the Spirit-Sun--the +life of the world forgone, that a way may be fought into +the Life of the Soul:--all his past lives and their errors +rise against him; his passions are roused to fight for their +lives, and easy living is no longer possible. He must fly +then for refuge to Loxias the Sun-God, the Supreme Self, who can +protect him from these Erinyes--but it is Pallas, Goddess of the +Inner Wisdom, of the true method of life, that can alone set him +free. And it is thus that Apollo pleads before her for Orestes +who killed his mother (Nature) to avenge his Father (Spirit):--a +man, says he, is in reality the child of his father, not of his +mother:--this lower world in which we are incarnate is not in +truth our parent or originator at all, but only the seed-plot in +which we, sons of the Eternal, are sown, the nursery in which we +grow to the point of birth;--but we ourselves are in our essence +flame of the Flame of God. So Pallas--and you must think of all +she implied--Theosophy, right living, right thought and action, +true wisdom--judges Orestes guiltless, sets him free, and +transforms his passions into his powers. + + + + +V. SOME PERICLEAN FIGURES + + +Yoshio Markino (that ever-delightful Japanese) makes an +illuminating comparison between the modern western and the +ancient eastern civilizations. What he says amounts to this: the +one is of Science, the other of the Human Spirit; the one of +intellect, the other of intuition; the one has learnt rules for +carrying all things through in some shape that will serve--the +other worked its wonders by what may be called a Transcendental +Rule of Thumb. But in fact it was a reliance on the Human Spirit, +which invited the presence thereof;--and hence results were +attained quite unachievable by modern scientific methods. What +Yoshio says of the Chinese and Japanese is also true of all the +great western ages of the past. We can do a number of things,-- +that is, have invented machinery to do a number of things for +us,--but with all our resources we could not build a Parthenon: +could not even reproduce it, with the model there before our eyes +to imitate.* + +------ +* I quote Prof. Mahaffy in his _Problems of Greek History._ He +also points out that it is beyond the powers of modern science in +naval architecture to construct a workable model of a Greek trireme. +------ + +It stands as a monument of the Human Spirit: as an age-long +witness to the presence and keen activity of that during the Age +of Pericles in Athens. It was built at almost break-neck speed, +yet remains a thing of permanent inimitable beauty, defying time +and the deliberate efforts of men and gunpowder to destroy it. +The work in it which no eye could see was as delicate, as +exquisite, as that which was most in evidence publicly; every +detail bore the deliberate impress of the Spirit, a direct +spiritual creation. There is no straight line in it; no two +measurements are the same; but by a divine and direct intuition, +every difference is inevitable, and an essential factor in the +perfection of the whole. As if the same creative force had made +it, as makes of the sea and mountains an inescapable perfection +of beauty. + +It is one of the many mighty works wherewith Pericles and +his right-hand man Pheidias, and his architects Ictinus and +Callicrates, adorned Athens. It would serve no purpose to make a +list of the great names of the age; which you know well enough +already. The simple fact to note is this: that at a certain +period in the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. the Crest-Wave of +Evolution was, so far as we can see, flowing through a very +narrow channel. The Far Eastern seats of civilization were under +pralaya; the life-forces in West Asia were running towards +exhaustion, or already exhausted; India, it is true, is hidden +from us; we cannot judge well what was going on there; and so +was most of Europe. Any scheme of cycles that we can put forward +as yet must necessarily be tentative and hypothetical; what we +do not know is, to what we do know, as a million to one; I may +be quite wrong in giving Europe as long a period for its +manvantaras as China; possibly there were no manvantaric +activities in Europe, in that period, before the rise of Greece. +But whether or no, this particular time belongs, of all European +countries, to Greece: the genius of the world, the energy of the +human spirit, was mainly concentrated there; and of Greece, in +the single not too large city of Athens. It is true I am rather +enamored of the cycle of a hundred and thirty years; prejudiced, +if you like, in its favor; it is also true that genius was +speaking through at least one world-important Athenian voice-- +that of Aeschylus--before the age of Pericles began. Still, +these dates are significant: 477, in which year Athens attained +the hegemony of Greece, and 347, in which Plato died. It was +after 477 that Aeschylus eagle-barked the grandest part of his +message from the Soul, and that the great Periclean figures +appeared; and though Athenians of genius out-lived Plato, he was +the last world-figure and great Soul-Prophet; the last Athenian +equal in standing to Aeschylus. When those thirteen decades had +passed, the Soul had little more to say through Athens.-- +Aristotle?--I said, _the Soul_ had little more to say. . . . + +About midway through that cycle came Aegospotami, and the +destruction of the Long Walls and of the Empire; but these did +not put an end to Athenian significance. Mahaffy very wisely +goes to work to dethrone the Peloponnesian War--as he does, too, +the Persian--from the eminence it has been given in the textbooks +ever since. As usual, we get a lopsided view from the historians: +in this case from Thucydides, who slurred through a sort of +synopsis of the far more important and world-interesting +mid-fifth century, and then dealt microscopically with these +twenty-five years or so of trumpery raidings, petty excursions +and small alarms. That naval battle at Syracuse, which Creasy +puts with Marathon in his famous fifteen, was utterly unimportant: +tardy Nicias might have won all through, and still Athens +would have fallen. Her political foundations were on the +sand. Under Persia you stood a much better chance of enjoying +good government and freedom: Persian rule was far less +oppressive and cruel. The states and islands subject to Athens +had no self-government, no representation; they were at the +mercy of the Athenian mob, to be taxed, bullied, and pommeled +about as that fickle irresponsible tyranny might elect or be +swayed to pommel, tax, and bully them. Thucydides was a great +master of prose style, and so could invest with an air of +importance all the matter of his tale. Besides, he was the +only contemporary historian, or the only one that survives. +So the world ever since has been tricked into thinking this +Peloponnesian War momentous; whereas really it was a petty +family squabble among that most family-squabblesome of peoples, +the Greeks.--In most of which I am only quoting Mahaffy; who, +whether intentionally or not, deals with Greek history in such a +way as to show the utter unimportance, irrelevance, futility, +of war. + +Greek history is merely a phase of human history. We have looked +for its significance exclusively in political and cultural +regions; but this is altogether a mistake. The Greeks did not +invent culture; there had been greater cultures before, only +they are forgotten. All that about the "evolution of Political +freedom," of the city state, republicanism, etc., is just +nonsense. As far as I can see, the importance of Greece lies in +this: human history, the main part of it, flowing in that age +through the narrow channel of Greece, came down from sacred to +secular; from the last remnants of a state of affairs in which +the Lodge, through the Mysteries, had controlled life and +events, to the beginnings of one in which things were to muddle +through under the sweet guidance of brain-minds and ordinary men. +The old order had become impossible; the world had drifted too +far from the Gods. So the Gods tried a new method: let loose a +new great force in the world; sent Teachers to preach openly +(sow broadcast, and let the seed take its chances) what had +before been concealed and revealed systematically within the +Established Mysteries. What Athens did with that new force has +affected the whole history of Europe since; apparently mostly +for weal; really, nearly altogether for woe. + +Aristides, with convincing logic, had been able to persuade all +Greece to act against a common danger under an Athens then +morally great, and feeling this new force from the God-world +as a wine in the air, a mental ozone, an inspiration from the +subliminal to heroic endeavor. But his policy perished when the +visible need for it subsided; it gave way to the Themistoclean, +which passed into the Periclean policy; and that, says Mahaffy, +"was so dangerous and difficult that no cautious and provident +thinker could have called it secure." Which also was Plato's view +of it; who went so far as to say that Pericles had made the +Athenians lazy, sensual, and frivolous. When we find Aeschylus at +the start at odds with it, and Plato at the end condemning it +wholesale,--for my part I think we hardly need bother to argue +about it further. Both were men who saw from a standpoint above +the enlightenment of the common brain-mind. + +It is not the present purpose to treat history as a matter of +wars and politics; details of which you can get from any +textbook; our concern is with the motions of the human spirit, +and the laws that work from behind. As to these motions, and the +grand influxes, there is this much we can rely on: they come by +law, in their regular cycles; and we can invite their coming, +and insure their stability when they do come. The more I study +history, the more the significance of my present surroundings +impresses me. We stand here upon a marvelous isthmus in time; +behind us lies a world of dreary commonplaces called the +civilization of Christendom; before us--who knows what possibilities? +Nothing is certain about the future--even the near future;--except +that it will be immensely unlike the past. Whatever we have +learned or failed to learn, large opportunities are given us +daily for discovering those inward regions whence all light +shines down into the world. Genius is one method of the Soul's +action; one aspect of its glory made manifest. We are given +opportunities to learn what invites and what hinders its outflow. +To all common thinking, it is a thing absolutely beyond control +of the will; that cannot be called down, nor its coming +in anywise foretold. But we know that the Divine Self would act, +were the obstructions to its action removed; and that the +obstructions are all in the lower nature of man. + +Worship the Soul in all thoughts and deeds, and sooner or later +the Soul will pour down through the channel thus made for it; +and its inflow will not be fitful and treacherous, but sure, +stable, equable and redeeming. + +This is where all past ages of brilliance have failed. Cyclically +they were bound to come: the fields ripened in due season; +but the wealth of the harvest depended on the reapers. The +Elizabethan Age, with all its splendid quickening of the English +mind, was coarse and wicked to a degree. All through the +wonderful Cinquecento, when each of a dozen or more little +Italian city-states was producing genius enough to furnish forth +a good average century in modern Europe or America, Italy was +also a hotbed of unnatural vices, lurid crimes, wickedness to +stock the nine circles of Malebolge. So too Athens at the top of +her glory became selfish, grasping, conscienceless and cruel; and +those nameless vices grew up and grew common in her which +probably account for the long dark night that has spread itself +over Greece ever since. It is a strange situation, that looks +like an anomaly: that wherever the Human Spirit presses in most, +and raises up most splendor of genius, there, and then the dark +forces that undermine life are most at work. But we should have +no difficulty in understanding it. At such times, by such +influxes, the whole inner kingdom of man is roused and illumined; +and not only the intellect and all noble qualities are quickened, +but the passions also. The race, and the individual, are stirred +to the deepest depths, and no part of you may have rest. What +then will happen, unless you have the surest moral training for +foundation? The force which rouses up the highest in you, rouses +up also the lowest; and there must be battle-royal and victory at +last, or surrender to hell. Through lack of training, and +ignorance of the laws of the inner life, the Higher will be +handicapped; the lower will have advantage through its own +natural impulse downward, increased by every success it is +allowed to gain. And so all these ages of creative achievement +exhaust themselves; every victory of the passions drawing down +the creative force from the higher planes, to waste it on the +lower; till at last what had been an attempt of the Spirit to +lift humanity up on to nobler lines of evolution, and to open a +new order of ages, expires in debauchery, weakness, degeneracy, +physical and moral death. The worst fate you could wish a man is +genius without moral strength. It wrecks individuals, and it +wrecks nations. I said we stand now on an isthmus of time; +fifth-century Greece stood on such another. For reasons that we +have seen, there was to be a radical difference between the ages +that preceded, and the ages that followed it; its influence was +not to wear out, in the west, for twenty-five hundred years. It +was to give a keynote, in cultural effort, to a very long future. +So all western ages since have suffered because of its descent +from lofty ideals to vulgar greed and ambition; from Aristides +to Themistocles and Pericles. We shall see this Athenian descent +in literature, in art, in philosophy. If Athens had gone up, not +down, European history would have been a long record of the +triumphs of the spirit:--not, as it has been in the main, one of +sorrow and disaster. + +At the beginning of the Greek age in literature, we find the +stupendous figure of Aeschylus. For any such a force as he was, +there is--how shall I say?--a twofold lineage or ancestry to be +traced: there are no sudden creations. Take Shakespeare, for +example. There was what he found read to his hand in English +literature; and what he brought into England out of the Unknown. +In his outwardness, the fabric of his art--we can trace this +broad river back to a thinnish stream by the name of Chaucer; or +he was growth, recognizably, of the national tree of which +Chaucer was the root, or lay at the root. The unity called +English poetry had grown naturally from that root to this +glorious flower: the sparkle, with, brightness, and above all +large hold upon the other life that one finds in Shakespeare--one +finds at least the rudiments of them in Chaucer also. But there +is another, an exoteric element in him which one finds nowhere in +English literature before him: the Grandeur from within, the +high Soul Symbol. In him suddenly that portentous thing appears, +like a great broad river emerging from the earth.--Of which we do +not say, however, that they have had no antecedent rills and +fountain; we know that they have traveled long beneath the +mountains, unseen; they sank under the earth-surface somewhere, +and are not special new creations. Looking back behind Shakespeare, +from this our eminence in time, we can see beyond the intervening +heights this broad water shine again over the plain in Dante; +and beyond him some glimmer of it in Virgil; until at last +we see the far-off sheen of it in Aeschylus, very near the +backward horizon of time. We can catch no glimpse of it +farther, because that horizon is there. + +We can trace Aeschylus' outward descent--as Shakespeare's from +Chaucer--from the nascent Greek drama and the rudimentary plays +at the rustic festivals; but the grand river of his esotericism +--there it shines, as large and majestic, at least, as in +Shakespeare; and it was, no more than his, a special creation or +new thing. Our horizon lies there, to prevent our vision going +further; but from some higher time-eminence in the future, +we shall see it emerge again in the backward vastnesses of +pre-history; again and again. The grandeur of Aeschylus his no +parent in Greek, or in western extant literature; or if we say +that it has a parent in Homer (which I doubt, because not seeing +the Soul Symbols in Homer), it is only putting matters one step +further back.... But behind Greece, there were the lost literatures +of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, of which we know nothing; aye, and +for a guess, lost and mighty literatures from all parts of Europe +too. If I could imagine it otherwise, I would say so. + +Almost suddenly, during Aeschylus' lifetime, another Greek Art +came into being. When he was a boy, sculpture was still a very +crude affair; or perhaps just beginning to emerge from that +condition. The images that come down to us, say from Pisistratus' +time and earlier, are not greatly different from the 'primitive' +carvings of many so-called savage peoples of our own day. That +statement is loose and general; but near enough the mark to +serve our purpose. You may characterize them as rude imitations +of the human form, without any troublesome realism, and with a +strong element of the grotesque. Says the _Encyclopeadia +Britannica_ (from which the illustration is taken): + +"The statues of the gods began either with stiff and ungainly +figures roughly cut out of the trunk of a tree, or with the +monstrous and symbolical representations of Oriental art.... In +early decorations of vases and vessels one may find Greek deities +represented with wings, carrying in their hands lions or +griffins, bearing on their heads lofty crowns. But as Greek art +progressed it grew out of this crude symbolism... What the +artists of Babylonia and Egypt express in the character of the +gods by added attribute or symbol, swiftness by wings, control of +storms by the thunderbolt, traits of character by animal +heads, the artists of Greece work more and more fully into the +scultptural type; modifying the human subject by the constant +addition of something which is above the ordinary levels of +humanity, until we reach the Zeus of Pheidias or the Dimeter of +Cnidus. When the decay of the high ethical art of Greece sets +in, the Gods become more and more warped to the merely human +level. They lose their dignity, but they never lose their charm." + +In which, I think, much light is once more thrown on the inner +history of the race, and the curious and fatal position Greece +holds in it. For here we see Art emerging from its old Position +as a hand-maid to the Mysteries and recognized instrument of the +Gods or the Soul; from sacred becoming secular; from impersonal, +personal. There is, perhaps, little enough in pre-Pheidian Greek +sculpture that belongs to the history of Art at all (I do not +speak of old cycles and manvantaras, the ages of Troy and +Mycenae, but of historical times; I cast no glance now behind the +year 870 B. C.). For the real art that came next before the +Pheidian Greek, we have to look to Egypt and Mesopotamia. + +Take Egypt first. There the sculptor thinks of himself far less +as artist than as priest and servant of the Mysteries: that is, +of the great Divine heart of Existence behind this manifested +world, and the official channel which connected It with the +latter. The Gods, for him, are frankly unhuman--superhuman-- +unlike humanity. We call them 'forces of Nature'; and think +ourselves mighty wise for having camouflaged our ignorance with +this perfectly meaningless term. We have dealt so wisely with +our thinking organs, that do but give us a sop of words, and +things in themselves we shall never bother about:--like the +Grave-digger, who solved the whole problem of Ophelia's death and +burial with his three branches of an act. But the Egyptian, with +mental faculties unrotted by creedal fatuities like our own, +would not so feed 'of the chameleon's dish,'--needed something +more than words, words, and words. He knew also that there were +elements in their being quite unlike any we are conscious of in +ours. So he gave them purely symbolic forms: a human body, for +that which he could posit as common to themselves and humanity; +and an animal mask, to say that the face, the expression of their +consciousness, was hidden, and not to be expressed in terms of +human personality. While affirming that they were conscious +entities, he stopped short of personalizing them. What was +beneath the mask or symbol belonged to the Mysteries, and was not +to be publicly declared. + +But when he came to portraying men, especially great kings, he +used a different method. The king's statue was to remain through +long ages, when the king himself was dead and Osirified. The +artist knew--it was the tradition of his school--what the +Osirified dead looked like. Not an individual sculptor, but a +traditional wisdom, was to find expression. What sculptor's name +is known? Who wrought the Vocal Memnon?--Not any man; but the +Soul and wisdom and genius of Egypt. The last things bothered +about were realism and personality. There were a very few +conventional poses; the object was not to make a portrait, but +to declare the Universal Human Soul;--it was hardly artistic, in +any modern acceptation of the word; but rather religious. +Artistic it was, in the highest and truest sense: to create, in +the medium of stone, the likeness or impression of the Human Soul +in its grandeur and majesty; to make hard granite or syenite +proclaim the eternal peace and aloofness of the Soul.--Plato +speaks of those glimpses of "the other side of the sky" which the +soul catches before it comes into the flesh;--the Egyptian artist +was preoccupied with the other side of the sky. How wonderfully +he succeeded, you have only to drop into the British Museum to +see. There is a colossal head there, hung high on the wall +facing the stairs at the end of the Egyptian Gallery; you may +view it from the ground, or from any point on the stairs; but +from whatever place you look at it, if you have any quality of +the Soul in you, you go away having caught large glimpses of the +other side of the sky. You are convinced, perhaps unconsciously, +of the grandeur and reality of the Soul. Having watched +Eternity on that face many times, I rejoiced to find this +description of it in De Quincey;--if he was not speaking of this, +what he says fits it admirably: + +"That other object which for four and twenty years in the British +Museum struck me as simply the sublimest sight which in this +sight-seeing world I had seen. It was the memnon's head, then +recently brought from Egypt. I looked at it, as the reader must +suppose in order to understand the depth which I have here +ascribed to the impression, not as a human but as a symbolic +head; and what it symbolized to me were: (1) the peace which +passeth understanding. (2) The eternity which baffles and +confounds all faculty of computation--the eternity which had +been, the eternity which was to be. (3) The diffusive love, not +such as rises and falls upon waves of life and mortality, +not such as sinks and swells by undulations of time, but a +procession, an emanation, from some mystery of endless dawn. You +durst not call it a smile that radiated from those lips; the +radiation was too awful to clothe itself in adumbrations of +memorials of flesh." + +Art can never reach higher than that,--if we think of it as a +factor in human evolution. What else you may say of Egyptian +sculpture is of minor importance: as, that it was stiff, +conventional, or what not; that each figure is portrayed sitting +bolt upright, hands out straight, palms down, upon the knees, and +eyes gazing into eternity. Ultimately we must regard Art in this +Egyptian way: as a thing sacred, a servant of the Mysteries; the +revealer of the Soul and the other side of the sky. You may +have enormous facility in playing with your medium; may be able +to make your marble quite fluidic, and flow into innumerable +graceful forms; you may be past master of every intricacy, +multiplying your skill to the power of n;--but you will still in +reality have made no progress beyond that unknown carver who +shaped his syenite, or his basalt, into the "peace which passeth +understanding"--"the eternity which baffles and confounds all +faculty of computation." + +If we turn to Assyria, we find much the same thing. This was a +people far less spiritual than the Egyptians: a cruel, splendid, +luxurious civilization deifying material power. But you cannot +look at the great Winged Bulls without knowing that there, too, +the motive was religious. There is an eternity and inexhaustible +power in those huge carvings; the sculptors were bent on one +end:--to make the stone speak out of superhuman heights, and +proclaim the majesty of the Everlasting.--In the Babylonian +sculptures we see the kings going into battle weaponless, but +calm and invincible; and behind and standing over, to protect and +fight for them, terrific monsters, armed and tiger-headed or +leopard-headed--the 'divinity that hedges a king' treated +symbolically. As always in those days, though many veils might +hide from the consciousness of Assyria and later Babylon the +beautiful reality of the Soul of Things, the endeavor, the +_raison d'etre,_ of Art was to declare the Might, Power, Majesty, +and dominion which abide beyond our common levels of thought. + +Now then: that great Memnon's head comes from behind the horizon +of time and the sunset of the Mysteries; and in it we sample the +kind of consciousness produced by the Teaching of the Mysteries. +Go back step by step, from Shakespeare's + + "Glamis hath murdered Sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep + no more."; + +to Dante's + + "The love that moves the Sun and the other Stars"; + +to Talesin's + + "My original country is the Region of the Summer Stars"; + +to Aeschylus's bronze-throat eagle-bark at blood;--and the next +step you come to beyond (in the West)--the next expression of the +Human Soul--marked with the same kind of feeling--the same +spiritual and divine hauteur--is, for lack of literary remains, +this Egyptian sculpture. The Grand Manner, the majestic note of +Esotericism, the highest in art and literature, is a stream +flowing down to us from the Sacred Mysteries of Antiquity. + +It is curious that a crude primtivism in sculpture--and in +architecture too--should have gone on side by side, in Greece, +during the seventh and sixth centuries B. C., with the very +finished art of the Lyricists from Sappho to Pindar; but +apparently it did. (They had wooden temples, painted in bright +reds and greens; I understand without pillared facades.) I +imagine the explanation to be something like this: You are to +think of an influx of the Human Spirit, proceeding downward from +its own realms towards these, until it strikes some civilization +--the Greek, in this case. Now poetry, because its medium is less +material, lies much nearer than do the plastic arts to the Spirit +on its descending course; and therefore receives the impulse of +its descent much sooner. Perhaps music lies higher again; which +is why music was the first of the arts to blossom at all in this +nascent civilization of ours at Point Loma. Let me diverge a +little, and take a glance round.--At any such time, the seeds +of music may not be present in strength or in a form to be +quickenable into a separately manifesting art; and this may be +true of poetry too; yet where poetry is, you may say music has +been; for every real poem is born out of a pre-existing music of +its own, and is the _inverbation_ of it. The Greek Melic poets +(the lyricists) were all musicians first, with an intricate +musical science, on the forms of which they arranged their +language; I do not know whether they wrote their music apart +from the words. After the Greek, the Italian illumination was the +greatest in western history; there the influx, beginning in the +thirteenth century, produced first its chief poetic splendor in +Dante before that century had passed; not raising an equal +greatness in painting and sculpture until the fifteenth. In +England, the Breath that kindled Shakespeare never blew down so +far as to light up a great moment in the plastic arts: there +were some few figures of the second rank in painting presently; +in sculpture, nothing at all (to speak of). Painting, you see, +works in a little less material medium than sculpture does. +Dante's Italy had not quite plunged into that orgy of vice, +characteristic of the great creative ages, which we find in the +Italy of the Cinquecento. But England, even in Shakespeare's +day, was admiring and tending to imitate Italian wickedness. +James I's reign was as corrupt as may be; and though the Puritan +reaction followed, the creative force had already been largely +wasted: notice had been served to the Spirit to keep off. +Puritanism raised itself as a barrier against the creative force +both in its higher and lower aspects: against art, and against +vice;--probably the best thing that could happen under the +circumstances; and the reason why England recovered so much +sooner than did Italy.--On the other hand, when the influx came +to Holland, it would seem to have found, then, no opportunities +for action in the non-material arts: to have skipped any grand +manifestation in music or poetry: and at once to have hit the +Dutchman 'where he lived' (as they say),--in his paintbox.--But +to return:- + +Sculpture, then, came later than poetry to Greece; and in some +ways it was a more sudden and astounding birth. Unluckily nothing +remains--I speak on tenterhooks--of its grandest moment. Progress +in architecture seems to have begun in the reign of Pisistratus; +some time in the next sixty years or so the Soul first impressed +its likeness on carved stone. I once saw a picture--in a lantern +lecture in London--of a pre-Pheidian statue of Athene; dating, +I suppose, from the end of the sixth century B. C. She is +advancing with upraised arm to protect--someone or something. The +figure is, perhaps, stiff and conventional; and you have no doubt +it is the likeness of a Goddess. She is not merely a very fine +and dignified woman; she is a Goddess, with something of +Egyptian sublimity. The artist, if he had not attained perfect +mastery of the human form--if his medium was not quite plastic to +him--knew well what the Soul is like.--The Greek had no feeling, +as the Egyptian had, for the _mystery_ of the Gods; at his very +best (once he had begun to be artistic) he personalized them; he +tried to put into his representations of them, what the Egyptian +had tried to put into his representations of men; and in that +sense this Athene is, after all, only a woman;--but one in whom +the Soul is quite manifest. I have never been able to trace this +statue since; and my recollections are rather hazy. But it +stands, for me, holding up a torch in the inner recesses of +history. It was the time when Pythagoras was teaching; it was +that momentous time when (as hardly since) the doors of the +Spiritual were flung open, and the impulse of the six Great +Teachers was let loose on the world. Hithertoo Greek carvers had +been making images of the Gods, symbolic indeed--with wings, +thunderbolts and other appurtenances;--but trivially symbolic; +mere imitation of the symbolism, without the dignity or religious +feeling, of the Egyptians and Babylonians; as if their gods and +worship had been mere conventions, about which they had felt +nothing deep;--now, upon this urge from the God-world, a sense of +the grandeur of the within comes on them; they seek a means of +expressing it: throw off the old conventions; will carve the +Gods as men; do so, their aspiration leading them on to perfect +mastery: for a moment achieve Egyptian sublimity; but--have +personalized the Gods; and dear knows what that may lead +to presently. + +The came Pheidias, born about 496. Nothing of his work remains +for us; the Elgin Marbles themselves, from the Parthenon, are +pretty certainly only the work of his pupils. But there are two +things that tell us something about his standing: (1) all +antiquity bears witness to the prevailing quality of his +conceptions; their sublimity. (2) He was thrown into prison on a +charge of impiety, and died there, in 442. + +Here you will note the progress downward. Aeschylus had been so +charged, and tried--but acquitted. Pheidias, so charged, was +imprisoned. Forty-three years later Socrates, so charged, was +condemned to drink the hemlock. Of Aeschylus and Socrates we can +speak with certainty: they were the Soul's elect men. Was +Pheidias too? Athens certainly was turning away from the Soul; +and his fate is a kind of half-way point between the fates of the +others. He appears in good company. And that note of sublimity +in his work bears witness somewhat. + +We have the work of his pupils, and know that in their hands the +marble--Pheidias himself worked mostly in gold and ivory--had +become docile and obedient, to flow into whatever forms they +designed for it. We know what strength, what beauty, what +tremendous energy, are in those Elgin marbles. All the figures +are real, but idealized: beautiful men and horses, in fullest +most vigorous action, suddenly frozen into stone. The men are +more beautiful than human; but they are human. They are +splendid unspoiled human beings, reared for utmost bodily +perfection; athletes whose whole training had been, you may say, +to music: they are music expressed in terms of the human body. +Yes; but already the beauty of the body outshone the majesty of +the Soul. It was the beauty of the body the artists aimed at +expressing: a perfect body--and a sound mind in it: a perfectly +healthy mind in it, no doubt (be cause you cannot have a really +sound and beautiful body without a sound healthy mind)--was the +ideal they sought and saw. Very well, so far; but, you see, +Art has ceased to be sacred, and the handmaid of the Mysteries; +it bothers itself no longer with the other side of the sky. + +In Pheidias' own work we might have seen the influx at that +moment when, shining through the soul plane, its rays fell full +on the physical, to impress and impregnate that with the splendor +of the Soul. We might have seen that it was still the Soul that +held his attention, although the body was known thoroughly and +mastered: that it was the light he aimed to express, not the +thing it illumined. In the work of his pupils, the preoccupation +is with the latter; we see the physical grown beautiful under +the illumination of the Soul; not the Soul that illumines it. +The men of the Egyptian sculptors had been Gods. The Gods of +these Greek sculptors were men. Perfect, glorious, beautiful men +--so far as externals were concerned. But men--to excite personal +feeling, not to quell it into nothingness and awe. The perfection, +even at that early stage and in the work of the disciples of +Pheidias, was a quality of the personality. + +It was indeed marvelously near the point of equilibrium: the +moment when Spirit enters conquered matter, and stands there +enthroned. In Pheidias himself I cannot but think we should have +found that moment as we find it in Aeschylus. But you see, it is +when that has occurred: when Spirit has entered matter, and +made the form, the body, supremely beautiful; it is precisely +then that the moment of peril comes--if there is not the +wisdom present that knows how to avoid the peril. The next and +threatening step downward is preoccupation with, then worship of, +the body. + +The Age of Pericles came to worship the body: that was the +danger into which it fell; that was what brought about the ruin +of Greece. That huge revelation of material beauty; and that +absence of control from above; the lost adequacy of the +Mysteries, and the failure of the Pythagorean Movement;--the +impatience of spiritual criticism, heedlessness of spiritual +warning;--well, we can see what a turning-point the time was in +history. On the side of politics, selfishness and ambition were +growing; on the side of personal life, vice. . . . It is a thing +to be pondered on, that what has kept Greece sterile these last +two thousand years or so is, I believe, the malaria; which is a +thing that depends for its efficacy on mosquitos. Great men +simply will not incarnate in malarial territory; because +they would have no chance whatever of doing anything, with +that oppression and enervation sapping them. Greece has been +malarial; Rome, too, to some extent; the Roman Campagna +terribly; as if the disease were (as no doubt it is) a Karma +fallen on the sites of old-time tremendous cultural energies; +where the energies were presently wrecked, drowned and sodden in +vice. Here then is a pretty little problem in the workings of +Karma: on what plane, through what superphysical links or +channels, do the vices of an effete civilization transform +themselves into that poor familiar singer in the night-time, the +mosquito? Greece and Rome, in their heyday, were not malarial; +if they had been, no genius and no power would have shone +in them. + +In the Middle Ages, before people knew much about sanitary +science and antiseptics and the like, a great war quickly +translated itself into a great pestilence. Then we made advances +and discovered Listerian remedies and things, and said: Come now; +we shall fight this one; we shall have slaughtered millions +lying about as we please, and get no plague out of it; we are +wise and mighty, and Karma is a fool to us; we are the children +of MODERN CIVILIZATION; what have Nature and its laws to do with +us? Our inventions and discoveries have certainly put them out +of commission.--And sure enough, the mere foulness of the +battlefield, the stench of decay, bred no pest; our Science had +circumvented the old methods through which Natural Law (which is +only another way of saying Karma) worked; we had cut the +physical links, and blocked the material channels through which +wrong-doing flowed into its own punishment.--Whereupon Nature, +wrathful, withdrew a little; took thought for her astral and +inner planes; found new links and channels there; passed through +these the causes we had provided, and emptied them out again +on the physical plane in the guise of a new thing, Spanish +Influenza;--and spread it over three continents, with greater +scope and reach than had ever her old-fashioned stench-bred +plagues that served her well enough when we were less scientific. +Whereof the moral is: _He laughs loudest who laughs last;_ and +just now, and for some time to come, the laugh is with Karma. +Say until the end of the Maha-Manvantara; until the end of +manifested Time. When shall we stop imagining that any possible +inventions or discoveries will enable us to circumvent the +fundamental laws of Nature? Not the printing-press, nor steam, +nor electricity, nor aerial navigation, nor _vril_ itself when we +come to it, will serve to keep civilizations alive that have worn +themselves out by wrong-doing--or even that have come to old age +and the natural time when they must die. But their passings need +not be ghastly and disastrous, or anything but honorable and +beneficial, if in the prime and vigor of their lifetimes they +would learn decently to live. + +But to return to our muttons, which is Greece; and now to the +literature again:-- + +After Aeschylus, Sophocles. The former, a Messenger of the Gods, +come to cry their message of _Karma_ to the world; and in doing +so, incidentally to create a supreme art-form;--the latter, a +"good easy soul who lives and lets live, founds no anti-school, +upsets no faith."--thus Browning sums him up. A "faultless" +artist enamored of his art; in which, thinks he (and most +academic critics with him) he can improve something on old +Aeschylus; a man bothered with no message; a beautiful youth; a +genial companion, well-loved by his friends--and who is not his +friend?--all through his long life; twenty times first-prize +winner, and never once less than second.--Why, solely on the +strength of his _Antigone,_ the Athenians appointed him a +strategos in the expedition against Samos; with the thought that +one so splendidly victorious in the field of drama, could not +fail of victory in mere war. But don't lose hope!--upon an +after-thought (perhaps) they appointed Pericles too; who +suggested to his poet-colleague that though master of them all in +his own line, he had better on the whole leave the sordid details +of command to himself, Pericles, who had more experience of that +sort. What more shall we say of Sophocles?--A charming brilliant +fellow in his cups--of which, as of some other more questionable +pleasures, report is he was too fond; a man worshiped during his +life, and on his death made a hero with semi-divine honors;--does +that sound like the story of a Messenger of the Gods? + +He was born at Colonos in Attica, in 496; of his hundred or so +of dramas, seven come down to us. His age saw in him the very +ideal of a tragic poet; Aristotle thought so too; so did the +Alexandrian critics, and most moderns with them. "Indeed," says +Mahaffy, "it is no unusual practice to exhibit the defects of +both Aeschylus and Euripides by comparison with their more +successful rival." Without trying to give you conclusions of my +own, I shall read you a longish passage from Gilbert Murray, who +is not only a great Greek scholar, but a fine critic as well, +and a poet with the best translations we have of Greek tragedy to +his credit; he has made Euripides read like good English poetry. +Comparing the _Choephori_ of Aeschylus, the second play in the +Oreseian Trilogy, with the _Electra_ of Sophocles, which deals +with the same matter, he says: + +"Aeschylus... had felt vividly the horror of his plot; he +carries his characters to the deed of blood on a storm of +confused, torturing, half-religious emotion; the climax is of +course, the mother-murder, and Orestes falls into madness after +it. In the _Electra_ this element is practically ignored. +Electra has no qualms; Orestes shows no signs of madness; the +climax is formed not by the culminating horror, the matricide, +but by the hardest bit of work, the slaying of Aegisthos! +Aeschylus has kept Electra and Clytemnestra apart; here we see +them freely in the hard unloveliness of their daily wrangles. +Above all, in place of the cry of bewilderment that closes the +_Choephori_--'What is the end of all this spilling of blood for +blood?'--the _Electra_ closes with an expression of entire +satisfaction... Aeschylus takes the old bloody saga in an earnest +and troubled spirit, very different from Homer's, but quite as +grand. His Orestes speaks and feels as Aechylus himself would... +Sophocles... takes the saga exactly as he finds it. He knows +that those ancient chiefs did not trouble about their consciences; +they killed in the fine old ruthless way. He does not try to +make them real to himself at the cost of making them false +to the spirit of the epos... + +"The various bits of criticism ascribed to him--'I draw men as +they ought to be drawn; Euripides draws them as they are'; +'Aeschylus did the right thing, but without knowing it'--all +imply the academic standpoint... Even his exquisite diction, +which is such a marked advance on the stiff magnificence of his +predecessor, betrays the lesser man in the greater artist. +Aeschylus's superhuman speech seems like natural superhuman +speech. It is just the language that Prometheus would talk, that +an ideal Agamemnon or Atossa might talk in the great moments. +But neither Prometheus nor Oedipus nor Electra, nor anyone but an +Attic poet of the highest culture, would talk as Sophocles makes +them. It is this which has established Sophocles as the perfect +model, not only for Aristotle, but in general for critics and +grammarians; while the poets have been left to admire Aeschylus, +who 'wrote in a state of intoxication,' and Euripedes, who broke +himself against the bars of life and poetry." + +You must, of course, always allow for a personal equation in the +viewpoint of any critic: you must here weight the "natural +superhuman diction" against the "stiff magnificence" Professor +Murray attributes to Aeschylus; and get a wise and general view +of your own. What I want you to see clearly is, the descent of +the influx from plane to plane, as shown in these two tragedians. +The aim of the first is to express a spiritual message, grand +thought. That of the second is to produce a work of flawless +beauty, without regard to its spiritual import. What was to +Aeschylus a secondary object; the purely artistic--was to +Sophocles the whole thing. Aeschylus was capable of wonderful +psychological insight. Clytemnestra's speech to the Chorus, just +before Agamemnon's return, is a perfect marvel in that way. But +the tremendous movement, the August impersonal atmosphere as + + ".... gorgeous Tragedy + In sceptered pall comes sweeping by." + +--divests it of the personal, and robes it in a universal symbolic +significance: because he has built like a titan, you do not at +first glance note that he has labored like a goldsmith, as +someone has said. But in Sophocles the goldsmithry is plain to +see. His character-painting is exquisite: pathetic often; just +and beautiful almost always. I put in the almost in view of that +about the "hard unloveliness" of Electra's "daily wrangles" with +her mother. The mantle of the religious Egyptians had fallen on +Aeschylus: but Sophocles' garb was the true fashionable Athenian +chiton of his day. He was personal, where the other had been +impersonal; faultless, where the other had been sublime; +conventionally orthodox, where through Aeschylus had surged the +super-credal spirit of universal prophecy. + +And then we come to third of the trio: Euripides, born in 480. +"He was," says Professor Murray, "essentially representative of +his age, yet apparently in hostility to it; almost a failure of +the stage--he won only four prizes in fifty years of production-- +yet far the most celebrated poet in Greece." Athens hated, +jeered at, and flouted him just as much as she honored and +adored Sophocles; yet you know what happened to those Athenian +captives at Syracuse who could recite Euripides. Where, in +later Greek writings, we come on quotations from the other +two once or twice, we come on quotations from Euripides dozens +of times. The very fact that eighteen of his plays survive, +to seven each of Aeschylus' and Sophocles', is proof of his +larger and longer popularity. + +He had no certain message from the Gods, as Aeschylus had; his +intensely human heart and his mighty intellect kept him from +being the 'flawless artist' that Sophocles was. He questioned +all conventional ideas, and would not let the people rest in +comfortable fat acquiescence. He came to make men 'sit up and +think.' He did not solve problems, but raised them, and flung +them at the head of the world. He must stir and probe things to +the bottom; and his recurrent unease, perhaps, mars the +perfection of his poetry. Admetus is to die, unless someone will +die for him; recollect that for the Greekish mob, death was the +worst of all possible happenings. Alcestis his wife will die for +him; and he accepts her sacrifice. Now, that was the old saga; +and in Greek conventional eyes, it was all right. Woman was an +inferior being, anyhow; there was nothing more fitting that +Alcestis should die for her lord.--Here let me make a point +plain: you cannot look back through Greece to a Golden Age in +Greece; it is not like Egypt, where the farther you go into +the past, the greater things you come to;--although in Egypt, +too, there would have been rises and falls of civilization. In +Homer's days, in Euripides', they had these barbarous ideas about +women; and these foolish exoteric ideas about death; historic +Greece, like modern Europe from the Middle Ages, rises from a +state of comparative barbarism, lightlessness; behind which, +indeed, there were rumors of a much higher Past. These great +Greeks, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, brought in ideas which were +as old as the hills in Egypt, or in India; but which were new to +the Greece of their time--of historic times; they were, I think, +as far as their own country was concerned, innovators and +revealers; not voicers of a traditional wisdom; it may have +been traditional once, but that time was much too far back for +memory. I think we should have to travel over long, long ages, to +get to a time when Eleusis was a really effective link with the +Lodge--to a period long before Homer, long before Troy fell.--But +to return to the story of Alcestis:-- + +You might take it on some lofty impersonal plane, and find a +symbol in it; Aeschylus would have done so, somehow; though I +do not quite see how. Sophocles would have been aware of nothing +wrong in it; he would have taken it quite as a matter of course. +Euripides saw clearly that Admetus was a selfish poltroon, and +rubbed it in for all he was worth. And he could not leave +it at that, either; but for pity's sake must bring in Hercules +at the end to win back Alcestis from death. So the play is +great-hearted and tender, and a covert lash for conventional +callousness; and somehow does not quite hang together:--leaves +you just a little uncomfortable. Browning calls him, in +_Balaustion's Adventure,_ + + ".... Euripides + The human, with his droppings of warms tears"; + +--it is a just verdict, perhaps. Without Aeschylus' Divine Wisdom, +or Sophocles' worldly wisdom, he groped perpetually after some +means to stay the downward progress of things; he could not +thunder like the one, nor live easily and let live, like the +other.--I do not give you these scraps of criticism (which are +not my own, but borrowed always I think), for the sake of +criticism; but for the sake of history;--understand them, and +you have the story of the age illumined. You can read the inner +Athens here, in the aspirations and in the limitations of +Euripides, and in the contempt in which Athens held him; as you +can read it in the grandeur of Aeschylus, and the Athenian +acceptance of, and then reaction against, him; and in the +character of Sophocles and his easy relations with his age. When +Euripides came, the light of the Gods had gone. He was blindish; +he would not accept the Gods without question. Yet was he on the +side of the Gods whom he could not see or understand; we must +count him on their side, and loved by them. He was not panoplied, +like Aeschylus or Milton, in their grim and shining armor; yet +what armor he wore bore kindred proud dints from the hellions' +batterings. Or perhaps mostly he wore such marks as wounds upon +his own flesh. . . . Not even a total lack of humor, which I +suppose must be attributed to him, can make him appear less than +a most sympathetic, an heroic figure. He was the child and +fruitage and outcast of his age, belonging as much to an Athens +declining and inwardly hopeless, as did Aeschylus (at first) to +Athens in her early glory. He was not so much bothered (like +Sophocles) with no message, as bothered with the fact that he had +no clear and saving message. His realism--for compared with the +other two, he was a sort of realist--was the child of his +despair; and his despair, of the atmosphere of his age. + +He was, or had been, in close touch with Socrates (you might +expect it); lived a recluse somewhat, taking no part in affairs; +married twice, unfortunately both times; and his family troubles +were among the points on which gentlemanly Athens sneered at him. +A lovely lyricist, a restless thinker; tender-hearted; sublime +in pity of all things weak and helpless and defeated:--women +especially, and conquered nations. Prof. Murray says: + +"In the last plays dying Athens is not mentioned, but her death- +struggle and her sins are constantly haunting us; the Joy of +battle is mostly gone; the horror of war is left. Well might old +Aeschylus pray, 'God grant that I may sack no city!' if the +reality of conquest is what it appears in the last plays of +Euripides. The conquerors there are as miserable as the +conquered; only more cunning, and perhaps more wicked." + +He died the year before Aegospotami, at the court of Archelaus of +Macedon. One is glad to think he found peace and honor at last. +Athens heard with a laugh that some courtier there had insulted +him; and with astonishment that the good barbarous Archelaus had +handed said courtier over to Euripides to be scourged for his +freshness. I don't imagine that Euripides scourged him though-to +amount to anything. + + + + +VI. SOCRATES AND PLATO + + +By this time you should have seen, rather than any picture of +Greece and Athens in their heyday, an indication of certain +universal historical laws. As thus (to go back a little): an +influx of the Spirit is approaching, and a cycle of high +activities is about to begin. A great war has cleared off what +karmic weight has been hanging over Athens;--Xerxes, you will +remember, burnt the town. Hence there is a clearness in the inner +atmosphere; through which a great spiritual voice may, and does, +speak a great spiritual message. But human activities proceed, +ever increasing their momentum, until the atmosphere is no longer +clear, but heavy with the effluvia of by no means righteous +thought and action. The Spirit is no more visibly present, but +must manifest if at all through a thicker medium; and who speaks +now, speaks as artist only,--not as poet--or artist-prophet. Time +goes on, and the inner air grows still thicker; till men live in +a cloud, through which truths are hardly to be seen. Then those +who search for the light are apt to cry out in despair; they +become realists struggling to break the terrible molds of +thought:--and if you can hear the Spiritual in them at all, it is +not in a positive message they have for men, but in the greatness +of their heart and compassion. They do not build; they seek only +to destroy. There seems nothing else for them to do. + +So in England, Wordsworth opened this last cycle of poetry; +coming when there was a clear atmosphere, and speaking more or +less clearly through it his message from the Gods. You hear a +like radiant note of hope in Shelley; and something of it in +Keats, who stood on the line that divides the Poet-Prophet from +the Poet-Artist. Then you come to the ascendency of Tennyson, +whose business in life was to be the latter. He tried the role of +prophet; he lived up to the highest he could: strove towards the +light much more gallantly than did Sophocles, his Athenian +paradigm. But the atmosphere of his age made him something of a +failure at it: no clear light was there for him to find, such as +could manifest through poetry. Then you got men like Matthew +Arnold with his cry of despair, and William Morris with his +longing for escape; then the influence of Realism. So many +poets recently have an element of Euripides in them; a will to +do well, but a despair of the light; a tendency to question +everything, but little power to find answers to their questions. +Then there were some few who, influenced (consciously or not) by +H.P. Blavatsky, that great dawn-herald, caught glimpses of the +splendor of a dawn--which yet we wait for. + +Euripides, with the Soul stirring within and behind him, "broke +himself on the bars of life and poetry," as Professor Murray +says. He was so hemmed in by the emanations of the time that he +could never clearly enunciate the Soul. Not, at any rate, in an +unmixed way, and with his whole energies. Perhaps his favorite +device of a _Deus ex Machina_--like Hercultes in the _Alcestis_ +--is a symbolical enunciation of it, and intended so to be. +Perhaps the cause of the unrest he makes us feel is this: he +knew that the highest artistic method was the old Aeschylean +symbolic one, and tried to use it; but at the same time was +compelled by the gross emanations of the age, which he was not +quite strong enough to rise above, to treat his matter not +symbolically, but realistically. He could not help saying: +"Here is the epos you Athenians want me to treat,--that my artist +soul forces me to treat; here are the ideas that make up your +conventional religion;--now look at them!" And forth-with he +showed them, in there exoteric side, sordid, ugly and bloody;-- +and then, on the top of that showing, tried to twist them round +to the symbolic impersonal plane again; and so left a discord +not properly solved, an imperfect harmony; a sense of loss +rather than gain; of much torn down, and nothing built up to +take its place. The truth was that the creative forces had +flowed downward until the organs of spiritual vision were no +longer open; and poetry and art, the proper vehicles of the +higher teaching in any age approximately golden, could no longer +act as efficient channels for the light. + +To turn to England again: Tennyson was, generally speaking, most +successful when most he was content to be merely the artist in +words, and least so when he assumed the office of Teacher; +because almost all he found to teach was brain-mind scientific +stuff; which was what the age called for, and the desired diet +of Mid-Victorian England. Carlyle, who was a far greater poet +essentially, and a far greater teacher actually, fitted himself +to an age when materialism had made unpoetic; and eschewed +poetry and had no use for it; and would have had others eschew +it also. In our own time we have realists like Mr. Masefield. +They are called realists because they work on the plane which has +come, in the absence of anything spiritual, to seem that of the +realities; the region of outside happenings, of the passions in +all their ugly nakedness, of sorrow, misery, and despair. Such +men may be essentially noble; we may read in them, under all the +ugliness and misery they write down, just one quality of the +Soul;--its unrest in and distaste for those conditions; but the +mischief of it is that they make the sordidness seem the reality; +and the truth about them is that their outlook and way of writing +are simply the result of the blindness of the Soul;--its +temporary blindness, not its essential glory. But the true +business of Poetry never changes; it is to open paths into the +inner, the beautiful, the spiritual world. + +Just when things were coming to this pass H. P. Blavatsky went to +England; and though she did not touch the field of creative +literature herself, brought back as you know a gleam of light and +beauty into poetry that may yet broaden out and redeem it. She +was born when the century was thirty-one years old; and, +curiously enough, there was a man born in Attica about 469, or +when _his_ century was thirty-one years old, who, though he did +not himself touch the field of literature, was the cause why that +light rose to shine in it which has shone most brilliantly since +all down the ages; that light which we could not afford to +exchange even for the light of Aeschylus. If one of the two were +about to be taken from us, and we had our choice which it should +be, we should have to cry, _Take Aeschylus, but leave us this!_ +--Ay, and take all other Greek literature into the bargain!--But +to return to the man born in 469. + +He was the son of humble people; his father was a stone-cutter +in a small way of business; his mother a midwife. He himself +began life as a sculptor,--a calling, in its lower reaches, not +so far above that of his father. A group of the Graces carved by +him was still to be seen on the road to the Acropolis two hundred +years after; and they did not adorn Athens with mean work, one +may guess; the Athens of Pericles and Pheidias. But, successful +or not, he seems soon to have given it up. Of his youth we know +very little. Spintharus, one of the few that knew him then and +also when he had become famous, said that he was a man of +terrible passions: anger hardly to be governed, and vehement +desires; "though," he added, "he never did anything unfair." * +By 'unfair' you may understand 'not fitting'--a transgression of +right action. He set out to master himself: a tremendous and +difficult realm to master. + +------ +* Gilbert Murray: _Ancient Greek Literature_ +------ + +We hardly begin to know him till he was growing old; and then he +was absolute monarch of that realm. We do not know when he +abandoned his art; or how long it was before he had won some +fame as a public teacher. We catch glimpse of him as a soldier: +from 432 to 429 he served at the siege of Potidaea; at Delium in +424; and at Amphipolis in 422. Thus to do the hoplite, carrying +a great weight of arms, at forty-seven, he needed to have some +constitution; and indeed he had;--furthermore, he played the +part with distinguished bravery--though wont to fall at times +into inconvenient fits of abstraction. Beyond all this, for the +outside of the man, we may say that he was of fascinating, +extreme and satyr-like ugliness and enormous sense of humor; +that he was a perpetual joke to the comic poets, and to himself; +an old fellow of many and lovable eccentricities; and that you +cannot pick one little hole in his character, or find any respect +in which he does not call for love. + +And men did love him; and he them. He saw in the youth of +Athens, whose lives so often were being wasted, Souls with all +the beautiful possibilities of Souls; and loved them as such, +and drew them towards their soulhood. Such love and insight is +the first and strongest weapon of the Teacher: who sees divinity +within the rough-hewn personalities of men as the sculptor sees +the God within the marble; and calls it forth. He was wont to +joke over his calling; his mother, said he, had been a midwife, +assisting at the birth of men's bodies; he himself was a midwife +of souls. How he drew men to him--of the power he had--let +Alcibiades bear witness. "As for myself," says Alcibiades, "were +I not afraid you would think me more drunk than I am, I would +tell you on oath how his words have moved me--ay, and how they +move me still. When I listen to him my heart beats with a more +than Corybantic excitement; he has only to speak and my tears +flow. Orators, such as Pericles, never moved me in this way-- +never roused my soul to the thought of my servile condition: but +this man makes me think that life is not worth living so long as +I am what I am. Even now, if I were to listen, I could not +resist. So there is nothing for me but to stop my ears against +this siren's song and fly for my life, that I may not grow old +sitting at his feet. No one would ever think that I had shame in +me; but I am ashamed in the presence of Socrates." + +Poor Alciabes! whom Socrates loved so well, and tried so hard to +save; and who could only preserve his lower nature for its own +and for his city's destruction by stopping his ears against his +Teacher! Alcibiades, whose genius might have saved Athens... +only Athens would not be saved... and he could not have saved +her, because he had stopped his ears against the man who made him +ashamed; and because his treacherous lower nature was always +there to thwart and overturn the efficacy of his genius;--what a +picture of duality it is! + +Socrates gave up his art; because art was no longer useful as an +immediate lever for the age. He knew poetry well, but insisted, +as Professor Murray I think says, on always treating it as the +baldest of prose. There was poetry about, galore; and men did +not profit by it: something else was needed. His mission was to +the Athens of his day; he was going to save Athens if he could. +So he went into the marketplace, the agora, and loafed about (so +to say), and drew groups of young men and old about him, and +talked to them. The Delphic Oracle had made pronouncement: +_Sophocles is wise; Euripides is wiser; but Socrates is the +wisest of mankind._ Sometimes, you see, the Delphic Oracle could +get off a distinctly good thing. But Socrates, with his usual +sense of humor, had never considered himself in that light at +all; oldish, yes; and funny, and ugly, by all means;--but wise! +He thought at first, he used to say, that the Oracle must be +mistaken, or joking; for Athens was full of reputed wise men, +sophists and teachers of philosophy like Prodicus and Protagoras; +whereas he himself, heaven knew--. Well, he would go out and make +a trial of it. So he went, and talked, and probed the wisdom of +his fellow-citizens; and slowly came round to the belief that +after all the Delphic Oracle might not have been such a fool. For +he knew his ignorance; but the rest were ignorant without +knowing it. This was his own way of telling the story; and you +can never be sure how much camouflage was in it;--and yet, too, +he was a giant humorist. Anyhow, he did show men their ignorance; +and you all know his solemn way of doing it. He drew them on +with sly questionings to see what idiots they were; and then drew +them on with more sly questionings to perceive at least a few +sound ethical truths. + +He took that humble patient means of saving Athens: by breaking +down false opinions and instilling true ones. It was beginning +quite at the bottom of things. Where we advertise a public +lecture, he button-holed a passer-by; and by the great power of +his soul won a following presently. To rouse up a desire for +right living in the youth of Athens: if he could do that, +thought he, he might save Athens for the world. I wonder what +the cycles of national glory would come to, how long they might +last, if only the Teachers that invade to save them could have +their way. Always we see the same picture: the tremendous effort +of the Gods to redeem these nations in the times of their +creative greatness; to lift them on to a spiritual plane, that +the greatness may not wane and become ineffective. There is the +figure that stands before the world, about whose perfection or +whose qualities you may wrangle if you will; he is great; he is +wonderful; he stirs up love and animosity;--but behind him are +the Depths, the Hierarchies, the Pantheons. Socrates' warning +Voice, the Daimon that counseled him in every crisis, has always +been a hard nut for critics to crack. He was an impostor, was +he? Away with you for a double fool! His life meets you so +squarely at every point; there was no atom in his being that +knew how to fear or lie.... Well, no; but he was deluded; he +mistook--. Man, there is more value in the light word of +Socrates affirming, than in a whole world full of evidence +denying, of such maunderers as you! See here; he was the most +sensible of men; balanced; keeping his head always;--a mind no +mood or circumstances could deflect from rational self-control, +either towards passion or ecstasy. One explanation remains--as +in the case of Joan, or of H.P. Blavatsky;--he was neither +deceiving nor deceived, but what he claimed to hear, he did hear; +and it was the voice of One that stood behind him, and might not +appear in history at all, or in the outer world at all: a +greater than he, and his Teacher; whose bodily presence might +have been in Greece the while, or anywhere else. How dare we +pretend, because we can do a few things with a piston or a +crucible, that we know the limits of natural and spiritual law? + +It is a strange figure to find in Greece; drawn thither, one +would say, by the attraction of opposites. He must have owed +some of his power to his being such a contrast to all things +familiar. Personal beauty was extremely common, and he was +comically ugly. The Athenians were one of the best-educated +populations of ancient or modern times--far ahead of ourselves; +and he was ill-educated, and acted as a public teacher. He was +hen-pecked at home, in an age when the place of woman was a very +subordinate and submissive one; and he was the butt of all +joke-lovers abroad, and himself enjoyed the joke most of all. +And he quietly stood alone, against the mob and his fellow-judges, +for the hapless victors of Arginusae in 406; and he quietly stood +alone against the Thirty Tyrants during their reign of terror in +404, disobeying them at peril of his life. But Strip him of the +"thing of sinews and muscles," as he called his outer self; +forget the queer old personality that appears in the _Clouds_ of +Aristophanes, or for that matter in the _Memorabilia_ of +Xenophon--and what kind of picture of Socrates should we see? +The humor would not go, for it is a universal quality; it has +been said no Adept was ever without it; could you draw aside the +veil of Mother Isis herself, and draw it suddenly, I suspect you +should surprise a laugh vanishing from her face. So the humor +would remain; and with it there would be ... something calm, +aloof, unshakable, yet vitally affectioned towards Athens, the +Athenians, humanity; something unsurprised at, far less hoping or +fearing anything from, life or death; in possession of "the +peace which passeth understanding"; native to "the eternity that +baffles all faculty of computation";--something that drew all +sorts and conditions of Athenians to him, good and bad, Plato and +Alcibiades, by "that diffusive love, not such as rises and falls +upon waves of life and mortality, not such as sinks and swells by +undulations of time, but a procession, an emanation, from some +mystery of endless dawn."--In point of fact, to get a true +portrait of Socrates you have to look at the Memnon's head. The +Egyptian artists carved it to be the likeness of the Perfect Man, +the Soul, always in itself sublime, absolute master of its flesh +and personality. That was what Socrates was. + +Well; the century ended, with that last quarter of it in which +the Lodge makes always its outward effort. Socrates for the Lodge +had left no stone unturned; he had made his utmost effort dally. +The democracy had been reinstated, and he was understood to be a +moderate in politics. And the democracy was conventional-minded +in religion; and he was understood to be irreligious, a +disturber and innovator. And the democracy was still smarting +from the wound; imposed on it by Critias and Charmides, +understood to have been his disciples; and could not forget the +treacheries of Alcibiades, another. And there were vicious +youths besides, whom he had tried and failed to save; they had +ruined themselves, and their reputable parents blamed and hated +him for the ruin, not understanding the position. And he himself +had seen so many of his efforts come to nothing: Alcibiades play +the traitor; Critias and Charmides, the bloody tyrant;--he had +seen many he had labored for frustrate his labors; he had seen +Athens fallen. He had done all he could, quietly, unfailingly +and without any fuss; now it was time for him to go. But going, +he might yet strike one more great blow for the Light. + +So with quiet zest and humor he entered upon the plans of his +adversaries, accepting his trial and sentence like--_like +Socrates;_ for there is no simile for him, outside himself. He +turned it all masterfully to the advantage of the Light he loved. +You all know how he cracked his grand solemn joke when the death +sentence was passed on him. By Athenian law, he might suggest an +alternative sentence; as, to pay a fine, or banishment. Well, +said he; death was not certainly an evil; it might be a very +good thing; whereas banishment was certainly an evil, and so was +paying a fine. And besides, he had no money to pay it. So the +only alternative he could suggest was that Athens should support +him for the rest of his life in the Prytaneum as a public +benefactor. Not a smile from him; not a tremor. He elected +deliberately; he chose death; knowing well that, as things +stood, he could serve humanity in no other way so well. So he put +aside Crito's very feasible plan for his escape, and at the last +gathered his friends around him, and discoursed to them. + +On Reincarnation. It was an old tradition, said he; and what +could be more reasonable than that the soul, departing to Hades, +should return again in its season:--the living born from the +dead, as the dead are from the living? Did not experience show +that opposites proceed from opposites? Then life must proceed +from, and follow, death. If the dead came from the living, and +not the living from the dead, the universe would at last be +consumed in death. Then, too, there was the doctrine that +knowledge comes from recollection; what is recollected must have +been previously known. Our souls must have existed then, +before birth. . . . + +Why did he talk like that: thus _reasoning_ about reincarnation, +and not stating it as a positive teaching? Well; there would be +nothing new and startling about it, to the Greeks. They knew of +it as a teaching both of Pythagoras and of the Orphic Mysteries: +that is, those did who were initiates or Pythagoreans. But it +was not public teaching, known to the multitude; and except +among the Pythagoreans, sophistry and speculation had impaired +its vitality as a matter of faith or knowledge. (So scientific +discovery and the spread of education have impaired the vitality +now of Christian presentations of ethics.) So that to have +announced it positively, at that time, would have served his +purpose but little: men would have said, "We have heard all that +before; had he nothing better to give us than stale ideas from +the Mysteries or Pythagoras?" What he wanted to do was to take +it out of the region of religion, where familiarity with it had +bread an approach to contempt; and restate it robbed of that +familiarity, and clothed anew in a garb of sweet reasonableness. +So once more, and as ususal, he assumed ignorance, and approached +the whole subject in a quiet and rational way, thus: I do not +say that this is positively so; I do not announce it as a dogma. +Dogmas long since have lost their efficacy, and you must stand or +fall now by the perceptions of your own souls, not by what I or +any authority may tell you. But as reasoning human beings, does +it not appeal to you? + +And the very spirit in which he approached it and approached his +death was precisely the one to engrave his last spoken ideas on +the souls of his hearers as nothing else could. No excitement; +no uplift or ecstasy of the martyr; quiet reasoning only; full, +serene, and, for him, common-place command of the faculties of +his mind. The shadow of death made no change in Socrates; how +then should they misunderstand or magnify the power of the shadow +of death?--"How shall we bury you?" asks Crito. Socrates turns +to the others present, and says: "I cannot persuade Crito that I +here am Socrates--I who am now reasoning and ordering discourse. +He imagines Socrates to be that other, whom he will see by and +by, a corpse."--So the scene went on until the last moment, when +"Phaedo veiled his face, and Crito started to his feet, and +Apollodorus, who had never ceased weeping all the time, burst out +into a loud and angry cry which broke down everyone but Socrates." + +Someone has said that there is nothing in tragedy or history so +moving as this death of Socrates, as Plato tells it. And yet its +tragic interest, its beauty, is less important, to my thinking, +than the insight it gives us into the methods and mental workings +of an Adept. Put ourselves into the mind of Socrates. He is +going to his death; which to him is about the same as, to us, +going to South Ranch or San Diego. You say I am taking the beauty +and nobility out of it; but no; I am only trying to see what +beauty and nobility look like from within. To him, then, his +death is in itself a matter of no personal moment. But the habit +of his lifetime has been to turn every moment into a blow struck +for the Soul, for the Light, for the Cause of Sublime Perfection. +And here now is the chance to strike the most memorable blow of +all. With infinite calmness he arranges every detail, and +proceeds to strike it. He continues to play the high part of +Socrates,--that is all. You might go to death like a poet, in +love with Death's solemn beauty, you might go to her like a +martyr, forgetting the awe of her in forevision of the splendor +that lies beyond. But this man broadly and publicly goes to her +like Socrates. He will allow her no fascination, no mystery; not +even, nor by any means, equality with the Soul of Man. . . . And +Apollodorus might weep then, and burst into an angry cry; and +Crito and Phaedo and the rest might all break down--_then;_ but +what were they to think afterwards? When they remembered how they +had seen Death and Socrates, those two great ones, meet; and how +the meeting had been as simple, as unaffected, as any meeting +between themselves and Socrates, any morning in the past, in the +Athenian _agora?_ And when Death should come to them, what should +they say but this: 'There is nothing about you that can impress +me; formerly I conversed with one greater than you are, and I +saw you pay your respects to Socrates.' + +Could he, could any man have proclaimed the Divinity in Man, its +real and eternal existence, in any drama, in any poem, in any +glorious splendor of rhetoric with what fervor soever of mystical +ecstasy endued--with such deadly effectiveness, such inevitable +success, as in this simple way he elected? There are men whose +actions seem to spring from a source super-ethical: it is cheap +to speak of them as good, great, beautiful or sublime: these are +but the appearances they assume as we look upwards at them. What +they are in themselves is: (1) Compassionate;--it is the law +of their being to draw men upwards towards the Spirit; (2) +Impersonal;--there is a non-being or vacuity in them where we +have our passions, likings, preferences, dislikes and desires. +They are, in the Chinese phrase, "the equals of Heaven and Earth"; + + "Earth, heaven, and time, death, life and they + Endure while they shall be to be." + +So Socrates, having failed in his life-attempt to save Athens, +entered with some gusto on that great _coup de main_ of his +death: to make it a thing which first a small group of his +friends should see; then that Greece should see; then that +thirty coming centuries and more should see; presented it +royally to posterity, for what, as a manifestation of the Divine +in man, it might be worth. + +And look! what is the result? Scarcely is the 'thing of muscles +and sinews' cold: scarcely has high Socrates forgone his queer +satyr-like embodiment: when a new luminary has risen into the +firmament,--one to shine through thirty centuries certainly, + + "Brighter than Jupiter--a blazing star + Brighter than Hesper shining out to sea" + +--one that is still to be splendid in the heavens wherever in +Europe, wherever in America, wherever in the whole vast realm of +the future men are to arise and make question and peer up into +the beautiful skies of the Soul. A Phoenix in time has arisen +from the ashes of Socrates: from the glory and solemnity of his +death a Voice is mystically created that shall go on whispering +_The Soul_ wherever men think and strive towards spirituality. +--Ah indeed, you were no failure, Socrates--you who were +disappointed of your Critias, your Charmides, your Alcibiades, +your whole Athens; you were not anything in the very least like +a failure; for there was yet one among your disciples-- + +He says, that one, that he was absent through illness during that +last scene of his Teacher's life. I do not know; it has been +thought that may have been merely a pretense, an artistic +convention, to give a heightened value of impersonality to his +marvelous prose:--for it was he who wrote down the account of the +death of Socrates for us: that tragedy so transcendent in its +beauty and lofty calm. But this much is certain: that day he was +born again: became, from a gilded youth of Athens, an eternal +luminary in the heavens, and that which he has remained these +three-and-twenty hundred years: the Poet-Philosopher of the +Soul, the Beacon of the Spirit for the western world.... + +He had been a brilliant young aristocrat among the crowd +that loved to talk with Socrates: the very best thing that +Athens could produce in the way of birth, charm, talent, and +attainments;--it is a marvel to see one so worshiped of Fortune +in this world, turn so easily to become her best adored in the +heaven of the Soul. On his father's side he was descended from +Codrus, last king of Athens; on his mother's, from Solon: you +could get nothing higher in the way of family and descent. In +himself, he was an accomplished athlete; a brilliant writer of +light prose; a poet of high promise when the mood struck him-- +and he had ideas of doing the great thing in tragedy presently; +trained unusually well in music, and in mathematics; deeply +read; with a taste for the philosophies; a man, in short, of +culture as deep and balanced as his social standing was high. But +it seemed as though the Law had brought all these excellencies +together mainly to give the fashionable Athenian world assurance +of a man; for here he was in his thirty-first year with nothing +much achieved beyond--his favorite pursuit--the writing of +_mimes_ for the delectation of his set: "close studies of little +social scenes and conversations, seen mostly in the humorous +aspect." * He had consorted much with Socrates; at the trial, +when it was suggested that a fine might be paid, and the hemlock +evitated, it was he who had first subscribed and gone about to +raise a sum. But now the death of his friend and Teacher struck +him like a great gale amidships; and he was transformed, another +man; and the great Star Plato rose, that shines still; the +great Voice Plato was lifted to speak for the Soul and to be +unequaled in that speaking, in the west, until H.P. Blavatsky came. + +------ +* Murray: _Ancient Greek Literature:_--whence all this as to +Plato's youth. +------ + +But note what a change had taken place with the ending of the +fifth century. Hitherto all the great Athenians had been great +Athenians. Aeschylus, witness of eternity, had cried his message +down to Athens and to his fellow-citizens; he had poured the +waters of eternity into the vial of his own age and place. I +speak not of Sophocles, who was well enough rewarded with the +prizes Athens had to give him. Euripides again was profoundly +concerned with his Athens; and though he was contemned by and +held aloof from her, it was the problems of Athens and the time +that ate into his soul. Socrates came to save Athens; he did not +seek political advancement, but would hold office when it came +his way; was enough concerned in politics to be considered a +moderate-one cause of his condemnation; but above all devoted +himself to raising the moral tone of the Athenian youth and +clearing their minds of falsity. Finally, he gave loyalty to his +city and its laws as one reason for rejecting Crito's plan for +his escape. What he hoped and lived for was, to save Athens; and +he was the more content to die, when he saw that this was no +longer possible. + +But Plato had no part nor lot in Athens. He loathed her doctrine +of democracy, as knowing it could come to no good. He had +affiliations, like Aeschylus, in Sicily, whither he made +certain journeys; and might have stayed there among his fellow +Pythagoreans, but for the irascible temper of Dionysius. But much +more, and most of all, his affiliations were in the wide Cosmos +and all time: as if he foresaw that on him mainly would devolve +the task of upholding spiritual ideas in Europe through the +millenniums to come. He dwelt apart, and taught in the Groves of +Academe outside the walls. Let Athens' foolish politics go +forward as they might, or backward--he would meddle with nothing. +It has been brought against him that he did nothing to help his +city 'in her old age and dotage'; well, he had the business of +thousands of coming years and peoples to attend to, and had no +time to be accused, condemned, and executed by a parcel of +obstreperous cobblers and tinkers hot-headed over the petty +politics of their day. The Gods had done with Athens, and were to +think now of the great age of darkness that was to come. He was +mindful of a light that should arise in Egypt, after some +five hundred years; and must prepare wick and oil for the +Neo-Platonists. He was mindful that there should be a thing called +the Renaissance in Italy; and must attend to what claims Pico di +Mirandola and others should make on him for spiritual food. He +must consider Holland of the seventeenth century, and England: +the Platonists of Cambridge and Amsterdam;--must think of Van +Helmont; and of a Vaughan who 'saw eternity the other night'; +of a Traherne, who should never enjoy the world aright without +some illumination from his star; of a young Milton, _penseroso,_ +out watching the Bear in some high lonely tower with thrice-great +Hermes, who should unsphere his spirit, + + "..... to unfold + What worlds and what vast regions hold + The immortal mind that hath forsook + Her mansion in this fleshy nook"; + +--no, but he must think of all times coming; and how, whenever +there should be any restlessness against the tyranny of +materialism and dogma, a cry should go up for _Plato._--So let +Isocrates, the 'old man eloquent,'--let a many-worded not +unpeculant patriotic Demosthenes who knew nothing of the +God-world--attend to an Athens wherein the Gods were no longer +greatly interested;--the great Star Plato should rise up into +mid-heaven, and shine not in, but high over Athens and quite +apart from her; drawing from her indeed the external elements of +his culture, but the light and substance from that which was +potent in her no longer. + +I said Greece served the future badly enough. Consider what might +have been. The pivot of the Mediterranean world, in the sixth +century, was not Athens, but in Magna Graecia: at Croton, where +Pythagoras had built his school. But the mob wrecked Croton, and +smashed the Pythagorean Movement as an organization; and that, I +take it, and one other which we shall come to in time, were the +most disastrous happenings in European history. Yes; the causes +why Classical civilization went down; why the Dark Ages were +dark; why the God in Man his been dethroned, and suffered all +this crucifixion and ignominy the last two thousand years. +Aeschylus, truly, received some needed backing from the relics of +the Movement which he found still existent in Sicily; but what +might he not have written, and what of his writings might not +have come down to us, preserved there in the archives, had he had +the peace and elevation of a Croton, organized, to retire to? +Whither, too, Socrates might have gone, and not to death, when +Athens became impossible; where Plato might have dwelt and +taught; revealing, to disciples already well-trained, much more +than ever he did reveal; and engraving, oh so deeply! on the +stuff of time, the truths that make men free. And there he should +have had successors and successors and successors; a line to +last perhaps a thousand or two thousand years; who never should +have let European humanity forget such simple facts as Karma and +Reincarnation. But only at certain times are such great +possibilities presented to mankind; and a seed-time once passed, +there can be no sowing again until the next season comes. It is +no good arguing with the Law of Cycles. Plato may not have been +less than Pythagoras; yet, under the Law, he might not attempt-- +it would have been folly for him to have attempted--that which +Pythagoras had attempted. So he had to take another line +altogether; to choose another method; not to try to prevent the +deluge, which was certain now to come; not even to build an ark, +in which something should be saved; but, so to say, to strew the +world with tokens which, when the great waters had subsided, +should still remain to remind men of those things it is of most +importance they should know. + +This is the way he did it. He advanced no dogma, formulated no +system; but what he gave out, he gave rather as hypotheses. His +aim was to set in motion a method of thinking which should lead +always back to the Spirit and Divine Truth. He started no world- +religion; founded no church--not even such a quite unchurchly +church as that which came to exist on the teachings of Confucius. +He never had the masses practicing their superstitions, nor a +priesthood venting its lust of power, in his name. Instead, he +arranged things so, that wherever fine minds have aspired to the +light of the Spirit, Plato has been there to guide them on their +way. So you are to see Star-Plato shining, you are to hear that +voice from the Spheres at song, when Shelley, reaching his +topmost note, sang: + + "The One remains, the many change and pass; + Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; + Life like a dome of many-coloured glass + Stains the white radiance of Eternity";-- + +and when Swinburne sings of Time and change that: + + "Songs they can stop that earth found meet, + But the Stars keep their ageless rhyme; + Flowers they can slay that Spring thought sweet, + But the Stars keep their Spring sublime, + Actions and agonies control, + And life and death, but not the Soul." + +In a poetic age--in the time of Aeschylus, for example--Plato +would have been a poet; and then perhaps we should have had to +invent another class of poets, one above the present highest; +and reserve it solely for the splendor of Plato. Because +Platonism is the very Theosophic Soul of Poetry. But he came, +living when he did, to loathe the very name of poetry: as who +should say: "God pity you! I give you the Way, the Truth, and the +Life, and you make answer, 'Charming Plato, how exquisitely +poetic is your prose!'" So his bitterness against poetry is +very natural. Poetry is the inevitable vehicle of the highest +truth; spiritual truth is poetry. But the world in general does +not know this. Like Bacon, it looks on poetry as a kind of +pleasurable lying. Plato went through the skies Mercury to the +Sun of Truth, its nearest attendant planet; and therefore was, +and could not help being, Very-Poet of very-poets. But Homer and +others had lied loudly about the Gods; and, thought Plato, the +Gods forbid that the truth he had to declare--a vital matter-- +should be classed with their loud lying. + +He masked the batteries of his Theosophy; camouflaged his great +Theosophical guns; but fired them off no less effectively, +landing his splendid shells at every ganglionic point in the +history of European thought since. Let a man soak his soul in +Plato; and it shall go hard but the fair flower Theosophy shall +spring up there presently and bloom. He prepares the soil: +suggesting the way to, rather than precisely formulating, the +high teachings. The advantage of the grand Platonic camouflage +has been twofold: on the one hand you could hardly dwarf your +soul with dogmatic acceptation of Platonism, because he gave all +his teachings--even Reincarnation--as hypotheses,--and men do not +as a rule crucify their mental freedom on an hypothesis. On the +other hand, how was any Church eager to burn out heresy and +heretics to deal with him? He was not to be stamped out; +because his influence depended on no continuity of discipleship, +no organization; because he survived merely as a tendency of +thought. No churchly fulminations might silence his batteries; +because he had camouflaged them, and they were not to be seen. +Of course he did not invent his ideas; they are as old as +Theosophy. The Lodge sent him to proclaim them in the way he +did: the best way possible, since the Pythagorean effort had +failed of its greatest success. What we owe to him--his genius +and inestimable gift to the world--is precisely that matchless +camouflage. It has been effective, in spite of efforts-- + +That, for instance, of a forward youth who came to Athens and +studied under him for twenty years, and whom Plato called the +intellect of the school, saying that he spurned his Teacher as +colts do their mothers. A youth, it is said, who revered Plato +always; and only gradually grew away from thinking of himself as +a Platonist. But he never could have understood the inwardness +of Plato or Platonism, for his mind turned as naturally to +scientific or brain-mind methods, as Plato's did to mysticism and +the illumination of the Soul. He adopted much of the teaching, +but gave it a twist brain-mindwards; yet not such a twist, +either, but that the Neo-Platonists in their day, and certain of +the Arab and Turkish philosophers after them, could re-Platonize +it to a degree and admit him thus re-Platonized into their canon. +I am not going to trouble you much with Aristotle; let this from +the Encyclopedia suffice: "Philosophic differences" it says "are +best felt by their practical effects: philosophically, Platonism +is a philosophy of universal forms, Aristotelianism is a +philosophy of individual substances: practically, Plato makes us +think first of the supernatural and the kingdom of heaven, +Aristotle of the natural and the whole world." + +Or briefly, Aristotle took what he could of Plato's inspiration, +and turned it from the direction of the Soul to that of the +Brain-mind. The most famous of Plato's disciples, he did what he +could, or what he could not help doing, to spoil Plato's message. +But Plato's method had guarded that, so that for mystics +it should always be there, Aristotle or no. But for mere +philosophers, seeming to improve on it, he had something tainted +it. It descended, as said, through the Neo-Platonists--who +turned it back Plato-ward--to the Moslems: through Avicenna, who +Aristotelianized, to Averroes, who Platonized it again; and from +him to Europe; where Bacon presently gave it another twist to +out-Aristotle Aristotle (as someone said) to stagger the +Stagirite--and passed it on as the scientific method of today. +According to Coleridge, every man is by nature either a Platonist +or an Aristotelian; and there is some truth in it. + +And meanwhile, though the huge Greek illumination could die but +slowly, Greece was growing uninteresting. For Pheidias of the +earlier century, we have in Plato's time Praxiteles, whose carved +gods are lounging and pretty nincom--- well, mortals; "they +sink," says the Encyclopedia, "to the human level, or indeed, +sometimes almost below it. They have grace and charm in a supreme +degree, but the element of awe and reverence is wanting."--We +have an Aphrodite at the bath, a 'sweet young thing' enough, no +doubt; an Apollo Sauroctonos, "a youth leaning against a tree, +and idly striking with an arrow at a lizard." A certain natural +magic has been claimed for Praxiteles and his school and +contemporaries; but if they had it, they mixed unholy elements +with it.--And then came Alexander, and carried the dying impetus +eastward with him, to touch India with it before it quite +expired; and after that Hellenism became Hellenisticism, and what +remained of the Crest-Wave in Greece was nothing to lose one +little wink of sleep over. + + + + +VII. THE MAURYAS OF INDIA + + +"Some talk of Alexander" may be appropriate here; but not much. +He was Aristotle's pupil; and apart from or beyond his terrific +military genius, had ideas. Genius is sometimes, perhaps more +often than we suspect, an ability to concentrate the mind into a +kind of impersonality; almost non-existence, so that you have in +it a channel for the great forces of nature to play through. We +shall find that Mr. Judge's phrase 'the Crest-Wave of Evolution' +is no empty one: words were things, with him and in fact, as he +says; and it is so here. For this Crest-Wave is a force that +actually rolls over the world as a wave over the face of the sea, +raising up splendors in one nation after another in order +_geographically,_ and with no haphazard about it. Its first and +largest movement is from East to West; producing (as far as I +can see) the great manvantaric periods (fifteen hundred years +apiece) in East Asia, West Asia, and Europe; each of these being +governed by its own cycles. But it has a secondary movement as +well; a smaller motion within the larger one; and this produces +the brilliant days (thirteen decades long for the most part) that +recur in the manvantaras. Thus: China seems to have been in +manvantara from 2300 to 850 B. C.; West Asia, from 1890 to 390; +Europe, from 870 B. C. to 630 A. D. So in the time of Alexander +West Asia was newly dead, and China waiting to be reborn. The +Crest-Wave, in so far as it concerned the European manvantara, +had to roll westward from Greece (in its time) to awaken Italy; +but in its universal aspect--in its strongest force--it had to +roll eastward, that its impulse might touch more important China +when her time for awaking should come. It is an impetus, of which +sometimes we can see the physical links and lines along which it +travels, and sometimes we cannot. The line from Greece to China +lies through Persia and India. But Persia was dead, in pralaya; +you could expect no splendor, no mark of the Crest-Wave's +passing, there. So Alexander, rising by his genius and towering +ideas to the plane where these great motions are felt, skips you +lightly across dead Persia, knocks upon the doors of India to say +that it is dawn and she must be up and doing; and subsides. I +doubt he carried her any cultural impulse, in the ordinary sense; +it is _our_ Euro-American conceit to imagine the Greek was the +highest thing in civilization in the world at that time. We may +take it that Indian civilization was far higher and better in all +esentials; certainly the Greeks who went there presently, and +left a record, were impressed with that fact. You shall see; +out of their own mouths we will convict them. It is the very +burden of Megasthenes' song. + +Alexander had certain larger than Greek conceptions, which one +must admire in him. Though he overthrew the Persians, he never +made the mistake of thinking them an inferior race. On the +contrary, he respected them highly; and proposed to make of them +and his Greeks and Mecedoinians one homogeneous people, in which +the Persian qualities of aristocracy should supply a need he +felt in Europeans. The Law made use of his intention, partially, +and to the furtherance of its own designs.--His method of +treating the conquered was (generally) far more Persian or +Asiatic than Greek; that is to say, far more humane and decent +than barbarous. He took a short cut to his broad ends, and +married all his captains to Persian ladies, himself setting the +example; whereas most Greeks would have dealt with the captive +women very differently. So that it was a kind of enlightenment +he set out with, and carried across Persia, through Afghanistan, +and into the Punjab,--which, we may note, was but the outskirts +of the real India, into which he never penetrated; and it may +yet be found that he went by no means so far as is supposed; but +let that be. So now, at any rate, enough of him; he has brought +us where we are to spend this evening. + +For a student of history, there is something mysterious and even +--to use a very vile drudge of a word--'unique' about India. Go +else where you will, and so long as you can posit certainly a +high civilization, and know anything of its events, you can make +some shift to arrange the history. None need boggle really at +any Chinese date after about 2350 B.C.; Babylon is fairly +settled back to about 4000; and if you cannot depend on assigned +Egyptian dates, at least there is a reasonably know sequence of +dynasties back through four or five millennia. But come to +India, and alas, where are you? All out of it, chronologically +speaking; enough; very likely, the flotsam and jetsam of +several hundred thousand years. I have no doubt the Puranas are +crowded with history; but how much of what is related is to +be taken as plain fact; how much as 'blinds'; how much as +symbolism--only the Adepts know. The three elements are mingled +beyond the wit of man to unravel them; so that you can hardly +tell whether any given thing happened in this or that millennium, +Root-Race period, or Round of Worlds, or Day of Brahma. You are +in the wild jungles of fairyland; where there are gorgeous +blooms, and idylls, dreamlit, beautiful and fantastical, all +in the deep midwood lonliness; and time is not, and the +computations of chronology are an insult to the spirit of your +surroundings. History, in India, was kept an esoteric science, +and esoteric all the ancient records remain now; and I dare say +any twice-born Brahmin not Oxfordized knows far more about it +than the best Max Mullers of the west, and laughs at them +quietly. Until someone will voluntarily lift that veil of +esotericism, the speculations of western scholars will go for +little. Why it should be kept esoteric, one can only guess; I +think if it were known, the cycles and patterns of human history +would cease to be so abstruse and hidden from us: we should know +too much for our present moral or spiritual status. As usual, +our own _savants_ are avid to dwarf all dates, and bring +everything within the scope of a few thousand years; as for the +native authorities, they simply try confusions with us; if you +should trust them too literally, or some of them, events such as +the Moslem conquest will not take place for a few centuries yet. +They do not choose that their ancient history should be known; +so all things are in a hopeless muddle. + +One thing to remember is this: it is a continent, like Europe; +not a country, like France. The population is even more +heterogeneous than that of Europe. Only one sovereign, Aurangzeb +--at least for many thousands of years--was ever even nominally +master of the whole of it. There are two main divisions, widely +different: Hindustan or Aryavarta, north of the Vindhya Mountains +and the River Nerbudda; and Dakshinapatha or the Deccan, the +peninsular part to the south. The former is the land of the +Aryans; the people of the latter are mainly non-Aryan--a race +called the Dravidians whom, apparently, the Aryans conquered in +Hindustan, and assimilated; but whom in the Deccan, though they +have influenced them largely, and in part molded their religion, +they never quite conquered or supplanted. Well; never is a long +day; dear knows what may have happened in the long ages +of pre-history. + +The Aryans came down into India through its one open door--that +in the northwest. But when?--Oh, from about 1400 to 1200 B.C., +says western scholarship; which has spent too much ingenuity +altogether over discovering the original seat of the Aryans, and +their primal civilization. After Sir William Jones and others +had introduce Sanskrit to western notice, and its affinity had +been discovered to that whole chain of languages which is +sometimes called Indo-European, the theory long held that +Sanskrit was the parent of all these tongues, and that all their +speakers had emigrated at different times from somewhere in +Central Asia. But in the scientific orthodoxies fashion reigns +and changes as incontinently as in dress. Scholars rose to +launch a new name for the race: _Indogermanic;_ and to prove +Middle-Europe the Eden in which it was created. Then others, to +dodge that Eden about through every corner of Europe; which +at least must have the honor;--it could not be conceded to +_inferior_ Asia. All the languages of the group were examined +and worried for evidence. Men said, 'By the names of trees we +shall run it to earth'; and this was the doxy that was ortho-for +some time. Light on a tree-name common to all the languages, and +find in what territory that tree is indigenous: that will +certainly be the place. As thus; I will work out for you a +suggestion given in the encyclopaedia, that you may see what +strictly scientific methods of reasoning may lead to:-- + +Perhaps the two plant names most universally met with in all +Aryan languages, European or Asiatic, are _potato_ and _tobacco._ +'From Greenland's icy mountains to Ceylon's sunny isle, Whereever +prospect pleases, And only man is vile.'--you shall nearly always +hear the vile ones calling the humble tuber of their mid-day +meal by some term akin to _potato,_ and the subtle weed that +companions their meditations, by some word like _tobacco._ +_Argal,_ the Aryan race used these two words before their +separation; and if the two words, the two plants also. You +follow the reasoning?--Now then, seek out the land where these +plants are indigenous; and if haply it shall be found they both +have one original habitat, why, there beyond doubt you shall find +the native seat of the primitive Aryans. And, glory be to +Science! they do; both come from Virginia. Virginia, then, is +the Aryan Garden of Eden. + +Ah but, strangely enough, we do find one great branch of the +race--the Teutons--unacquainted with the word _potato._ You may +argue that the French are too: but luckily, Science has the +seeing eye; Science is not to be cheated by appearances. The +French say _pomme de terre;_ but this is evidently only a +corruption--_potater, pomdeter_--twisted at some late period by +false analogy into _pomme de terre,_ ('apple of the earth'.) But +the Teuton has _kartoffel,_ utterly different; argal again, the +Teutons must have separated from the parent stem before the +Aryans had discovered that the thing was edible and worth naming. +They, therefore, were the first to leave Virginia: paddle their +own canoes off to far-away Deutschland before ever the mild +Hindoo set out for Hindustan, the Greek for Greece, or the +Anglo-Saxon for Anglo-Saxony. But even the Teutons have the word +_tobacco._ Come now, what a light we have here thrown on the +primitive civilization of our forefathers! They knew, it seems, +the virtures of the weed or ever they had boiled or fried a single +murphy; they smoked first, and only ate long afterwards: and +the Germans who led that first expedition out from the fatherland +of the race, must have gone with full tobacco-pouches and empty +lunch-bags. What a life-like picture rises before our eyes! +These first Aryans were a dreamy contemplative people; tobacco +was the main item in their lives, the very basis of their +civilization.--Then presently, after the Teutons had gone, +someone must have let his pipe go out for a few minutes--long +enought to discover that he was hungry, and that a fair green +plant was growing at his door, with a succulent tuber at the root +of it which one could EAT. Think of the joy, the wonder, of that +momentous discovery! Did he hide it away, lest others should be +as happy as himself? Were ditectives set to watch him, to spy +out the cause of a habit of sleek rotundity that was growing upon +him at last visibly? We shall never know. Or did he call in his +neighbors at once and annouce it? Did someone ask: 'What shall +we name this God-given thing?'--and did another reply: 'It looks +to me like a _potato;_ let's call it that!'? That at least must +have been how it came by it name. They received the suggestion +with acclamations: and all future out-going expeditions took +sacks of it with them; and their descendants have continued to +call it _potato_ to this day. For you must not that being the +only food with a name common to all the languages--or almost all +--it must be supposed to have been the only food they knew of +before their separation. Even the words for _father, mother, +fire, water,_ and the like, have a greater number of different +roots in the Aryan languages than have these blessed two. + +To say the truth, a dawning perception of the possibilities +of this kind of reasoning chilled the enthusiasm of the +Aryan-hunters a good deal; it was the bare bodkin that did +quietus make for much philological pother and rout. No; if +you are to prove racial superiority or exclusiveness, you had +much better avail yourself of the simplicity of a stout bludgeon, +than rely upon the subtleties of brain-mind argumentation; for +time past is long, and mostly hidden; and lots of things have +happened to account for your proofs in ways you would never +suspect. The long and short of it is, that after pursuing +the primitive Aryans up hill and down dale through all parts +of Europe, Science is forced to pronouce her final judgement +thus: _We really know nothing about it._ + +The ancestors of this Fifth Root-Race emigrated to Central Asia +to escape the fate of Atlantis; whither too went several +Atlantean peoples, such as the forefathers of the Chinese,--who +were not destined to be destroyed. It is a vast region, and +there was room for them all. That emigration may have been as +long a process as that of the Europeans in our own time to +America; probably it was; or longer. But it happened, at any +rate, a million years ago; and in a million years a deal of +water will flow under the bridges. You may call English +a universal language now; it might conceivably become so +absolutely, after a few centuries. But history will go on and +time, and the cyclic changes inherent in natural law. These are +not to be dodged by railways, turbines, aeroplanes; you cannot +evitate their action by inventing printing-presses;--which, I +suppose, have been invented and forgotten dozens of times 'since +created man.' In a million years from now the world will have +contracted and expanded often. We have seen, in our little period +called historical, hardly anything but expansion; though there +have been contractions, too. But contractions there will be, +major ones; it is quite safe to foretell that; because action +and reaction are equal and opposite: it is a fundamental law. +Geography will re-become, what it was in the times we call +ancient, an esoteric science; the races will be isolated, and +there will be no liners on the seas, and Europe and Asia +will be fabulous realms of faerie for our more or less remote +descendants. Then what will have become of the once universal +English language?--It will have split into a thousand fragment +tongues, as unlike as Dutch and Sanskrit; and philology--the +great expansion having happened again--will have as much +confusion to unravel in the Brito-Yankish, as it has now in the +Indo-European.--In a million years?--Bless my soul, in a poor +little hundred thousand! + +The Aryan languages, since they began to be, have been spreading +out and retreating, mixing and changing and interchanging; one +imposed on another, hidden under another, and recrudescing +through another; through ten or a hundred thousand years,--or +however long it may be; just as they have been doing in +historical times. You find Persian half Arabicized; Armenian +come to be almost a dialect of Persian; Latin growing up through +English; Greek almost totally submerged under Latin, Slavonic, +and Turkish, and now with a tendency to grow back into Greek; +Celtic preserving in itself an older than Aryan syntax, and +conveying that in its turn to the English spoken by Celts. +Language is, to say the truth, a shifting kaleidoscopic thing: a +momentary aspect of racial expression. In a thousand years it +becomes unintelligible; we are modifying ours every day, upon +laws whose nature can be guessed. Yet ultimately all is a +symphony and ordered progression, with regular rhythms recurring; +it only seems a chaos, and unmusical, because we hear no more +than the fragment of a bar. + +You all know the teaching of _The Secret Doctrine_ about the +Root-Races of Humanity, of which this present one, generally +called the Aryan, is the fifth; and how each is divided into +seven sub-races; each sub-race into seven family-races; and +each family-race into innumerable nations and tribes. According +to that work, this Fifth Root-Race has existed a million years. +The period of a sub-race is said to be about 210,000 years; and +that of a family-race, about 30,000. So then, four sub-races +would have occupied the first 840,000 years of the Fifth Race's +history; and our present fifth sub-race would have been in being +during the last 160,000 years; in which time five family-races +would have flourished and passed; and this present sixth +family-race would be about ten millenniums old. Now, no single +branch of the Aryans: by which term I mean the sixth family-race; +I shall confine it to that, and not apply it to the Fifth Root-Race +as a whole,--no single race among the Aryans has been universal, +or dominant, or prominent even, during the whole of the last ten +thousand years. The Teutons (including Anglo-Saxons), who loom so +largely now, cut a very small figure in the days when Latin was, +in its world, something more universal than English is in ours; +and a few centuries before that, you should have heard Celtic, +and little else, almost anywhere in Europe. This shows how +fleeting a thing is the sovereignty of any language; within the +three thousand years we know about, three at least of the Aryan +language-groups have been 'universal'; within the last ten +milleniums there has been time enough, and to spare, for a +'universality' each of Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Slavonic, Latin, +Teutonic, and Celtic. So evidently none of these is the language +of the family-race: we may speak of the Aryan Family-Race; not +of the Celtic or Slavonic. + +But it does not follow that the whole sub-race is not Aryan too. +Mr. Judge says somewhere that Sanskrit will be the universal +language again. Supposing that there were some such scheme of +evolution here, as in the world-chain? You know the diagram in +_The Secret Doctrine,_ with the teaching as to the seven rounds. +_As above, so below;_ when H. P. Blavatsky seems to be giving +you a sketch of cosmic evolution, often she is at the same time, +if you can read it, telling you about the laws that govern your +own and the race's history. I suspect some such arrangement as +this: when the sub-race began, 160,000 years ago, Sanskrit was +its 'universal' language; spoken by all the Aryans that moved +out over Europe and into India. An unaccountable Sanskrit +inscription has been found in Asia Minor;* and there is +Lithuania, a little speech-island in northeastern Central +Europe, where a nearly Sanskrit language, I believe, survives. +Then Sanskrit changed imperceptibly (as American is changing from +English) into the parent language of the Persian group, which +became the general speech of the sub-race except in India, where +Sanskrit survived as a _seed-speech_ for future resurrection. +Then, perhaps _pari passu_ with further westward expansion, +Persian changed into the parent of the Slavonic group, itself +living on as a seed-speech in Iran; and so on through all the +groups; in each case the type-language of a group remaining, to +expand again after the passage of ages and when its cycle should +return, in or about its corresponding psychic center on the +geographical plane. Then this evolution, having reached its +farthest limit, began to retrace its course; I would not attempt +to say in what order the language groups come: which is +globe A in the chain, which Globe D, and so on; but merely +suggest that a 'family race' may represent one round from +Sanskrit to Sanskrit; and the whole Fifth Sub-race, seven +such complete rounds. + +------ +* _Ancient India,_ by E. J. Rapson +------ + +What came before? What was the Fourth Sub-race? Well: I imagine +we may have the relic, the _sishta_ or seed of it, in the Hamitic +peoples and languages: the Libyans, Numidians, Egyptians, +Iberians, and Pelasgians of old; the Somalis, Gallas, Copts, +Berbers, and Abyssinians of today. We are almost able to discern +a time--but have not guessed when it was--when this Iberian race, +having perhaps its central seat in Egypt, held all or most lands +as far as Ireland to the west, and Japan and New Zealand +eastward; we find them surviving, mixed with, but by no means +submerged under, Aryan Celts in Spain--which is Iberia; we find +their name (I imagine) in that of Iverne, Ierine, Hibernia, or +Ireland; we know that they gave the syntax of their language to +that of the Celts of the British Isles; and that the Celtic races +of today are mainly Iberian in blood--I daresay all Europe is +about half Iberian in blood, as a matter of fact;--that the +Greeks found them in Greece: I suspect that the main difference +between Sparta and Athens lay in the fact that Sparta was pure +Aryan, Athens mainly Iberian.--It seems to me then that we can +almost get a glimpse of the sub-race preceding our own. Some have +been puzzled by a seeming discrepancy between Katherine Tingley's +statement that Egypt is older than India, and H. P. Blavatsky's, +that Menes, founder of the Egyptian monarchy, went from India to +Egypt to found it. But now suppose that something like this +happened--would it not solve the problem?--In 158,000 B. C., or +at the time this present Aryan Sub-race began, Egypt, one state +in the huge Iberian series, was already a seat of civilization as +old as the Iberian race. There may have been an Iberian Empire, +almost world-wide; which again may have split into many +kingdoms; and as the star of the whole race was declining, we +may suppose Egypt in some degree of pralaya; or again, that it +may have been an outlying and little-considered province _at that +time._ In Central Asia the Sanskrit-speaking tribe begins to +increase and multiply furiously. They pour down into Iberian +Hindustan. They are strong, and the Gods are leading them; the +Iberians have grown world-weary with the habit of long empire. +The Iberian power goes down before them; the Iberians become a +subject people. But there is one Menes among the latter, of the +royal house perhaps, who will not endure subjection. He stands +out as long as he may; then sails west with his followers for +Iberian lands that the Aryans have not disturbed, and are not +likely to. In their contests with the invaders of India, they +have thrown off all world-weariness, and become strong; Prince +Menes is hailed in Egypt (as the last of the Ommevads, driven out +from the East by the Abbasids, was hailed in Spain); he wakens +Egypt, and founds a new monarchy there.--I am telling the tale of +very ancient and unknown conditions in terms of historic +conditions we know about and can understand; it is only the +skeleton of the story I would stand for. + +And to put Menes back at 160,000 years ago--what an amusing idea +that will seem!--But the truth is we must wage war against this +mischievous foreshortening of history. I have no doubt there have +been empires going, from time to time, in Egypt, since before +Atlantis fell; people have the empire-building instinct, and it +is an eminently convenient place for empire-building. I have no +doubt there have been dozens of different Meneses--that is, +founders of Egyptian monarchies,--with thousands of years +between each two. But I think probably the one that came from +India to do it, came about the time when the fifth sub-race rose +to supplant the fourth as that section of humanity in which +evolution was chiefly interested. + +Which last phrase in itself is rank heresy, and smacks of the +'white man's burden,' and all such nonsense as that. We might +learn a lesson here. Think: since that time, during how many +thousands of years, off and on, has not that old sub-race been +the darling of evolution, the seat of the Crest-Wave, and place +where all things were doing? All the Setis, the grand Rameseses +and Thothmeses came since then; all the historic might and glory +of Egypt. You never know rightly when to say that the life of a +sub-race is ended; the two-hundred-and-ten-century period +cannot, I imagine, include it from birth to death; but can only +mark the time between the rise of one, and the rise of another.-- +But now to India. + +We have no knowledge of the last time when Sanskrit was spoken: +it has always been, in historic or quasi-historic ages, what it +is now--literary language preserved by the high castes. In the +days of the Buddha it had long given place to various vernaculars +grown out of it: Pali, and what are called the Prakrits.--We +have lost memory of what I may call the archetypal languages of +Europe: the common ancestor of the Celtic group, for instance; +or that Italian from which Latin and the lost Oscan and Savellian +and the rest sprang. No matter; they remain in the ideal world, +and I doubt not in the course of our cyclic evolution we shall +return to them, take them up, and pass through them again. But +it seems to me that in the land of Esoteric History, where Manu +provided in advance against the main destructiveness of war, the +archetypal language of the whole sub-race has been preserved. +The Aryans went down into India, and there, at the extreme end of +the Aryan world, enjoyed some of the advantages of isolation: +they were in a backwater, over which the tides of the languages +did not flow. By esotericizing their history, I imagine they have +really kept it intact, continuous, and within human memory; as +we have not done with ours. As if that which is to be preserved +forever, must be preserved in secret; and silence were the only +durable casket for truth. + +The Greeks, they say, were very gifted liars; but I do not +see why we should suppose them lying, when they sang the +superiorities of Indian things and people;--_as they did._ The +Indians, says Megasthenes, were taller than other men, and of +greater distinction and prouder bearing. The air and water of +their land were the purest in the world; so you would expect in +the people, the finest culture and skill in the arts. Almost +always they gathered two harvests in the years; and _famine had +never visited India._--You see, railways, quick communications, +and all the appliances of modern science and invention cannot do +as much for India in pralaya, as her own native civilization +could do for her in manvantara.--Then he goes on to show how that +civilization guarded against famine and many other things; and +incidentally to prove it not only much higher than the Greek, but +much higher than our own. I said Manu provided in advance +against the main destructiveness of war: here was the custom, +which may have been dishonored in the breach sometimes, but still +_was the custom._--The whole continent was divided into any +number of kingdoms; mutually antagonistic often, but with +certain features of homogeneity that made the name Aryavarta more +than a geographical expression. I am speaking of the India +Megasthenes saw, and as it had been then for dear knows how long. +It had made concessions to human weakness, yes; had fallen, as I +think, from an ancient unity; it had not succeeded in abolishing +war. It was open to any king to make himself a Chakravartin, or +world-sovereign, if he disposed of the means for doing so: +which means were military. As this was a well-recognised +principle, wars were by no means rare. But with them all, what a +Utopia it was, compared to Christendom! There was never a draft +or conscription. Of the four castes, the Kshatriya or warrior +alone did the fighting. While the conches brayed, and the war- +cars thundered over Kurukshetra; while the pantheons held their +breath, watching Arjun and mightiest Karna at battle--the +peasants in the next field went on hoeing their rice; they knew +no one was making war on them. They trusted Gandiva, the goodly +bow, to send no arrows their way; their caste was inviolable, and +sacred to the tilling of the soil. Megasthenes notes it with +wonder. War implied no ravaging of the land, no destruction +of crops, no battering down of buildings, no harm whatever +to non-combatants. + +Kshatriya fought Kshatriya. If you were a Brahmin: which is to +say, a theological student, or a man of letters, a teacher or +what not of the kind--you were not even called up for physical +examination. If you were a merchant, you went on quietly with +your 'business as usual.' A mere patch of garden, or a peddler's +tray, saved you from all the horrors of a questionnaire. +Kshatriya fought Kshatriya, and no one else; and on the +battlefield, and nowhere else. The victor became possessed of +the territory of the vanquished; and there was no more fuss or +botheration about it. + +And the vanquished king was not dispossessed, Saint Helenaed, or +beheaded. Simply, he acknowledged his conqueror as his overlord, +paid him tribute; perhaps put his own Kshatriya army at his +disposal; and went on reigning as before. So Porus met Alexander +without the least sense of fear, distrust, or humiliation at his +defeat. "How shall I treat you?" said the Macedonian. Porus +was surprised.--"I suppose," said he in effect, "as one king +would treat another"; or, "like a gentleman." And Alexander rose +to it; in the atmosphere of a civilization higher than anything +he knew, he had the grace to conform to usage. Manu imposed his +will on him. Porus acknowledged him for overlord, and received +accretions of territory.--This explains why all the changes of +dynasty, and the many conquests and invasions have made so little +difference as hardly to be worth recording. They effected no +change in the life of the people. Even the British Raj has been, +to a great degree, molded to the will of Manu. Each strong +native state is ruled by its own Maharaja, who acknowledges the +Kaiser-i-Hind at London for his overlord, and lends him at need +his Moslem or Kshatriya army.--All of which proves, I think, the +extreme antiquity of the svstem: which is so firmly engraved in +the prototypal world--the astral molds are so strong--that no +outside force coming in has been able materially to change it. +The Greek invasion goes wholy unnoticed in Indian literature. + +Which brings us back to Alexander. If he got as far as to the +Indus;--he got no farther. There were kingdoms up there in +the northwest--perhaps no further east than Afghanistan and +Baluchistan--which had formed part of the empire of Darius +Hystaspes, and sent contingents to fight under Xerxes in Greece; +and these now Alexander claimed as Darius Codomannus's successor. +But even in these outlying regions, he found conditions very +different from those in Persia: there was no "unquestionable +superiority of the European to the Asiatic," nor nothing like. +Had he gone further, and into the real India of the Ganges +valley, his name, it is likely, would not have come down +synonymous with victory; presentlv we will call Megasthenes to +witness again as to the "unquestionable superiority of the +Asiatic to the European." But thither the Macedonians refused to +follow their king; and I suppose he wept rather over their +insubordination, than for any overwhelmment with a sense of +terrene limits. For he knew well that there was plenty more world +to conquer, could one conquer it: rich and mighty kingdoms +beyond that Thar Desert his soldiers are said to have refused to +cross. He knew, because there were many to tell him: exiled +princes and malcontents from this realm and that, each with his +plan for self-advancement, and for using the Macedonia as a +catspaw. Among them one in particular: as masterful a man as +Alexander, and a potential world-conqueror himself. He was +(probably) a more or less illegitimate scion of the House of +Nanda, then reigning in Magadha; which country, now called +Behar, had been growing at the expense of its Gangetic neighbors +for some centuries. King Suddhodana, the Buddha's father, had +reigned over the Sakyas in Nepaul as a tributary under the king +of Magadha; which statement I let pass, well aware that the +latest western scholarship has revolutionized the Sakyas into a +republic--perhaps with soviets,--and King Suddhodana himself into +a mere ward politician. + +This Sandrakottos, as the Greeks called him, had many tales to +tell of the wealth of his kinsman's kingdom, and of the extreme +unpopularity of its ruler:-and therefore of the ease with which +Alexander might conquer it and hand it over to him. But two of a +trade seldom agree; both he and his host were born to rule +empires; and presently he offended susceptibilities, and had to +flee the camp. Whereupon he shortly sharked up a list of landless +reprobates, Kshatriyas at a loose end, for food and diet; and +the enterprise with a stomach in't was, as soon as Alexander's +back was turned, to drive out the Macedonian garrisons. This +done, he marched eastward as king of the Indus region, conquered +Magadha, slew his old enemy the Nanda king with all male members +of the family, and reigned in his stead as Chandragupta I, of +the house of Maurya. That was in 321. Master then of a highly +trained army of about 700,000, he spread his empire over all +Hindustan. In 305, Seleucus Nicator, Alexander's successor in +Asia, crossed the Indus with an army, and was defeated; and in +the treaty which followed, gave up to Chandragupta all claim to +the Indian provinces, together with the hand of his daughter in +marriage.--and received by way of compensation 500 elephants +that might come in useful in his wars elsewhere. Also he sent +Megisthenes to be his ambassador at Pataliputra, Chandragupta's +capital; and Megasthenes wrote; and in a few quotations from +his lost book that remain, chiefly in Arrian,--we get a kind of +window wherethrough to look into India: the first, and perhaps +the only one until Chinese travelers went west discovering. + +Here let me flash a green lantern. If at some future time it +should be shown that the Chandragupta Maurya of the Sanskrit +books was not the same person as the Sandacottos of Megasthenes; +nor his son Bindusara Amitraghata, the Amitrochidas of the +Greeks; nor his son and successor, Asoka, the Devanampiya +Piadasi whose rock-cut inscriptions remain scattered over +India; nor the Amtiyako Yonaraja--the "Ionian King Antiochus" +apparently,--Atiochus Theos, Selecus Nicator's granson: as is +supposed; nor yet the other four kings mentioned in the same +instricption in a Sanskrit disguise as contemporaries, Ptolemy +Philadelphos of Egypt (285-247); Magas of Cyrene (285-258); +Antigonus Gonatas of Macedon (277-239), and Alexander of Epirus, +who began to reign in 272;--if all these identifications should +fall to the ground, let no one be surprised. There are passages +in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky that seem to suggest there is +nothing in them; and yet, after studying those passages, I do +not find that she says so positively: her attitude seems rather +one of withholding information for the time being; she supplies +none of a contrary sort. The time may not have been ripe then for +unveiling so much of Indian history; nor indeed, in those days, +had the pictures of these kings, and particularly of Asoka, so +clearly emerged: inscriptions have been deciphered since, which +have gone to fill out the outline; and the story, as it his been +pieced together now, has an air of verisimilitude, and hangs +together. Without the Greek identifications, and the consequent +possibility of assigning dates to Chandragupta and his son, we +should know indeed that there was a great Maurya empire, which +lasted a matter of thirteen decades and a few odd years; but we +should hardly know when to place it. Accepting the Greek +identifications, and placing the Mauryas where we do in time--you +shall see how beautifully the epoch fits into the universal +cycles, and confirms the teaching as to Cyclic Law. So, +provisionally, I shall accept them, and tell the tale. + +First a few more items from Megasthenes as to India under +Chandragupta. There was no slavery, he notes; all Indians were +free, and not even were there aliens enslaved. Crime of any kind +was rare; the people were thoroughly law-abiding. Thievery was +so little known, that doors went unlocked at all times; there +was no usury, and a general absence of litigation. They told the +truth: as a Greek, he could not help noticing that. The men +were exceptionally brave; the women, chaste and virturous. +But "in contrast to the general simplicity of their style, +they loved finery and ornaments. Their robes were worked +in gold, adorned with precious stones, and they wore flowered +garments of the finest muslin. Attendants walking behind +held umbrellas over them...." + +The system of government was very highly and minutely evolved. +"Of the great officers of state, some have charge of the markets, +others of the city, others of the soldiers; others superintend +the canals, and measure the land, or collect the taxes; some +construct roads and set up pillars to show the by-roads and +distances from place to place. Those who have charge of the city +are divided into six boards of five members apiece: The +first looks after industrial art. The second attends to the +entertainment of strangers, taking care of them, sound or sick, +and in the event of their death, burying them and sending their +property to their relatives." The third board registered births +and deaths; the fourth, fifth and sixth had supervision of things +commercial. Military affairs were as closely organized: there +were Boards of Infantry, Cavalry, War Chariots, Elephants, Navy, +and Bullock Transport. And behind all these stood Chandragupta +himself, the superman, ruthless and terrifically efficient; and +Chanakya, his Macchiavellian minister: a combination to hurry +the world into greatness. And so indeed they did. + +Under Asoka, Chandragupta's grandson, the age culminated. H. P. +Blavatsky says positively that he was born into Buddhism; this +is not the general view; but one finds nothing in his edicts, +really, to contradict it. His father Bindusara, of whom we know +nothing, may have been a Buddhist. But it would appear that Asoka +in his youth was the most capable, and also the most violent and +passionate of Bindusara's sons. During his father's lifetime, he +held one of the great vice-royalties into which the empire was +divided; he succeeded to the throne in 271. His domains at that +time included all Aryavarta, with Baluchistan, and as much of +Afghanistan as lies south of the Hindoo Koosh; and how much of +the Deccan it is difficult to determine. Nine years later he +extended this realm still further, by the conquest of the +Kalingas, whose country lay along the coast northward from +Madras. At the end of that war he was master of all India north +of a line drawn from Pondicherry to Cannanore in the south; +while the tip of the Deccan and Ceylon lay at least within his +sphere of influence. + +He was easily the strongest monarch of his day. In China--between +which country and India there was no communication: they had not +discovered each other, or they had lost sight of each other for +ages--an old order was breaking to pieces, and all was weakness +and decay. In the West, Greek civilization was in decadence, with +the successors of Alexander engaged in profitless squabbles. +Rome, a power only in Italy, was about to begin her long struggle +with Carthage; overseas nobody minded her. The Crest-Wave was in +India, the strongest power and most vigorous civilization, so far +as we can tell, in the world, and at the head of India stood this +Chakravartin, victorious Asoka, flushed with conquest, and a +whole world tempting him out to conquer.-- + +He never went to war again. For twenty-nine years after that +conquest of the Kalingas, until his death in 233, he reigned in +unbroken peace. He left his heart to posterity in many edicts and +inscriptions cut on rocks and pillars; thirty-five of these +remain, or have so far been discovered and read. In 257, or five +years after the Kalinga War, he published this: + + "Devanamipiya Piadasi"-- + +It means literally 'the Beloved of the Gods, the Beautiful of +Countenance'; but it is really a title equivalent to "His +Gracious Majesty,' and was borne by all the Maurya kings;-- + +"Devanampiya Piadasi feels remorse on account of the conquest of +the Kalingas; because, during the subjugation of a preciously +unconquered country slaughter, death, and taking away captives of +the people necessarily occur; whereat His Majesty feels profound +sorrow and regret..." + +It would be in keeping with the Southern Buddhist tradition as to +the ungovernable violence of Asoka's youth, that he should have +introduced into war horrors quite contrary to Manu and Indian +custom; but here I must say that H. P. Blavatsky, though she +does not particularize, says that there were really two Asokas, +two 'Devanampiya Piadasis,' the first of whom was Chandragupta +himself, from whose life the tradition of the youthful violence +may have been drawn; and there remains the possibility that this +Kalinga War was waged by Chandragupta, not Asoka; and that it +was he who made this edict, felt the remorse, and became a +Buddhist. However, to continue (tentatively):-- + +"The loss of even the hundredth or the thousandth part of the +persons who were then slain, carried away captive, or done to +death in Kalinga would now be a matter of deep regret to His +Majesty. Although a man should do him any injury, Devanampiya +Piadasi holds that it must patiently be borne, so far as it +possibly can be borne... for His Majesty desires for all animate +beings security, control over the passions, peace of mind, and +joyousness. And this is the chief of conquests, in His Majesty's +opinion: the Conquest of Duty." + +Some time later he took the vows of a Buddhist monk, 'entered the +Path'; and, as he says, 'exerted himself strenuously.' + +He has been called the 'Constantine of Buddhism'; there is much +talk among the western learned, about his support of that +movement having contributed to its decay. They draw analogy from +Constantine; even hint that Asoka embraced Buddhism, as the +latter did Christianity, from political motives. But the analogy +is thoroughlv false. Constantine was a bad man, a very far-gone +case; and there was little in the faith he adopted, or favored, +as it had come to be at that time, to make him better;--even if +he had really believed in it. And it was a defined religio- +political body, highly antagonistic to the old state religion of +Rome, that he linked his fortunes with. But no sovereign so +mighty in compassion is recorded in history as having reigned, as +this Asoka. He was the most unsectarian of men. Buddhism as it +came to him, and as he left it, was not a sect, but a living +spiritual movement. For what is a sect?--Something _cut off_-- +from the rest of humanity, and the sources of inner life. But for +Asoka, as for the modern Theosophical Movement, there was no +religion higher than--_Dharma_--which word may be translated, +'the (higher) Law,' or 'truth.' or 'duty.' He never ceased to +protect the holy men of Brahminism. Edict after edict exhorts his +people to honor them. He preached the Good Law; he could not +insist too often that different men would have different +conceptions as to this _Dharma._ Each, then, must follow his own +conception, and utterly respect his neighbors'. The Good Law, +the Doctrine of the Buddhas, was universal; because the +objective of all religions was the conquest of the passions and +of self. All religions must manifest on this plane as right +action and life; and that was the evangel he proclaimed to the +world. There was no such sharp antagonism of sects and creeds. + +There is speculation as to how he managed, being a world-sovereign +--and a highly efficient one--to carry out the vows of a +Buddhist monk. As if the begging bowl would have been anything +of consequence to such an one! It is a matter of the status of +the soul; not of outward paraphernalia. He was a practical man; +intensely so; and he showed that a Chakravartin could tread the +Path of the Buddhas as well as a wandering monk. One can imagine +no Tolstoyan playing at peasant in him. His business in life was +momentous. "I am never satisfied with my exertions and my +dispatch of business," he says. + +"Work I must for the public benefit,--and the root of the matter +is in exertion and dispatch of business, than which nothing is +more efficacious for the public welfare. And for what end do I +toil? For no other end than that I may discharge my debt to +animate beings." + +And again: + +"Devanampiya Piadasi desires that in all places men of all +religions may abide, for they all desire purity of mind and +mastery over the senses." + +Well; for nine and twenty years he held that vast empire warless; +even though it included within its boundaries many restless and +savage tribes. Certainly only the greatest, strongest, and wisest +of rulers could do that; it has not been done since (though +Akbar came near it). We know nothing as to how literature may +have been enriched; some think that the great epics may have +come from this time. If so, it would only have been recensions of +them, I imagine. But in art and architecture his reign was +everything. He built splendid cities, and strewed the land with +wonderful buildings and monoliths. Patna, the capital, in +Megasthenes' time nine miles long by one and a half wide, and +built of wood, he rebuilt in stone with walls intricately +sculptured. Education was very widespread or universal. His +edicts are sermons preached to the masses: simple ethical +teachings touching on all points necessary to right living. +He had them carved on rock, and set them up by the roadsides +and in all much-frequented places, where the masses could +read them; and this proves that the masses could read. They +are all vibrant with his tender care, not alone for his human +subjects, but for all sentient beings. "Work I must.... that +I may discharge my debt to all things animate." And how he +did work without one private moment in the day or night, as his +decrees show, in which he should be undisturbed by the calls of +those who needed help. He specifies; he particularizes; there +was no moment to be considered private, or his personal own. + +And even then he was not content. There were foreign lands; and +those, too, were entitled to his care. I said that the southern +tip of India, with Ceylon, were within his sphere of influence: +his sphere of influence was much wider than that, however. Saying +that a king's sphere of influence is wherever he can get his will +done, Asoka's extended westward over the whole Greek world. Here +was a king whose will was benevolence; who sought no rights but +the right to do good; whose politics were the service of +mankind:--it is a sign of the Brotherhood of Man, that his writ +ran, as you may say--the writ of his great compassion,--to the +Mediterranean shore:-- + +"Everywhere in the dominions of Devanampiya Piadasi, and likewise +in the neighboring realms, such as those of the Chola, Pandya, +Satiyaputra and Keralaputra, in Ceylon, in the dominions of the +Greek king Antiochus, and in those of the other kings subordinate +to that Antiochus--everywhere, on behalf of His Majesty, have two +kinds of hospitals been founded: hospitals for men, and +hospitals for beasts. Healing herbs, medicinal for man and +medicinal for beasts, wherever they were lacking, have been +imported and planted. On the roads, trees have been planted, and +wells have been dug for the use of men and beasts." + +And everywhere, in all those foreign realms, he had his +missionaries preaching the Good Law. And some of these came to +Palestine, and founded there for him an order at Nazareth called +the Essenes; in which, some century or two later, a man rose to +teach the Good Law--by name, Jesus of Nazareth.--Now consider the +prestige, the moral influence, of a king who might keep his +agents, unmolested, carrying out his will, right across Asia, in +Syria, Greece, Macedonia, and Egypt; the king of a great, free, +and mighty people, who, if he had cared to, might have marched +out world-conquering; but who preferred that his conquests +should be the conquests of duty. Devanampiya Piadasi: the +Gracious of Mien, the Beloved of the Gods: an Adept King like +them of old time, strayed somehow into the scope and vision of +history. + + + + +VIII. THE BLACK-HAIRED PEOPLE + + +Greece shone between 478 and 348,--to give the thirteen decades +of her greatest spiritual brightness. Then came India in 321; we +lose sight of her after the death of Asoka in the two-thirties, +but know the Maurya Empire lasted its thirteen decades (and six +years) until 185. Then China flamed up brilliantly under the +Western House of Han from 194 to 64;--at which time, however, we +shall not arrive for a few weeks yet. + +Between these three national epochs there is this difference: +the Greek Age came late in its manvantara; which opened (as I +guess), roughly speaking, some three hundred and ninety years +before:--three times thirteen decades, with room for three +national flowerings in Europe--among what peoples, who can say?-- +We cannot tell where in its manvantara the Indian Age may have +come: whether near the beginning, or at the middle. But in China +we are on firm ground, and the firmest of all. A manvantara, a +fifteen-century cycle, began in the two-forties B. C.; this Age +of Han was its first blossom and splendid epoch; and we need feel +no surprise that it was not followed by a night immediately, but +only by a twilight and slight dimming of the glories for about +thirteen decades again, and then the full brilliance of another +day. Such things are proper to peoples new-born after their long +pralaya; and can hardly happen, one would say, after the morning +of the manvantara has passed. Thus in our own European cycle, +Italy the first-born was in full creative energy from about 1240 +to 1500: twenty-six decades;--whereas the nations that have held +hegemony since have had to be content each with its thirteen. + +And now to take bird's-eye views of China as a whole; and to be +at pains to discover what relation she bears, historically, to +ourselves and the rest of the globe. + +Do you remernber how Abraham haggled with the Lord over the +Cities of the Plain? Yahveh was for destroying them off hand for +their manifold sins and iniquities; but Abraham argued and +bargained and brought him down till if peradventure there should +be found ten righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord promised +he would spare them. But ten righteous there were not, nor +nothing near; so the Cities of the Plain went down. + +I suppose the Crest-Wave rarely passes from a race without +leaving a wide trail of insanity in its wake. The life forces are +strong; the human organisms through which they play are but--as +we know them. Commonly these organisms are not directed by the +Divine Soul, which has all too little of the direction of life in +its hands; so the life-currents drift downward, instead of +fountaining up; and exhaust these their vehicles, and leave them +played out and mentally--because long since morally--deficient. +So come the cataclysmic wars and reigns of terror that mark the +end of racial manvantaras: it is a humanity gone collectively +mad. On the other hand, none can tell what immense safeguarding +work may be done by the smallest sane co-ordinated effort +upwards. If peradventure the ten righteous shall be found--but +they must be righteous, and know what they are doing--I will +spare, and not destroy, saith the Lord. + +(He said nothing about respectabilities. I dare say there was +quite a percentage of respectable chapel-going Sabbath-observing +folk in the Cities of the Plain.) + +And yet there must be always that dreadful possibility--which +perhaps has never become actual since the fall of Atlantis--that +a whole large section of mankind should go quite mad, and become +unfit to carry on the work of evolution. It is a matter of +corrupting the streams of heredity; which is done by vice, +excess, wrong living; and these come of ignorance. Heaven knows +how near it we may be today; I do not think Christendom stands, +or has stood, so very far, from the brink. And yet it is from +the white race, we have supposed, that the coming races will be +born; this is the main channel through which human evolution is +intended to flow.--We are in kall-yuga; the Mysteries are dead, +and the religions have taken their place: there has been no sure +and certain link, organized on this plane, between the world and +its Higher Self. Each succeeding civilization, under these +circumstances, has run a greater risk. + +Of what race are we? I say, of no race at all, but can view the +matter as Human Souls, reincarnating egos, prepared to go where +the Law bids us. Races are only temporary institutions set up +for the convenience of the Host of Souls. + +We see, I suppose, the results of such a breakdown in Africa. +Atlanteans were segregated there; isolated; and for a million +years degenerated in that isolation to what they are. But their +ancestors, before that segregation began, had better airships +than we have; were largely giants, in more respects than the +physical, were we are pygmies. Now they are--whatever may be +their potentialities, whatever they may become--actually an +inferior reace. And it is a racial stock that shows no signs of +dying out. What then?--I suppose indeed there must be backward +races, to house backward egos;--though for that matter you would +think that our Londons and Chicagos and the rest, with their +slums, would provide a good deal of accommodation. + +Or consider the Redskins, here and in South America: whether +Atlanteans, or of some former subrace of the Fifth, at least not +Aryans. Take the finest tribes among them, such as the Navajos. +Here is a very small hereditary stream, kept pure and apart: of +fine physique; potentially of fine mentality; unsullied with +vices of any sort: a people as much nearer than the white man to +natural spirituality, as to natural physical health. It is no +use saying they are so few. Two millenniums ago, how many were +the Anglo-Saxons? Three millenniums ago, how many were the +Latins? Supposing the white race in America failed. The +statistics of lunacy--of that alone--are a fearful _Mene, Tekel +Upharsin_ written on our walls, for any Daniel with vision +to read. I think Naure must also take into account these +possibilities. Does she keep in reserve hereditary streams and +racial stocks other than her great and main ones, _in case of +accidents?_ Are the Redskins among these? + +_The Secret Doctrine_ seems to hint sometimes that the founders +of our Fifth Root Race were of Lemurian rather than Atlantean +descent. Nowhere is it actually said so; but there are a number +of passages that read, to me, as if they were written with that +idea, or theory, or fact, in mind. Is it, possibly, that a small +pure stream of Lemurian heredity had been kept aloof through all +the years of Atlantis, in reserve;--some stream that may have +been, at one time, as narrow as the tribe of Navajos?--This may +be a very bold conclusion to draw from what is said in _The +Secret Doctrine;_ it may have no truth in it whatever: other +passages are to be found, perhaps, that would at least appear to +contradict it. But if it is true, it would account for what +seems like a racial anomaly--or more than one. Science leans to +the conclusion that the Australian aborigines are Aryan: they +are liker Aryans than anything else. But we know from _The +Secret Doctrine_ that they are among the few last remnants of the +Lemurians. Again, the Ainos of Japan are very like Europeans: +they have many physical features in common with the Caucasians, +and none in common with the peoples of East Asia. Yet they are +very low down in the scale of evolution:--not so low as the +Australian Blackfellow, but without much occasion for giving +themselves airs. A thousand years of contact with the much- +washing Japanese have never suggested to them why God made soap +and water. Like many other people, they have the legend of the +flood: remember, as you may say, the fall of Atlantis; but +unlike us upstarts of the Fourth and Fifth Races, they have also +a legend of a destruction of the world by fire and earthquake--a +cataclysm that lasted, they say, a hundred days. Is it a memory +of the fate of Lemuria? + +Is a new Root-Race developed, not from the one immediately +preceding it, but from the one before? Is Mercury's caduceus, +here too, a symbol of the way evolution is done? Did the Law +keep in reserve a Sishta or Seed-Race from Lemuria, holding it +back from Atlantean development during the whole period of the +Atlanteans;--holding it, all that while, in seclusion and purity +--and therefore in a kind of pralaya;--at the right moment, to +push its development, almost suddenly, along a new line, not +parallel to the Atlantean, but _sui generis,_ and to be Aryan +Fifth presently?--Is the Law keeping in reserve a _Sishta_ or +Seed-Race of Atlantean stock, holding that in reserve and apart +all through our Aryan time, to develop from it at last the +beginnings of the Sixth, on the new continent that will appear? +Or to do so, at any rate, should the main Aryan stock fail at one +of the grand crises in its evolution, and become of too corrupt +heredity to produce fitting vehicles for the egos of the Sixth +to inhabit? + +When we have evolved back to Sanskrit for the last time: when +the forces of civilization have played through and exhausted for +the last time the possibilities of each of the groups of Aryan +languages, so that it would be impossible to do anything more +with them--for languages do become exhausted: we cannot write +English now as they could in the days of Milton and Jeremy +Taylor; not necessarily because we are smaller men, but because +the fabric of our speech is worn much thinner, and will no longer +take the splendid dyes;--and when that final flowering of +Sanskrit is exhausted too--will the new Sixth Race language, as a +type, be a derivation from the Aryan? Then how?--Or will it, +possibly, be as it were a new growth sprung out of the grave of +Fourth Race Chinese, or of one of that Atlantean group through +which, during all these millions of years, such great and main +brain-energies have not on the whole been playing as they have +been through the Aryans; and which might therefore, having +lain so long fallow, then be fit for new strange developments +and uses? + +All of which may be, and very likely is, extremely wide of the +mark. Such ideas may be merest wild speculation, and have no +truth in them at all. And yet I think that if they were true, +they would explain a thing to me otherwise inexplicable: China. + +We are in the Fifth Root-Race, and the fifth sub-race thereof: +that is, beyond the middle point. And yet one in every four of +the inhabitants of the globe is a Fourth Race Chinaman; and I +suppose that if you took all the races that are not Caucasian, or +Fifth Race, you would find that about half the population of the +world is Atlantean still. + +Take the languages. A Sanskrit word, or a Greek, or Old Gothic, +or Latin, is a living organism, a little articulate being. There +is his spine, the root; his body, the stem; his limbs and head, +the formative elements, prefixes and suffixes, case-endings and +what not. Let him loose in the sentence, and see how he wriggles +gaily from state to state: with a flick of the tail from +nominative to genitive, from singular to plural: declaring his +meaning, not by means of what surroundings you put about him, but +by motions, changes, volitions so to say, of his own. 'Now,' says +he, 'I'm _pater,_ and the subject; set me where you will, and I +am still the subject, and you can make nothing else of me.' Or, +'Now,' says he, 'I'm _patrem,_ and the object; go look for my +lord the verb, and you shall know what's done to me; be he next +door, or ten pages away, I am faithful to him.' _Patrem filius +amat,_ or _filius amat patrem,_ or in whatever order it may be, +there is no doubt who does, and who (as they say) _suffers_ the +loving.--But now take a word in English. You can still recognise +him for the same creature that was once so gay and jumpy-jumpy: +_father_ is no such far cry from _pater:_--but oh what a change +in sprightliness of habits is here! Time has worn away his head +and limbs to almost unrecognisable blunt excrescences. Bid him +move off into the oblique cases, and if he can help it, he will +not budge; you must shove him with a verb; you must goad him +with a little sharp preposition behind; and then he just _lumps_ +backward or forward, and there is no change for the better in +him, as you may say. No longer will he declare his meaning of +himself; it must depend on where you choose to put him in the +sentence.--Among the mountains of Europe, the grand Alps are the +parvenus; the Pyrenees look down on them; and the Vosges on the +Pyrenees; and--pardon me!--the little old time-rounded tiny +Welsh mountains look down on them all from the heights of a much +greater antiquity. They are the smallest of all, the least jagged +and dramatic of all; time and the weather have done most to +them. The storm, like the eagle of Gwern Abwy in the story, has +lighted on their proud peaks so often, that that from which once +she could peck at the stars in the evening, rises now but a few +thousand feet from the level of the sea. Time and springs and +summers have silenced and soothed away the startling crags and +chasms, the threatening gestures of the earth at infinity, and +clothed them over with a mantle of quietness and green fern and +heather and dreams. When the Fifth Race was younger, its language +was Alpine: in Gothic, in Sanskrit, in Latin, you can see the +crags and chasms. French, Spanish and Italian are Pyrenean, much +worn down. English is the Vosges. Chinese is hardly even the +Welsh mountains. Every word is worn perfectly smooth and round. +There is no sign left at all of prefix or suffix, root or stem. +There are no parts of speech: any word without change can do +duty for any part of speech. There is no sign of case or number: +all has been reduced to an absolute simplicity, beyond which +there is no going. Words can end with no consonant but the most +rounded of all, the nasal liquids _n_ and _ng._ There is about as +much likeness to the Aryan and Semitic languages--you can trace +about as much analogy between them--as you can between a +centipede and a billiard-ball. + +There are definite laws governing the changes of language. You +know how the Latin _castrum_ became in English _ciaster_ and then +_chester;_ the change was governed by law. The same law makes +our present-day vulgar say _cyar_ for _car;_ that word, in the +American of the future, will be something like chair. The same +law makes the same kind of people say _donchyer_ for _don't you;_ +some day, alas! even that will be classical and refined American. +Well; we know that that law has been at work in historic times +even on the Chinese billiard-ball: where Confucius said _Ts'in_ +like a gentleman, the late Yuan Shi Kai used to say _Ch'in._ So +did the Dowager Empress; it was eminently the refined thing to +do. So we ourselves have turned _Ts'in_ into _China._--And that +is the one little fact--or perhaps one of the two or three little +facts--that remain to convince us that Chinese and its group of +kindred languages grew up on the same planet, and among the same +humankind, that produced Sanskrit and Latin. + +But does not that suggest also the possibility that Alpine Aryan +might some day--after millions of years--wear down or evolve back +even into billiard-ball Chinese? That human language is _one +thing;_ and all the differences, the changes rung on that +according to the stages of evolution? + +In the Aryan group of languages, the bond of affinity is easily +recognisable: the roots of the words are the same: _Pitri, +pater, vater,_ are clearly but varying pronunciations of the +same word. In the Turanic group, however--Finnish, Hungarian, +Turkish, Tatar, Mongol and Manchu--you must expect no such +well-advertised first-cousinship. They are grouped together, +not because of any likeness of roots: not because you could +find one single consonant the same in the Lappish or Hungarian, +say, and in the Mongol or Manchu words for _father_--you +probably could not;--but because there may be syntactical +likenesses, or the changes and assimilations of sounds may +be governed by the same laws. Thus in Turkic--I draw upon +the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_--there is a suffix z, preceded +by a vowel, to mean your: _pederin_ is 'father'; 'your father' +becomes _pederiniz;_ _dostun_ means 'friend'; 'your friend' +becomes not _dostuniz,_ but _dostunus;_ and this trick of +assimilating the vowel of the suffix is the last one in the +stem is an example of the kind of similarities which establish +the relationship of the group. As for likeness of roots, +here is a specimen: _gyordunus_ is the Turkish for the Finnish +_naikke._--So here you see a degree of kinship much more +remote than that you find in the Aryan. Where, say, Dutch +and Gaelic are brothers--at least near relations and bosom +friends,--Turkish and Mongol are about fifteenth cousins by +marriage twice removed, and hardly even nod to each other in +passing. And yet Turks and Mongols both claim descent from the +sons of a common father: according to legends of both peoples, +the ancestor of the Turks was the brother of the ancestor of the +Mongols. (Always remember that in speaking of Turks thus +scientifically, one does not mean the Ottomans, who inherit +their language, but are almost purely Caucasian or even Aryan, +in blood.) + +Now take the Monosyllabic or South-Eastern Asiatic Group: +Chinese, Burmese, Siamese, Annamese, and Tibetan. Here there +are only negatives, you might say, to prove a relationship. +They do not meet on the street; they pass by on the other side, +noses high in the air; each sublimely unaware of the other's +existence. They suppose they are akin--through Adam; but whould +tell you that much has happened since then. Their kinship +consists in this: the words are each are billiard-balls--and +yet, if you will allow the paradox, of quite different shapes. +Thus I should call a Tibetan name like _nGamri-srong-btsan_ a +good jagged angular sort of billiard-ball; and a Chinese one +like _T'ang Tai-tsong_ a perfectly round smooth one of the kind +we know.--The languages are akin, because each say, where we +should say 'the horse kicked the man,' _horse agent man kicking +completion,_ or words to that effect,--dapped out nearly in +spherical or angular disconnected monosyllables. But the words +for _horse_ and _man,_ in Chinese and Tibetan, have respectively +as much phonetic likeness as _geegee_ and _equus,_ and _Smith_ +and _Jones._ As to the value and possibilities of such +languages, I will quote you two pronouncements, both from writers +in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica._ One says: "Chinese has the +greatest capacity of any language ever invented"; the other, +"The Chinese tongue is of unsurpass jejuneness." + +In the whole language there are only about four or five hundred +sounds you could differentiate by spelling, as to say, _shih,_ +pronounced like the first three letters in the word _shirt_ in +English. That vocable may mean: _history,_ or _to employ,_ or +_a corpse, a market, a lion, to wait on, to rely upon, time, +poetry, to bestow, to proclaim, a stone, a generation, to eat, a +house,_ and all such things as that;--I mention a few out of the +list by way of example.* Now of course, were that all to be said +about it, Chinamen would no doubt sometimes get confused: would +think you meant a corpse, when you were really talking about +poetry, and so on. But there is a way of throwing a little +breathing in, a kind of hiatus: thus _Ts'in_ meant one country, +and _Tsin_ another one altogether; and you ought not to mix them, +for they were generally at war, and did not mix at all well. That +would potentially extend the number of sounds, or words, or +billiard-balls, from the four hundred and twenty in modern polite +Pekinese, or the twelve hundred or so in the older and less +cultured Cantonese, to twice as many in each case. Still that +would be but a poor vocabulary for the language with the vastest +literature in the world, as I suppose the Chinese is. Then you +come to the four tones, as a further means of extending it. You +pronounce _shih_ one tone--you sing it on the right note, so to +say, and it means _poetry;_ you take that tone away, and give +it another, the dead tone, and very naturally it becomes _a +corpse:_--as, one way, and another I have often tried to impress +on you it really does.--Of course the hieroglyphs, the written +words, run into hundreds of thousands; for the literature, you +have a vocabulary indeed. But you see that the spoken language +depends, to express its meaning, upon a different kind of +elements from those all our languages depend on. We have solid +words that you can spell: articles built up with the bricks of +sound-stuff we call letters: _c-a-t_ cat, _d-o-g_ dog, and so +on;--but their words, no; nothing so tangible: all depends on +little silences, small hiatuses in the vocalizition,--and above +all, _musical tones._ Now then, which is the more primitive? +Which is nearer the material or intellectual, and which, the +spiritual, pole? + +------- +* _Encyclopaedia Britannica:_ article, China: Language. +------- + +More primitive--I do not know. Only I think when the Stars of +Morning sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy; +when primeval humanity first felt stirring within it the Divine +fire and essence of the Lords of Mind; when the Sons of the Fire +mist came down, and found habitation for themselves in the bodies +of our ancestors; when they saw the sky, how beautiful and +kindly it was; and the wonder of the earth, and that blue jewel +the sea; and felt the winds of heaven caress them, and were +aware of the Spirit, the Great Dragon, immanent in the sunlight, +quivering and scintillant in the dim blue diamond day; + + "They prayed, but their worship was only + The wonder of nights and of days," + +--when they opened their lips to speak, and the first of all the +poems of the earth was made:--it was song, it was tone, it was +music they uttered, and not brute speech such as we use, it was +intoned vowels, as I imagine, that composed their language: +seven little vowels, and seven tones or notes to them perhaps: +and with these they could sing and tell forth the whole of the +Glory of God. And then--was it like this?--they grew material, +and intellectual, and away from the child-state of the Spirit; +and their tones grew into words; and consonants grew on to the +vowels, to make the vast and varied distinctions the evolving +intellect needed for its uses; and presently you had Atlantis +with its complex civilization--its infinitely more complex +civilization even than our own; and grammar came ever more into +being, ever more wonderful and complex, to correspond with the +growing curves and involutions of the ever more complex-growing +human brain; and a thousand languages were formed--many of them +to be found still among wild tribes in mid-Africa or America--as +much more complex than Sanskrit, as Sanskrit is than Chinese: +highly declensional, minutely syntactical, involved and worked up +and filigreed beyond telling;--and that was at the midmost point +and highest material civilization of Atlantis. And then the +Fourth Race went on, and its languages evolved; back, in the +seventh sub-race, to the tonalism, the chanted simplicity of +the first sub-race;--till you had something in character not +intellectual, but spiritual:--Chinese. And meanwhile--I am +throwing out the ideas as they come, careless if the second +appears to contradict the first: presently a unity may come of +them;--meanwhile, for the purposes of the Fifth Root-Race, then +nascent, a language-type had grown up, intellectual as any in +Atlantis, because this Fifth Race was to be intellectual too,-- +but also spiritual: not without tonalistic elements: a thing to +be chanted, and not dully spoken:--and there, when the time came +for, it to be born, you had the Sanskrit. + +But now for the Sixth Root-Race: is that to figure mainly on the +plane of intellect? Or shall we then take intellectual things +somewhat for granted, as having learnt them and passed on to +something higher? Look at those diagrams of the planes and globes +in _The Secret Doctrine,_ and see how the last ones, the sixth +and seventh, come to be on the same level as the first and +second. Shall we be passing, then, to a time when, in the +seventh, our languages will have no need for complexity: when +our ideas, no longer personal but universal and creative, will +flow easily from mind to mind, from heart to heart on a little +tone, a chanted breath of music; when mere billiard-balls of +syllables will serve us, so they be rightly sung:--until +presently with but seven pure vowel sounds, and seven tones to +sing them to, we shall be able to tell forth once more the whole +of the Glory of God? + +Now then, is Chinese primitive, or is it an evolution far away +and ahead of us? Were there first of all billiard-balls; and +did they acquire a trick of coalescing and running together; +this one and that one, in the combination, becoming subordinate +to another; until soon you had a little wriggling creature of a +word, with his head of prefix, and his tail of suffix, to look or +flicker this way or that according to the direction in which he +wished to steer himself, the meaning to be expressed;--from +monosyllabic becoming agglutinative, synthetic, declensional, +complex--Alpine and super-Sanskrit in complexity;--then Pyrenean +by the wearing down of the storms and seasons; then Vosges, with +crags forest-covered; then green soft round Welsh mountains; +and then, still more and more worn down by time and the phonetic +laws which decree that men shall (in certain stages of their +growth) be always molding their languages to an easier and easier +pronunciation,--stem assimilating prefix and suffix, and growing +intolerant of changes within itself;--fitting itself to the +weather, rounding off its angles, coquetting with euphony;-- +dropping harsh consonants; tending to end words with a vowel, or +with only the nasal liquids n and ng, softest and roundest sounds +there are;--till what had evolved from a billiard-ball to an +Alpine crag, had evolved back to a billiard-ball again, and was +Chinese? Is it primitive, or ultimate? I am almost certain of +this, at any rate: that as a language-type, it stands somewhere +midway between ours and spiritual speech. + +How should that be; when we are told that this people is of the +Fourth, the most material of the Races; while we are on the +proud upward arc of the Fifth? And how is it that H. P. Blavatsky +speaks of the Chinese civilization as being younger than that of +the Aryans of India, the Sanskrit speakers,--Fifth certainly? Is +this, possibly, the explanation: that the ancestors of the +Chinese, a colony from Atlantis some time perhaps long before the +Atlantean degeneration and fall, were held under major pralaya +apart from the world-currents for hundreds of thousands of years, +until some time later than 160,000 years ago--the time of the +beginning our our sub-race? A pralaya, like sleep, is a period +of refreshment, spiritual and physical; it depends upon your +mood as you enter it, to what degree you shall reap its benefits: +whether it shall regenerate you; whether you shall arise from it +spiritually cleansed and invigorated by contact with the bright +Immortal Self within. Africa entered such a rest-period from an +orgy of black magic, and her night was filled with evil dreams +and sorceries, and her people became what they are. But +if China entered it guided by white Atlantean Adepts, it +would have been for her Fairyland; it would have been the +Fortunate Islands; it would have been the Garden of Siwang Mu, +the paradise of the West; and when she came forth it would +have been--it might have been--with a bent not towards intellectual, +but towards spiritual achievements. + +Compare her civilization, in historic times, with that of the +West. Historic times are very little to go by, but they are all +we have at present.--She attained marvelous heights; but they +were not the same kind of heights the West has attained. Through +her most troublous, stirring, and perilous times, she carried +whole provinces of Devachan with her. It was while she was +falling to pieces, that Ssu-K'ung T'u wrote his divinely delicate +meditations. When the iron most entered her soul, she would +weep, but not tear her hair or rage and grow passionate; she +would condescend to be heart-broken, but never vulgar. In her +gayest moments, wine-flushed and Spring-flushed, she never forgot +herself to give utterance to the unseemly. There is no line in +her poetry to be excused or regretted on that score. She +worshipped Beauty, as perhaps only Greece and France in the West +have done; but unlike Greece or France, she sought her divinity +only in the impersonal and dispassionate: never mistook for its +voice, the voices of the flesh. She sinned much, no doubt; but +not in her pursuit of the Beautiful; not in her worship of Art +and Poetry. She was faithful to the high Gods there. She never +produced a figure comparable to, nor in the least like, our +Homers and Aeschyluses, Dantes and Miltons and Shakespeares. But +then, the West has never, I imagine, produced a figure comparable +to her Li Pos, Tu Fus, Po Chu-is or Ssu-k'ung T'us: giants in +lyricism--one might name a hundred of them--beside whom our Hugos +and Sapphos and Keatses were pygmies. Nor have we had any to +compare with her masters of landscape-painting: even the +_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ comes down flat-footed with the +statement that Chinese landscape-painting is the highest the +world has seen.--And why?--Because it is based on a knowledge of +the God-world; because her eyes were focused for the things 'on +the other side of the sky'; because this world, for her, was a +mere reflexion and thin concealment of the other, and the mists +between her and the Divine 'defecate' constantly, in Coleridge's +curious phrase, 'to a clear transparency.' Things seen were an +open window into the Infinite; but with us, heaven knows, that +window is so thick filthy with selfhood, so cobwebbed and +begrimed with passion and egotism and individualism and all the +smoke and soot of the brain-mind, that given an artist with a +natural tendency to see through, he has to waste half his life +first in cleaning it with picks and mattocks and charges of +dynamite. So it becomes almost inevitable that when once you +know Chinese painting, all western painting grows to look rather +coarse and brutal and materialistic to you. + +But, you say, no Aeschylus or Shakespeare? No Dante or Homer? No +epic--no great drama! Pooh! you say, where is the great +creative energy? Where is the sheer brain force?-- + +It is to us a matter of course that the type of our great ones is +the highest possible type. Well; it may be: but the deeper you +go into thinking it over, the less certain you are likely to +become as to the absoluteness of standards. The time to award the +prizes is not yet; all we can do is to look into the nature of +the differences. Warily let us go to work here! + +Where, you asked, are the great creative energies? Well; in the +West, certainly, they have flowed most where they can most be +seen as _energies._ I think, through channels nearer this +material plane: nearer the plane of intellect, at any rate.--No: +there is no question where the sheer brain force has been: it +has been in the West. But then, where was it more manifest, in +Pope or in Keats? In Pope most emphatically. But off with your +head if you say he gave the greater gift.--Or I will leave Pope, +and go to his betters; and say that Keats, when he caught in his +net of words the fleeting beauty of the world, was far nearer the +Spirit than was Bacon when with tremendous intellectual energy he +devised his philosophy: there was a much longer evolution behind +the ease and effortless attainment of the one, than behind the +other's titanic brain-effort. Yet, so far as the putting forth of +brain energies is concerned, there is no question: Bacon was +much the greater man. + +So in all creative work, in all thought, we must call the West +incomparably greater in brain energy. And I am not making such a +foolish comparison as between modern or recent conditions in the +two races. You see it if you set the greatest Eastern ages, the +Han, the T'ang, the Sung, or the Fujiwara, against the Periclean, +Augustan, Medicean, Elizabethan, or Louis Quatorze. In the West, +the spiritual creative force came down and mingled itself more +forcefully with the human intellect: had a much more vigorous +basis in that, I think, to work in and upon. It has reached +lower into the material, and played on matter more powerfully-- +and, be it said, on thought and intellection too. + +We are so accustomed to thinking of spirituality as something +that, outside the plane of conduct, can only play through thought +and intellection, or perhaps religious emotion, that to speak of +the high spirituality of China will sound, to most, absurd. On +the whole, you must not go to China for thought or intellection. +Least of all you must go there for what we commonly understand by +religious emotion;--they don't readily gush over a personal god. +It will seem entirely far-fetched to say that in China the +creative forces have retained much more of their spirituality: +have manifested perhaps not less greatly than in the West, but on +planes less material, nearer their spiritual source. It will +seem so the more because until very recently China has been +constantly misrepresented to us. And yet I think it is pretty +much the truth. + +In all their creative art the Spirit has been busy suggesting +itself, not through ideas, or the forms of intellection, but +through the more subtle perceptions and emotions that lie behind. +It gives us, if we are at all gifted or educated to see, pure +vistas of Itself. Compare Michelangelo's Moses with the Dai Butsu +at Kamakura:--as I think Dr. Siren does in one of his lectures. +The former is a thing of titanic, even majestic energies; but +they are energies physical and mental: a grand triumph on what +is called in Sanskrit philosophy the Rajasic plane. The second +suggests, not energy and struggle, but repose and infinite calm. +In the Moses, we sense warfare, with victory, to attain and to +hold its attainment; in the Dai Butsu, something that has passed +through all that aeons ago. In which is the greater sum of +energies included? In the Dai Butsu certainly; wherein we see no +sign of what we commonly call energies at all. The one is human +struggling up towards Godhood; the other, Godhood looking down +with calm limitless compassion upon man. Such need no engines +and dynamics to remove the mountains: they bid them rise up, and +be cast into the sea; and are obeyed. + +Or take a great Chinese landscape and a great Western one: a Ma +Yuan, say, and a--whom you please. To the uninstructed it seems +ridiculous to compare them. This took a whole year to paint; it +is large; there is an enormous amount of hard work in it; huge +creative effort, force, exertion, went to make it. That--it was +done perhaps in an hour. That mountain is but a flick of the +brush; yonder lake but a wash and a ripple. It is painted on a +little trumpery fan--a mere square foot of silk. Yes; but on +that square foot, by the grace of the Everlasting Spirit, are 'a +thousand miles of space': much more--there is Infinity itself. +Watch; and that faint gray or sepia shall become the boundless +blue; and you shall see dim dragons wandering: you shall see +Eternal Mystery brooding within her own limitless home. Far, far +more than in the western work, there is an open window into the +Infinite: that which shall remind us that we are not the poor +clay and dying embers we seem, but a pat of the infinite +Mystery. The Spirit is here; not involved in human flesh and +intellection, but impersonal and universal. What do you +want:--to be a great towering personality; or to remember +that you are a flame of the Fire which is God? Oh, out upon +these personal deities, and most ungodly personalities of +the West! I thank China for reminding me that they are cheap +and nasty nothingnesses at the best! + +We rather demand of our art, at its highest, that it shall be a +stimulant, and call to our minds the warfare in which we are +engaged: the hopeless-heroic gay and ever mournful warfare of +the soul against the senses. Well; that battle has to be +fought; there is nothing better than fighting it--until it is +won. Let us by all means hear the snarling of the trumpets; let +us heed the battle-cries of the Soul. But let us not forget that +somewhere also the Spirit is at peace: let us remember that +there is Peace, beyond the victory. In Chinese art and poetry we +do not hear the war-shouts and the trumpets: broken, there, are +the arrow and the bow; the shield, the sword, the sword and the +battle.--But--_the Day-Spring from on high hath visited us._ + +What element from the Divine is in it, does not concern itself +with this earth-life; tells you nothing in criticism of life. +There is naught in it of the Soul as Thinker, nor of the Soul as +Warrior. But surely it is something for us, immersed here in +these turbid Rajasika regions, to be reminded sometimes that the +Sattvic planes exist; it is something for us to be given +glimpses of the pure quietudes of the Spirit in its own place. I +am the better, if I have been shown for an instant the delicate +imperishable beauty of the Eternal. + + "We are tired who follow after + Truth, a phantasy that flies; + You with only look and laughter + Stain our hearts with richest dyes."-- + +They do indeed; with look and laughter--or it may be tears. + +Now, what does it all mean? Simply this, I think: that the West +brings down what it can of the Spirit into the world of thought +and passion; brings it down right here upon this bank and +shoal of time; but China rises with you into the world of +the Spirit. We do not as a rule allow the validity of the +Chinese method. We sometimes dub Keats, at his best a thorough +Chinaman, 'merely beautiful.' + +I have rather put the case for China; because all our hereditary +instincts will rise with a brief for the West. But the truth is +that the Spirit elects its own methods and its own agents, and +does this through the one, that through the other. When I read +_Hamlet,_ I have no doubt Shakespeare was the greatest poet that +ever lived. When I read Li Po, I forget Shakespeare, and think +that among those who sing none was ever so wonderful as this +Banished Angel of the Hills of Tang. I forget the Voice that +cried 'Sleep no more!' and Poetry seems to me to have spoken her +final word in what you would perhaps call trivialities about the +Cold Clear Spring or the White Foam Rapid: she seems to me +to have accomplished all she can in such bits of childlike +detachment and wonder as this: + +"The song-birds, the pleasure-seekers, have flown long since; +but this lonely cloud floats on, drifting round in a circle. He +and Ching-ting Mountain gaze and gaze at each other, and never +grow weary of gazing"; + +--the 'lonely cloud' being, of course, Li Po himself. He has shown +me Man the brother of the Mountains, and I ask no more of him. +The mountains can speak for themselves. + +He had no moral purpose, this Banished Angel for whose sake the +Hills of T'ang are a realm in the Spirit, inerasible, and a +beautiful dream while the world endures. Po Chu-i, says Mr. +Arthur Waley, blamed him for being deficient in _feng_ and +_ya,_--by which we may understand, for present purposes, much +what Matthew Arnold meant by 'criticism of life.' But does it +not serve a spiritual purpose that our consciousness should be +lifted on to those levels where personality is forgotten: that +we should be made to regain, while reading, the child-state we +have lost? Li Po died a child at sixty: a magical child: +always more or less naughty, if we are to believe all accounts, +especially his own; but somehow never paying the penalty we pay +for our naughtiness,--exile from the wonder-world, and submersion +in these intolerable personalities. You read Milton, and are +cleaned of your personality by the fierce exaltation of the +Spirit beating through. You read Li Po-type of hundreds of +others his compatriots--and you are also cleaned of your +personality; but by gentle dews, by wonderment, by being carried +up out of it into the diamond ether. It seems to me that both +affirmed the Divine Spirit. Milton waged grand warfare in his +affirmation. Li Po merely said what he saw. + +So I think that among the Aryans the Spirit has been fighting in +and into the great turbid current of evolution; and that among +the Chinese it has not been so much concerned with that stream, +but rather to sing its own untrammeled expression. A great drama +or epic comes of the presence and energy of the Spirit working +in a human mind. A great lyric comes of the escape of the +consciousness from the mind, and into the Spirit. The West has +produced all the great dramas and epics, and will persist in the +view that the Spirit can have no other expression so high as in +these forms. Very likely the West is right; but I shall not +think so next time I am reading Li Po or Ssu-k'ung T'u--or Keats. + +And I have seen small mild Japanese jujitsu men 'put it all +over,' as they say, big burly English wrestlers without seeming +to exert themselves in any way, or forgoing their gentle methods +and manner; and if you think of jujitsu rightly, it is, to our +wrestling and boxing, much what Wu Taotse and Ku Kai-chih are to +Rembrandt and Michelangelo, or the Chinese poets to ours. + +If we go into the field of philosophy, we find much the same +thing. Take Confucianism. It is inappropriate, in some ways, to +call Confucius a great thinker (but we shall see that he was +something very much more than that). He taught no religion; +illuminated in nowise the world of mind; though he enabled +millions to illumine it for themselves. He made hardly a ripple +in his own day; and yet, so far as I can see, only the Buddha +and Mohammed, of the men whose names we know, have marshaled +future ages as greatly as he did. _Flow his way!_ said he to +history; and, in the main, it did. He created an astral mold +for about a quarter of humanity, which for twenty-four centuries +has endured. He did it by formulating a series of rules for the +conduct of personal and national life; or rather, by showing +what kind of rules they should be, and leaving others to +formulate them;--and so infused his doctrine with his will and +example, that century after century flowed into the matrix he had +made for them. To create such a stable matrix, the Aryan mind, in +India, worked through long spiritual-intellectual exploration of +the world of metaphysics: an intensive culture of all the +possibilities of thought. We in the West have boggled towards the +same end through centuries of crass political experiment. +Confucius, following his ancient models, ignored metaphysics +altogether: jumped the life to come, and made his be-all and his +end-all here:--in what was necessary, in deeds and thought and +speech, to make individual, social, and political life staid, +sincere, orderly, quiet, decent, and happy. He died a broken- +hearted failure; than whom perhaps no man except the Lord Buddha +ever succeeded more highly. + +Laotse is his complement. Laotse's aim is not the activity, but +the quiescence of mind, self, intellect: "in the NO THING +seeking the lonely Way." You forgo everything--especially +selfhood;--you give up everything; you enter upon the heritage +of No Thing;--and you find yourself heir to the Universe, to +wonder, to magic. You do with all your complicated egoity as the +camel did with his cameltiness before he could enter the needle's +eye; then--heigh presto!--it is the Elixir of Life you have +drunk; it is freedom you have attained of the roaming-place +of Dragons!--It amounts, truly, to the same thing as Aryan +Theosophy; but where the latter travels through and illuminates +immense realms of thought and metaphysic, Taoism slides gently +into the Absolute; as who should laugh and say, _You see how +easy it is!_ And you do not hear of the Path of Sorrow, as with +the Aryans; Tao is a path of sly laughter and delight. + +Then from Japan we get Shinto; still less a system of metaphysics +or dogma. The Shinto temple, empty but for air, is symbolic +of the creed whose keynotes are purity and simplicity. Taoism, +Confucianism, and Shinto are the three great native creations, +in religion, of what I shall call the Altaic mind. There +have been, indeed, profound thinkers and metaphysicians both +in Japan and China; but their mental activities have been +for the most part fruitage from the Aryan seed of Buddhism. + +A word here as to that phrase 'Altaic mind.' What business has +one to class the Chinese and Japanese together, and to speak of +them (as I shall) as 'Altaic'--the _Altaic Race?_ In the first +place this term, like 'Latin' or 'Anglo-Saxon,' has the virtue of +being quite meaningless. It is utterly silly and inappropriate +from every standpoint; but as I need a term to include China and +all the peoples that have derived their historic culture from +her, I shall beg leave to use it. Neither Japanese nor Corean +belong to the billiard-ball group of languages. There is a +syntactical likeness between these two, but none in vocabulary; +where the Japanese vocabulary came from, Omniscience perhaps may +know.--A syntax outlasts a vocabulary by many ages: you may hear +Celts now talk English with a syntax that comes from the sub-race +before our own: Iberian, and not Aryan. So we may guess here a +race akin to the Coreans conquered at some time by a race whose +vocables were Japanese--whence they came, God knows. Only one +hears that in South America the Japanese pick up the Indian +languages a deal more easily than white folk do, or than they do +Spanish or English. But this is a divergence; we should be a +little more forward, perhaps, if we knew who were the Coreans, +or whence they came. But we do not. They are not Turanic--of the +Finno-Turko-Mongol stock (by language); they are not speakers of +billiard-balls, allied to the Chinese, Burmese, and Tibetans. +But the fact is that neither blood-affinity nor speech-affinity +is much to the purpose here; we have to do with affinities of +culture. During the period 240 B. C.--1260 A. D. a great +civilization rose, flowered, and waned in the Far East; it had +its origin in China, and spread out to include in its scope +Japan, Corea, and Tibet; probably also Annam and Tonquin, though +we hear less of them;--while Burma, Assam, and Siam, and those +southerly regions, though akin to China in language, seem +to have been always more satellite to India. Mongols and +Manchus, though they look rather like Chinese, and have lived +rather near China, belong by language and traditionally by +race to another group altogether--to that, in fact, which +includes the very Caucasian-looking Turks and Hungarians; +as to what culture they have had, they got it from China +after the Chinese manvantara had passed. + +The Chinese themselves are only homogeneous in race in the sense +that Europe might be if the Romans had conquered it all, and +imposed their culture and language on the whole continent. The +staid, grave, dignified, and rather stolid northern Chinaman +differs from the restless and imaginative Cantonese not much less +than the Japanese does from either. This much you can say: +Chinese, Japanese, and Coreans have been molded into a kind of +loose unity by a common culture; the peoples of China into a +closer homogeneity by a common culture-language, written and +spoken,--and by the fact that they have been, off and on during +the last two thousand years, but most of the time, under the same +government. As to Corea, though in the days of Confucius it was +unknown to the Chinese, the legends of both countries ascribe the +founding of its civilization and monarchy to a Chinese minister +exiled there during the twelfth century B. C. Japanese legendary +history goes back to 600 B. C.;--that is, to the closing of the +Age of the Mysteries, and the opening of that of the Religions:-- +I imagine that means that about that time a break with history +occurred, and the past was abolished: a thing we shall see +happen in ancient China presently. But I suppose we may call +Shotoku Daishi the Father of historical Japan;--he who, about the +end of the sixth century A. D., brought in the culture impetus +from the continent. About that time, too, Siam rose to power; and +soon afterwards T'ang Taitsong imposed civilization on Tibet.--So +there you have the 'Altaic' Race; Altaic, as Mr. Dooley is +Anglo-Saxon. To speak of them as 'Mongolian' or 'Mongoloid,' as +is often done, is about as sensible as to speak of Europeans and +Americans as 'Hunnoid,' because the Huns once conquered part of +Europe. It conveys derogation--which Altaic does not. + +I have compared their achievement with that of the West: we have +one whole manvantara and a pralaya of theirs to judge by, as +against two fragments of western manvantaras with the pralaya +intervening. It is not much; and we should remember that there +are cycles and epicycles; and that Japan, or old China herself, +within our own lifetime, may give the lie to everything. +But from the evidence at hand one is inclined to draw this +conclusion: That in the Far East you have a great section of +humanity in reserve;--in a sense, in a backwater of evolution: +nearer the Spirit, farther from the hot press and conflict of the +material world;--even in its times of highest activity, not in +the van of the down-rush of Spirit into matter, as the western +races have been in theirs;--but held apart to perform a different +function. As if the Crest-Wave of Evolution needed what we might +call Devachanic cycles of incarnation, and found them there +during the Altaic manvantaras of manifestation. Not that their +history has been empty of tragedies; it has been very full of +them; and wars--some eight or nine Napoleons in their day have +sat on the Dragon Throne. But still, the worlds of poetry, +delight, wonder, have been nearer and more accessible to the +Chinaman, in his great ages, than to us in ours; as they have +been, and probably are now, nearer to the Japanese. And I do +not know how that should be, unless the Law had taken those +Atlanteans away, kept them apart from the main stream--not +fighting the main battle, but in reserve--for purposes that the +long millenniums of the future are to declare. + + + + +IX. THE DRAGON AND THE BLUE PEARL + + +The horizon of Chinese history lies near the middle of the third +millennium B. C. The first date sinologists dare swear to is 776; +in which year an eclipse of the sun is recorded, that actually +did happen: it is set down, not as a thing interesting in +itself, but as ominous of the fall of wicked kings. Here, then, +in the one place where there is any testing the annals, it +appears they are sound enough; which might be thought to speak +well for them. But our scholars are so damnebly logical, as Mr. +Mantalini would say, that to them it only proves this: you are +to accept no date earlier. One general solar indorsement will not +do; you must have an eclipse for everything you believe, and +trust nothing unless the stars in their courses bear witness. + +Well; we have fortunately Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry +for our familiar 1066; but beware! everything before that is to +be taken as pure fudge! + +The fact is there is no special reason for doubting either +chronology or sequence of events up to about 2357 B. C., in which +year the Patriarch Yao came to the throne. He was the first of +those three, Yao, Shun, and Yu, who have been ever since +the patterns for all Chinese rulers who have aspired to be +Confucianly good. "Be like Yao, Shun, and Yu; do as they did";-- +there you have the word of Confucius to all emperors and +governors of states. + +Yao, it is true, is said to have reigned a full century, or but +one year short of it. This is perhaps the first improbability we +come to; and even of this we may say that some people do live a +long time. None of his successors repeated the indiscretion. +Before him came a line of six sovereigns with little historic +verisimilitude: they must be called faint memories of epochs, +not actual men. The first of them, Fo-hi (2852-2738), was half +man, half dragon; which is being interpreted, of course, an +Adept King;--or say a line of Adept Kings. As for the dates given +him, I suppose there is nothing exact about them; that was all +too far back for memory; it belongs to reminiscence. Before Fo- +hi came the periods of the Nest-Builders, of the Man-Kings, the +Earth-Kings, and the Heaven-Kings; then P'an K'u, who built the +worlds; then, at about two and a quarter million years before +Confucius, the emanation of Duality from the Primal One. All +this, of course, is merely the exoteric account; but it shows at +least that--the Chinese never fell into such fatuity as we of the +West, with our creation six trumpery millenniums ago. + +This much we may say: about the time when Yao is said to have +come to the throne a manvantara began, which would have finished +its course of fifteen centuries in 850 or so B. C. It is a +period we see only as through a glass darkly: what is told about +it is, to recent and defined history, as a ghost to a living man. +There is no reason why it should not have been an age of high +civilization and cultural activities; but all is too shadowy to +say what they were. To its first centuries are accredited works +of engineering that would make our greatest modern achievements +look small: common sense would say, probably the reminiscence of +something actual. Certainly the Chinese emerged from it, and into +daylight history, not primitive but effete: senile, not +childlike. That may be only a racial peculiarity, a national +prejudice, of course. + +And where should you look, back of 850 B. C., to find actual +history--human motives, speech and passions--or what to our eyes +should appear such? As things near the time-horizon, they lose +their keen outlines and grow blurred and dim. The Setis and +Thothmeses are names to us, with no personality attaching; +though we have discovered their mummies, and know the semblance +of their features, our imagination cannot clothe them with life. +We can hear a near Napoleon joking, but not a far-off Rameses. We +can call Justinian from his grave, and traverse the desert with +Mohammed; but can bold no converse with Manu or Hammurabi;-- +because these two dwell well this side of the time-horizon, but +the epochs of those are far beyond it. The stars set: the summer +evenings forget Orion, and the nights of winter the beauty of +Fomalhaut: though there is a long slope between the zenith _Now_ +and the sea-rim, what has once gone down beyond the west of time +we cannot recall or refashion. So that old Chinese manvantara is +gone after the Dragon Fo-hi and the Yellow Emperor, after the +Man-Kings and the Earth-Kings and the Heaven-Kings; and Yao, +Shun, and Yu the Great, and the kings of Hia, and Shang, and even +Chow, are but names and shadows, + + _Quo pater, Aeneas, quo dires Tullus et Ancus,_ + +--we cannot make them interestingly alive. But it does not follow +that they did not live when they are supposed to have lived, or +do the things attributed to them. Their architecture was +ephemeral, and bears no witness to them; they built no pyramids +to flout time; they raised no monument but a people, a culture, +an idea, that still endures. + +Then, too, we shall see that at the beginning of the last Chinese +manvantara a conscious attempt was made to break wholly with the +past,--to wipe it from human memory, and begin all anew. Such a +thing happened in Babylon once; there had been a Sargon in +remote antiquity with great deeds to his credit; thousands +of years after, another Sargon arose, who envied his fame; +and, being a kind, and absolute, decreed that all the years +intervening should never have existed--merged his own in the +personality of his remote predecessor, and so provided a good +deal of muddlement for archaeologists to come. Indeed, such a +thing almost happened in France at the Revolution. It is said +that in some French schools now you find children with a vague +idea that things more or less began with the taking of the +Bastille: that there was a misty indefinable period between the +12th of October (or on whatever day it was Eve's apple ripened) +and the glorious 14th of July:--an age of prehistory, wandered +through by unimportant legendary figures such as Jeanne Darc, +Henri Quatre, Louis Quatorze, which we may leave to the +superstitious--and come quickly to the real flesh and blood of M. +de Mirabeau and Citizen Danton.--Even so, in our own time, China +herself, wearied with the astral molds and inner burdens of two +millenniums, has been writhing in a fever of destruction: has +burnt down the Hanlin College, symbol and center of a thousand +years of culture; destroyed old and famous cities; sent up +priceless encyclopaedias in smoke; replaced the Empire with a +republic, and the Dragon of wisdom with five meaningless +stripes;--breaking with all she was in her brilliant greatness, +and all she has been since in her weakness and squalid decline.-- +We ask why history is not continuous; why there are these +strange hiatuses and droppings out?--the answer is simple enough. +It is because Karma, long piled up, must sometime break out upon +the world. The inner realms become clogged with the detritus of +ages and activity, till all power to think and do is gone: there +is no room nor scope left for it. The weight of what has been +thought and done, of old habit, presses down on men, obstructs +and torments them, till they go mad and riot and destroy. The +manvantara opens: the Crest-Wave, the great tide of life, rushes +in. It finds the world of mind cluttered up and encumbered; +there is an acute disparity between the future and the past, +which produces a kind of psychic maelstrom. Blessed is that +nation then, which has a man at its head who can guide things, so +that the good may not go with the bad, the useful with the +useless! The very facts that Ts'in Shi Hwangti, when the +manvantara opened at the beginning of the third century B.C., was +driven (you may say) to do what ruthless drastic things he did.-- +and that his action was followed by such wonderful results--are +proof enough that a long manvantara crowded with cultureal and +national activities had run it course in the past, and clogged +the astral, and made progress impossible. But what he did do, +throws the whole of that past manvantara, and to some extent the +pralaya that followed it, into the realm of shadows.--He burnt +the literature. + +In a few paragraphs let me summarize the history of that past age +whose remnants Ts'in Shi Hwangti thus sought to sweep away.--Yao +adopted Shun for his successor; in whose reign for nine years +China's Sorrow, that mad bull of waters, the Hoangho, raged +incessantly, carrying the world down towards the sea. Then Ta +Yu, who succeeded Shun on the throne presently, devised and +carried through those great engineering works referred to above: +--cut through mountains, yoked the mad bull, and saved the world +from drowning. He was, says H. P. Blavatsky, an Adept; and had +learnt his wisdom from the Teachers in the snowy Range of SiDzang +or Tibet. His dynasty, called the Hia, kept the throne until +1766; ending with the downfall of a cruel weakling. Followed +then the House of Shang until 1122; set up by a wise and +merciful Tang the Completer, brought to ruin by a vicious tyrant +Chousin. It was Ki-tse, a minister of this last, and a great +sage himself, who, fleeing from the persecutions of his royal +master, established monarchy, civilization, and social order +in Corea. + +Another great man of the time was Won Wang, Duke of the +Palatinate of Chow, a state on the western frontier whose +business was to protect China from the Huns. Really, those Huns +were a thing to marvel at: we first hear of them in the reign of +the Yellow emperor, two or three centuries before Yao; they were +giving trouble then, a good three millenniums before Attila. Won +Wang, fighting on the frontier, withstood these kindly souls; +and all China looked to him with a love he deserved. Which of +course roused King Chousin's jealousy; and when a protest came +from the great soldier against the debaucheries and misgovernment +at the capital, the king roused himself and did what he could; +imprisoned the protestant, as he dared not kill him. During the +three years of his imprisonment Won Wang compiled the mysterious +I-King, of Book of Changes; of which Confucius said, that were +another half century added to his life, he would spend them all +in studying it. No western scholar, one may safely say, has ever +found a glimmer of meaning in it; but all the ages of China have +held it profounder than the profound. + +His two sons avenged Won Wang; they roused the people, recruited +an army in their palatinate--perhaps enlisted Huns too--and swept +away Chousin and his dynasty. They called their new royal house +after their native land, Chow; Wu Wang, the elder of the two, +becoming its first king, and his brother the Duke of Chow, his +prime minister. I say _king;_ for the title was now _Wang_ +merely; though there had been _Hwangtis_ or Emperors of old. +Won Wang and his two sons are the second Holy Trinity of China; +Yao, Shun, and Ta Yu being the first. They figure enormously in +the literature: are stars in the far past, to which all eyes, +following the august example of Confucius, are turned. There is +a little to be said about them: they are either too near the +horizon, or too little of their history has been Englished, for +us to see them in their habit as they lived; yet some luster of +real greatness still seems to shine about them. It was the Duke +of Chow, apparently, who devised or restored that whole Chinese +religio-political system which Confucius revivified and impressed +so strongly on the stuff of the ideal world--for he could get no +ruler of his day to establish it in the actualities--that it +lasted until the beginning of a new manvantara is shatter it now. +That it was based on deep knowledge of the hidden laws of life +there is this (among a host of other things) to prove: Music was +an essential part of it. When, a few years ago, the tiny last of +the Manchu emperors came to the throne, an edict was published +decreeing that, to fit him to govern the empire, the greatest +care should be taken with his education in music. A wisdom, +truly, that the west has forgotten! + +When William of Normandy conquered England, he rewarded his +followers with fiefs: in England, while English land remained so +to be parceled out; afterwards (he and his successors) with +unconquered lands in Wales, and then in Ireland. they were to +carve out baronies and earldoms for themselves; and the Celtic +lands thus stolen became known as the Marches: their rulers, +more or less independent, but doing homage to the king, as Lords +Marchers. The kings of Chow adopted the same plan. Their old +duchy palatinate became the model for scores of others. China +itself--a very small country then--southern Shansi, northern +Homan, western Shantung--was first divided up under the feudal +system; the king retaining a domain, known as Chow, in Homan, +for his own. Then princes and nobles--some of the blood royal, +some of the old shang family, some risen from the ranks--were +given warrant to conquer lands for themselves from the barbarians +beyond the frontier: so you go rid of the ambitious, and +provided Chow with comfortable buffers. They went out, taking a +measure of Chinese civilization with them, and conquered or +cajoled Huns, Turks, Tatars, Laos, shans, Annamese, and all that +kind of people, into accepting them for their rulers. It was a +work, as you may imagine, of centuries; with as much history +going forward as during any centuries you might name. The states +thus formed were young, compared to China; and as China grew old +and weak, they grew into their vigorous prime. The infinity of +human activities that has been! These Chow ages seem like the +winking of an eye; but they were crowded with great men and +small, great deeds and trivialities, like our own. The time will +come when our 'Anglo-Saxon' history will be written thus: +England sent out colonies, and presently the colonies grew +stronger and more populous than England;--and it will be enough, +without mention of the Pitts and Lincolns, the Washingtons and +Gladstones, that now make it seem so full and important. + +By 850 the balance of power had left or was leaving the Chow king +at Honanfu. His own subjects had grown unwarlike, and he could +hardly command even their allegiance; for each man's feudal duty +was first to his own duke, marquis, earl, viscount, or baron;-- +strangely enough, there were those five degrees of nobility in +ancient China as in modern England. Of these nobles, each with +his court and feudal dominion, there were in what we may call +China Proper some unascertainable number between thirteen and a +hundred and fifty: mostly small and insignificant, but mostly, +too, full of schemes and ambitions. + +But it was the Lords Marchers that counted. One after another of +them had wrested from the Chow the title of _Wang_ or King; it +was not enough for them to be dukes and marquises. Then came a +time when a sort of Bretwalda-ship was established; to be +wielded by whichever of them happened to be strongest--and +generally to be fought for between whiles: a glorious and +perpetual bone of contention. International law went by the +board. The Chow domain, the duchies and marquisates, lay right +in the path of the contestants--midmost of all, and most to be +trampled. Was Tsin to march all round the world, when a mere +scurry across neutral (and helpless) Chow would bring it at the +desired throat of Ts'u?--A question not to be asked!--there at +Honanfu sat the Chow king, head of the national religion, head of +the state with its feudatories, receiving (when it suited them +to pay it) the annual homage of all those loud and greedy +potentates, who for the rest kicked him about as they pleased, +and ordered each other to obey him,--for was he not still the son +of Heaven, possessor of the Nine Tripods of sovereignty, the +tripods of Ta Yu?--So the centuries passed, growing worse and +worse ever, from the ninth to the sixth: an age of anarchy, bad +government, disorder, crime and clash of ambitions: when there +was a decline of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice +in the world;--and we know what manner of incarnation, at such +times, is likely to happen. + +Conditions had outgrown the astral molds made for them in the +last manvantara: the molds that had been made for a small +homogeneous China. The world had expanded, and was no longer +homogeneous: China herself was not homogeneous; and she found +on all sides of her very heterogeneous Ts'ins, Tsins, Ts'is, +Ts'us, Wus and Yuehs; each of whom, like so many Great Powers of +our own times, had the best of intentions to partake of her +sacramental body when God's will so should be.--Indeed, the +situation was very much as we have seen it. + +Then, as now (or recently), China was old, inert, tired, and +unwarlike; must depend on her cunning, and chiefly on their +divisions, for what protection she might get against the +rapacious and strong. She was dull, sleepy and unimaginative, +and wanted only to be left alone; yet teemed, too, with +ambitious politicians, each with his sly wires to pull. Her +culture, ancient and decrepit, was removed by aeons from all +glamor of beginnings.--For a good European parallel, in this +respect, you might go to Constantinople in the Middle Ages, when +it hung ripe on the bough, so to say, and waiting to fall into +Latin, Turkish, Bulgar, or even Russian jaws, whichever at the +psychic moment should be gaping and ready beneath. There too was +the sense of old age and sterility; of disillusionment; of all +fountains and inspirations run dry.--In ancient Grecce, it was no +such far cry back from the essential modernity of Pericles' or of +Plato's time to the antiquity of Homer's. In India, the faery +light of an immemorial dawn mingles so with the facts of history +that there is no disentangling myth from matter-of-fact; if you +should prove almost any king to have reigned quite recently, his +throne would still be somehow set in the mellow past and near the +fountains of time. Augustan Rome, modern in all its phases, +stands not so far in front of a background peopled with nymphs +and Sibyls: a past in which the Great Twin Brothers might fight +at Lake Regillus, and stern heroes make fantastic sacrifices for +Rome. Even modern Europe is much less modern than Medieval +Constantinople or Chow China. We can breathe still the +mysterious atmosphere of the Middle Ages; you shall find +still, and that not in remote countries only, fairy-haunted +valleys; a few hours out from London, and you shall be in +the heart of druidry, and among peoples whose life is very +near to Poetry. But China, in those first pre-Confucian centuries, +was desperately prosaic: not so much modern, as pertaining to an +ugly not impossible future. Antiquity was far, far away. The dawn +with its glow and graciousness; noon and the prime with their +splendor, were as distant and unimaginable as from our Amercan +selves the day when Charlemain with all his peers went down. If +you can imagine an American several hundred years from now--one +in which Point Loma had never been; several hundred years more +unromantic than this one; an America fallen and grown haggard +and toothless; with all impulse to progress and invention gone; +with centrifugal tendencies always loosening the bond of union; +advancing, and having steadily advanced, further from all +religious sanctions, from anything she may retain of the +atmosphere of mystery and folklore and the poetry of racial +childhood; you may get a picture of the mental state of that +China. A material civilization, with (except in war areas) +reasonable security of life and goods, remained to her. Her +people lived in good houses, wore good clothes, used chairs and +tables, chopsticks, plates and dishes of pottery; had for +transit boats, carts and chariots,* wheelbarrows I suppose, and +"cany wagons light." They had a system of writing, the origin of +which was lost in remote antiquity; a large literature, of which +fragments remain. They were home-loving, war-hating, quiet, +stagnant, cunning perhaps, quite un-enterprising; they lived in +the valley of the Hoangho, and had not discovered, or had +forgotten, the Yangtse to the south of them, and the sea to the +east. They might have their local loyalties and patriotism of the +pork-barrel, and a certain arrogance of race: belief in +the essential superiority of the Black-haired People to the +barbarians on their borders; but no high feeling for Chu Hia-- +All the Chinas;--no dream of a possible national union and +greatness. Some three hundred of their folk-ballads come down to +us, which are as unlike the folk-ballads of Europe as may be. +They do not touch on the supernatural; display no imagination; +there are no ghosts or fairies; there is no glory or delight in +war; there is no glory in anything;--but only an intense +desirability in _home,_--in staying at home with your family, and +doing your I work in the fields. And nothing of what we should +call romance, even in this home-love: the chief tie is that +between parents and children, not that between husband and wife, +and still less that between lovers. There is much moralizing and +wistful sadness.--Such was the life of the peasants; at the +other pole was the life of the courts: intrigue and cunning, and +what always goes with cunning--ineptitude; a good measure of +debauchery; some finicking unimportant refinement; each man for +self and party, and none for Gods and Men. We have to do, not +with the bright colors of the childhood of a race, but with the +grayness of its extreme old age. Those who will may argue that +you can have old age with never a prime, youth, or childhood +behind it. Some say that Laotse was born at sixty-one, or +seventy, or eighty-two years old--a few decades more or less are +not worth bothering about--whence his name _lao tse,_ the _old +son_ (but _tse_ may also mean Teacher or Philosopher). But I +misdoubt the accuracy of such accounts, myself. I think it likely +he was a baby to begin with, like the majority of us. And I +imagine his country had been young, too, before she grew old;--as +young as America, and as vigorous. + +------ +* _Chinese Literature:_ Giles;--whence also much else in +these articles. +------ + +Among such a people, how much should you expect to find of the +Sacred Mysteries?--There were the Nine Tripods of Ta Yu with the +king at Honanfu, to say that his kinghood had behind it symbolic +sanctions; there was the Book of Changes; there was the system +of the Duke of Chow, more dishonored in the breach than honored +in the observance.... For the rest, you might as well look for +the Eleusinia in Chicago. Who could believe in religion, those +days?--Well; it was the pride of some of the little duchies and +marquisates to keep up a reputa-tion for orthodoxy: there +was Lu in Shantung, for example,-very strict.* (As strictness +went, we may say.) And if you wished to study ritual, you +went up to Honanfu to do so; where, too, was the National +or Royal Library, where profitable years might be spent. But +who, except enthusiasts, was to treat religion seriously? +--when one saw the doddering Head of Religion yearly flouted, +kicked about and hustled in his own capital by his Barbarian +Highness the 'King'--so he must now style himself and be +styled, where in better days 'Count Palatine' or 'Lord Marcher' +would have served his turn well enough--of Ts'in or Tsin +or Ts'i or Ts'u, who would come thundering down with his +chariots when he pleased, and without with-your-leave or +by-your-leave, march past the very gates of Honanfu;--and +lucky if he did march past, and not come in and stay awhile; +--on his way to attacking his Barbarian Highness the 'King' +of somewhere else. The God that is to be sincerely worshiped +must, as this world goes, be able now and then to do some +little thing for his vicegerent on earth; and Heaven did +precious little in those days for the weakling King-pontiff +puppets at Honanfu. A mad world, my masters! + +------ +* _Ancient China Simplified:_ E. Harper Parker;--also much +drawn on. +------ + +Wherein, too, we had our symbols:--the Dragon, the Sky-wanderer, +with something heavenly to say; but alas! the Dragon had been +little visible in our skies of Chu Hia these many years or +centuries;--the Tiger, brute muscularity, lithe terrible limbs, +fearful claws and teeth,--we knew him much better! This, heaven +knew, was the day of the Tiger of earthly strength and passions; +were there not those three great tigers up north, Ts'in, Tsin, +and Ts'i; and as many more southward; and all hungry and +strong?--And also, some little less thought of perhaps, the +Phoenix, Secular Bird, that bums itself at the end of each cycle, +and arises from its ashes young and dazzling again: the Phoenix +--but little thought of, these days; for was not the world old +and outworn, and toppling down towards a final crash? The days +of Chu Hia were gone, its future all in the long past; no one +dared dream of a time when there should be something better than +Yen diddling Lu, or Ts'u beating Ts'i at a good set-to with these +new sixty-warrior-holding chariots. Who should think of the +Phoenix--and of a new age to come when there should be no more +Yen and Lu and Chow and Tsin and Ts'in, but one broad and +mighty realm, a Middle, a Celestial Kingdom,--such a Chu +Hia as time had no memory of;--to whose throne the Hun himself +should bow, or whose hosts should drive him out of Asia;--a +Chu Hia to whom tribute should come from the uttermost ends +of the earth? Who should dream of the Secular Bird now,-- +as improbable a creature, in these dark days of the Tiger, +as that old long-lost Sky-wanderer the Dragon himself? + +Let be; let three little centuries pass; let the funeral pyre +but be kindled, and quite burn itself out; and let the ashes +grow cold-- + +And behold you now, this Phoenix of the World, bright and +dazzling, rising up from them! Behold you now this same +Black-haired People, young, strong, vigorous, gleaming with +all the rainbow hues of romance and imagination; conquering +and creative, and soon to strew the jewels of faerie over +all the Eastern World. . . . + +But this is to anticipate: to take you on to the second century +B. C.; whereas I want you now in the sixth.--I said that you +should find better chances for study in the Royal Library at +Honanfu, could you get together the means for journeying thither, +than anywhere else in Chu Hia. That was particularly true in the +latter part of that sixth century: because there was a man by +the name of Li Urh, chief librarian there, from whom, if you +cared to, you might hear better things than were to be found in +the books in his charge. His fame, it appears, has gone abroad +through the world; although his chief aim seems to be to keep in +the shadows and not be talked about. Scholars resort to him from +far and near; one of them, the greatest of all, who came to him +in the year 517 and was (if we are to believe accounts) treated +without too much mercy, came out awestruck, and said: "Today I +have seen the Dragon."--What! that little old man with the bald +head and straggly lank Chirese beard?--Like enough, like enough! +--they are not all, as you look at them with these physical eyes, +to be seen winged and wandering the heavens. . . . + +But wandering the heavens, this one, yes! He has the blue ether +about him, even there in the Library among the books.--He has a +way of putting things in little old quiet paradoxes that seem to +solve all the problems,--to take you out of the dust and clatter +of this world, into the serenity of the Dragon-world where all +problems are solved, or non-existent. Chu Hia is all a fuss and +turmoil, and running the headlong Gadarene road; but the Old +Philosopher--as he has come to be called--has anchorage right +outside of and above it, and speaks from the calmness of the +peaks of heaven. A kind of school forms itself around him; his +wisdom keeps provincials from returning home, and the young men +of the capital from commonplace courses. Though he has been +accredited with much authorship, I think he wrote nothing; +living among books, he had rather a contempt for them,--as things +at the best for patching up and cosseting life, new windings and +wrappings for its cocoon;--whereas he would have had the whole +cocoon stripped away, and the butterfly beautifully airing its +wings. Be that as it may, there are, shall we say, stenographers +among his disciples, and his sayings come down to us. They have +to do with the Way, the Truth, and the Life; which things, and +much else, are included in Chinese in the one word _Tao._ + +"The main purpose of his studies" says Ssema Tsien (the 'Father +of Chinese History'), "was to keep himself concealed and +unknown." In this he succeeded admirably, so far as all future +ages were to concerned; for Ssema himself, writing in the reign +of Han Wuti some four centuries later, could be by no means sure +of his identity. He tells us all we know, or think we know, +about Laotse:--that he was born in a village in southern Honan; +kept the Royal Library at Honanfu; met Confucius there in 517; +and at last rode away on his ox into the west, leaving the _Tao +Teh King_ with the Keeper of the Pass on the frontier;--and then +goes on to say that there were two other men "whom many regarded +as having been the real Laotse"; one of the Lao Lai, a +contemporary of Confucius, who wrote fifteen treatises on +the practices of the school of Tao; the other, a "Grand +Historiographer of Chow," Tan by name, who lived some century and +a quarter later. To me this is chiefly interesting as a +suggestion that the 'School of Tao' was a thing existent and +well-established at that time, and with more than one man writing +about it. + +It may we'll have been. Taoists ascribe the foundation of their +religion to the Yellow Emperor, twenty-eight centuries B. C.; +but there never was time Tao was not; nor, I suppose, when there +was quite no knowledge of it, even in China. In the old +manvantara, past now these three hundred years, the Black-haired +People had wandered far enough from such knowledge;--with the +accumulation of complexities, with the piling up of encumberments +of thought and deed during fifteen hundred busy years of +intensive civilization. As long as that piling up had not +entirely covered away Tao, the Supreme Simplicity, the Clear +Air;--as long as men could find scope to think and act and +accomplish things;--so long the manvantara lasted; when nothing +more that was useful could be accomplished, and action could no +longer bring about its expectable results (because all that old +dead weight was there to interpose itself between new causes set +in motion and their natural outcome)--then the pralaya set in. +You see, that is why pralayas do set in; why they must;--why no +nation can possibly go on at a pitch of greatness and high +activity beyond a certain length of time.--And all that activity +of the manvantara--all that fuss and bustle to achieve greatness +and fortune--it had all been an obscuration of and moving away +from Tao. + +The Great Teachers come into this world out of the Unknown, +bringing the essence of their Truth with them. We know well what +they will teach: in some form or another it will be Theosophy; +it will be the old self-evident truths about Karma and the two +natures of man. But how they will teach it: what kind of +sugar-coating or bitter aloes they will prescribe along with it: +--that, I think, depends on reactions from the age they come in +and the people whom they are to teach. It is almost certain, as +I said, that Li Urh the Old Philosopher left no writings. "Who +knows, does not tell," said he; and Po Chu-i quotes this, and +pertinently adds: "What then of his own five thousand words and +more.--the _Tao Teh King._" That book was proved centuries ago, in +China, not to have come, as it stands, even from Laotse's age; +because there are characters in it that were invented long +afterwards. The wisest thing to believe is that it is made up +mostly of his sayings, taken down by his disciples in the Pitman +of the time; and surviving, with accretions and losses perhaps, +through the disquiet of the next two centuries, and the burning +of the books, and everything. Because whatever vicissitudes may +have befallen it, one does hear in its maxims the tones of +a real voice: one man's voice, with a timbre in it that +belongs to the Lords of Wisdom. And to me, despite Lao Lai +and Tan the Grand Historiographer, it is the voice of an +old man in the seclusion of the Royal Library: a happy little +bald-headed straggly-bearded old man anxious to keep himself +unknown and unapplauded; it is a voice attuned to quietness, +and to mental reactions from the thunder of the armies, the +drums and tramplings and fuss and insolence of his day. I +thoroughly believe in the old man in the Royal Library, and +the riding away on oxback at last into the west,--where was +Si Wang Mu's Faery Garden, and the Gobi Desert, with sundry +oases therein whereof we have heard. I can hear that voice, +with childlike wonder in it, and Adept-like seriousness, and +childlike and Adept-like laughter not far behind, in such sayings +as these: "Tao is like the emptiness of a vessel; and the use +of it, we may say, must be free from all self-sufficiency. How +deep and mysterious it is, as if it were the author of all things! +We should make our sharpness blunt, and unravel the complications +of things. . . . How still and clear is Tao, a phantasm with +the semblance of permanence! I do not know whose son it is. +It might appear to have been before God." + +We see in Christendom the effects of belief in a personal God, +and also the inefficacy of mere ethics. Believers make their God +in their own image, and nourish their personalities imitating an +imitation of themselves. At the best of times they take their +New Testament ethics, distil from these every virtue and +excellent quality, and posit the result as the characteristics of +their Deity:--the result, plus a selfhood; and therefore the +great delusion and heresy, Separateness, is the link that binds +the whole together. It is after all but a swollen personality; +and whether you swell your personalitv with virtues or vices, the +result is an offense. There is a bridge, razor-edged, between +earth and heaven; and you can never carry that load across it. +Laotse, supremely ethical in effect, had a cordial detestation-- +take this gingerly!--of un-re-enforced ethics. "When the great +Tao is lost," says he, "men follow after charity and duty to +one's neighbor." Again: "When Tao is lost, virtue takes its +place. When virtue is lost, benevolence succeeds to it. When +benevolence is lost, justice ensues. When justice is lost, then +we have expediency." He does not mean, of course, that these +things are bad; but simply that they are the successive stages +of best, things left when Tao is lost sight of; none of them in +itself a high enough aim. They are all included in Tao, as the +less in the greater. He describes to you the character of the man +of Tao; but your conduct is to be the effect of following Tao; +and you do not attain Tao by mere practice of virtue; though you +naturally practise virtue, without being aware of it, while +following Tao. It all throws wonderful light on the nature of +the Adept; about whom you have said nothing at all when you have +accredited him with all the virtues. Joan was blemishless; but +not thereby did she save France;--she could do that because, as +Laotse would have said, being one with Tao, she flowed out into +her surroundings, accomplishing absolutely her part in the +universal plan. No compilation of virtues would make a Teacher +(such as we know): it is a case of the total absence of +everything that should prevent the natural Divine Part of man +from functioning in this world as freely and naturally as the sun +shines or the winds blow. The sun and the stars and the tides and +the wind and the rain--there is that perfect glowing simplicity +in them all: the Original, the Root of all things, Tao. _Be +like them,_ says Laotse, impersonal and simple. "I hold fast to +and cherish Three Precious Things," he says: "Gentleness, +Economy, Humility." Why? So, you would say, do the ethics of +the New Testament; such is the preaching of the Christian +Churches. But (in the latter case) for reasons quite unlike +Laotse's. For we make of them too often virtues to be attained, +that shall render us meek and godly, acceptable in the eyes of +the Lord, and I know not what else: riches laid up in heaven; a +pamperment of satisfaction; easily to become a cloak for self- +righteousness and, if worse can be, worse. But _tut!_ Laotse +will not be bothered with riches here or elsewhere. With him +these precious things are simply absences that come to be when +obstructive presences are thrown off. No sanctimoniousness for +the little Old Man in the Royal Library! + +He would draw minds away to the silence of the Great Mystery, +which is the fountain of laughter, of life, the unmarred; and he +would have them abide there in absolute harmony. Understand him, +and you understand what he did for China. It is from that Inner +Thing, that Tao, that all nourishment comes and all greatness. +You must go out with your eyes open to search for it: watch for +Dragons in the sky; for the Laugher, the Golden Person, in the +Sun: watch for Tao, ineffably sparkling and joyous--and quiet-- +in the trees; listen for it in the winds and in the sea-roar; +and have nothing in your own heart but its presence and +omnipresence and wonder-working joy. How can you flow out to the +moments, and capture the treasure in them; how can you flow out +to Tao, and inherit the stars, and have the sea itself flowing in +your veins;--if you are blocked with a desire, or a passion for +things mortal, or a grudge against someone, or a dislike? Beauty +is Tao: it is Tao that shines in the flowers: the rose, the +bluebell, the daffodil--the wistaria, the chrysanthemum, the +peony--they are little avatars of Tao; they are little gateways +into the Kingdom of God. How can you know them, how can you go +in through them, how can you participate in the laughter of the +planets and the angelic clans, through their ministration, if you +are preoccupied with the interests or the wants of contemptible +you, the personality? Laotse went lighting little stars for the +Black-haired People: went pricking the opacity of heaven, that +the Light of lights might filter through. If you call him a +philosopher, you credit him with an intellectualism that really +he did not bother to possess. Rather he stood by the Wells of +Poetry, and was spiritual progenitor of thousands of poets. +There is no way to Poetry but Laotse's Way. You think you must go +abroad and see the world; you must not; that is only a +hindrance: a giving the eyes too many new externals, to hinder +them from looking for that which you may see, as he says, +'through your own window.' If you traverse the whole world +seeking, you will never come nearer to the only thing that +counts, which is Here, and Now. Seek to feed your imagination on +outward things, on doings and events, and you will perhaps +excite, but surely soon starve it. But at the other pole, the +inner "How deep and mysterious is Tao, as if it were the author +of all things!" And then I hear someone ask him whence it +originated--someone fishing for a little metaphysics, some dose +of philosophy. What! catch Laotse? "I know," said Confucius, +"how birds fly, beasts run, fishes swim. But the runner may be +snared, the swimmer hooked, the flyer shot with an arrow. But +there is the Dragon; I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind +through the clouds and rises into heaven." No; you cannot hook, +snare, or shoot the Dragon. "I do not know whose son Tao is," +says Laotse. "It might appear to have been before God." + +So I adhere to the tale of the old man in the Royal Library, +holding wonderful quiet conversations there; that "it might +appear to have been before God" is enough to convince me. There +was a man once*--I forget his name, but we may call him Cho Kung +for our purposes; he was of affable demeanor, and an excellent +flautist; and had an enormous disbelief in ghosts, bogies, +goblins, and 'supernatural' beings of every kind. It seized +him with the force of a narrow creed; and he went forth to +missionarize, seeking disputants. He found one in the chief +Librarian of some provincial library; who confessed to a +credulousness along that line, and seemed willing to talk. Here +then were grand opportunities--for a day's real enjoyment, with +perchance a creditable convert to be won at the end of it. +Behold them sitting down to the fray, in the shadows among the +books: the young Cho Kung, affable (I like the word well), +voluble and earnest; the old Librarian, mild, with little to say +but _buts_ and _ifs,_ and courteous even beyond the wont in that +"last refuge of good manners," China. All day long they sat; and +affable Cho, like Sir Macklin in the poem, + + "Argued high and argued low, + And likewise argued round about him"; + +--until by fall of dusk the Librarian was fairly beaten. So +cogent were Cho's arguments, so loud and warm his eloquence, +so entirely convincing his facts adduced--his modern instances, +as you may say--that there really was nothing for the old +man to answer. Ghosts were not; genii were ridiculously +unthinkable; supernatural beings could not exist, and it +was absurd to think they could. The Librarian had not a +leg to stand on; that was flat. Accordingly he rose to +his feet--and bowed.--"Sir," said he, with all prescribed +honorifics, "undoubtedly you are victorious. The contemptible +present speaker sees the error of his miserable ways. He +is convinced. It remains for him only to add"--and here +something occurred to make Cho rub his eyes--"that he is +himself a supernatural being."--And with that his form and +limbs distend, grow misty--and he vanishes in a cloud up through +the ceiling.--You see, those old librarians in China had a way of +doing things which was all their own. + +------ +* The story is told in Dr. H. H. Giles' _Dictionary of Chinese +Biography._ +------ + +So Li Urh responded to the confusions of his day. Arguments?-- +You could hardly call them so; there is very little arguing, +where Tao is concerned. The Tiger was abroad, straining all +those lithe tendons,--a tense fearful symmetry of destruction +burning bright through the night-forests of that pralaya: +grossest and wariest energies put forth to their utmost in a race +between the cunning for existence, a struggle of the strong for +power.--"It is the way of Tao to do difficult things when they +are easy; to benefit and not to injure; to do and not to +strive." Come out, says Laotse, from all this moil and topsey- +turveydom; stop all this striving and botheration; give things +a chance to right themselves. There is nothing flashy or to make +a show about in Tao; it vies with no one. Let go; let be; +find rest of the mind and senses; let us have no more of these +fooleries, war, capital punishment, ambition; let us have self- +emptiness. Just be quiet, and this great Chu Hia will come right +without aid of governing, without politics and voting and +canvassing and such.--_Here and Now_ and _What comes by_ were his +prescriptions. He was an advocate of the Small State. Aristotle +would have had no government ruling more than ten thousand +people; Laotse would have had his State of such a size that the +inhabitants could all hear the cocks crowing in foreign lands; +and he would have had them quite uneager to travel abroad. What +he taught was a total _bouleversement_ of the methods of his age. +"It is the way of Tao not to act from personal motives, to +conduct affairs--without feeling the trouble of them, to +taste without being aware of the flavor, to account the +great as the small and the small as the great, to recompense +injury with kindness." + +The argument went all against him. Their majesties of Ts'in +and Tsin and Ts'i and Ts'u were there with their drums and +tramplings; the sixty warrior-carrying chariots were thundering +past;--who should hear the voice of an old quiet man in the Royal +Library? Minister This and Secretary That of Lu and Chao and +Cheng were at it with their wire-pullings and lobbyings and petty +diddlings and political cheateries--(it is all beautifully +modern); what had the world to do with self-emptiness and Tao? +The argument was all against him; he hadn't a leg to stand on. +There was no Tao; no simplicity; no magic; no Garden of Si +Wang Mu in the West; no Azure Birds of Compassion to fly out +from it into the world of men. Very well then; he, being one +with that non-existent Tao, would ride away to that imaginary +Garden; would go, and leave-- + +A strand torn out of the rainbow to be woven into the stuff of +Chinese life. You could not tell it at the time; you never would +have guessed it--but this old dull tired squalid China, cowering +in her rice-fields and stopping her ears against the drums and +tramplings, had had something--some seed of divinity, thrown down +into her mind, that should grow there and be brooded on for three +centuries or so, and then-- + +There is a Blue Pearl, Immortality; and the Dragon, wandering +the heavens, is forever in pursuit or quest of it. You will see +that on the old flag of China, that a foolish republicanism cast +away as savoring too much of the Manchu. (But it was Laotse and +Confucius, Han Wuti and Tang Taitsong, and Wu Taotse and the +Banished Angel that it savored of really.) Well, it was this Blue +Pearl that the Old Philosopher, riding up through the pass to the +Western Gate of the world, there to vanish from the knowledge of +men;--it was this Blue Pearl that, stopping and turning a moment +there so high up and near heaven, he tossed back and out into the +fields of China;--and the Dragon would come to seek it in his +time.--You perhaps know the picture of Laotse riding away on his +ox. I do not wonder that the beast is smiling. + +For it really was the Blue Pearl: and the Lord knew what it was +to do in China in its day. It fell down, you may say, from the +clear ether of heaven into the thick atmosphere of this world; +and amidst the mists of human personality took on all sorts of +iridescences; lit up strange rainbow tints and fires to glow and +glisten more and more wonderfully as the centuries should pass; +and kindle the Chinese imagination into all sorts of opal +glowings and divine bewilderments and wonderments;--and by and by +the wonder-dyed mist-ripples floated out to Japan, and brought to +pass there all sorts of nice Japanese cherry-blossomy and plum- +blossomy and peonyish things, and Urashima-stories and Bushido- +ish and Lafcadioish and badger-teakettle things:--reawakened, in +fact, the whole of the faery glow of the Eastern World. + +It is not to be thought that here among the mists and personalities +the Pearl could quite retain all its pure blueness of the ether. +It is not to be thought that Taoism, spread broadcast among +the people, could remain, what it was at the beginning, an +undiluted Theosophy. The lower the stratum of thought into +which it fell, the less it could be Thought-Spiritual, the +stuff unalloyed of Manas-Taijasi. Nevertheless, it was the +Pearl Immortality, with a vigor and virtue of its own, and +a competence for ages, on whatever plane it might be, to work +wonders. Among thinking and spiritual minds it remained a true +Way of Salvation. Among the masses it came to be thought of +presently as personal immortality and the elixir of life. +Regrettable, you may say; but this is the point: nothing was +ever intended to last forever. You must judge Taoism by what it +was in its day, not by what it may be now. Laotse had somehow +flashed down into human consciousness a vision of Infinity: had +confronted the Chinese mind with a conviction of the Great +Mystery, the Divine Silence. It is simply a fact that that is +the fountain whose waters feed the imagination and make it grow +and bloom. Search for the Secret in chatter and outward sights +and deeds, and you soon run to waste and nothingness; but seek +here, and you shall find what seemed a void, teeming with lovely +forms. He set the Chinese imagination, staggered and stupefied +by the so long ages of manvantara, and then of ruin, into a glow +of activity, of grace, of wonder; men became aware of the vast +world of the Within; as if a thousand Americas had been +discovered. It supplied the seed of creation for all the poets +and artists to come. It made a new folklore; revivified the +inner atmosphere of mountains and forests; set the fairies +dancing; raised Yellow Crane Pagodas to mark the spot where Wang +Tzu-chiao flew on the Crane to heaven in broad daylight. It sent +out the ships of Ts'in Shi Hwangti presently to seek the Golden +Islands of Peng-lai, where the Immortals give cups of the elixir +to their votaries; in some degree it sent the armies of Han Wuti +in search of the Garden of Si Wang Mu. The ships found (perhaps) +only the Golden Islands of Japan; the armies found certainly +Persia, India, and even the borders of Rome;--and withal, new +currents, awakening and inter-national, to flow into China and +make splendid the Golden Age of Han. + + + + +X. "SUCH A ONE" + + +"I produce myself among creatures, O son of Bharata, whenever +there is a decline of Virtue and an insurrection of vice and +injustice in the world: and thus I incarnate from age to age for +the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and +the establishment of righteousness."--_Bhagavad-Gita_ + +"The world had fallen into decay, and right principles had +perished. Perverse discourses and oppressive deeds had grown +rife; ministers murdered their rulers and sons their fathers. +Confucius was frightened at what he saw, and undertook the work +of reformation."--Mencius + + +Men were expecting an avatar in old Judaea; and, sure enough, +one came. But they were looking for a national leader, a +Messiah, to throw off for them the Roman yoke; or else for an +ascetic like their prophets of old time: something, in any case, +out of the way;--a personality wearing marks of avatarship easily +recognisable. The one who came, however, so far from leading them +against the Romans, seemed to have a good deal of sympathy with +the Romans. He consorted with centurions and tax-gatherers, and +advised the Jews to render unto Roman Caesar the things which +were his: which meant, chiefly, the tribute. And he was not an +ascetic, noticeably; bore no resemblance to their prophets of +old time; but came, as he said, 'eating and drinking'; even +went to marriage-feasts, and that by no means to play killjoy;-- +and they said, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a winebibber!' +(which was a lie).--Instead of supporting the national religion, +as anyone with half an eye to his interests would have done, he +did surprising things in the temple with a whip of small cords.-- +"Here," said they, "let us crucify this damned fellow!" And +they did. + +Aftertimes, however, recognised him as an avatar; and then so +perverse is man!--as the one and only possible avatar. If ever +another should appear, said our western world, it could but be +this one come again; and, because the doctrine of avatars is a +fundamental instinct in human nature, they expected that he would +come again. So when the pressure of the times and the intuition +of men warned them that a great incarnation was due, they began +to look for his coming. + +That was in our own day, say in the last half-century; during +which time a mort of books have been written about a mysterious +figure turning up in some modern city, whom you could not fail +to recognise by certain infallible signs. Generally speaking, +the chief of these were: long hair, and a tendency to make +lugubrious remarks beginning with _Verily, verily I say unto +you._ In actual life, too, lots of men did grow their hair long +and cultivate the _verily-verily_ habit; hoping that, despite +their innate modesty, their fellow-men might not fail to take the +hint and pierce the disguise afforded, often by a personal +morality you might call _oblique._ + +But if an avatar had come, it is fairly certain that he or she +would have followed modern fashions in hair and speech; first, +because real avatars have a sense of humor; and secondly, +because his or her business would have been to reform, not the +language or style of hair-dressing, but life.--'He or she' is a +very vile phrase; for the sake of novelty, let us make the +feminine include the masculine, and say 'she' simply.--Her +conversation, then, instead of being peppered with archaic +_verilies_ and _peradventures,_ would have been in form much like +that of the rest of us. It is quite unlikely she would have +shone at Pleasant Sunday Afternoons, or Bazaars of the Young +Women's Christian Association; quite unlikely that she would +have been in any sense whatever a pillar of the orthodoxies. As +she would have come to preach _Truth,_ you may suppose Truth +needed, and therefore lacking; and so, that her teachings +would have been at once dubbed vilest heterodoxy, and herself +a charlatan. + + "Below with eddy and flow the white tides creep + On the sands." + +Says Ssu-k'ung T'u,-- + + "..... in no one form may Tao abide. + But changes and shifts like the wide wing-shadows asweep + On the mountainside"; + +--the sea is one, but the tides drift and eddy; the roc, or maybe +the dragon, is one, but the shadow of his wings on the mountain +sward shifts and changes and veers. When you think you have set +up a standard for Tao: when you imagine you have grasped it in +you hands:--how fleet it is to vanish! "The man of Tao," said +the fisherman of the Mi-lo to Ch'u Yuan, "does not quarrel with +his surroundings, but adapts himself to them";--and perhaps there +you have the best possible explanation of the nature of those +Great souls who come from time to time to save the world. + +I think we take the Buddha as the type of them; and expect not +only a life and character that _we can recognise_ as flawless, +but also a profundity of revelation in the philosophy and ethics. +But if no two blades of grass are alike, much less are two human +Souls; and in these Great Ones, it is the picture of Souls we +are given. When we think that if all men were perfect, all would +be alike, we err with a wide mistake. The nearer you get to the +Soul, and the more perfect is the expression of it, the less is +there monotony or similarity; and almost the one thing you may +posit about any avatar is, that he will be a surprise. Tom and +Dick and Harry are alike: 'pipe and stick young men'; 'pint and +steak young men'; they get born and marry and die, and the grass +grows over them with wondrous alikeness; but when the Masters of +Men come, all the elements are cast afresh. + +Everyone has a place to fill in the universal scheme; he has a +function to perform, that none else can perform; a _just what he +can do,_--which commonly he falls far short of doing. When he +does it, fully and perfectly, then he is on the road of progress; +that road opens up to him; and presently, still exercising the +fulness of his being, he becomes a completeness, like Heaven and +Earth; their 'equal,' in the Chinese phrase; or as we say, a +Perfect Man or Adept. Does anyone know what place in history he +is to fill? I cannot tell; I suppose an Adept, incarnated, +would be too busy filling it to have time or will to question. +But here perhaps we have the nearest thing possible to a standard +for measuring them; and here the virtue of Taoism, and one +greatest lesson we may learn from it. Are we to judge by the +impressiveness of the personality? No; the Man of Tao is not a +personality at all. He makes one to use, but is not identified +with it; his personality will not be great or small, or +enchanting or repellent, but simply adapted to the needs.--Is it +the depth and fulness of the philosophv he gives out? No; it may +be wiser and also more difficult to keep silent on main points, +than to proclaim them broadcast; and for this end he may elect +even not to know (with conscious brain-mind) too much;--not to +have the deep things within his normal consciousness. But he +comes into the world to meet a situation; to give the course of +history a twist in a desired direction; and the sign and measure +of his greatness is, it seems to me, his ability to meet the +situation at all points, and to do just what is necessary for the +giving of the twist,--no more and no less. And then, of course, +it takes a thousand years or so before you can judge. One +is not speaking of common statesmen, who effect quick changes +that are no changes at all, but of the Men who shepherd the +Host of Souls. + +I like to imagine, before the birth of Such a One, a consultation +of the Gods upon the Mountain of Heaven. A synod of the kind +(for China) would have taken place in the sixth century B. C., +no doubt; because in those days certainly there was a "decline +of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the +world." Transport yourselves then, say in the year 552, to the +peaks of Tien Shan of Kuen Lun, or high Tai-hsing, or the grand +South Mountain; and see the Pantheon assembled. + +They look down over Chu Hia; they know that in three centuries +or so a manvantara will be beginning there, and grow anxious lest +anything has been left undone to insure its success. They note +Laotse (whom they sent some fifty years earlier) at his labors; +and consider, what those labors would achieve for the Black- +haired People. He would bring light to the most excellent minds; +the God of Light said, "I have seen to that." He would in time +waken the lute-strings of the Spirit, and set Chu Hia all a-song; +the God of Music said, "I have seen to that." They foresaw Wu +Taotse and Ma Yuan; they foresaw Ssu-k'ung T'u and the Banished +Angel; and asked "Is it not enough?" And the thought grew +on them that it was not enough, till they sighed with the +apprehensions that troubled them. Only a few minds among the +millions, they foresaw, would have proper understanding of Tao. + +Now, Gods of whatever land they may be, there are those three +Bardic Brothers amongst them: He of Light, who awakens vision; +He of Song, who rouses up the harmonies and ennobling vibrations; +and He of Strength, whose gloves hold all things fast, and +neither force nor slipperiness will avail against them. It was +this third of them, Gwron, who propounded the plan that satisfied +the Pantheon. I will send one among them, with the "Gloves for +his treasure," said he. + +They considered how it would be with Such a One: going among +men as the Gods' Messenger, and with those two Gloves for his +treasure.--"This way will it be," they said. "Not having the +treasure of the God of Light, he will seem as one without vision +of the God-world or remembrance whence he came. Not having the +treasure of the God of Music, he will awaken little song with the +Bards. But having the Gloves, he will hold the gates of hell +shut, so far as shut they may be, through all the cycle that +is coming." + +With that the council ended. But Plenydd God of Light and Vision +thought: "Though my treasure has gone with the Old Philosopher, +and I cannot endow this man with it, I will make him Such a One +as can be seen by all men; I will throw my light on him, that he +may be an example through the age of ages." And Alawn God of +Music thought: "Though my lute has gone with Laotse, I will +confer boons on this one also. Such a One he shall be, as draws +no breath but to tunes of my playing; the motions of his mind, +to my music, shall be like the motions of the ordered stars."-- +And they both thought: "It will be easy for me to do as much as +this, with his having the Gloves of Gwron on his hands." + +At that time K'ung Shuhliang Heih, Commander of the district +of Tsow, in the Marquisate of Lu in Shantung, determined +to marry again. + +Now China is a vast democracy: the most democratic country in +the world. Perhaps I shall come to proving that presently; for +the moment I must ask you to let it pass on the mere statement, +satisfied that it is true. Despite this radical democracy, then, +she has had two noble families. One is descended from a famous +Patriot-Pirate of recent centuries, known to Westerners as +Koxinga; with it we have no concern. The other is to be found +in the town of K'iuh-fow in Shantung, in the ancient Marquisate +of Lu. There are about fifty thousand members of it, all bearing +the surname K'ung; its head has the title of 'Duke by Imperial +Appointment and hereditary right'; and, much prouder still, +'Continuator of the Sage.' + +Dukes of England sometimes trace their descent from men who came +over with William the Conqueror: a poor eight centuries is a +thing to be proud of. There may be older families in France, +Italy, and elsewhere. Duke K'ung traces his, through a line of +which every scion appears more of less in history, to the son of +this K'ung Shuhliang Heih in the sixth century B.C.; who in turn +traced his, through a line of which every scion appeared in +history, and all, with one possible exception, very honorably, to +a member of the Imperial House of Shang who, in 1122 B.C., on the +fall of that house, was created Duke of Sung in Honan by the +first of the Chows. The House of Shang held the throne for some +five centuries, beginning with Tang the Comnpleter in 1766, who +traced his descent from the Yellow Emperor in mythological +times. Duke K'ung, then, is descended in direct male line from +sovereigns who reigned beyond the horizon of history,--at the +latest, near the beginning of the third millennium B.C. The +family has been distinguished for nearly five thousand years. + +The matter is not unimportant; since we are to talk of a member +of this family. We shall understand him better for remembering +the kind of heredity that lay behind him: some seventy +generations of nobility, all historic. Only one royal house in +the world now is as old as his was then: that of Japan. + +Some generations before, the K'ung family had lost their duchy of +Sung and emigrated to Lu; where, in the early part of the sixth +century, its head, this Shuhliang Heih, had made a great name for +himself as a soldier. He was now a widower, and seventy years +old; and saw himself compelled to make a second marriage, or the +seventy illustrious generations of his ancestors would be +deprived of a posterity to offer them sacrifices. So he +approached a gentlman of the Yen family, who had three eligible +daughters. To these Yen put the case, leaving to them to decide +which should marry K'ung.--"Though old and austere," said he, +"he is of the high descent, and you need have no fear of him." +Chingtsai, the youngest, answered that it was for their father to +choose.--"Then you shall marry him," said Yen. She did; and +when her son was to be born, she was warned in a dream to make +pilgrimage to a cave on Mount Ne. There the spirits of the +mountain attended; there were signs and portents in the heavens +at the nativity. The _k'e-lin,_ a beast out of the mythologies, +appeared to her; and she tied a white ribbon about its single +horn. It is a creature that appears only when things of splendid +import are to happen. + +Three years after, the father died, leaving his family on the +borders of poverty. At six, Ch'iu, the child, a boy of serious +earnest demeanor, was teaching his companions to play at +arranging, according to the rites, toy sacrificial vessels on a +toy altar. Beyond this, and that they were poor, and that he +doted on his mother--who would have deserved it,--we know little +of his boyhood. "At fifteen," he tells us himself, "his mind +was bent on learning." Nothing in the way of studies, seems to +have come amiss to him; of history, and ritual, and poetry, he +came to know all that was to be known. He loved music, theory +and practice; held it to be sacred: "not merely one of the +refinements of life, but a part of life itself." It is as well +to remember this; and that often, in after life, he turned +dangerous situations by breaking into song; and that his lute +was his constant companion. He used to say that a proper study +of poetry--he was not himself a poet, though he compiled a great +anthology of folk-poems later--would leave the mind without a +single depraved thought. Once he said to his son: "If you do +not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to talk to." "Poetry +rouses us," said he, "courtesy upholds us; music is our crown." +You are, then, to see in him no puritan abhorring beauty, but a +man with artistic perceptions developed. At what you might call +the other pole of knowledge, he was held to know more about the +science of war than any man living; and I have no doubt he did. +If he had consented to use or speak about or let others use that +knowledge, he might have been a great man in his day; but he +never would. + +At nineteen, according to the custom, he married; and soon +afterwards accepted minor official appointments: Keeper of the +Granaries, then Superintendent of the Public Parks in his native +district. He made a name for himself by the scrupulous discharge +of his duties, that came even to the ears of the Marquis; who, +when his son was born, sent the young father a complimentary +present of a carp.--It would have been two or three years before +the beginning of the last quarter of the century when he felt the +time calling to him, and voices out of the Eternal; and threw up +his superintendentship to open a school. + +Not an ordinary school by any means. The Pupils were not +children, but young men of promise and an inquiring mind; and +what he had to teach them was not the ordinary curriculum, but +right living, the right ordering of social life, and the right +government of states. They were to pay; but to pay according to +their means and wishes; and he demanded intelligence from them; +--no swelling of the fees would serve instead.--"I do not open the +truth," said he, "to one not eager after knowledge; nor do I +teach those unanxious to explain themselves. When I have +presented one corner of a subject, and the student cannot learn +from it the other three for himself, I do not repeat the lesson." +He lectured to them, we read, mainly on history and poetry, +deducing his lessons in life from these. + +His school was a great success. In five years he had acquired +some two thousand pupils: seventy or eighty of them, as he said, +"men of extraordinary ability." It was that the Doors of the +Lodge had opened, and its force was flowing through him in Lu, as +it was through the Old Philosopher in Honanfu.--By this time he +had added archery to his own studies, and (like William Q. Judge) +become proficient. Also he had taken a special course in music +theory under a very famous teacher. "At thirty he stood firm." + +Two of his disciples were members of the royal family; and +Marquis Chao regarded him with favor, as the foremost educationist +in the state. He had an ambition to visit the capital (of +China); where, as no where else, ritual might be studied; +where, too, was Laotse, with whom he longed to confer. Marquis +Chao, hearing of this, provided him with the means; and he +went up with a band of his pupils. There at Loyang, which is +Honanfu, we see him wandering rapt through palaces and temples, +examining the sacrificial vessels, marveling at the ancient art +of Shang and Chow. But for a few vases, it is all lost. + +He did interview Laotse; we cannot say whether only once or more +often. Nor, I think, do we know what passed; the accounts we +get are from the pen of honest _Ben Trovato; Vero,_ the modest, +had but little hand in them. We shall come to them later. + +And now that he stands before the world a Teacher, we may drop +his personal name, K'ung Ch'iu, and call him by the title to +which paeans of praise have been swelling through all the ages +since: K'ung Futse, K'ung the Master; latinized, Confucius. It +is a name that conveys to you, perhaps, some associations of +priggishness and pedantry: almost whereever you see him written +of you find suggestions of the sort. Forgo them at once: they +are false utterly. Missionaries have interpreted him to the +West; who have worked hard to show him something less than the +Nazarene. They have set him in a peculiar light; and others +have followed them. Perhaps no writer except and until Dr. +Lionel Giles (whose interpretation, both of the man and his +doctrine, I shall try to give you), has shown him to us as he +was, so that we can understand why he has stood the Naional Hero, +the Savior and Ideal Man of all those millions through all +these centuries. + +We have been told again and again that his teaching was wholly +unspiritual; that he knew nothing of the inner worlds; never +mentions the Soul, or 'God'; says no word to lighten for you the +"dusk within the Holy of holies." He was all for outwardness, +they say: a thorough externalist; a ritualist cold and +unmagnetic.--It is much what his enemies said in his own day; +who, and not himself, provide the false-interpreters with their +weapons. But think of the times, and you may understand. How +would the missionaries feel, were Jesus translated to the Chinese +as a fine man in some respects--considering--but, unfortunately! +too fond of the pleasures of the table; "a gluttonous man +and a winebibber "? + +They were stirring times, indeed; when all boundaries were in +flux, and you needed a new atlas three times a year. Robbers +would carve themselves new principalities overnight; kingdoms +would arise, and vanish with the waning of a moon. What would +this, or any other country, become, were law, order, the police +and every restraining influence made absolutely inefficient? +Were California one state today; a dozen next week; in July six +or seven, and next December but a purlieu to Arizona?--Things, +heaven knows, are bad enough as they are; there is no dearth of +crime and cheatery. Still, the police and the legal system do +stand between us and red riot and ruin. In China they did not; +the restraints had been crumbling for two or three centuries. +Human nature, broadly speaking, is much of a muchness in all +lands and ages: I warrant if you took the center of this world's +respectability, which I should on the whole put in some suburb of +London;--I warrant that if you relieved Clapham,--whose crimes, +says Kipling very wisely, are 'chaste in Martaban,'--of police +and the Pax Britannica for a hundred years or so, lurid Martaban +would have little pre-eminence left to brag about. The class +that now goes up primly and plugly to business in the City day by +day would be cutting throats a little; they would be making life +quite interesting. Their descendants, I mean. It would take +time; Mother Grundy would not be disthroned in a day. But it +would come; because men follow the times, and not the Soul; and +are good as sheep are, but not as heroes. So in Chow China. + +But the young Confucius knew his history. He looked back from +that confusion to a wise Wu Wang and Duke of Chow; to a Tang the +Completer, whose morning bath-tub was inscribed with this motto +from _The New Way:_ "If at any time in his life a man can make a +new man of himself, why not every morning?" Most of all he +looked back to the golden and sinless age of Yao and Shun and Yu, +as far removed from him, nearly, as pre-Roman Britain is from us: +he saw them ruling their kingdom as a strong benevolent father +rules his house. In those days men had behaved themselves: +natural virtue had expressed itself in the natural way. In good +manners; in observation of the proprieties, for example.--In +that wild Martaban of Chow China, would not a great gentleman of +the old school (who happened also to be a Great Teacher) have +seen a virtue in even quiet Claphamism, that we cannot? It was +not the time for Such a One to slight the proprieties and +'reasonable conventions of life.' The truth is, the devotion of +his disciples has left us minute pictures of the man, so that we +see him ... particular as to the clothes he wore; and from this +too the West gathers material for its charge of externalism. +Well; and if he accepted the glossy top-hats and black Prince +Albert coats;--only with him they were caps and robes of azure, +carnation, yellow, black, or white; this new fashion of wearing +red he would have none of:--I can see nothing in it but this: +the Great Soul had chosen the personality it should incarnate in, +with an eye to the completeness of the work it should do; and +seventy generations of noble ancestry would protest, even in the +matter of clothing, against red riot and ruin and Martaban. + +He is made to cite the 'Superior Man' as the model of excellence; +and that phrase sounds to us detestably priggish. In the +_Harvard Classics_ it is translated (as well as may be) 'true +gentleman,' or 'princely man'; in which is no priggish ring +at all. Again, he is made to address his disciples as "My +Children," at which, too, we naturally squirm a little: what he +really called them was 'My boys,' which sounds natural and +affectionate enough. Supposing the Gospels were translated into +Chinese by someone with the gluttonous-man-and-winebibber bias; +--what, I wonder, would he put for _Amen, amen lego humin?_ Not +"Verily, verily I say unto you"! + +But I must go on with his life. + +Things had gone ill in in Lu during his absence: threee great +clan chieftains had stopped fighting among themselves to fight +instead against their feudal superior, and Marquis Chao had been +exiled to Ts'i. It touched Confucius directly; his teaching on +such matters had been peremptory: he would 'rectify names': +have the prince prince, and the people his subjects:--he would +have law and order in the state, or the natural harmony of things +was broken. As suggested above, he was very much a man of mark +in Lu; and a protest from him,--which should be forth-coming-- +could hardly go unnoticed. With a band of disciples he followed +his marquis into Ts'i: it is in Chihli, north of Lu, and was +famous then for its national music. On the journey he heard Ts'i +airs sung, and 'hurried forward.' One of the first things he +did on arriving at the capital was to attend a concert (or +something equivalent); and for three months thereafter, as a +sign of thanksgiving, he ate no flesh. "I never dreamed," said +he, "that music could be so wonderful." + +The fame of his Raja-Yoga School (that was what it was) had gone +abroad, and Duke Ching of Ts'i received him well;--offered him a +city with its revenues; but the offer was declined. The Duke +was impressed; half inclined to turn Confucianist; wished to +retain him with a pension, to have him on hand in case of need;-- +but withal he was of doubtful hesitating mind about it, and +allowed his prime minister to dissuade him. "These scholars," +said the latter, "are impractical, and cannot be imitated. +They are haughty and self-opinionated, and will never rest +content with an inferior position. Confucius has a thousand +peculiarities";--this is the gluttonous-man-and-winebibber +saying, which the missionary interpreters have been echoing +since;--"it would take ages to exhaust all he knows about the +ceremonies of going up and down. This is not the time to examine +into his rules of propriety; your people would say you were +neglecting them."--When next Duke Ching was urged to follow +Confucius, he answered: "I am too old to adopt his doctrines." +The Master returned to Lu; lectured to his pupils, compiled the +Books of Odes and of History; and waited for the disorders +to pass. + +Which in time they did, more or less. Marquis Ting came to the +throne, and made him chief magistrate of the town of Chungtu. + +Now was the time to prove his theories, and show whether he was +the Man to the core, that he had been so assiduously showing +himself, you may say, on the rind. Ah ha! now surely, with hard +work before him, this scholar, theorist, conventional formalist, +ritualist, and what else you may like to call him, will be put to +shame,--shown up empty and foolish before the hard-headed men of +action of his age. Who, indeed,--the hard-headed men of action-- +have succeeded in doing precisely nothing but to make confusion +worse confounded; how much less, then, will this Impractical One +do! Let us watch him, and have our laugh...--On the wrong side +of your faces then; for lo now, miracles are happening! He +takes control; and here at last is one city in great Chu Hia +where crime has ceased to be. How does he manage it? The +miracle looks but the more miraculous as you watch. He frames +rules for everything; insists on the proprieties; morning, +noon, and night holds up an example, and, says he, relies on the +power of that.--Example? Tush, he must be beheading right +and left!--Nothing of the sort; he is all against capital +punishment, and will have none of it. But there is the fact: +you can leave your full purse in the streets of Chung-tu, and +pick it up unrifled when you pass next; you can pay your just +price, and get your just measure for it, fearing no cheateries; +High Cost of Living is gone; corners in this and that are no +more; graft is a thing you must go elsewhere to look for;--there +is none of it in Chung-tu. And graft, let me say, was a thing as +proper to the towns of China then, as to the graftiest modern +city you might mention. The thing is inexplicable--but perfectly +attested. Not quite inexplicable, either: he came from the +Gods, and had the Gloves of Gwron on his hands: he had the +wisdom you cannot fathom, which meets all events and problems as +they come, and finds their solution in its superhuman self, where +the human brain-mind finds only dense impenetrability.--Marquis +Ting saw and wondered.--"Could you do this for the whole state?" +he asked.--"Surely; and for the whole empire," said Confucius. +The Marquis made him, first Assistant-Superintendent of Works, +then Minister of Crime. + +And now you shall hear Chapter X of the _Analects,_ to show you +the outer man. All these details were noted down by the love of +his disciples, for whom nothing was too petty to be recorded; +and if we cannot read them without smiling, there is this to +remember: they have suffered sea-change on their way to us: +sea-change and time-change. What you are to see really is: (1) +a great Minister of State, utterly bent on reproving and +correcting the laxity of his day, performing the ritual duties of +his calling--as all other duties--with a high religious sense of +their antiquity and dignity; both for their own sake, and to set +an example. what would be thought of an English Archbishop of +Canterbury who behaved familiarly or jocularly at a Coronation +Service?--(2) A gentleman of the old school, who insists on +dressing well and quietly, according to his station. That is +what he would appear now, in any grade of society, and among men +the least capable of recognising his inner greatness: 'race' is +written in every feature of his being; set him in any modern +court, and with half an eye you would see that his family was a +thousand years or so older than that of anyone else present, and +had held the throne at various times. Here is a touch of the +great gentleman: he would never fish with a net, or shoot at a +bird on the bough; it was unsportsmanlike. (3) A very natural +jovial man, not above "changing countenance" when fine meats were +set on his table:--a thing that directly contradicts the idea of +a cold, ever play-acting Confucius. A parvenu must be very +careful; but a scion of the House of Shang, a descendant of the +Yellow Emperor, could unbend and be jolly without loss of +dignity;--and, were he a Confucius, would. "A gentleman," said +he, "is calm and spacious"; he was himself, according to the +_Analects,_ friendly, yet dignified; inspired awe, but not +fear; was respectful, but easy. He divided mankind into three +classes: Adepts or Sages; true Gentlemen; and the common run. +He never claimed to belong to the first, though all China knows +well that he did belong to it. He even considered that he fell +short of the ideal of the second; but as to that, we need pay no +attention to his opinion. Here, then, is Chapter X: + +"Amongst his own countryfolk Confucius wore a homely look, like +one who has no word to say. In the ancestral temple and at court +his speech was full, but cautious. At court he talked frankly to +men of low rank, winningly to men of high rank. In the Marquis's +presence he looked intent and solemn. + +"When the Marquis bade him receive guests, his face seemed to +change, his knees to bend. He bowed left and right to those +behind him, straightened his robes in front and behind, and sped +forward, his elbows spread like wings. When the guest had left, +he always reported it, saying: 'The guest has ceased to +look back.' + +"Entering the palace gate he stooped, as though it were too low +for him. He did not stand in the middle of the gate, nor step on +the threshold. Passing the throne, his face seemed to change, +his knees to bend; and he spoke with bated breath. Mounting the +royal dais, he lifted his robes, bowed his back and masked his +breathing till it seemed to stop. Coming down, his face relaxed +below the first step, and bore a pleased look. From the foot of +the steps he sped forward, his elbows spread like wings; and +when again in his seat, he looked intent as before. He held his +hands not higher than in bowing, nor lower than in giving a +present. He wore an awed look and dragged his feet, as though +they were fettered." + +Which means that he felt the royal office to be sacred, as the +seat of authority and government, the symbol and representative +of heaven, the fountain of order: in its origin, divine. He +treated Marquis Ting as if he had been Yao, Shun, or Yu; or +rather, the Marquis's throne and office as if one of these had +held them. There is the long history of China to prove he was +wise in the example he set. + +"When presenting royal gifts his manner was formal; but he was +cheerful at the private audience.--This gentleman was never +arrayed in maroon or scarlet; even at home he would not wear red +or purple. In hot weather he wore unlined linen clothes, but +always over other garments. Over lambskin he wore black; over +fawn he wore white; over fox-skin he wore yellow. At home he +wore a long fur robe with the right sleeve short. He always had +his night-gown half as long again as his body. In the house he +wore fox- or badger-skin for warmth. When out of mourning there +was nothing wanting from his girdle. Except for court-dress, he +was sparing of stuff. He did not wear lamb's wool, or a black +cap, on a visit of condolence. On the first day of the moon he +always went to court in court dress. On fast days he always +donned clothes of pale hue, changed his food, and moved from his +wonted seat. He did not dislike his rice cleaned with care, nor +his hash copped small. He would not eat sour or mouldy rice, +putrid fish, or tainted meat. Aught discolored or high, badly +cooked, or out of season, he would not eat. He would not eat +what was badly cut, or a dish with the wrong sauce. A choice of +meats could not tempt him to eat more than he had a relish for. +To wine alone he set no limit; but he never drunk more than +enough. He did not drink brought wine, or eat ready-dried meat. +He did not eat much. Ginger was never missing at his table. + +"After sacrifice at the palace he would not keep the meat +over-night; at home, not more than three days. If kept longer, +it was not eaten. He did not talk at meals, nor in bed. Though +there were but coarse rice and vegetables, he made his offering +with all reverence. If his mat were not straight, he would not +sit down. When drinking with the villagers, when those with +slaves left, he left too. At the village exorcisms he donned +court dress, and stood on the eastern steps. + +"When sending inquiries to another land, he bowed twice and saw +his messenger out. On K'ang's making him a present of medicine, +he accepted it with a low bow, saying: 'I do not know; I dare +not taste it.' His stables having been burnt, the Master, on his +return from court, said: 'Is anyone hurt?' He did not ask after +the horses." + +Set down in perfect good faith to imply that his concern was for +the sufferings of others, not for his personal loss: and without +perception of the fact that it might imply callousness as to the +suffering of the horses. We are to read the recorder's mind, and +not the Master's, in that omission.-- + +"When the marquis sent him baked meat, he set his mat straight, +and tasted it first. When the Marquis sent him raw meat, he had +it cooked for sacrifice. When the Marquis sent him a living +beast, he had it reared. When dining in attendance on the +Marquis, the latter made the offering; Confucius ate of things +first. On the Marquis coming to see him in sickness, he turned +his face to the east and had his court dress spread across him, +with the girdle over it. When summoned by the Marquis, he +walked, without waiting for his carriage. On entering the Great +Temple, he asked how each thing was done. When a friend died who +had no home, he said: 'It is for me to bury him.' When a friend +sent a gift, even of a carriage and horses, he did not bow. He +only bowed for sacrificial meat. He would not lie in a bed like +a corpse. At home he unbent. + +"On meeting a mourner, were he a friend, his face changed. Even +in every-day clothes, when he met anyone in full dress, or a +blind man, his face grew staid. When he met men in mourning, he +bowed over the cross-bar. Before choice meats he rose with a +changed look. At sharp thunder or fierce wind, his countenance +changed. In mounting his chariot he stood straight and grasped +the cord. When in his chariot, he did not look round, speak +fast, or point." + +There you have one side of the outer man; and the most has +been made of it. "Always figuring, always posturing," we +hear. I merely point to the seventy noble generations, the +personality made up of that courtly heredity, whose smallest quite +spontaneous acts and habits seemed to men worth recording, as +showing how the perfect gentleman behaved: a model. Another +side is found in the lover of poetry, the devotee of music, the +man of keen and intense affections. Surely, if a _poseur,_ he +might have posed when bereavement touched him; he might have +assumed a high philosophic calm. But no; he never bothered to; +even though reproached for inconsistency. His mother died when +he was twenty-four; and he broke through all rites and customs +by raising a mound over her grave; that, as he said, he might +have a place to turn to and think of as his home whereever he +might be on his wanderings. He mourned for her the orthodox +twenty-seven months; then for five days longer would not touch +his lute. On the sixth day he took it and began to play; but +when he tried to sing, broke down and wept. One is surprised; +but there is no posing about it. Yen Hui was his saint John, the +Beloved disciple. "When Yen Hui died," we read, "the Master +cried, 'Woe is me! I am undone of Heaven! I am undone of +Heaven!' When Yen Hui died the Master gave way to grief. The +disciples said: 'Sir, you are giving way.'--'Am I giving way?' +said he. 'If for this man I do not give way, for whom shall I +give way?... Hui treated me as a son his father; I have failed +to treat him as a father his son.'" Confucius was old then, and +near his own death... But what I think you will recognise in his +speech, again and again, is the peculiarly spontaneous... indeed +impetuous ... ring of it. He had that way of repeating a +sentence twice that marks a naturally impetuous man.--Of his +sense of humor I shall speak later. + +He dearly loved his disciples, and was homesick when away from +them.--"My batch of boys, ambitious and hasty--I must go home to +them! I must go home to them!" said he. Once when he was very +ill, Tse Lu "moved the disciples to act as ministers":--to behave +to him as if he were a king and they his ministers.--"I know, I +know!" said Confucius; "Tse Lu has been making believe. This show +of ministers, when I have none,--whom will it deceive? Will it +deceive Heaven? I had rather die in your arms, my boys, than be +a king and die in the arms of my ministers."--"Seeing the +disciple Min standing at his side in winning strength, Tse Lu +with warlike front, Jan Yu and Tse Kung fresh and strong, the +Master's heart was glad," we read. He considered what he calls +'love' the highest state,--the condition of the Adept or Sage; +but that other thing that goes by the same name,--of that he +would not speak;--nor of crime,--nor of feats of strength, +--nor of doom,--nor of ghosts and spirits. Anything that +implied a forsaking of middle lines, a losing of the balance, +extravagance,--he abhorred.--And now back to that other side of +him again: the Man of Action. + +The task that lay before him was to reform the state of Lu. +Something was rotten in it; it needed some reforming.--The +rotten thing, to begin with, was Marquis Ting himself; who was +of such stuff as Confucius referred to when he said: "You cannot +carve rotten wood." But brittle and crumbling as it was, it +would serve his turn for the moment; it would give him the +chance to show twenty-five Chinese centuries the likeness of an +Adept at the head of a state. So it should be proved to them +that Such a One--they call him _Such a One_ generally, I +believe, to avoid the light repetition of a name grown sacred--is +no impractical idealist merely, but a Master of Splendid +Successes here in this world: that the Way of Heaven is the way +that succeeds on earth--if only it be honestly tried. + +Ting was by no means master in his own marquisate. As in England +under Stephen, bold bad robber barons had fortified their castles +everywhere, and from these strongholds defied the government. +The mightiest magnate of all was the Chief of Clan Chi, who +ordered things over his royal master's head, and was very much a +power for the new Minister of Crime to reckon with. A clash came +before long. Ex-marquis Chao--he that had been driven into +exile--died in Ts'i; and his body was sent home for burial with +his ancestors. Chi, who had been chief among those responsible +for the dead man's exile, by way of insulting the corpse, gave +orders that it should be buried outside the royal cemetery; and +his orders were carried out. Confucius heard of it, and was +indignant. To have had the corpse exhumed and reburied would +have been a new indignity, I suppose; therefore he gave orders +that the cemetery should be enlarged so as to include the grave; +--and went down and saw it done.--"I have done this on your +behalf," he informed Chi, "to hide the shame of your disloyalty. +To insult the memory of a dead prince is against all decency." +The great man gnashed his teeth; but the Minister of Crime's +action stood. + +He turned his attention to the robber-barons, and reduced them. +I do not know how; he was entirely against war; but it is +certain that in a very short time those castles were leveled with +the ground, and the writ of the Marquis ran through Lu. He +hated capital punishment; but signed the death warrant for the +worst of the offenders;--and that despite the protest of some of +his disciples, who would have had him consistent above all +things. But his back was up, and the man was executed. One +makes no excuse for it; except perhaps, to say that such an +action, isolated, and ordained by Such a One, needs no excuse. +He was in the habit of fulfilling his duty; and duty may at times +present itself in strange shapes. It was a startling thing to +do; and Lu straight-way, as they say, sat right up and began to +take concentrated notice of a situation the like of which had not +been seen for centuries. + +He had the final decision in all legal cases. A father brought a +charge against his son; relying on the bias of the Minister +whose life had been so largely given to preaching filial piety. +"If you had brought up your son properly," said Confucius, "this +would not have happened"; and astounded plaintiff, defendant, +and the world at large by putting both in prison for three +months. In a year or so he had done for Lu what he had done for +Chung-tu during his magistracy. + +By this time Ts'i and Sung and Wei and the whole empire were +taking notice too. There was actually a state where crime was +unknown; where law ruled and the government was strong, and yet, +the people more than contented; a state--and such a state!-- +looming ahead as the probable seat of a Bretwalda. Lu with the +hegemony! This old orthodox strict Lu!--this home of lost +causes!--this back number, and quaint _chinoiserie_ to be laughed +at!--As if Morgan Shuster had carried on his work in Persia until +Persia had become of a strength to threaten the world. Lu was +growing strong; and Ts'i--renowned military Ts'i--thought she +ought to be doing something. Thus in our own time, whenever +somnolent obsolete Turkey tried to clean her house, Russia, +land-hungry and looking to a Thanksgiving Dinner presently, felt +a call to send down emissaries, and--see that the cleaning should +not be done. + +Duke Ching of Ts'i, at the first attempt, bungled his plans +badly. He would not strike at the root of things, Confucius; +perhaps retained too much respect for him; perhaps simply did +not understand; but at that harmless mutton Marquis Ting who +Confucius had successfully camouflaged up to look like a lion. +To that end he formally sought an alliance with Lu, and the Lu +Minister of Crime concurred. He intended that there should be +more of these alliances. + +An altar was raised on the frontier, where the two princes were +to meet and sign the treaty. Duke Ching had laid his plans; but +they did not include the presence of Confucius at the altar as +Master or the Ceremonies on the side of Lu. There he was, +however; and after all, it could hardly make much difference. +The preliminary rites went forward. Suddenly, a roll of drums; +a rush of 'savages' out of ambush;--there were savage tribes in +those parts;--confusion; the Marquis's guard, as the Duke's, is +at some little distance; and clearly it is for the Marquis that +these 'savages' are making. But Confucius is there. He steps +between the kidnappers and his master, "with elbows spread like +wings" hustles the latter off into safety; takes hold of the +situation; issues sharp orders to the savages--who are of course +Ts'i troops in disquise: _Attention! About face!--Double +march!_--snaps out the words of command in right military style, +right in the presence of their own duke, who stands by amazed and +helpless;--and off they go. Then spaciously clears the matter +up. Finds, no doubt, that it is all a mistake; supplies, very +likely, an easy and acceptable explanation to save Ching's face; +shortly has all things peaceably _in status quo._ Then brings +back his marquis, and goes forward with the treaty; but now as +Master of the Ceremonies and something more. There had been a +land question between Lu and Ts'i: Lu territory seized some time +since by her strong neighbor, and the cause of much soreness on +the one hand and exultation on the other. By the time that +treaty had been signed Duke Ching of Ts'i had ceded back the land +to Marquis Ting of Lu,--a thing assuredly he had never dreamed of +doing; and an alliance had been established between the two +states. Since the Duke of Chow's time, Lu had never stood +so high. + +Was our man a prig at all? Was he a pedant? have those who have +sedulously spread that report of him in the West told the truth +about him? Or--hath a pleasant little lie or twain served +their turn? + +Duke Ching went home and thought things over. He had learned his +lesson: that ting was but a camouflage lion, and by no means the +one to strike at, if business was to be done. He devised a plan, +sweet in it simplicity, marvelous in its knowledge of what we are +pleased to call 'human' nature. He ransacked his realm for +beautiful singing and dancing girls, and sent the best eighty he +could find to his dear friend and ally of Lu. Not to make the +thing too pointed, he added a hundred and twenty fine horses-- +with their trappings. What could be more appropriate than +such a gift? + +It worked. Ting retired to his harem, and day after day passed +over a Lu unlighted by his countenance. Government was at a +standstill; the great Minister of Crime could get nothing done. +The Annual Sacrifice was at hand; a solemnity Confucius hoped +would remind Ting of realities and bring him to his right mind. +According to the ritual, a portion of the offering should be sent +to each high official of the state: none came to Confucius. Day +after day he waited; but Ting's character was quite gone: the +lion-skin had fallen off, and the native egregious muttonhood or +worse stood revealed.--"Master," said Tse Lu, "it is time you +went." But he was very loath to go. At last he gathered his +disciples, and slowly went out from the city. He lingered much +on the way, looking back often, still hoping for sight of the +messenger who should recall him. But none came. That was +in 497. + +The old century had ended about the time he took office; and +with it, of course, the last quarter in which, as always, the +Doors of the Lodge were open, and the spiritual influx pouring +into the world. So the effort of that age had its consummation +and fine flower in the three years of his official life: to be +considered a triumph. Now, Laotse had long since ridden away +into the West; the Doors were shut; the tides were no longer +flowing; and the God's great Confucius remained in a world that +knew him not. As for holding office and governing states, he had +done all that was necessary. + + + + +XI. CONFUCIUS THE HERO + + +He had done enough in the way of holding office and governing +states. Laotse had taught that of old time, before Tao was lost, +the Yellow Emperor sat on his throne and all the world was +governed without knowing it. Confucius worked out the doctrine +thus: True government is by example; given the true ruler, and +he will have the means of ruling at his disposal, and they will +be altogether different from physical force. 'Example' does not +covey it either: his thought was much deeper. There is a word +_li_--I get all this from Dr. Lionel Giles--which the egregious +have been egregiously translating 'the rules of propriety'; but +which Confucius used primarily for a state of harmony within the +soul, which should enable beneficent forces from the Infinite to +flow through into the outer world;--whereof a result would also +be, on the social plane, perfect courtesy and politeness, these +the most outward expression of it. On these too Confucius +insisted which is the very worst you can say about him.--Now, the +ruler stands between Gods and men; let his _li_ be perfect--let +the forces of heaven flow through him unimpeded,--and the people +are regenerated day by day: the government is by regeneration. +Here lies the secret of all his insistence on loyalty and +filial piety: the regeneration of society is dependent on the +maintenance of the natural relation between the Ruler who rules-- +that is, lets the _li_ of heaven flow through him--and his +people. They are to maintain such an attitude towards him as +will enable them to receive the _li._ In the family, he is the +father; in the state, he is the king. In very truth, this is +the Doctrine of the Golden Age, and proof of the profound occult +wisdom of Confucius: even the (comparatively) little of it that +was ever made practical lifted China to the grand height she has +held. It is hinted at in the _Bhagavad-Gita:_--"whatsoever is +practised by the most excellent men"; again, it is the Aryan +doctrine of the Guruparampara Chain. The whole idea is so remote +from modern practice and theory that it must seem to the west +utopian, even absurd; but we have Asoka's reign in India, and +Confucius's Ministry in Lu, to prove its basic truth. During +that Ministry he had flashed the picture of such a ruler +on to the screen of time: and it was enough. China could +never forget. + +But if, knowing it to have been enough,--knowing that the hour of +the Open Door had passed, and that he should never see success +again,--he had then and there retired into private life, content +to teach his disciples and leave the stubborn world to save or +damn itself:--enough it would not have been. He had flashed the +picture on to the screen of time, but it would have faded. +Twenty years of wandering, of indomitability, of disappointment +and of ignoring defeat and failure, lay before him: in which to +make his creation, not a momentary picture, but a carving in jade +and granite and adamant. It is not the ever-victorious and +successful that we take into the adyta of our hearts. It is the +poignancy of heroism still heroism in defeat,-- + + "unchanged, though fallen on evil years," + +--that wins admittance there. Someone sneered at Confucius, in his +latter years, as the man who was always trying to do the +impossible. He was; and the sneerer had no idea what high +tribute he was paying him. It is because he was that: the hero, +the flaming idealist: that his figure shines out so clear and +splendidly. His outer attempts--to make a Man of Marquis This +or Duke That, and a model state of Lu or Wei--these were +but carvings in rotten wood, foredoomed to quick failure. +All the material of the world was rotten wood: he might have +learned that lesson;--only there are lessons that Such a One +never learns. Well; we in turn may learn a lesson from him: +applicable now. The rotten wood crumbled under his hands time +and again: under his bodily hands;--but it made no difference to +him. He went on and on, still hoping to begin his life's work, +and never recognising failure; and by reason and virtue of that, +the hands of his spirit were carving, not in rotten wood, but in +precious jade and adamant spiritual, to endure forever. On those +inner planes he was building up his Raja-Yoga; which time saw to +it should materialize and redeem his race presently. Confucius +in the brief moment of his victory illuminated the world indeed; +but Confucius in the long years of his defeat has bowed the +hearts of twenty-five centuries of the Black-haired People. We +can see this now; I wonder did he see it then? I mean, had that +certain knowledge and clear vision in his conscious mind, that +was possessed in the divinity of his Soul--as it is in every +Soul. I imagine not; for in his last days he--the personality-- +could give way and weep over the utter failure of his efforts. +One loves him the more for it: one thinks his grandeur only the +more grand. It is a very human and at last a very pathetic +figure--this Man that did save his people. + +Due west from Lu, and on the road thence to Honanfu the Chow +capital, lay the Duchy of Wei; whither now he turned his steps. +He had no narrow patriotism: if his own Lu rejected him, he +might still save this foreign state, and through it, perhaps, All +the Chinas. He was at this time one of the most famous men +alive; and his first experience in Wei might have been thought +to augur well. On the frontier he was met by messengers from a +local Wei official, begging for their master an interview:-- +"Every illustrious stranger has granted me one; let me not ask +it of you, Sir, in vain." Confucius complied; was conducted to +the yamen, and went in, leaving his disciples outside. To these +the magistrate came out, while the Master was still resting +within.--"Sirs," said he, "never grieve for your Teacher's fall +from office. His work is but now to begin. These many years the +empire has been in perilous case; but now Heaven has raised up +Confucius, its tocsin to call the people to awakenment."--A wise +man, that Wei official! + +At the capital, Duke Ling received him with all honor, and at +once assigned him a pension equal to the salary he had been paid +as Minister of Crime in Lu. He even consulted him now and again; +but reserved to himself liberty to neglect the advice asked for. +However, the courtiers intrigued; and before the year was out, +Confucius had taken to his wanderings again: he would try the +state of Ch'in now, in the far south-east. "If any prince would +employ me," said he, "within a twelvemonth I should have done +something considerable; in three years the government would +be perfect." + +He was to pass through the town of Kwang, in Sung; it had lately +been raided by a robber named Yang Hu, in face and figure +resembling himself. Someone who saw him in the street put it +abroad that Yang Hu was in the town, and followed him to the +house he had taken for the night. Before long a mob had gathered, +intent on vengeance. The situation was dangerous; the mob in no +mood to hear reason;--and as to that, Yang Hu also would have +said that he was not the man they took him for,--very likely +would have claimed to be the renowned Confucius. The disciples, +as well they might be, were alarmed: the prospect was, short +shrift for the whole party.--"Boys," said the Master, "do you +think Heaven entrusted the Cause of Truth to me, to let me be +harmed by the towns-men of Kwang? "--The besiegers looked for +protests, and then for a fight. What they did not look for was +to hear someone inside singing to a lute;--it was that great +musician Confucius. When he sang and played you stopped to +listen; and so did the Kwang mob now. They listened, and +wondered, and enjoyed their free concert; then made reasonable +inquiries, and apologies,--and went their ways in peace. + +In those South-eastern states there was no prospect for him, +and after a while he returneci to Wei. He liked Duke Ling +personally, and the liking was mutual; time and again he went +back there, hoping against hope that something might be done,--or +seeing no other horizon so hopeful. Now Ling had a consort of +some irregular kind: Nantse, famed for her beauty and brilliance +and wickedness. Perhaps _ennuyee,_ and hoping for contact with a +mind equal to her own, she was much stirred by the news of +Confucius' return, and sent to him asking an interview. Such a +request was a characteristic flouting of the conventions on her +part; for him to grant it would be much more so on his. But he +did grant it; and they conversed, after the custom of the time, +with a screen between, neither seeing the other. Tse Lu was much +disturbed; considering it all a very dangerous innovation, +inconsistent in Confucius, and improper. So in the eyes of the +world it would have seemed. But Nantse held the Duke, and +Confucius might influence Nantse. He never let conventions stand +in his way, when there was a chance of doing good work by +breaking them. + +One suspects that the lady wished to make her vices respectable +by giving them a seeming backing by incarnate virtue; and that +to this end she brought about the sequel. Duke Ling was to make +a Progress through the city; and requested Confucius to follow +his carriage in another. He did so; not knowing that Nantse had +seen to it that she was to be sitting at the Duke's side. +Her position and reputation even in those days needed some +regularizing; and she had chosen this means to do it. But to +the people, the spectacle was highly symbolic; and Confucius +heard their jeers as he passed:--Flaunting Vice in front, +Slighted Virtue in the rear.--"I have met none," said he, "who +loves virtue more than women." It was time for him to go; and +now he would try the south again. In reality, perhaps, it matter +little whither he went or where he stayed: there was no place +for him anywhere. All that was important was, that he should keep +up the effort. + +An official in Sung, one Hwan Tuy, held the roads against him, +accusing him of "a proud air and many desires; an insinuating +habit and a wild will." From this time on he was subject to +persecution. The "insinuating habit" reminds one of an old +parrot-cry one has heard: "She hypnotizes them." He turned +westward from this opposition, and visited one state, and then +another; in neither was there any disposition to use him. He +had found no more likely material than Duke Ling of Wei, who at +least was always glad to see and talk with him:--might not be +jade to carve, but was the wood least rotten at hand. But at +Wei, as usual, there was nothing but disappointment in store. + +Pih Hsih, a rebel, was holding a town in Tsin, modern Shansi, +against the king of that state; and now sent messengers inviting +Confucius to visit him. Tse Lu protested: had he not always +preached obedience to the Powers that Were, and that the True +Gentleman did not associate with rebels?--"Am I a bitter gourd," +said Confucius, "to be hung up out of the way of being eaten?" +He was always big enough to be inconsistent. He had come to see +that the Powers that Were were hopeless, and was for catching at +any straw. But something delayed his setting out; and when he +reached the Yellow River, news came of the execution of Tsin of +two men whom he admired. "How beautiful they were!" said he; +"how beautiful they were! This river is not more majestic! And +I was not there to save them!" + +The truth seems to be that he would set out for any place where +the smallest opening presented itself; and while that opening +existed, would not be turned aside from his purpose; but if it +vanished, or if something better came in sight, he would turn and +follow that. Thus he did not go on into Tsin when he heard of +these executions; but one, when he was on the road to Wei and a +band of roughs waylaid him and made him promise never to go there +again, he simply gave the promise and went straight on. + +At Wei now Duke Ling was really inclined to use him;--but as his +military adviser. It was the last straw; he left, and would not +return in Ling's lifetime. He was in Ch'in for awhile; and then +for three years at Ts'ae, a new state built of the rebellion of +certain subjects or vassals of the great sourthern kingdom of +Ts'u. On hearing of his arrival, the Duke of Ts'ae had the idea +to send for Tse Lu, who had a broad reputation of his own as a +brave and practical man, and to inquire of him what kind of man +the master really was. But Tse Lu, as we have seen, was rigid as +to rebels, and vouchsafed no answer.--"You might have told him," +said Confucius, "that I am simply one who forgets his food in the +pursuit of wisdom, and his sorrows in the joys of attaining it, +and who does not perceive old age coming on." + +Missionary writers have cast it at him, that were of old he had +preached against rebellion, now he was willing enough to "have +rebels for his patrons";--"adversity had not stiffened his back, +but had made him pliable." Which shows how blind such minds are +to real greatness. "They have nothing to draw with, and this +well is deep." He sought no "patrons," now or at another time; +but tools with which to work for the redemption of China; and he +was prepared to find them anywhere, and take what came to hand. +His keynote was _duty._ The world went on snubbing, ignoring, +insulting, traducing, and persecuting him; and he went on with +the performance of his duty;--rather, with the more difficult +task of searching for the duty he was to perform. This resorting +to rebels, like that conversing with Nantse, shows him clearly +not the formalist and slave of conventions he has been called, +but a man of highest moral courage. What he stood for was not +forms, conventions, reules, proprieties, or anything of the sort; +but the liens of least resistance in his high endeavor to lift +the world: lines of least resistance; middle lines; common +sense.--As ususal, there was nothing to be done with the Duke +of Ts'ae. + +Wandering from state to state, he came on recluses in a field by +the river, and sent Tse Lu forward to ask one of them the way to +the ford. Said the hermit:--"You follow one who withdraws from +court to court; it would be better to withdraw from the world +altogether."--"What!" said Confucius when it was told him; +"shall I not associate with mankind? If I do not associate with +mankind, with whom shall I associate?" + +In which answer lies a great key to Confucianism; turn it once +or twice, and you get to the import of his real teaching. He +never would follow the individual soul into its secrecies; he +was concerned with man only as a fragment of humanity. He was +concerned with man _as_ humanity. All that the West calls +(personal) religion he disliked intensely. Any desire or scheme +to save your own soul; any right-doing for the sake of a reward, +either here or hereafter, he would have bluntly called wrong- +doing, anti-social and selfish. (I am quoting in substance from +Dr. Lionel Giles.) He tempted no one with hopes of heaven; +frightened none with threats of hell. It seemed to him that he +could make a higher and nobler appeal,--could strike much more +forcibly at the root of evil (which is selfishness), by saying +nothing about rewards and punishments at all. The one inducement +to virtue that he offered was this: By doing right, you lead the +world into right-doing. He was justified in saying that Man is +divine; because this divine appeal of his was effective; not +like the West's favorite appeal to fear, selfish desire, and the +brutal side of our nature. "Do right to escape a whipping, or a +hanging, or hell-fire," says Christendom; and the nations +reared on that doctrine have risen and fallen, risen and fallen; +a mad riot of people struggling into life, and toppling back into +death in a season; so that future ages and the far reaches of +history will hardly remember their names, too lightly graven upon +time. But China, nourished on this divine appeal, however far +she may have fallen short of it, has stood, and stood, and stood. +In the last resort, it is the only inducement worth anything; +the only lever that lifts.--There is that _li,_--that inevitable +rightness and harmony that begins in the innermost _when there is +the balance_ and duty is being done, and flows outward healing +and preserving and making wholesome all the phases of being;--let +that harmony of heaven play through you, and you are bringing +mankind to virtue; you are pouting cleansing currents into the +world. How little of the tortuosity of metaphysics is here;--but +what grand efficacity of super-ethics! You remember what _Light +on the Path_ says about the man who is a link between the noise +of the market-place and the silence of the snow-capped Himalayas; +and what it says about the danger of seeking to sow good karma +for oneself,--how the man that does so will only be sowing the +giant weed of selfhood. In those two passages you find the +essence of Confucianism and the wisdom and genius of Confucius. +It is as simple as A B C; and yet behind it lie all the truths +of metaphysics and philosophy. He seized upon the pearl +of Theosophic thought, the cream of all metaphysics, where +metaphysics passes into action,--and threw his strength into +insisting on that: Pursue virtue because it is virtue, and that +you may (as you will,--it is the only way you can) bring the +world to virtue; or negatively, in the words of _Light on the +Path:_ "Abstain (from vice) because it is right to abstain--not +that yourself shall be kept clean." And now to travel back +into the thought behind, that you may see if Confucius was a +materialist; whether or not he believed in the Soul;--and that +if he was not a great original thinker, at least he commanded the +ends of all great, true and original thinking. Man, he says, is +naturally good. That is, collectively. _Man_ is divine and +immortal; only _men_ are mortal and erring. Were there a true +brotherhood of mankind established, a proper relation of the +parts to the whole and to each other,--you would have no +difficulty with what is evil in yourself. The lower nature with +its temptations would not appear; the world-old battle with the +flesh would be won. But separate yourself in yourself,--consider +yourself as a selfhood, not as a unit in society;--and you find, +there where you have put yourself, evil to contend with a-plenty. +Virtue inheres in the Brotherhood of Man; vice in the separate +personal and individual units. Virtue is in That which is no +man's possession, but common to all: namely, the Soul--though he +does not enlarge upon it as that; perhaps never mentions it as +the Soul at all;--vice is in that which each has for himself +alone: the personality. Hence his hatred of religiosity, of +personal soul-saving. You were to guard against evil in the +simplest way: by living wholly in humanity, finding all you +motives and sources of action there. If you were, in the highest +sense, simply a factor in human society, you were a good man. If +you lived in yourself alone,--having all evil to meet there, you +were likely to succumb to it; and you were on the wrong road +anyway. Come out, then; think not of your soul to be saved, nor +of what may befall you after death. You, as you, are of no +account; all that matters is humanity as a whole, of which you +are but a tiny part.--Now, if you like, say that Confucius did +not teach Theosophy, because, _so far as we know,_ he said +nothing about Karma or Reincarnation. I am inclined to think him +one of the two or three supreme historical Teachers of Theosophy; +and to say that his message, so infinitely simple, is one of the +most wonderful presentations of it ever given. + +It is this entire purity from all taint of personal religion; +this distaste for prayer and unrelish for soul-salvation; this +sweet clean impersonality of God and man, that makes the +missionary writers find him so cold and lifeless. But when you +look at him, it is a marvelously warm-hearted magnetic man you +see: Such a One as wins hearts to endless devotion. Many of the +disciples were men who commanded very much the respect of +the world. The king of Ts'u proposed to give Confucius an +independent duchy: to make a sovereign prince of him, with +territories absolutely his own. But one of his ministers +dissuaded him thus: "Has your majesty," said he, "any diplomatist +in your service like Tse Kung? Or anyone so fitted to be prime +minister as Yen Huy? Or a general to compare with Tse Lu? . . . +If K'ung Ch'iu were to acquire territory, with such men as these +to serve him, it would not be to the prosperity of Ts'u."--And +yet those three brilliant men were content--no, proud--to follow +him on his hopeless wanderings, sharing all his long sorrow; +they were utterly devoted to him. Indeed, we read of none of his +disciples turning against him;--which also speaks mighty well for +the stuff that was to be found in Chinese humanity in those days. + +Tse Kung was told that some prince or minister had said that he, +Tse Kung, was a greater man than Confucius. He answered: "The +wall of my house rises only to the height of a man's shoulders; +anyone can look in and see whatever excellence is within. But +the Master's wall is many fathoms in height; so that who fails to +find the gateway cannot see the beauties of the temple within nor +the rich apparel of the officiating priests. It may be that only +a few will find the gate. Need we be surprised, then, at His +Excellency's remark?" Yen Huy said:--"The Master knows how to +draw us after him by regular steps. He broadens our outlook +with polite learning, and restrains our impulses by teaching +us self-control." + +Only once, I think, is he recorded to have spoken of prayer. He +was very ill, and Tse Lu proposed to pray for his recovery. Said +Confucius: "What precedent is there for that?"--There was great +stuff in that Tse Lu: a bold warriorlike nature; not very +pliable; not too easy to teach, I imagine, but wonderfully +paying for any lesson taught and learned. He figures often as +the one who clings to the letter, and misses vision of the spirit +of the teaching; so now the Master plays him a little with this +as to precedent,--which weighed always more strongly with Tse Lu +than with Confucius.--"In the _Eulogies,"_ said Tse Lu, (it is a +lost work), "it is written: 'We pray to you, O Spirits of +Heaven and Earth."--"Ah!" said Confucius, "my prayers began long, +long ago." But he never did pray, in the Western sense. His +_life_ was one great intercession and petition for his people. + +As to his love of ritual: remember that there are ceremonies and +ceremonies, some with deep power and meaning. Those that +Confucius upheld came down to him from Adept Teachers of old; +and he had an eye to them only as outward signs of a spiritual +grace, and means to it. "Ceremonies indeed!" said he once; "do +you think they are a mere matter of silken robes and jade +omaments? Music forsooth! Can music be a mere thing of drums +and bells?"--Or of harps, lutes, dulcimers, sackbuts, psalteries, +and all kinds of instruments, he might have added; all of which, +together with all rites, postures, pacings, and offerings, were +nothing to him unless channels through which the divine _li_ +might be induced to flow. Yet on his wanderings, by the +roadside, in lonely places, he would go through ceremonies with +his disciples. Why?--Why is an army drilled? If you go to the +root of the matter, it is to make _one_ the consciousness of the +individual soldiers. So Confucius, as I take it, in his +ceremonies sought to unify the consciousness of his disciples, +that the _li_ might have passage through them. I say boldly it +was a proof of that deep occult knowledge of his,--which he never +talked about. + +They asked him once if any single ideogram conveyed the whole law +of life.--"Yes," he said; and gave them one compounded of two +others, which means 'As heart':--the missionaries prefer to +render it 'reciprocity.' His teaching--out of his own mouth we +convict him--was the Doctrine of the Heart. He was for the glow +in the heart always; not as against, but as the one true cause +of, external right action. But the Heart doctrine cannot be +defined in a set of rules and formulae; so he was always urging +middle lines, common sense. That is the explanation of his +famous answer when they asked him whether injuries should be +repaid with kindness. What he said amounts to this: "For +goodness sake, use common sense! I have given you 'as heart' for +your rule."--We know Katherine Tingley's teaching: not one of us +but has been helped and saved by it a thousand times. I can only +say that, in the light of that, the more you study Confucius, the +greater he seems; the more extraordinary the parallelisms you +see between her method and his. Perhaps it is because his method +has been so minutely recorded. We do not find here merely +ethical precepts, or expositions of philosophic thought: what we +see is a Teacher guiding and adjusting the lives of his disciples. + +When he had been three years at Ts'ae, the King of Ts'u invited +him to his court. Ts'u, you will remember, lay southward towards +the Yangtse, and was, most of the time, one of the six Great +Powers.* Here at last was something hopeful; and Confucius set +out. But Ts'ae and Ch'in, though they had neglected him, had not +done so through ignorance of his value; and were not disposed to +see his wisdom added to the strength of Ts'u. They sent out a +force to waylay him; which surrounded him in the wilderness and +held him besieged but unmolested for seven days. Food ran out, +and the Confucianists were so enfeebled at last that they could +hardly stand. We do not hear that terms were offereed, as that +they should turn back or go elsewhere: the intention seems +to have been to make an end of Confucius and Confucianism +altogether,--without bloodshed. Even Tse Lu was shaken.--"Is it +for the Princely Man," said he, "to suffer the pinch of +privation?"--"Privation may come his way," Confucius answered; +"but only the vulgar grow reckless and demoralized under it." So +saying he took his lute and sang to them, and hearing him they +forgot to fear. Meanwhile one of the party had won through the +lines, and brought word to Ts'u of the Master's plight; whereat +the king sent a force to his relief, and came out from the +capital to receive him in state. The king's intentions were +good; but we have seen how his ministers intrigued and diverted +them. In the autumn of that year he died, having become somewhat +estranged from the Master. His successor was one from whom no +good could be expected, and Confucius returned to Wei. + +------- +* _Ancient China Simplified:_ by Prof. E. Harper Parker; from +which book the account of the political condition and divisions +of the empire given in these lectures is drawn. +------ + +Duke Ling was dead, and his grandson, Chuh, was on the throne. +There had been a complication of family crimes plottings: Chuh +had driven out his father, who in turn had attempted the life of +his own mother, Nantse. Chuh wished to employ Confucius, but not +to forgo his evil courses: it was a situation that could not be +sanctioned. For six years the Master lived in retirement in Wei, +watching events, and always sanguine that his chance would come. +He was not sixty-nine years old; but hoped to begin his life's +work presently. + +Then suddenly he was in demand,--in two quarters. There was a +sort of civil war in Wei, and the chief of one of the factions +came to him for advice as to the best means of attacking the +other. Confucius was disgusted. Meanwhile Lu had been at war +with Ts'i; and Yen Yu, a Confucianist, put in command of the Lu +troops, had been winning all the victories in sight. Marquis +Ting now slept with his fathers, and Marquis Gae reigned in his +stead; also there was a new Chief of Clan Chi to run things:-- +Gae to reign, Chi to rule. They asked Yen Yu where he had +learned his so victorious generalship; and he answered, "from +Confucius."--If a mere disciple could do so much, they thought, +surely the Master himself could do much more: as, perhaps, lead +the Lu armies to universal victory. So they sent him a cordial +invitation, with no words as to the warlike views that prompted +it. High in hope, Confucius set out; these fourteen years his +native country had been pulling at his heart-strings, and +latterly, more insistently than ever. But on his arrival he +saw how the land lay. Chi consulted him about putting down +brigandage: Chi being, as you might say, the arch-brigand of +Lu.--"If you, Sir, were not avaricious," said Confucius, "though +you offered men rewards for stealing, they would cleave to their +honesty." There was nothing to be done with such men as these; +he went into retirement, having much literary work to finish. +That was in 483. + +In 482 his son Li died; and a year later Yen Huy, dearest of his +disciples. We have seen how he gave way to grief. There is that +strange mystery of the dual nature; even in Such a One. There +is the human Personality that the Great Soul must work through. +He had performed his function; he had fulfilled his duty; all +that he owed to the coming ages he had paid in full. But the +evidence goes to show that he was still looking forward for a +chance to begin, and that every disappointmtnt hurt the outward +man of him: that it was telling on him: that it was a sad, a +disappointed, even a heart-broken old man that wept over Yen +Huy.--In 481, we read, a servant of the Chief of Clan Chi caught +a strange one-horned aninial, with a white ribbon tied to its +horn. None had seen the like of it; and Confucius, being the +most learned of men, was called in to make pronouncement. He +recognised it at once from his mother's description: it was the +_k'e-lin,_ the unicorn; that was the ribbon Chingtsai had decked +it with in the cave on Mount Ne the night of his birth. He burst +into tears. "For whom have you come?" he cried; "for whom have +you come?" And then: "The course of my doctrine is run, and +wisdom is still neglected, and success is still worshiped. My +principles make no progress: how will it be in the after ages?" +--Ah, could he have know!--I mean, that old weary mind and body; +the Soul which was Confucius knew. + +Yen Huy, Tse Lu, and Tse Kung: those were the three whom he had +loved and trusted most. Yen Huy was dead; Tse Lu, with Tse Kao, +another disciple, he had left behind in Wei holding office under +the duke. Now news came that a revolution had broken out there. +"Tse Kao will return," said he; "but Tse Lu will die." So it +fell. Tse Kao, finding the duke's cause hopeless, made his +escape; but Tse Lu fought the forlorn hope to the end, and died +like a hero. Only Tse Kung, of the three, was left to him. Who +one morning, when he went to the Master's house, found him +walking to and fro before the door crooning over this verse: + + "The great mountain must crumble, + The strong beam must break. + The wise man must wither like a flower." + +Heavy-hearted, Tse Kung followed him in.--"What makes you so +late?" said Confucius; and then: "According to the rites of +Hia, the dead lay in state at the top of the eastern steps, as if +he were the host. Under the Shangs, it was between the two +pillars he lay, as if he were both host and guest. The rite of +the Chows is for him to lie at the top of the western steps, +as if he were the guest. I am a man of Shang,"--it will be +remembered that he was descended from that royal house; "and +last night I dreamed that I was sitting between the pillars, with +offerings set out before me. No intelligent monarch arises; no +prince will make me his teacher. My time has come to die."--That +day he took to his bed; his passing was a week later. + +On the banks of the Sze his disciples buried him; and for three +years mourned at his grave. But Tse Kung built himself a cabin +at the graveside, and remained there three years longer. "All my +life," said he, "I have had heaven above my head, but I do not +know its height. I have had earth beneath my feet, but I have +not known its magnitude. I served Confucius: I was like a +thirsty man going with his pitcher to the river. I drank my +fill, but I never knew the depth of the water." + +And Tse Kung was right; and what he felt then, one feels now. +You read Boswell, and have your Johnson in the hollow of +your hand: body, soul, and spirit: higher triad and lower +quaternary. Of Confucius we have a picture in some respects even +more detailed than Boswell's of Johnson; but when we have said +everything, we still feel that nothing has been said. Boswell +lets you in through his master's church-door; shows you nave and +aisle, vault and vestry; climbs with you to the belfry; stands +with you at the altar and in the pulpit; till you have seen +everything there is to see. But with Confucius as with every +Adept the case is quite different. "The Master's wall is +fathomless," said Tse Kung; but he and the other disciples +took care that China at least should find the gate of entry; +and it is still possible for us to go in, and "see the beauty +of the temple, the richness of the robes of the officiating +priests." You go through everything; see him under all sorts of +circumstances; and ask at last: "Is this all?"--No, says your +guide; "see here!" and flings one last door open. And that, +like the door in Lord Dunsaney's play, opens on to the vastness +of the stars. What is it that baffles us and remains undefined +and undefinable? Just this: TAO: the Infinite Nature. You can +survey the earth, and measure it with chains; but not Space, in +which a billion leagues is nowise different from an inch or two, +--it bears the same proportion to the whole. + +There was his infinite trust;--and his unbroken silence as to the +Things he trusted in. Time and the world went proving to him +year by year that his theories were all impracticable, all wrong; +that he was a failure; that there was not anything for him to +do, and never would be a chance for him to do it;--and all their +arguments, all the sheer dreadful tyranny of fact, had no weight +with him at all: he went on and on. What was his sword of +strength? Where were the Allies in whom he trusted? How dared +he pit K'ung Ch'iu of Lu against time and the world and me?--The +Unseen was with him, and the Silence; and he (perhaps) lifted no +veil from the Unseen, and kept silent as to the silence;--and yet +maintained his Movement, and held his disciples together, and +saved his people,--as if he himself had been the Unseen made +visible, and the Silence given a voice to speak. + +And with it all there was the human man who suffered. I think +you will love him the more for this, from the _Analects:_ + +"The Minister said to Tse Lu, Tseng Hsi, Jan Yu, and Kung-hsi Hua +as they sat beside him: 'I may be a day older than you are, but +forget that. You are wont to say, "We are unknown." Well; had +ye a name in the world, what would ye do?'" + +"Tse Lu answered lightly: 'Give me charge of a land of a +thousand chariots, crushed between great neighbors, overrun by +soldiery and oppressed by famine; in three years' time I should +have put courage and high purpose into the people.'" + +"The Master smiled,--'What wouldst thou do, Ch'iu?' he said." + +"Jan Yu answered: 'Had I charge of sixty or seventy square +miles, or from fifty to sixty, in three years' time I would give +the people plenty. As for courtesy, music and the like, they +could wait for these for the rise of a Princely Man.'" + +"'And what wouldst thou do, Chih?' said the Master." + +"Kung-hsi Hua answered: 'I would speak of the things I fain +would learn, not of what I can do. At service in the Ancestral +Temple, or at the Grand Audience, clad in black robe and cap, I +fain would fill a small part.'" + +"'And thou, Tien?' said the Master." + +"Tseng Hsi stopped playing, pushed away his still sounding lute, +rose up, and made answer: 'My choice would be unlike those of +the other three.'" + +"'What harm in that?' said the Master. 'Each but speaks his mind.'" + +"Tseng Hsi said: 'In the last days of Spring, and clad for the +season, with five or six grown men and six or seven lads, I would +bathe in the waters of Yi, all fanned by the breeze in the Rain +God's Glade, and wander home with song.'" + +"The Master sighed.--'I hold with Tien,' said he." + +Very, very human, I say; very Chinese. But here is that which +was not human but divine: he never turned from his path to +satisfy these so human and Chinese longings; the breeze in the +Rain God's Glade never blew for him. It is just as well to +remember, when you read of the ceremonies, the body bent under +the load of the scepter, the carefully chosen (as it may seem) +and habitually worn expression of face on passing or approaching +the throne, the "elbows spread like wings":--all the formal round +of proprieties;--that it was the last days of Spring, and the +waters of Yi, and the breeze in the Rain God's Glade, that were +calling to his Chinese heart. + +Yes; he was very human; listen to this:--Yuan Jang awaited the +Master squatting on the ground. "The Master said:--'Unruly when +young, unmentioned as man, undying when old,--this spells +_Good-for-nothing';_ and hit him on the leg with his staff." + +Which brings one naturally to his sense of humor. + +Once he was passing through a by-street when a man of the +district shouted:--"Great is Confucius the Philosopher! Yet for +all his wide learning he has nothing which can bring him fame!" +The Master turned to his disciples and said:--"What shall I take +up? Shall I take up charioteering?--or archery?--I must certainly +take up charioteering!" + +His disciples once were expecting him at the city of Ch'ing; and +Tse Kung asked a man who was coming from the east gate if he had +seen him there.--"Well," said the man, "there is a man there with +a forehead like Yao, a neck like Kao Yao, his shoulders on a +level with those of Tse-ch'an, but wanting below the waist three +inches of the height of Yu;--and altogether having the forsaken +appearance of a stray dog." Tse Kung recognised the description +and hurried off to meet the Master, to whom he reported it +_verbatim._ Confucius was hugely delighted. "A stray dog!" said +he; "fine! fine!" Unluckily, no contemporary photographs of Yao +and Yu and the others have come down; so the description is not +as enlightening now as it may have been then. + +"Tse Kung," we read, "would compare one man with another." The +Master said:--"What talents Tse has! Now I have no time for +such things!" + +I keep on hearing in his words accents that sound familiar. + +When he was at Loyang--Honanfu--one of the things that struck him +most was a bronze statue in the Temple of the Imperial Ancestors, +with a triple, clasp on its mouth. One does not wonder. A Great +Soul from the God World, he kept his eyes resolutely on the world +of men; as if he remembered, nothing of the splendor, and +nothing foresaw. . . . Indeed, I cannot tell; one would give +much to know what really passed between him and Laotse. If you +say that no word of his lightens, for you that 'dusk within the +Holy of holies',--at least he gives you the keys, and leaves you +to find and open the 'Holy of holies' for yourself if you can. +There are lost chapters, that went at the Burning of the Books; +and an old-fashioned Chinaman would often tell you of any Western +idea or invention his countrymen may not have known, that you +should have found all in the lost chapters of Confucius. It may +be;--and that you should have found there better things, too, +than Western ideas and inventions. There is a passage in the +_Analects_ that tells how the disciples thought he was 'keeping +back from them some part of his doctrine: "No, no," he +answered; "if I should not give it all to you, to whom should I +give it?" Distinctly, then, this suggests that there was an +esotericism, a side not made public; and there is no reason to +suppose that it has been made public since. But it is recorded +that he would lift no veils from the Other-worlds. "If you do +not understand life," said he, "how can you understand death?" + +Well; we who are stranded here, each on his desert island of +selfhood, thrust out after knowledge: peer for signs at all the +horizons;--are eager to inquire, and avid of the Unknown--which +also we imagine to be something outside of our own being. But +suppose a man, as they say one with Tao, in which all knowledge +rests in solution: what knowledge would he desire? After what +would he be inquisitive? And how much, desiring it, would he +possess? What is the end of being, after all? To perform your +function, your duty; what men and the world,--ay, and the far +suns and stars,--are requiring of you:--that is all. Not to gain +infinite knowledge; but to have at, every step what knowledge +you need; that so you may fill your place in the Universe, +meeting all contours and flowing into them; restoring and +maintaining the Harmony of Things. So we hear much about this +performance of duty. But in reality, to do one's duty is to sing +with the singing spheres; to have the Top of Infinity for the +roof of one's skull, and the bottom of the Great Deep for +one's footsoles: to be a compendium, and the Equal, of Heaven +and Earth. The password into the Tao of Laotse is Silence; +Confucius kept the great Silence more wonderfully than Laotse +did--or so it seems to me now. Laotse said: _Sing with the +singing spheres, and behold, your duty is doing itself uder your +hands._ The password into the Tao of Confucius is _Duty:_ he +said merely _Do that, and,_--the rest is silence. He may have +played that _rest_ on his lute; we are not to hear it in his +words. There was a knowledge that Laotse, enthroned in his +silence, had no means of using; that Confucius riding the +chariot of duty, had no occasion to possess. + +Now whether you call Tao _duty,_ or _silence,_--what should the +Man of Tao desire beyond the fulness of it? All the light is +there for him; all the suns are kindled for him;--why should he +light wax candles? That is, for himself: he will light them +fast enough where others may be in need. To us, a great poem may +be a great thing: but to them who have the fulness of which the +greatest poem is but a little glimpse--what should it matter to +them? And of the infinite knowledge at his disposal, would the +Man of Tao choose to burden himself with one little item of which +there was no present need? + +So when they say, "Confucius was nobody; there is no evidence +that he knew the great secrets"; answer them:--"Yes, there is. +He knew that supreme secret, how to _teach,_ which is the +office of a Teacher: he knew how to build up the inner life +of his disciples; to coax, train, lure the hidden god into +manifestation in them." And for evidence you can give them this: +Tse Kung--who, you remember, was always comparing this man with +that--asked which was the better, Shih or Shang. (They were two +disciples.) Confucius answered: "Shih goes too far; Shang not +far enough." Said Tse Kung (just as you or I would have done):-- +"Then Shih is the better man?"--"Too far," replied Confucius, "is +not better than not far enough."--To my ears there is more +occultism in that than in a thousand ethical injunctions.--Or +answered;--"Whilst thy father and they elder brother are alive, +how canst thou do all thou art taught?" Jan Yu said:--"Shall I +do all I am taught?" The Master said:--"Do all thou art taught." +Kung-hsi Hua said: "Yu asked, 'Shall I do all I am taught?' +and you spoke, Sir, of father and elder brother. Ch'iu asked, +'Shall I do all I am taught?' and you answered: 'Do all thou +art taught.' I am puzzled, and make bold to ask you, Sir." The +Master said:--"Ch'iu is bashful, so I egged him on. Yu has the +pluck of two, so I held him back." + +Think it over! Think it over! + +This though occurs to me: Was that sadness of his last days +caused by the knowledge that the School could not continue after +his death; because the one man who might have succeeded him as +the Teacher, Yen Huy, was dead? So far as I know, it did not go +on; there was no one to succeed him. That supreme success, that +grand capture of future ages for the Gods, was denied him; or I +daresay our own civilization might have been Confucian--BALANCED +--now. But short of that--how sublime a figure he stands! If +he had known that for twenty-five centuries or so he was to +shine within the vision of the great unthinking masses of his +countrymen as their supreme example; their anchor against the +tides of error, against abnormalities, extravagances, unbalance; +a bulwark against invading time and decay; a check on every bad +emperor, so far as check might be set at all; a central idea to +mold the hundred races of Chu Hia into homogeneity; a stay, a +prop, a warning against headlong courses at all times of cyclic +downtrend;--if he had known all this, he would, I think, have +ordered his life precisely as he did. Is there no strength +implied, as of the Universal, and not of any personal, will, +however titanic, in the fact that moment after moment, day after +day, year after year, he built up this picture, gave the world +this wonderful assurance of a man? In his omissions, no less +than in his fulfilments. He taught,--so far as we know,--nothing +but what the common mind might easily accept; nothing to miss +the mark of the intelligence of dull Li or Ching toiling in the +rice-field;--nor yet too paltry for the notice of the Hwangti on +the Dragon Throne. Laotse had come in the spirit of Plenydd the +Light-bringer; in the spirit of Alawn, to raise up presently +sweet profusions of song. He illuminated the inner worlds; his +was the urge that should again and again, especially later when +reinforced by Buddhism, prick up the Black-haired People to +heights of insight and spiritual achievement.--But the cycles of +insight and spiritual achievement, these too, must always run +their course and fall away; there is no year when it is always +Spring. Dark moments and seasons come; and the Spirit becomes +hidden; and what you need most is not illumination,--which you +cannot get; or if you could, it would be hell, and not heaven, +that would be illuminated for you; not a spur to action,--for as +things are constituted, any spur at such a time would drive you +to wrong and exorbitant action:--what you need is not these, but +simply stability to hold on; simply the habit of propriety, the +power to go on at least following harmless conventions and doing +harmless things; not striking out new lines for yourself, which +would certainly be wrong lines, but following as placidly as may +be lines that were laid down for you, or that you yourself laid +down, in more righteous and more luminous times. A strong +government, however tyrannical, is better than an anarchy in +which the fiend in every man is let loose to run amuck. Under +the tyranny, yes, the aspiring man will find himself hindered and +thwarted; but under the anarchy, since man is no less hell than +heaven, the gates of hell will be opened, and the Soul, normally +speaking, can only retire and wait for better times:--unless it +be the Soul of a Confucius, it can but wait till Karma with +ruthless hands has put down the anarchy and cleared things up. +Unless it be the Soul of a Confucius; and even Such a One is +bound to be a failure in his own day. + +But see what he did. The gates of hell were swung wide, and for +the time being, not the hosts of the Seraphim and Cherubim,--not +the armed Bodhisatvas and Dhyanis,--could have forced them back +on their hinges: "the ripple of effect," we read, "thou shalt +let run its course." But in the ideal world he erected a barrier +against them. He set up a colossal statue with arms outthrown to +bar the egress; the statue of Confucius preaching the Balanced +Life. With time it materialized, so to say, and fell into place. +You can never certainly stop the gates of hell,--in this stage of +our evolution. But perhaps as nearly as it can be done, he did +it. Rome fell, and Christendom made a mess of things; it has +never yet achieved that union which is the first condition of +true civilization. But China, older than Rome, despite her sins +and vicissitudes, has made a shift to stand. I shall come to +comparing the two histories presently; then you will see. +When the pralaya came on her, and the forces of life all went +elsewhere--as they do and must from every civilization in their +season,--China lost two of her treasures: Plenydd's vision, and +Alawn's gift of song, were taken from her. But this stability; +these Gloves of Gwron; this instinct for middle courses and the +balance, this Doctrine of the Mean and love of plain sane doings: +she has retained enough of this to keep her in being. And it was +K'ung Ch'iu of Lu that gave it to her. Shall we not call him +Such a One as only the Gods send? + +Someone told me the other day what he had seen a couple of +Chinamen do in a Californian garden. They had a flower-bed +to plant, about forty feet long; and each a basket of seedlings +to plant it with, and a slip of wood for a model, with mystic +unintelligible signs inscribed thereon: WELCOME HOME in English +capitals. One went to one end of the bed and the other to the +other, and they began their planting. They made no measurements +or calculations; used no rod or line; but just worked ahead +till they met in the middle. When that happened, and the job was +done, the bed was inscribed, in perfectly formed and proportioned +English capitals made of young plants, WELCOME HOME. There was +no crowding or omission. To account for it you have twenty-four +centuries of Confucianism,--of Katherine Tingley's doctrine of +Middle Lines, the Balanced Life. + +It is a very small thing; but it may help us to understand. + + + + +XII. TALES FROM A TAOIST TEACHER + + +Confucius died in 478: the year, it may be noted, in which +Athens attained her hegemony: or just when the Greek Cycle +thirteen decades was opening. Looking backward thirteen decades +from that, we come to 608 B.C.; four years after which date, +according to the usually accepted tradition, Laotse was born. +Thus we find the cycle preceding that of Greece mainly occupied, +in China, by the lives of the two great Teachers. + +We should have seen by this time that these two lives were, so to +say, parts of a single whole: co-ordinated spiritually, if not +in an organization on this plane. Laotse, like H.P. Blavatsky, +brought the Teachings; he illuminated the inner worlds. That +was his work. We can see little of him as he accomplished it: +and only the smallest fragment of his doctrine remains:--five +thousand words, out of his whole long life. But since we have +had in our own time an example of how these things are done, we +may judge him and his mission by this analogy; also by the +results. Then came Confucius, like Katherine Tingley, to link +this wisdom with individual and national life. The teachings +were there; and he had no need to restate them: he might take +the great principles as already enounced. But every Teacher has +his own method, and his need to accentuate this or that: so time +and history have had most to say about the differences between +these two. What Confucius had to do, and did, was to found his +school, and show in the lives of his disciples, modeled under his +hands, how the wisdom of the Ages (and of Laotse) can be made a +living power in life and save the world. + +Contrasting the efforts of that age and this, we may say that +then, organization, such as we have now, was lacking. Confucius +did not come as the official successor of Laotse; Laotse, +probably, had had no organized school that he could hand over to +Confucius. He had taught, and his influence had gone far and +wide, affecting the thought of the age; but he had had no +trained and pledged body of students to whom he could say: +'Follow this man when I am gone; he is my worthy successor.'-- +All of which will be laughed at: I firmly believe, however, that +it is an accurate estimate of things. When you come to think of +it, it was by the narrowest margine that H. P. Blavatsky, through +Mr. Judge--and his heroism and wisdom alone to be thanked +for it!--had anything beyond the influence of her ideas and +revelation to hand on to Katherine Tingley. In the way of an +organization, I mean. Very few among her disciples had come to +have any glimmering of what discipleship means, or were prepared +to follow her accredited successors. + +And Confucius, in his turn, had no established center for +his school; it was a thing that wandered the world with +him, and ceased, as in organization (however hazy) to exist +when he died. Nothing remained, then, of either Teacher +for posterity except the ideas and example. And yet I have +hinted, and shall try to show, that tremendous results for +good followed: that the whole course of history was turned +in an upward direction. You may draw what inferences you will. +The matter is profoundly significant. + +Thirteen decades after the death of Confucius, Plato died in +Greece; and about that time two men arose in China to carry +forward, bring down, and be the expositors of, the work of +the two great Teachers of the sixth and seventh centuries. +These were Chwangtse for Taoism, and Mangtse or Mencius for +Confucius: the one, the channel through which spiritual thought +flowed to the quickening of the Chinese imagination; the other, +the man who converted the spiritual thought of Confucius into the +Chinese Constitution. Alas! they were at loggerheads: a wide +breach between the two schools of thought had come to be by their +time; or perhaps it was they who created it. We shall arrive at +them next week; tonight, to introduce you to Liehtse, a Taoist +teacher who came sometime between Laotse and Chwangtse;--perhaps +in the last quarter of the fifth century, when Socrates was +active in Greece. + +Professor De Groot, of Holland, speaks boldly of Confucius as a +Taoist; and though I dislike many of this learned Dutchman's +ideas, this one is excellent. His thesis is that Laotse was no +more an innovator than Confucius; that both but gave a new +impulse to teachings as old as the race. Before Laotse there had +been a Teacher Quan, a statesman-philosopher of the seventh +century, who had also taught the Tao. The immemorial Chinese +idea had been that the Universe is made of the interplay of two +forces, _Yang_ and _Yin,_ positive and negative;--or simply the +Higher and the Lower natures. To the Yang, the Higher, belong +the _Shen_ or gods,--all conscious beneficent forces within and +without man. To the Yin or lower belong the _kwei,_ the opposite +of gods: _fan_ means foreign; and _Fan Kwei_ is the familiar +Chinese term for white men. From Shen and Tao we get the term +_Shentao,_ which you know better as _Shinto,_--the Way of the +Gods; or as well, the Wisdom of the Gods; as good an equivalent +of our term _Theosophy_ as you should find; perhaps indeed +better than _Theosophy_ itself; for it drives home the idea that +the _Wisdom_ is a practical _Way of Life._ Shentao, the Taoism +of the Higher Nature, then, was the primeval religion of the +Chinese;--Dr. De Groot arrives at this, though perhaps hardly +sees how sensible a conclusion he has reached. In the sixth +century B.C. it was in a fair way to becoming as obsolete as +Neoplatonism or Gnosticism in the nineteenth A.D.; and Laotse +and Confucius simply restated some aspects of it with a new force +and sanction;--just as H.P. Blavatsky, in the _Key to Theosophy,_ +begins, you will remember, with an appeal to and restatement of +the Theosophy of the Gnostics and Neoplatonists of Alexandria. + +It may seem a kind of divergence from our stream of history, to +turn aside and tell stories from the _Book of Liehtse;_ but +there are excuses. Chinese history, literature, thought-- +everything--have been such a closed book to the West, that those +scholars who have opened a few of its pages are to be considered +public benefactors; and there is room and to spare for any who +will but hold such opened pages up;--we are not in the future to +dwell so cut off from a third of mankind. Also it will do us +good to look at Theosophy from the angle of vision of another +race. I think Liehtse has much to show us as to the difference +between the methods of the Chinese and Western minds: the latter +that must bring most truths down through the brain-mind, and set +them forth decked in the apparel of reason; the former that is, +as it seems to me, often rather childlike as to the things of the +brain-mind; but has a way of bringing the great truths down and +past the brain-mind by some circuitous route; or it may be only +by a route much more direct than ours. The West presents its +illuminations so that they look big on the surface; you say, +This is the work of a great mind. A writer in the _Times Literary +Supplement_ brought out the idea well, in comparing the two +poetries. What he said was, in effect, as follows:--the Western +poet, too often, dons his singing robe before he will sing; +works himself up; expects to step out of current life into the +Grand Manner;--and unless the Soul happens to be there and vocal +at the time, achieves mostly _pombundle._ The Chinaman presents +his illumination as if it were nothing at all,--just the simplest +childish-foolish thing; nothing in the world for the brain-mind +to get excited about. You take very little notice at the time: +more of their quaint punchinello _chinoiserie,_ you say. Three +weeks after, you find that it was a clear voice from the +supermundane, a high revelation. The Chinese poet saunters along +playing a common little tune on his Pan-pipes. Singing robes?-- +None in the world; just what he goes to work in. Grand Manner?-- +'Sir,' says he, 'the contemptible present singer never heard of +it; wait for that till the coming of a Superior Man.'--'Well,' +you say, 'at least there is no danger of _pombundle';_ and +indeed there is not. But you rather like the little tune, and +stop to listen . . . and then . . . Oh God! the Wonder of wonders +has happened, and the Universe will never be quite the dull, +fool, ditchwater thing it was to you before . . . + +Liehtse gives one rather that kind of feeling. We know +practically nothing about him.--I count three stages of growth +among the sinologists: the first, with a missionary bias; the +second, with only the natural bias of pure scholarship and +critical intellectualism, broad and generous, but rather running +at times towards tidying up the things of the Soul from off the +face of the earth; the third, with scholarship plus sympathy, +understanding, and a dash of mystical insight. The men of the +first stage accepted Liehtse as a real person, and called him a +degenerator of Taoism, a teacher of immoral doctrine;--in the +_Book of Liehtse,_ certainly, such doctrine is to be found. The +men of the second stage effectually tidied Liehtse up: Dr. H. A. +Giles says he was an invention of the fertile brain of Chwangtse, +and his book a forgery of Han times. Well; people did forge +ancient literature in those days, and were well paid for doing +so; and you cannot be quite certain of the complete authenticity +of any book purporting to have been written before Ts'in Shi +Hwangti's time. Also Chwangtse's brain was fertile enough for +anything;--so that there was much excuse for the men of the +second stage. But then came Dr. Lionel Giles* who belongs to the +third stage, and perhaps _is_ the third stage. He shows that +though there is in the _Book of Liehtse_ a residue or scum of +immoral teaching, it is quite in opposition to the tendency of +the teaching that remains when this scum is removed; and deduces +from this fact the sensible idea that the scum was a later +forgery; the rest, the authentic work of a true philosopher with +an original mind and a style of his own. Such a man, of course, +might have lived later than Chwangtse, and taken his nom de plume +of Liehtse from the latter's book; but against this there is the +fact that Liehtse's teaching forms a natural link between +Chtangtse's and that of their common Master Laotse; and above +all--and herein lies the real importance of him--the real Liehtse +treats Confucius as a Teacher and Man of Tao. But by Chwangtse's +time the two schools had separated: Confucius was Chwangtse's +butt;--we shall see why. And in the scum of Liehtse he is +made fun of in Chwangtse's spirit, but without Changtse's wit +and style. + +------ +* Whose translation of parts of the _Book of Liehtse,_ with an +invaluable preface, appears in the _Wisdom of the East Series;_ +from which translation the passages quoted in this lecture are +taken;--as also are many ideas from the preface. +------ + +So that whoever wrote this book,--whether it was the man referred +to by Chwangtse when he says: "There was Liehtse again; he could +ride upon the wind and go wheresoever he wished, staying away as +long as thirteen days,"--or someone else of the same name, he did +not take his non de plume from that passage in Chwangtse, because +he was probably dead when Chwangtse wrote it. We may, then, +safely call him a Taoist Teacher of the fifth century,--or at +latest of the early fourth. + +The book's own account of itself is, that it was not written by +Liehtse, but compiled from his oral teaching by his disciples. +Thus it begins: + +"Our Master Liehtse live in the Cheng State for forty years, and +no man knew him for what he was. The prince, his ministers, and +the state officials looked upon him as one of the common herd. A +time of dearth fell upon the state, and he was preparing to +emigrate to Wei, when his disciples said to him: 'Now that our +Master is going away without any prospect of returning, we have +ventured to approach him, hoping for instruction. Are there no +words from the lips of Hu-Ch'iu Tsu-lin that you can impart to +us?'--Lieh the Master smiled and said: 'Do you suppose that Hu +Tzu dealt in words? However, I will try to repeat to you what my +Teacher said on one occasion to Po-hun Moujen. I was standing by +and heard his words, which ran as follows.'" + +Then come some rather severe metaphysics on cosmogony: really, a +more systematic statement of the teaching thereon which Laotse +referred to, but did not (in the _Tao Teh King_) define. 'More +systematic,'--and yet by no means are the lines laid down and the +plan marked out; there is no cartography of cosmogenesis; . . . +but seeds of meditation are sown. Of course, it is meaningless +nonsense for the mind to which all metaphysics and abstract +thought are meaningless nonsense. Mystics, however, will see in +it an attempt to put the Unutterable into words. One paragraph +may be quoted: + +"There is life, and That which produces life; form, and That +which imparts form; sound, and That which causes color; taste, +and That which causes taste. The source of life is death; but +That which produces life never comes to an end." + +Remember the dying Socrates: 'life comes from death, as death +from life.' We appear, at birth, out of that Unseen into which +we return at death, says Liehtse; but that which produces life, +--which is the cause of this manifestation (you can say, the +Soul),--is eternal. + +"The origin of form is matter; but That which imparts form has +no material existence." + +No; because it is the down-breathing spirit entering into +matter; matter being the medium through which it creates, or to +which it imparts, form. "The form to which the clay is modeled +is first united with"--or we may say, projected from--"the +potter's mind." + +"The genesis of sound lies in the sense of hearing; but That +which causes sound is never audible to the ear. The source of +color"--for 'source' we might say, the 'issuing-point'--"is +vision; but That which produces color never manifests to the +eye. The origin of taste lies in the palate; but That which +causes taste is never perceived by that sense. All these +pehnomena are functions of the Principle of Inaction--the inert +unchanging Tao." + +One is reminded of a passage in the _Talavakara-Upanishad:_ + +"That which does not speak by speech, but by which speech is +expressed: That alone shalt thou know as Brahman, not that which +they here adore. + +"That which does not think by mind, but by which mind is itself +thought: That alone shalt thou know as Brahman, not that which +they here adore." + +And so it continues of each of the sense-functions. + +After this, Liehtse for the most wanders from story to story; he +taught in parables; and sometimes we have to listen hard to +catch the meaning of them, he rarely insists on it, or drives it +well home, or brings it down to levels of plain-spokenness at +which it should declare itself to a westem mind. Here, again, is +the Chinese characteristic: the touch is lighter; more is left +to the intuition of the reader; the lines are less heavily +drawn. They rely on a kind of intelligence in the readers, akin +to the writers', to see those points at a glance, which we must +search for carefully. Where each word has to be drawn, a +little picture taking time and care, you are in no danger of +overlavishness; you do not spill and squander your words, +"intoxicated," as they say, "with the exuberance of your +verbosity." Style was forced on the Chinese; ideograms +are a grand preventive against pombundle.--I shall follow +Liehtse's method, and go from story to story at random; perhaps +interpreting a little by the way. + +We saw how Confucius insisted on balance: egging on Jan Yu, who +was bashful, and holding back Tse Lu, who had the pluck of two;-- +declaring that Shih was not a better man than Shang, because too +far is not better than not far enough. The whole Chinese idea is +that this balance of the faculties is the first and grand +essential. Your lobsided man can make no progress really;--he +must learn balance first. An outstanding virtue, talent, or +aptitude, is a deterrent, unless the rest of the nature is +evolved up to it;--that is why the Greatest Men are rarely the +most striking men; why a Napoleon catches the eye much more +quickly than a Confucius; something stands out in the one,--and +compels attention; but all is even in the other. You had much +better not have genius, if you are morally weak; or a very +strong will, if you are a born fool. For the morally weak genius +will end in moral wreck; and the strong-willed fool--a plague +upon him! This is the truth, knowledge of which has made China +so stable; and ignorance of which has kept the West so brilliant +and fickle,--of duality such poles apart,--so lobsided and, I +think, in a true sense, so little progressive. For see how many +centuries we have had to wait while ignorance, bigotry, wrong +ideas, and persecution, have prevented the establishment on any +large scale of a Theosophical Movement--and be not too ready +to accept a whirl of political changes, experiment after +experiment,--and latterly a spurt of mechanical inventions,--for +True Progress: which I take to mean, rightly considered, the +growth of human egos, and freedom and an atmosphere in which they +may grow. But these they had in China abundantly while China was +in manvantara; do not think I am urging as our example the +fallen China of these pralayic times. Balance was the truth +Confucius impressed on the Chinese mentality: the saving Truth +of truths, I may say; and it is perhaps the truth which most of +all will stand connected with the name of Katherine Tingley in +the ages to come:--the saving Truth of truths, which will make +a new and better world for us. You must have it, if you are to +build solidly; it is the foundation of any true social order; +the bedrock on which alone a veritable civilization can be built. +Oh, your unbalanced genius can produce things of startling +beauty; and they have their value, heaven knows. The Soul +watches for its chances, and leaps in at surprising moments: the +arm clothed in white samite may reach forth out of the bosom of +all sorts of curious quagmires; and when it does, should be held +in reverence as still and always a proof of the underlying +divinity of man. But--there where the basis of things is not +firmly set: where that mystic, wonderful reaching out is not +from the clear lake, but from turbidity and festering waters-- +where the grand balance has not been acquired:--You must look to +come on tragedy. The world has gained something from the speech +of the Soul there; but the man through whom It spoke;--it has +proved too much for him. The vibrations were too strong, and +shattered him. Think of Keats . . . and of thousands of others, +poets, musicians, artists. Where you get the grand creations, +the unfitful shining,--there you get evidence of a balance: with +genius--the daimonic force--no greater than, perhaps not so keen +as, that of those others, you find a strong moral will. Dante +and Milton suffered no less than others from those perils to +which all creative artists are subject: both complain bitterly +of inner assailments and torment; but they had, to balance their +genius, the strong moral urge to fight their weaknesses all +through life. It could not save their personalities from +suffering; but it gave the Soul in each of them a basis on which +to build the grand steadfast creations.--All of which Chinese +Liehtse tells you without comment, and with an air of being too +childish-foolish for this world, in the following story:-- + +Kung-hu and Chi-ying fell ill, and sought the services of the +renowned doctor, Pien-chiao. He cured them with his drugs; then +told them they were also suffering from diseases no drugs could +reach, born with them at their birth, and that had grown up with +them through life. "Would you have me grapple with these?" said +he.--"Yes," said they; but wished first to hear the diagnosis.-- +"You," he said to kung-hu, "have strong mental powers, but are +weak in character; so, though fruitful in plans, you are weak in +decision." "You," he said to Chi-ying, "are stong of will, +though stupid; so there is a narrowness in your aims and a want +of foresight. Now if I can effect an exchange of hearts between +you, the good will be equally balanced in both." + +They agreed at once: Kung-hu, with the weaker will, was to get +the smaller mental powers to match it; Chi-ying was to get a +mentality equal to his firm will. We should think Kung-hu got +very much the worst of the bargain; but he, and Dr. Pien-chiao, +and Liehtse, and perhaps Chinamen generally, thought and would +think nothing of the kind. To them, to have balanced faculties +was far better than to have an intellect too big for one's +will-power; because such balance would afford a firm basis from +which will and intellect might go forward in progress harmoniously. +So Pien-chiao put both under a strong anaesthetic, took out their +hearts, and made the exchange (the heart being, with the Chinese, +the seat of mentality); and after that the health of both was +perfect.--You may laugh; but after all there is a grandeur in +the recognition implied, that the intellect is not the man, +but only one of his possessions. The story is profoundly +characteristic: like Ah Sin's smile in the poem, "childlike and +bland"; but hiding wonderful depths of philosophy beneath. + +Laotse showed his deep Occult wisdom when he said that the Man of +Tao "does difficult things while they are still easy." Liehtse +tells you the story of the Assitant to the Keeper of the Wild +Beasts at Loyang. His name was Lian yang, and his fame went +abroad for having a wonderful way with the creatures in his +charge. Hsuan Wang, the Chow king, heard of it; and sent orders +to the Chief Keeper to get the secret from Liang, lest it should +die with him.--"How is it," said the Keeper, "that when you feed +them, the tigers, wolves, eagles, and ospreys all are tame and +tractable? That they roam at large in the park, yet never claw +and bite one another? That they propagate their species +freely, as if they were wild? His Majesty bids you reveal to +me the secret." + +A touch of nature here: all zoologists know how difficult it is +to get wild beasts to breed in captivity. + +Lian Yang answered: "I am only a humble servant, and have really +no secret to tell. I fear the king has led you to expect +something mysterious. As to the tigers: all I can say is that, +like men, when yielded to they are pleased and when opposed they +are angry. Nothing gives way either to pleasure or to anger +without a cause; and anger, by reaction, will follow pleasure, +and pleasure anger. I do not excite the tigers' joy by giving +them live creatures to kill, or whole carcasses to tear up. I +neither rouse their anger by opposing them, nor humor them to +make them pleased. I time their periods of hunger and anticipate +them. It is my aim to be neither antagonistic nor compliant; so +they look upon me as one of themselves. Hence they walk about +the parks without regretting the tall forests and broad marshes, +and rest in the enclosure without yearning for lonely mountain or +dark vale. It is merely using common sense." + +And there Liehtse leaves it in all its simplicity; but I shall +venture to put my spoke in, and add that he has really given you +a perfect philosophy for the conduct of life: for the government +of that other and inner tiger, the lower nature, especially; it +is always that, you will remember, for which the Tiger stands in +Chinese symbology;--and also for education, the government of +nations--everything. Balance,--Middle lines,--Avoidance of +Extremes,--Lines of Least Resistance:--by whom are we hearing +these things inculcated daily? Did they not teach Raja-Yoga in +ancient China? Have not our school and its principles a Chinese +smack about them? Well; it was these principles made China +supremely great; and kept her alive and strong when all her +contemporaries had long passed into death; and, I hope, have +ingrained something into her soul and hidden being, which will +make her rise to wonderful heights again. + +You can hear Laotse in them; it is the practical application of +Laotse's doctrine. But can you not equally hear the voice of +Confucius: "too far is not better than not far enough"? Western +ethical teaching has tended towards inculcating imitation of the +soul's action: this Chinese teaching takes the Soul for granted; +says very little about it; but shows you how to provide the soul +with the conditions through and in which it may act. "Love your +enemies;"--yes; that is fine; it is what the Soul, the Divine +Part of us, does;--but we are not in the least likely to do it +while suffering from the reaction from an outburst of emotion; +ethics grow rather meaningless to us when, for example, we have +toppled over from our balance into pleasure, eaten not wisely but +too well, say; and then toppled back into the dumps with an +indigestion. But where the balance is kept you need few ethical +injunctions; the soul is there, and may speak; and sees to +all that. + +Hu-Chiu Tzu-lin, we read, taught Liehtse these things. Said he: +"You must familiarize yourself with the Theory of Consequents +before you can talk of regulating conduct." Liehtse said:--"Will +you explain what you mean by the Theory of Consequents?" "Look at +your shadow," said his teacher; "and you will know." Liehtse +turned his head and looked at his shadow. When his body was bent +the shadow was crooked; when upright, it was straight. Thus it +appeared that the attributes of straightness and crookedness were +not inherent in the shadow, but corresponded to certain positions +in the body . . . . "Holding this Theory of Consequents," +says Liehtse, "is to be at home in the antecedent." Now the +antecedent of the personality is the Soul; the antecedent of the +action is the motive; the antecedent of the conduct of life is +the relation in which the component faculties of our being stand +to each other and to the Soul. If the body is straight, so is +the shadow; if the inner harmony or balance is attained and held +to--well; you see the point. "The relative agrees with its +antecedent," say the grammar books, very wisely. It is karma +again: the effect flowing from the cause. "You may consider the +virtues of Shennung and Yuyen," says Liehtse; "you may examine +the books of Yu, Kia, Shang, and Chow,"--that is, the whole of +history;--"you may weight the utterances of the great Teachers +and Sages; but you will find no instance of preservation or +destruction, fulness or decay, which has not obeyed this supreme +Law of Causality." + +Where are you to say that Liehtse's Confucianism ends, and his +Taoism begins? It is very difficult to draw a line. Confucius, +remember, gave _"As-the-heart"_ for the single character that +should express his whole doctrine. Liehtse is leading you +inward, to see how the conduct of life depends upon Balance, +which also is a word that may translate _Tao._ Where the balance +is, there we come into relations with the great Tao. There is +nothing supra-Confucian here; though soon we may see an +insistence upon the Inner which, it may be supposed, later +Confucianism, drifting toxards externalism, would hardly have +enjoyed.--A man in Sung carved a mulberry-leaf in jade for his +prince. It took three years to complete, and was so well done, +so realistic in its down and glossiness, that if placed in a heap +of real mulberry-leaves, it could not be distinguished from them. +The State pensioned him as a reward; but Liehtse, hearing of it, +said: "If God Almighty took three years to complete a leaf, +there would be very few trees with leaves on them. The Sage will +rely less on human skill and science, than on the evolution +of Tao." + +Lung Shu came to the great doctor Wen Chih, and said to him: +"You are the master of cunning arts. I have a disease; can you +cure it, Sir?" "So far," said Wen Chih, "you have only made +known your desire. Please let me know the symptoms of your +disease." They were, utter indifference to the things and events +of the world. "I hold it no honor to be praised in my own +village, nor disgrace to be decried in my native State. Gain +brings me no joy, loss no sorrow. I dwell in my home as if it +were a mere caravanserai, and regard my native district as though +it were one of the barbarian kingdoms. Honors and rewards fail +to rouse me, pains and penalties to overawe me, good or bad +fortune to influence me; joy or grief to move me. What disease +is this? What remedy will cure it?" * + +------ +* I may say here that though I am quoting the speeches more or +less directly from Dr. Lionel Giles' translation, too many +liberties are being taken, verbally, with the narative parts of +these stories, to allow quotation marks and small type. One +contracts and expands (sparingly, the latter); but gives +the story. +------ + +Wen Chih examined his heart under X-rays;--really and truly that +is in effect what Liehtse says.--"Ah," said he, "I see that a +good square inch of your heart is hollow; you are within a +little of being a true Sage. Six of the orifices are open and +clear, and only the seventh is blocked up. This last is +doubtless due to the fact that you are mistaking for a disease +what is in reality an approach to divine enlightenment. It is a +case in which my shallow art is of no avail." + +I tell this tale, as also that other about the exchange of +hearts, partly to suggest that Liehtse's China may have had the +actuality, or at least a reminiscence, of scientific knowledge +since lost there, and only discovered in Europe recently. In the +same way one finds references to automatic oxen, self-moving +chariots, traveling by air, and a number of other things which, +as we read of them, sound just like superstitious nonsense. +There are old Chinese drawings of pterodactyls, and suchlike +unchancey antediluvian wild fowl. _Argal,_ (you would say) the +Chinese knew of these once; although Ptero and his friends have +been extinct quite a few million years, one supposes. Or was it +superstition again? Then why was it not superstition in +Professor So-and-so, who found the bones and reconstructed the +beastie for holiday crowds to gaze upon at the Crystal Palace +or the Metropolitan Museum? Knowledge does die away into +reminiscence, and then into oblivion; and the chances are that +Liehtse's time retained reminiscences which have since become +oblivion-hidden;--then rediscovered in the West.--But I tell the +tale also for a certain divergence marked in it, between Taoist +and Confucian thought. Laotse would have chuckled over it, who +brooded much on 'self-emptiness' as the first step towards +illumination. Confucius would have allowed it; but it would not +have occurred to him, unsuggested. + +Now here is something still further from Confucianism; something +prophetic of later Taoist developments, though it still contains +Laotse's thought, and--be it said--deep wisdom. + +Fan Tsu Hua was a bully and a charlatan, who by his trickery +had won such hold over the king of Tsin that anyone he might +recommend was surely advanced to office, and anyone he cried down +would lose his all. So it was said he had magic to make the rich +poor and the poor rich. He had many disciples, who were the +terror of the peaceably disposed. + +One day they saw an old weak man approaching, 'with weather-beaten +face and clothes of no particular cut.' A chance for sport +not to be neglected, they thought; and began to hustle him +about in their usual fashion, 'slapping him on the back, and what +not.' But he--Shang Ch'iu K'ai was his name--seemed only full of +joy and serenity, and heeded nothing. Growing tired of their fun +at last, they would make an end of it; and led him to the top of +a high cliff. "Whoever dares throw himself over," said one of +them, "will find a hundred ounces of silver," which certainly he +had not had with him at the top, and none of them had put there. + +It was a wonder; and still more a wonder his being unhurt; but +you can make chance account for most things, and they meant to +get rid of him. So they brought him to the banks of the river, +saying: "A pearl of great price is here, to be had for the +diving." In he went without a word, and disappeared duly; and +so, thought they, their fun had come to a happy end. But no: as +they turned to go, up he came, serene and smiling, and scrambled +out. "Well; did you find the pearl?" they asked. "Oh yes," +said Shang; "it was just as your honors said." He showed it to +them; and it was indeed a pearl of great price. + +Here was something beyond them; the old man, clearly, was a +favorite of Fortune; Fan their master himself must deal with +him. So they sent word ahead, and brought him to the palace of +Fan. Who understood well the limitations of quack magic: if he +was to be beaten at these tricks, where would his influence be? +So he heaped up riches in the courtyard, and made a great fire +all round.--"Anyone can have those things," he announced, "who +will go in and get them." Shang quietly walked through the +flames, and came out with his arms full; not a hair of his head +was singed. + +And now they were filled with consternation; they had been +making a mock of Tao these years; and here evidently was a real +Master of Tao, come to expose them.--"Sir," they said, "we did +not know that you posessed the Secret, and were playing you +tricks. We insulted you, unaware that you were a divine man. +But you have leaped from the cliff, dived into the Yellow River, +and walked through the flames without injury; you have shown us +our stupidity, blindness, and deafness. We pray you to forgive +us, and to reveal to us the Secret." + +He looked at them in blank amazement.--"What is this you are +telling me?" said he. "I am only old Shang Ch'iu K'ai the +peasant. I heard that you, Sir, by your magic could make the +poor rich. I wanted to be rich, so I came to you. I believed in +you absolutely, and in all your disciples said; and so my mind +was made one; I forgot my body; I saw nothing of cliffs or fire +or water. But now you say you were decieving me, my soul returns +to its perplexity, and my eyes and ears to their sight and +hearing. What terrible dangers I have escaped! My limbs freeze +with horror to think of them." + +Tsai Wo, continues Liehtse, told this story to Confucius.--"Is +this so strange to you?" said the latter. "The man of perfect +faith can move heaven and earth, and fly to the six cardinal +points without hindrance. His powers are not confined to walking +in perilous places and passing through water and fire. If Shang +Ch'iu K'ai, whose motive was greed and whose belief was false, +found no obstacle in external things, how much more certainly +will it be so when the motive is pure and both parties sincere?" + +I will finish it with what is really another of Liehtse's +stories,--also dealing with a man who walked through fire +uninjured, unconscious of it because of the one-pointedness of +his mind. + +The incident came to the ears of Marquis Wen of Wei, who spoke to +Tsu Hsia, a disciple of Confucius, about it.--"From what I have +heard the Master say," said Tsu Hsia, "the man who achieves +harmony with Tao enters into close relations with outer objects, +and none of them has power to harm or hinder him."--"Why, my +friend," said the Marquis, "cannot you do all these marvels?"--"I +have not yet succeeded," said Tsu Hsia, "in cleansing my heart +from impurities and discarding brainmind wisdom."--"And why," +said the Marquis, "cannot the Master himself" (Confucius, of course) +"perform such feats?"--"The Master," said Tsu Hsia, "is able to +perform them; but _he is also able to refrain from performing +them."_--which, again, he was. Here is another example: + +Hui Yang went to visit Prince K'ang of Sung. The prince, +however, stamped his foot, rasped his throat, and said angrily:-- +"The things I like are courage and strength. I am not fond of +your good and virtuous people. What can a stranger like you have +to teach me?" + + "I have a secret," said Hui Yang, "whereby my opponent, +however brave or strong, can be prevented from harming me +either by thrust or blow. Would not Your Highness care to +know that secret?" + +"Capital!" said the Prince; "that is certainly something I +should like to hear about." + +"True," said Hui yang, "when you render his stabs or blows +ineffectual, you cover your opponent with shame. But my secret +will make him, however brave or strong, afraid to stab or strike +at all." + + "Better still," said the Prince; "let me hear about it." + +"It is all very well for him to be afraid to do it." said Hui +Yang; "but that does not imply he has no will to do it. Now, my +secret would deprive him even of the will." + +"Better and better," said Prince K'ang; "I beseech you to reveal +it to me." + +"Yes," said Hui Yang; "but this not having the will to injure +does not necessarily connote a desire to love and do good. But +my secret is one whereby every man, woman, and child in the +empire shall be inspired with the friendly desire to love and do +good to each other. This is much better than the possession of +mere courage and strength. Has Your Highness no mind to acquire +such a secret as this?" + +The Prince confessed that, on the contray, he was most anxious to +learn it. + +"It is nothing else than the teachings of Confucius and Mo Ti," +said Hui Yang. + +A main idea of Taoism--one with which the Confucius of orthodox +Confucianism did not concern himself--is the possibility of +creating within one's outer and mortal an inner and immortal +self; by subduing desire, by sublimating away all impurities, by +concentration. The seed of that Immortality is hidden in us; +the seed of mastery of the inner and outer worlds. Faith is the +key. Shang Ch'iu K'ai, whose "faith had made him whole," walked +through fire. "Whoso hath faith as a grain of mustard-seed," +said Jesus, can move mountains. It sounds as if he had been +reading the _Book of Liehtse;_ which is at pains to show how the +thing is done. T'ai-hsing and Wang-wu, the mountains, stood not +where they stand now, but in the south of the Chi district and +north of Ho-yang. I like the tale well, and shall tell it for +its naive Chinesity. The Simpleton of the North Mountain, an old +man of ninety, dwelt opposite to them, and was vexed in spirit +because their northern flanks blocked the way for travelers, who +had to go round. So he called his family together and broached a +plan.--"Let us put forth our utmost strength and clear away this +obstacle," said he; "let us cut right through the mountains +till we come to Han-yin." All agreed except his wife. "My +goodman," said she, "has not the strength to sweep away a +dung-hill, let alone such mountains as T'ai-hsing and Wang-wu. +Besides, where will you put the earth and stones?" They answered +that they would throw them on the promontory of P'o-hai. So the +old man, followed by his son and grandson, sallied forth with +their pickaxes, and began hewing away at the rocks and cutting up +the soil, and carting it away in baskets to the promontory. A +widow who lived near by had a little boy who, though he was only +just shedding his milk-teeth, came skipping along to give them +what help he could. Engrossed in their toil they never went home +except once at the turn of the season. + +The Wise Old Man of the River-bend burst out laughing and urged +them to stop. "Great indeed is your witlessness!" said he. +"With the poor remaining strength of your declining years you +will not succeed in removing a hair's-breadth of the mountains, +much less the whole vast mass of rock and soil." With a sigh the +Simpleton of the North Mountain answered:--"Surely it is you who +are narrow-minded and unreasonable. You are not to be compared +with the widow's son, despite his puny strength. Though I myself +must die, I shall leave my son behind me, and he his son. My +grandson will beget sons in his turn, and those sons also will +have sons and grandsons. With all this posterity my line will +not die out; while on the other hand the mountains will receive +no increment or addition. Why then should I despair of leveling +them to the ground at last?"--The Wise Old Man of the River-bend +had nothing to say in reply. + +Chinese! Chinese!--From whatever angle you look at it, it smacks +of the nation that saw Babylon fall, and Rome, and may yet-- + +But look now, at what happened. There was something about the +project and character of the Simpleton of the North Mountain, +that attracted the attention of the Serpent-Brandishing deities. +They reported the matter to Almighty God; who was interested; +and perhaps was less patient than the simpleton.--I do not quite +know who this person translated 'Almighty God' may be; I think +he figures in the Taoist hierarchy somewhere below Laotse and the +other Adepts. At any rate he was in a position to order the two +sons of K'ua O--and I do not know who K'ua O and his sons were-- +to expedite matters. So the one of them took up T'ai-hsing, and +the other Wu-wang, and transported them to the positions where +they remain to this day to prove the truth of Liehtse's story. +Further proof:--the region between Ts'i in the north and Han in +the south--that is to say, northern Homan--is still and has been +ever since, an unbroken plain. + +And perhaps, behind this naive Chinesity, lie grand enunciations +of occult law. . . . + +I will end with what is probably Liehtse's most famous story-- +and, from a purely literary standpoint, his best. It is worthy +of Chwangtse himself; and I tell it less for its philosophy than +for its fun. + +One morning a fuel-gatherer--we may call him Li for convenience, +though Liehtse leaves him nameless--killed a deer in the forest; +and to keep the carcass safe till he went home in the evening, +hid it under a pile of brushwood. His work during the day took +him far and when he looked for the deer again, he could not find +it. "I must have dreamed the whole thing," he said;--and +satisfied himself with that explanation. He made a verse about +it as he trudged home through the woods, and went crooning: + + At dawn in the hollow, beside the stream, + I hid the deer I killed in the dream; + At eve I sought for it far and near; + And found 'twas a dream that I killed the deer. + +He passed the cottage of Yen the woodman--Yen we may call him, +though Liehtse calls him nothing.--who heard the song, and +pondered. "One might as well take a look at the place," thought +he; it seemed to him it might be such and such a hollow, by such +and such a stream. Thither he went, and found the pile of +brushwood; It looked to him a likely place enough to hide a deer +under. He made search, and there the carcass was. + +He took it home and explained the matter to his wife. "Once upon +a time," said he, "a fuel-gatherer dreamed he had killed a deer +and forgotten where he had hidden it. Now I have got the deer, +and here it is; so his dream came true, in a way."--"Rubbish!" +she answered. "It was you must have dreamed the fuel-gatherer +and his dreim. You must have killed the deer yourself, since you +have it there; but where is your fuel-gatherer?" + +That night Li dreamed again; and in his dream saw Yen fetch the +deer from its hiding-place and bring it home. So in the morning +he went to Yen's house and there, sure enough, the deer was. +They argued the matter out, but to no purpose. Then they took it +before the magistrate, who gave judgment as follows: + +"The plaintiff began with a real deer and an alleged dream; and +now comes forward with a real dream and an alleged deer. The +defendant has the deer the plaintiff dreamed, and wants to keep +it. According to his wife, however, the plaintiff and the deer +are both but figments of the defendant's dream. Meanwhile, there +is the deer; which you had better divide between you." + +The case was reported to the Prince of Cheng, whose opinion was +that the magistrate had dreamed the whole story, himself. But +his Prime Minister said: "If you want to distinguish between +dream and waking, you would have to go back to the Yellow Emperor +or Confucius. As both are dead, you had better uphold the +magistrate's decision." * + +------ +* The tale is told both in Dr. Lionel Giles's translation +mentioned above, and also, with verbal differences, in Dr. H. A. +Giles's work on _Chinese Literature._ The present telling +follows now one, now the other version, now goes its own way;-- +and pleads guilty to adding the verse the woodman crooned. +------ + + + + +XIII. MANG THE PHILOSOPHER, AND BUTTERFLY CHWANG + + +Liehtse's tale of the Dream and the Deer leads me naturally to +this characteristic bit from Chwangtse:*-- + +"Once upon a time, I, Chwangtse, dreamed I was a butterfly +fluttering hither and thither; to all intents and purposes a +veritable butterfly. I followed my butterfly fancies, and was +unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awoke, and +there I lay, a man again. Now how am I to know whether I was +then, Chwangtse dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a +butterfly dreaming I am Chwang?" + +------ +* Which, like nearly all the other passages from him in this +lecture, is quoted from Dr. H. A. Giles's _Chinese Literature,_ +in the Literatures of the World series; New York, Appleton. +------ + +For which reason he is, says Dr. Giles, known to this day as +"Butterfly Chwang"; and the name is not all inappropriate. He +flits from fun to philosophy, and from philosoply to fun, as if +they were dark rose and laughing pansy; when he has you in the +gravest depths of wisdom and metaphysic, he will not be content +till with a flirt of his wings and an aspect gravely solemn he +has you in fits of laughter again. His is really a book that +belongs to world-literature; as good reading, for us now, as for +any ancient Chinaman of them all. I think he worked more +strenuously in the field of sheer intellect--stirred the thought +stuff more--than most other Chinese thinkers,--and so is more +akin to the Western mind; he carves his cerebrations more +definitely, and leaves less to the intuition. The great lack in +him is his failure to appreciate Confucius; and to explain that, +before I go further with Butterfly Chwang, I shall take a glance +at the times he lived in. + +They were out of joint when Confucius came; they were a couple +of centuries more so now. Still more was the Tiger stalking +abroad: there were two or three tigers in particular, among the +Great Powers, evidentlv crouching for a spring--that should +settle things. Time was building the funeral pyre for the +Phoenix, and building it of the debris of ruined worlds. In the +early sixth century, the best minds were retiring in disgust to +the wilds;--you remember the anchorite's rebuke to Tse-Lu. But +now they were all coming from their retirement--the most active +minds, whether the best or not--to shout their nostrums and make +confusion worse confounded. All sorts of socialisms were in the +air, raucously bellowed by would-be reformers. A "loud barbarian +from the south" (as Mencius called him--I do not know who he was) +was proclaiming that property should be abolished, and all goods +held in common. One Yang Chu was yelling universal egoism: +"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Against him, one Mo +Ti had been preaching universal altruism;--but I judge, not too +sensibly, and without appeal to philosophy or mysticism. Thought +of all kinds was in a ferment, and the world filled with the +confused noise of its expression; clear voices were needed, to +restate the message of the Teachers of old. + +Then Mencius arose to speak for Confucius in this China so much +further progressed along the Gadarene road. A strong and +brilliant man, he took the field strongly and brilliantly, and +filled the courts of dukes and kings with a roll of Confucian +drums. Confucius, as I have tried to show you, had all Mysticism +divinely behind and backing him, though he said little about it; +Mencius, I think, had none. Mencius remade a Confucius of his +own, with the mystical elements lacking. He saw in him only a +social reformer and teacher of ethics; and it is the easiest +thing in the world to see Confucius only through Mencian spectacles. + +I would not fall into the mistake of undervaluing Mencius. He +was a very great man; and the work he did for China was +enormous, and indispensable. You may call him something between +the St. Paul and the Constantine of Confucianism. Unlike +Constantine, he was not a sovereign, to establish the system; +but he hobnobbed with sovereigns, and never allowed them to think +him their inferior; and it was he who made of Confucianism a +system that could be established. Unlike St. Paul, he did not +develop the inner side of his Master's teachings; but he so +popularized them as to ensure their triumph. He took the ideas +of Confucius, such of them as lay within his own statesmanlike +and practical scope of vision, restated and formulated them, and +made of them what became the Chinese Constitution. A brave and +honest thinker, essentially a man of action in thought, he never +consciously deteriorated or took away from Confucius' doctrine. +It is more as if some great President or Prime Minister, at some +future time, should suddenly perceive that H.P. Blavatsky had +brought that which would save his nation; and proceed to apply +that saving thing, as best he might, in the field of practical +politics and reform--or rather to restate it in such a way that +(according to his view) it might be applied. + +He put the constituents parts of society in order of importance +as follows: the People; the Gods; the Sovereign: and this has +been a cardinal principle in Chinese polity. He saw clearly that +the Chow dynasty could never be revived; and arrived at the +conclusion that a dynasty was only sacred while it retained the +"mandate of heaven." Chow had lost that; and therefore it was +within the rights of Heaven, as you may say, to place its mandate +elsewhere;--and within the rights of the subject--as the logic of +events so clearly proved Chow had lost the mandate--to rebel. +Confucius had hoped to revivify Chow--had begun with that hope, +at any rate: Mencius hoped to raise up some efficient sovereign +who should overturn Chow. The Right of Rebellion, thus taught by +him, is another fundamental Chinese principle. It works this +way: if there was discontent, there was misrule; and it was the +fault of the ruler. If the latter was a local magistrate, +or a governor, prefect, or viceroy, you had but to make a +demonstration, normally speaking, before his yamen: this was +technically a 'rebellion' within Mencius' meaning; and the +offending authority must report it to Pekin, which then commonly +replaced him with another. (It would get to Pekin's ears anyway; +so you had better--and ususally did--report it yourself.) If the +offender was the Son of Heaven, with all his dynasty involved-- +why, then one had to rebel in good earnest; and it was to be +supposed that if Heaven had really given one a mandate, one would +win. The effect was that, although nominally absolute, very few +emperors have dared or cared to fly quite in the face of +Confucius, or Mencius, of their religio-political system, of the +Board of Censors whose business it was to criticize the Throne, +and of a vast opinion. + +There was the tradition an emperor ruled for the people. The +office of ruler was divine; the man that held it was kept an +impersonality as much as possible. He changed his name on coming +to the throne, and perhaps several times afterwards: thus we +speak of the great emperors Han Wuti and Tang Taitsong; who +might, however, be called more exactly, Liu Ch'e, who was emperor +during the period _Wuti_ of the Han Dynasty; Li Shihmin, who +filled the throne during the T'ang period called _Taitsong._ +Again, there was the great idea, Confucio-Mencian, that the son +of Heven must be 'compliant': leading rather than driving. He +promulgated edicts, but they were never rigidly enforced; a +certain voluntaryism was allowed as to the carrying out of them: +if one of them was found unsuccessful, or not to command popular +approval, another could be--and was--issued to modify or change +it. So that the whole system was far removed from what we think +of as an 'Oriental Despotism'; on the contrary, there was always +a large measure of freedom and self-government. You began with +the family: the head of that was its ruler, and responsible +for order in his little realm. But he governed by consent +and affection, not by force. Each village-community was +self-governing; the headman in it taking the place of the father +in the family; he was responsible for order, so it was his +business to keep the people happy;--and the same principle was +extended to fit the province, the viceroyalty, the empire. +Further, there was the absence of any aristocracy or privileged +class; and the fact that all offices were open to all Chinamen +(actors excepted)--the sole key to open it being merit, as attested +by competitive examinations. + +The system is Mencian; the inspiration behind it from Confucius. +It is the former's working out of the latter's superb idea of +the _li._ + +The Mencian system has broken down, and been abolished. It had +grown old, outworn and corrupt. But it was established a couple +of centuries before that of Augustus, and has been subject to the +same stress of time and the cycles; and only broke down the +other day. Time will wear out anything made by man. There is no +garment, but the body will out-grow or out-wear it; no body, but +the soul will outlive it and cast it away. Mencius, inspired by +his Master Confucius, projected a system that time took two +thousand years and more to wear out in China. It was one that +did much or everything to shield the people from tyranny. +Whether a better system has been devised, I do not know; but +should say not--in historical times. As to the inspiration +behind it--well, lest you should doubt the value of Confucius, +compare the history of Europe with that of China. We have +disproportioned ideas, and do not see these things straight. The +Chinese Empire was founded some two centuries before the Roman: +both composed of heterogeneous elements. Both, after about four +centuries, fell; but China, after about four centuries more, +came together and was great again. Fifteen hundred years after +Ts'in Shi Hwangti had founded China, her manvantara then having +ended, and her whole creative cycle run through, she fell to the +Mongols. Fifteen hundred years after Julius Caesar had founded +his empire, the last wretched remnant of it fell to the Turks. +But China first compelled her conquerors to behave like Chinamen, +and then, after a century, turned them out. The Turks never +became Greek or Roman, and so far have not quite been turned out. +The roman empire disappeared, and never reunited;--that is what +has been the matter with Europe ever since. Europe, in her +manvantara, has wasted three parts of her creative force in wars +and disunion. But China, even in her pralaya, became a strong, +united power again under the Mings (1368-1644)--the first of +them--a native dynasty. Conquered again, now by the Manchus, she +mader her conquerors behave like Chinamen,--imposed on them her +culture;--and went forth under their banners to conquer. The +European pralaya (630-1240) was a time barren of creation in art +and literature, and in life uttterly squalid and lightless The +Chinese pralaya, after the Mongol Conquest, took a very long time +to sink into squalidity. The arts, which had died in Europe long +before Rome fell, lived on in China, though with ever-waning +energy, through the Mongol and well into the Ming time: the +national stability, the force of custom, was there to carry them +on. What light, what life, what vigor was there in Rome or +Constantinople a century and a half after Alaric or Heraclius? +But Ming Yunglo, a century and a half after the fall of Sung, +reigned in great splendor; sent his armies conquering to the +Caspian, and his navies to the conquest of Ceylon, the discovery +of Africa, the gathering in of the tribute of the Archipelago and +the shores of the Indian Ocean. Until the end of the eighteenth +century the minor arts and crafts--pottery and bronzes--of which +there was nothing to speak of in Europe in the corresponding +European age--were flourishing wonderfully; and in the +seventeenth and eighteeenth centuries, under Kanghi and Kienlung, +China was once more a great military power. She chased and +whipped the Goorkhas down through the Himalays and into India, +only twenty years before England fought difficult and doubtful +campaigns with those fierce little mountaineers. You may even +say she has been better off in her pralaya, in many ways, and +until recently, than most of Europe has been in most of _her_ +manvantara. In Kienlung's reign, for example (1735-1795) there +were higher standards of life, more security, law, and order, +than in the Europe of Catherine of Russia, Frederick the Great, +Louis XV and the Revolution, and the English Georges. There was +far less ferment of the Spirit, true; less possibility of +progress;--but that is merely to say that China was in pralaya, +Europe in high manvantara. The explanation is that a stability +had been imparted to that Far Eastern civilization, which Europe +has lacked altogether; whose history, for all its splendid high- +lights, has had thousands of hideous shadows; has not been so +noble a thing as we tacitly and complacently assume; but a long +record of wars, confusions, disorder, and cruelities, with only +dawning now the possibility of that union which is the first +condition of true progress, as distinguished from the riot of +material inventions and political experiments that has gone by +that name.--But now, back to Mencius again. + +In all things he tried to follow Confucius; beginning early by +being born in the latter's own district of Tsow in Shantung, and +having a woman in ten thousand for his mother;--she has been the +model held up to all Chinese mothers since. He grew up strong in +body and mind, thoughtful and fearless; a tireless student of +history, poetry, national institutions, and the lives of great +men. Like Confucius, he opened a school, and gathered disciples +about him: but there was never the bond of love here, that there +had been between Confucius and Tse Lu, Yen Huy, and the others. +These may have heard from their Master the pure deep things of +Theosophy; one would venture the statement that none of Mencius' +following heard the like from him. He saw in Confucius that +which he himself was fitted to be, and set out to become. He +went from court to court, and everywhere, as a great scholar, was +received with honor. (You will note as one more proof of an +immemorial culture, that then, as now the scholar, as such, was +at the very top of the social scale. There was but one word for +_scholar_ and _official._)--He proposed, like Confucius, that +some king should make him his minister; and like Confucius, he +was always disappointed. But in him we come on none of the soft +lights and tones that endear Confucius to us; he fell far short +of being Such a One. A clear, bold mind, without _atmosphere,_ +with all its lines sharply defined.... he made free to lecture +the great ones of the earth, and was very round with them, +even ridiculing them at his pleasure. He held the field for +Confucius--not the Taoist, but the Mencian Confucius--against all +comers; smote Yang Chu the Egotist hip and thigh; smote gentle +Mo Ti, the Altruist; preached fine and practical ethics; and +had no patience with those dreamers of the House of Laotse.--A +man sent from the Gods, I should say, to do a great work; +even though-- + +And then there was that dreamer of dreams, of Butterfly dreams,-- +subtle mystical humorous Chwangtse: how could it be otherwise +than that clear-minded clarion-throated Philosopher Mang should +afford him excellent play? Philosopher Mang (Philosopher of the +Second Class, so officially entitled), in the name of his Master +K'ung Ch'iu, fell foul of Dreamer Chwang; how could it be +otherwise than that Dreamer Chwang should aim his shafts, not a +Mang merely, but (alas!) at the one whose name was always on +Mang's lips?--"Confucius says, Confucius says, Confucius says"-- +cries Philosopher Mang.--"Oh hang your Confucius!" thinks Chwang +the Mystic; "let us have a little of the silence and splendor of +the Within!" (Well, Confucius would have said the same thing, I +think.) "Let me tell you a tale," says Chwang; and straight +goes forward with it. + +"It was the time of the autumn floods. Every stream poured into +the river, which swelled in its turbid course. The banks were so +far apart that from one to the other you could not tell a cow +from a horse. + +"Then the Spirit of the River laughed for joy that all the beauty +of the earth was gathered to himself. Down with the current he +journeyed east, until he reached the Ocean. There looking +eastward, and seeing no limit to its expanse of waves, his +countenance changed. As he gazed out, he sighed, and said to the +Spirit of the Ocean: 'A vulgar proverb says that he who has +heard but a part of the truth thinks no one equal to himself. +Such a one am I. + +"'When formerly I heard people detracting from the learning of +Confucius, or underrating the heroism of Po I. I did not +believe. But now that I have looked on your inexhaustibility-- +alas for me had I not reached your abode! I should have been +forever a laughing-stock to those of comprehensive enlightenment.' + +"To which the Spirit of the Ocean answered: 'You cannot speak of +ocean to a well-frog,--the creature of a narrower sphere. You +cannot speak of ice to a summer insect,--the creature of a +season. You cannot speak of Tao to a pedant; his scope +is too restricted. But now that you have emerged from your +narrow sphere, and have seen the great sea, you know your own +insignificance, and I can speak of great principles. + +"Have you never heard of the Frog of the Old Well? The Frog +said to the Turtle of the Eastern Sea, 'Happy indeed am I! I +hop on the rail around the well. I rest in the hollow of some +broken brick. Swimming, I gather the water under my arms and +shut my mouth tight. I plunge into the mud, burying my feet and +toes. Not one of the cockles, crabs, or tadpoles I see around me +is my match. Why do you not come, Sir, and pay me a visit?'" + +"Now the Turtle of the Eastern Sea had not got its left leg down +ere its right leg had stuck fast, so it shrank back and begged to +be excused. It then described the sea, saying, 'A thousand +leagues would not measure its breadth, nor a thousand fathoms its +depth. In the days of Yu the Great there were nine years of +flood out of ten; but this did not add to its contents. In the +days of T'ang there were seven years of drought out of eight, but +this did not narrow its span. Not to be affected by volume of +water, not to be affected by duration of time--this is the +happiness of the Eastern Sea.' At this the Frog of the Old Well +was considerably astonished, and knew not what to say next. And +for one whose knowledge does not reach to the positive-negative +domain the attempt to understand me is like a mosquito trying to +carry a mountain, or an ant to swim the Yellow River,--they +cannot succeed." + +If Chwangtse had lived before Mencius, or Mencius after Chwangtse, +Chwangtse could have afforded to see Confucius in his true +light, as Liehtse did; but the power and influence of the +mind of Mencius were such that in his time there was no looking +at the Master except through his glasses. We do not know what +happened when Laotse and Confucius met; but I suspect it was +very like what happened when Mr. Judge met Madame Blavatsky. But +Butterfly Chwang, the rascal, undertook to let us know; and +wrote it out in full. He knew well enough what would happen if +he met Mencius; and took that as his model. He wanted Mencius +to know it too. He itched to say to him, "Put away, sir, your +flashy airs," and the rest; and so made Laotse say it to +Confucius. It shows how large Philosopher Mang had come to loom, +that anyone could attribute "flashy airs" to that great-hearted +simple Gentleman K'ung Ch'iu. One thing only I believe in about +that interview: Confucius' reputed speech on coming forth from +it to his disciples:--"There is the Dragon; I do not know how he +mounts upon the wind and rises about the clouds. Today I have +seen Laotse, and can only compare him to the Dragon." He _would +have said_ that; it has definite meaning; the Dragon was the +symbol of the spirit, and so universally recognised.--Confucius +appears to have taken none of his disciples into the Library; +and Confucianist writers have had nothing to say about the +incident, except that it occurred, I believe. Chwangtse, and all +Taoist writers after him, show Confucius taking his rating very +quietly;--as indeed, he would have done, had Laotse been in a +mood for quizzing. For Confucius never argued or pressed his +opinions; where his words were not asked for and listened to, he +retired. But it is not possible the recognition should have been +other than mutual: the great Laotse would have known a Man +when he saw him. I like the young imperturbable K'ung Jung, +precocious ten-year-old of some seven centuries later. His +father took him up to the capital when the Dragon Statesman Li +Ying was the height of his power; and the boy determined on +gaining an interview with Li. He got admission to the latter's +house by claiming blood-relationship. Asked by the great man +wherein it lay, says he very sweetly: "Your ancestor Laotse and +my ancestor Confucius were friends engaged in the search for +truth; may we not then be said to be of the same family?"-- +"Cleverness in youth," sneered a bystander, "does not mean +brilliancy in later life."--"You, Sir," says Ten-years-old, +turning to him, "must have been a very remarkable boy." * + +------- +* Giles: _Chinese Literature._ +------- + +The truth is, both Mencius and Chwangtse stood a step lower and +nearer this world than had the two they followed: whose station +had been on the level platform at the top of the altar. But +Mencius descending had gone eastward; Chwangtse towards +the west. + +He was all for getting at the Mean, the Absolute Life, beyond the +pairs of opposites;--which is, indeed, the central Chinese +thought, Confucian or Taoist, the _raison d'etre_ of Chinese +longevity, and the saving health of China. But unfortunately he +--Chwangtse--did not see that his own opposite, Philosopher Mang, +was driving him an inch or two away from the Middle Line. So, +with a more brilliant mind (a cant phrase that!) he stands well +below Laotse; just as Mencius stands below K'ung Ch'iu. The +spiritual down-breathing had reached a lower plane: soon the +manvantara was to begin, and the Crest-Wave to be among the +black-haired People. For all these Teachers and Half-Teachers +were but early swallows and forerunners. Laotse and Confucius +had caught the wind at its rising, on the peaks where they stood +very near the Spirit; Chwangtse and Mangtse caught it in the +region of the intellect: the former in his wild valley, the +latter on his level prosaic plain. They are both called more +daring thinkers than their predecessors; which is merely to say +that in them the Spirit figured more on the intellectual, less on +its own plane. They were lesser men, of course. Mencius had +lost Confucius' spirituality; Chwangtse, I think, something of +the sweet sanifying influence of Laotse's universal compassion. + +Well, now: three little tales from Chwangtse, to illustrate his +wit and daring; and after then, to the grand idea he bequeathed +to China. + +"Chwangtse one day saw an empty skull, bleached, but still +preserving its shape. Striking it with his riding-whip, he said: +'Was thou once some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings +brought him to this pass?--some statesman who plunged his country +in ruin, and perished in the fray?--some wretch who left behind +him a legacy of shame?--some beggar who died in the pangs of +hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by the natural +course of old age?' + +"He took the skull home, and slept that night with it under his +head for a pillow, and dreamed. The skull appeared to him in his +dream, and said: 'You speak well, Sir; but all you say has +reference to the life of mortals, and to mortal troubles. In +death there are none of these things. Would you like to hear +about death?' + +"Cwangtse, however, was not convinced, and said: 'Were I to +prevail upon God to let your body be born again, and your bones +and flesh be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, +to your wife and to the friends of your youth--would you +be willing?' + +"At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows +and said: 'How should I cast aside happiness greater than +that of a king, and mingle once again in the toils and troubles +of mortality?'" + +Here is the famous tale of the Grand Augur and the Pigs:-- + +"The Grand Augur, in his ceremonial robes, approached the +shambles and thus addressed the Pigs:-- + +"'Why,' said he, 'should you object to die? I shall fattan you +for three months. I shall discipline myself for ten days and +fast for three. I shall strew fine grass, and place you bodily +upon a carved sacrificial dish. Does not this satisfy you? + +"'Yet perhaps after all,' he continued, speaking from the pigs' +point of view, 'it is better to live on bran and escape the +shambles... + +"'No,' said he; speaking from his own point of view again. 'To +enjoy honor when alive one would readily die on a war-shield or +in the haeadsman's basket.' + +"So he rejected the pigs' point of view and clung to his own. In +what sense, then, was he different from the pigs?" + +And here, the still more famous tale of the Sacred Tortoise:-- + +"Chwantse was fishing in the river P'u when the Prince of Ch'u +sent two high officials to ask him to take charge of the +administration. + +"Chwangtse went on fishing, and without turning his head said: +'I have heard that in Ch'u there is a sacred tortoise which has +been dead now some three thousand years. And that the prince +keeps this tortoise carefully enclosed in a chest on the altar of +his ancestral temple. Now if this tortoise had its choice, which +would it prefer: to be dead, and have its remains venerated; or +to be alive, and wagging its tail in the mud?' + +"'Sir,' replied the two officials, 'it would rather be alive, and +wagging its tail in the mud.' + +"'Begone!' cried Chwangtse. 'I too will wag my tail in the mud!'" + +Well; so much for _Butterfly;_ now for _Chwang_--and to +introduce you to some of his real thought and teaching. You will +not have shot so wide of the mark as to see in his story of the +skull traces of pessimism: Chwantse had none of it; he was a +very happy fellow; like the policeman in the poem, + + ".....a merry genial wag + Who loved a mad conceit." + +But he was by all means and anyhow for preaching the Inner as +against the outer. Yet he did not dismiss this world, either, as +a vain delusion and sorrowful mockery;--the gist of his teaching +is this: that men bear a false relation to the world; and he +desired to teach the true relation. He loved the Universe, and +had a sublime confidence in it as the embodiment and expression +of Tao; and would apply this thought as a solvent to the one +false thing in it: the human personality, with its heresy of +separateness. Dissolve that,--and it is merely an idea; in the +words of a modern philosopher, _all in the mind,_--and you have +the one true elixir flowing in your veins, the universal harmony; +are part of the solemn and glorious pageant of the years. The +motions of the heavenly bodies, the sweetness of Spring and the +wistfulness of Autumn, flaunting Summer and Winter's beauty of +snow--all are parcel of yourself, and within the circle of your +consciousness. Often he rises to a high poetic note;--it is +largely the supreme beauty of his style which keeps his book, so +thouroughly unorthodox, still alive and wagging its tail among +his countrymen. Chwangtse will not help you through the +examinations; but he is mighty good to read when your days of +competing are over; as I think it is Dr. Giles who says. + +Like his contemporary Diogenes, he would have his dead body cast +out to the vultures; but the spirit of his wish was by no +means cynical. "When Chwangtse was about to die," he writes +(anticipating things pleasantly), "his disciples expressed a wish +to give him a splendid funeral. But he said: 'With heaven and +earth for my coffin and shell, and the sun, moon, and stars for +my burial regalia; with all creation to escort me to the grave-- +is not my funeral already prepared?'" + +He speaks of the dangers of externalism, even in the pursuit of +virtue; then says: "The man who has harmony within, though he +sit motionless like the image of a dead man at a sacrifice, yet +his Dragon Self will appear; though he be absorbed in silence, +his thunder will be heard; the divine power in him will be at +work, and heaven will follow it; while he abides in tranquillity +and inaction, the myriads of things and beings will gather under +his influence."--"Not to run counter to the natural bias of +things," he says, "is to be perfect." It is by this running +counter--going aginst the Law, following our personal desires and +so forth,--that we create karma,--give the Universe something to +readjust,--and set in motion all our troubles. "He who fully +understands this, by storing it within enlarges the heart, and +with this enlargement brings all creation to himself. Such a man +will bury gold on the hillside, and cast pearls into the sea."-- +sink a plummet into that, I beseech you; it is one of the grand +utterances of wonder and wisdom.--"He will not struggle for +wealth or strive for fame; rejoice over longevity, or grieve at +an early death. He will get no elation from success, nor chagrin +from failure; he will not account the throne his private gain, +no look on the empire of the world as glory personal. His glory +is to know that all thigns are one, and life and death but phases +of the same existence." + +Why call that about burying gold and casting pearls into the sea +one of the supreme utterances?--Well; Chwangtse has a way of +putting a whole essay into a sentence; this is a case in point. +We have discussed Natural Magic together many times; we know how +the ultimate beauty occurs when something human has flowed out +into Nature, and left its mysterious trace there, upon the +mountains, or by the river-brink, + + "By paved fountain, or by rushy brook. + Or on the beached margent of the sea." + +Tu Fu saw in the blues and purples of the morning-glory the +colors of the silken garments of the lost poet Ssema Hsiangju, of +a thousand years before--that is, of the silken garments of his +rich emotion and adventures. China somehow has understood this +deep connexion between man and Nature; and that it is human +thought molds the beauty and richness, or hideousness and +sterility of the world. Are the mountains noble? They store +the grandeur and aspirations of eighteen millions of years of +mankind. Are the deserts desolate and terrible? It was man made +the deserts: not with his hands, but with his thought. Man is +the fine workshop and careful laboratory wherein Nature prepares +the most wonderful of her wonders. It is an instinct for this +truth that makes Chinese poetry the marvel that it is.--So the +man of Tao is enriching the natural world: filling the hills +with gold, putting pearls in the sea. + +I do not know where there is a more pregnant passage than this +following,--a better acid (of words) to corrode the desperate +metal of selfhood; listen well, for each clause is a volume. +"Can one get Tao to possess it for one's own?" asks Chwangtse; +and answers himself thus: "Your very body is not your own; how +then should Tao be?--If my body is not my own, whose is it, +pray?--It is the delegated image of God. Your posterity is not +your own; it is the delegated exuviae of God. You move, but +know not how; you are at rest, but know not why; you taste, but +know not the cause; these are the operations of universal law. +How then should you get Tao so as to possess it for your own?" + +Now then, I want to take one of those clauses, and try to see +what Chwangtse really meant by it. "Your individuality is not +your own, but the delegated adaptability of God."--There is a +certain position in the Scheme of Things Entire,--a point, with a +relation of its own to the rest of the Scheme, to the Universe;-- +as the red line has a relation of its own to the rest of the +spectrum and the ray of light as a whole..... From that point, +from that position, there is a work to be done, which can be done +from no other. The Lonely Eternal looks out through these eyes, +because it must see all things; and there are things no eyes can +see but these, no other hands do. This point is an infinitesimal +part of the whole; but without its full and proper functioning, +the Whole falls short in that much:--because of your or my petty +omissions, the Universe limps and goes lame.--Into this position, +as into all others impartially, the One Life which is Tao flows, +adapting itself through aeons to the relations which that point +bears to the Whole: and the result and the process of this +adaptation is--your individuality or mine. + +_You_ are not the point, the position: because it is merely that +which you hold and through which you function; it is yours, but +not you. What then are _you?_ That which occupies and adapts +itself to the point? But that is Tao, the Universal. You can +only say it is you, if from _you_ you subtract all _you_-ness. +Your individuality, then, is a temporary aspect of Tao in a +certain relation to the totality of Tao, the One Thing which is +the No Thing:--or it is the "delegated adaptability of God." + +How and wherein adaptable?--The Infinite, occupying this +position, has formed therein all sorts of attachments and +dislikes; and each one of them hinders it adaptability. Your +surroundings have reflected themselves on you: and the sum of +the reflexions is your personality,--the little cage of I-am-ness +from which it is so hard to escape. Every reflected image +engraves itself on the stuff of yourself by the sensation of +attachment or repulsion which it arouses. When it says, "The +One becomes the Two"--which is the way in one form or another all +ancient philosophy sums up the beginning of things;--this is what +is meant: the 'One' is Tao; the 'Two' is this conditioned +world, whose nature and essence is to appear as pairs of +opposites--to be attractive, or to repel. The pigs' point of +view was that it was better to live on bran and escape the +shambles; the Grand Augur's, that the pomp and ceremony of the +sacrifice, the public honor, ought more than to compensate them +for the momentary inconvenience of being killed. Opposite ways +of thinking; points of view: which cherishing, Grand Augur and +pigs alike dwelt on the plane of externals; and so there was no +real difference between them. When you stand for you, and I for +myself, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other; but when +either of us stand for That which is both of us, and all else,-- +then we touch reality; then there is no longer conflict, or +opposites; no longer false appearances,--but the presence and +cognition of the True. + +Here let me note what seems to me a radical superiority in +Chinese methods of thought. You may take the _Bhagavad-Gita,_ +perhaps, as the highest expression of Aryan religio-philosophic +thinking. There we have the Spirit, the One, shown as the self +of the Universe, but speaking through, and as, Krishna, a human +personality. Heaven forbid that I should suggest there is +anthropomorphism in this. Still, I think our finest mystical and +poetic perceptions of the Light beyond all lights do tend to +crystallize themselves into the shape of a _Being;_ we do tend +to symbolize and figure that Wonder as ..... an Individuality +.....in some indefinable splendid sort. Often you find real +mystics, men who have seen with their own eyes so to say, talking +about _God, the Lord,_ the _Great King,_ and what not of the +like; and though you know perfectly well what they mean, there +was yet that necessity on them to use those figures of speech. +But in China, no. There, they begin from the opposite end. +Neither in Laotse nor in Confucius, nor in their schools, can you +find a trace of personalism. Gods many, yes; as reason and +common sense declare; but nothing you can call a god is so +ancient, constant, and eternal as Tao, "which would appear to +have been before God." Go to their poets, and you find that the +rage is all for Beauty as the light shining through things. The +grass-blade and the moutain, the moonlit water and the peony, are +lit from within and utterly adorable: not because God made them; +not as reminding you of the Topmost of any Hierarchy of Being; +but, if you really go to the bottom of it, because there is no +personality in them,--and so nothing to hinder the eternal +wonder, impersonal Tao, from shining through.--As if _we_ came +through our individuality to a conception of the Divine; +but _they,_ through a perception of the divine, to a right +understanding of their individuality. It amounts to _us_ to fall +into gross hideous anthropomorphism; the worst of them into +superstitions of their own.--When one quotes Chwangtse as +speaking of "the delegated adaptability of _God,_" one must +remember that one has to use some English word for his totally +impersonal _Tao_ or _Tien,_ or even _Shangti,_ or whatever it +may be. + +This Tao, you say, something far off,--a principle in philosophy +or a metaphysical idea,--may be very nice to discuss in a lecture +or write poetry about; but dear me! between whiles we have a +great deal to do, and really--But no! it is actually, as Mohammed +said, "nearer to thee than thy jugular vein." It is a simple +adjustment of oneself to the Universe,--of which, after all, one +cannot escape being a part; it is the attainment of a true +relationship to the whole. What obscures and hinders that, is +simply our human brain-mind consciousness. "Consider the lilies +of the field," that attain a perfection of beauty. The thing +that moves us, or ought to move us, in flowers, trees, seas and +mountains, is this: that lacking this fretting, gnawing sense of +I-am-ness, their emanations are pure Tao, and may reach us along +the channel we call beauty: may flood our being through "the +gateway of the eyes." Beauty is Tao made visible. The rose and +peony do not feel themselves 'I,' distinct from 'you' and the +rest; they are in opposition to nothing; they do not fall in +love, and have no aversions: they simply worship Heaven and are +unanxious, and so beautiful. When we know this, we see what +beauty means; and that it is not something we can afford to +ignore and treat with stoic indifference or puritan dislike. It +is Tao visible; I call every flower an avatar of God. Now you +see how Taoism leads to poetry; is the philosophy of poetry; is +indeed _Poetics,_ rather than _Metephysics._ Think of all the +little jewels you know in Keats, in Shelley, or Wordsworth: +the moments when the mists between those men and the divine +"defecated to a thin transparency";--those were precisely the +moments when the poets lost sight of their I-am-ness and entered +into true relations with the Universe. A daffodil, every second +of its life, holds within itself all the real things poets have +ever said, or will ever say, about it; and can reach our souls +directly with edicts from the Dragon Throne of the Eternal.--I +watched the linarias yesterday, and their purple delicacy assured +me that all the filth, all the falsehood and tragedy of the +world, should pass and be blown away; that the garden was full +of dancing fairies, joy moving them to their dancing; that it +was my own fault if I could not see Apollo leaning down out of +the Sun; and my own fatuity, and that alone, if I could not hear +the Stars of Morning singing together, and all the sons of God +shouting for you. And it was the truth they were telling; the +plain, bald, naked truth;--they have never learned to lie, and do +not know what it means. There is no sentimentalism in this; +only science. We live in a Universe absolutely soaked through +with God,--or with Poetry, which is perhaps a better name for It; +a Universe peopled thick with Gods. But it is all very far from +our common thoughts and conceptions; that is why it sounds to +most people like sentimental nonsense and 'poetry.' No wonder +Plato hated that word;--since it is made a hand-grenade, in the +popular mind, to fling at every truth. And yet Poetry 'gets in +on us,' too, occasionally, and accomplishes for + + "the woods and waters wild" + +the work they cannot do for themselves;--the work they cannot do, +cause we will not look at them, cannot see them, and have +forgotten their ancient language, being too much immersed in a +rubbishing gabble of our own. + +What Toism, and especially Chwangtse as I think, did for the +Chinese was to publish the syntax and vocabulary of that ancient +language; to make people understand how to take these grand +protagonists of Tao; how to communicate familiarly with these +selfless avatars of the Most High. Listen to this: the thought +is close-packed, but I think you will follow it:-- + +"The true Sage rejects all distinction of this and that," that is +to say, of subjective, or that which one perceives within one's +own mind and consciousness, and objective, or that which is +perceived as existing outside of them;--he does not look upon the +mountain or the daffodil as things different or apart from his +own conscious being. "He takes his refuge in Tao, and places +himself in subjective relations with all things"; he keeps the +mountain within him; the scent of the daffodil, and her yellow +candle-flame of beauty, are within the sphere and circle of +himself; + + "...the little wave of Breffny goes stumbling through his +soul." + +"Hence it is said"--this is Chwangtse again--"that there is +nothing like the light of Nature. + +"Only the truly intelligent understand this principle of the +identity of things. They do not view things as apprehended by +themselves, but transfer themselves into the position of the +things viewed."--And there, I may say, you have it: the last is +the secret of the wonder-light in all Far Eastern Poetry and Art; +more, it is the explanation of all poetry everywhere. It is the +doctrine, the archeus, the _Open Sesame,_ the thyme- and +lavender- and sweetwilliam-breathed Secret Garden of this old +wizardly Science of Song;--who would go in there, and have the +dark and bright blossoms for his companions, let him understand +this. For Poetry is the revelation of the Great Life beyond the +little life of this human personality; to tap it, you must evict +yourself from the personal self; "transfer yourself into the +position of the things viewed," and not see, but _be,_ the little +stumbling wave or the spray of plum-blossom, thinking its +thoughts.--"Viewing things thus," continues our Chwangtse, "you +are able to comprehend and master them. So it is that to place +oneself in inner relation with externals, without consciousness +of their objectivity,--this is Tao. But to wear out one's +intellect in an obstinate adherence to the objectivity--the +apartness--of things, not recognizing that they are all one--this +is called _Three in the Morning._--'What do you mean by _Three in +the Morning?'_ asked Tse Yu.--'A keeper of monkeys,' Tse Chi +replied, 'said with regard to their daily ration of chestnuts +that each monkey should have three in the morning and four at +night. At this the monkeys were very angry; so he said that +they might have four in the morning and three at night; whereat +they were well pleased. The number of nuts was the same; but +there was an adaptation to the feelings of those concerned.'"-- +which, again, means simply that to follow Tao and dodge until it +is altogether sloughed off the sense of separateness, is to +follow the lines of least resistance. + +All these ideas are a natural growth from the teachings of +Laotse; but Butterfly Chwang, in working them out and stating +them so brilliantly, did an inestimable service to the ages that +were to come. + + + + +XIV. THE MANVANTARA OPENS + + +Laotse's Blue Pearl was already shining into poetry. Ch'u Yuan, +the first great poet, belongs to this same fourth century; it is +a long step from the little wistful ballads that Confucius +gathered to the "wild irregular meters," * splendid imagery, and +be it said, deep soul symbolism of his great poem the Li Sao +(Falling into Trouble). The theme of it is this: From earliest +childhood Ch'u Yuan had sought the Tao, but in vain. At last, +banished by the prince whose minister he had been, he retired +into the wilds, and was meditating at the tomb of Shun in Hupeh, +in what was then the far south. There the Phoenix and the Dragon +came to him, and bore him aloft, past the West Pole, past the +Milky Way, past even the Source of the Hoangho, to the Gates of +Heaven. Where, however, there was no admittance for him; and +full of sorrow he returned to earth. + +------ +* _Chinese Literature,_ by Dr. H. A. Giles. What is said about +the _Li Sao_ here comes from that work--except the suggestions as +to its inner meaning. +------ + +On the banks of the Mi-lo a fisherman met him, and asked him the +cause of his trouble.--"All the world is foul," answered Ch'u +Yuan, "and I alone am clean."--"If that is so," said the +fisherman, "why not plunge into the current, and make its +foulness clean with the infection of your purity? The Man of Tao +does not quarrel with his surroundings, but adjusts himself to +them." Ch'u Yuan took the hint: leaped into the Mi-lo;--and +yearly since then they have held the Dragon-boat Festival on the +waters of Middle China to commemorate the search for his body.-- +Just how much of this is in the _Li Sao,_--where the poem ends,-- +I do not clearly gather from Professor Giles's account; but the +whole story appears to me to be a magnificent Soul Symbol: of +that Path which leads you indeed on dragon flights to the borders +of the Infinite, but whose end, rightly considered, is in this +world, and to be as it were drowned in the waters of this world, +with your cleanness infecting them to be clean,--and lighting +them for all future ages with beauty, as with little dragon-boats +luminous with an inner flame. Ch'u Yuan had followers in that +and the next century; but perhaps his greatness was hardly to be +approached for a thousand years. + +But we were still in Tiger-time, and with quite the worst of it +to come. Here lay the Blue Pearl scintillating rainbows up +through the heavy atmosphere; but despite its flashing and +up-fountaining those strange dying-dolphin hues and glories, you +could never have told, in Tiger-time, what it really was. The +Dragon was yet a long way off; though indeed it must be allowed +that flight, when Chwangtse wrote and Ch'u Yuan sung, was +surprised with the far churr of startling wings under the stars. +Ears intent to listen were surprised; but only for a moment;-- +there was that angry howling again from the northern hills and +the southern forests: the two great Tigers of the world face to +face, tails lashing;--and between them and in their path, Chow +quite prone,--the helpless Black-haired People trembling or +chattering frivolously. Not for such an age as that Chwangtse +and Ch'u Yuan wrote, but indeed you may say for all time. What +light from the Blue Pearl could then shine forth and be seen, +would, in the thick fog and smoke-gloom, take on wild fantastic +guise; which, as we shall see, it did:--but what Chwangtse had +written remained, pure immortality, to kindle up better ages to +come. When China should be ready, Chwangtse and the Pearl would +be found waiting for her. The manvantara had not yet dawned; +but we may hurry on now to its dawning. + +The Crest-Wave was still in India when China plunged into the +abyss from which her old order of ages never emerged. Soon after +Asoka came to the throne of Magadha, in 284 B.C., Su Tai, wise +prime minister to the Lord of Chao, took occasion to speak-- +seriously to his royal master as to the latter's perennial little +wars with Yen.* "This morning as I crossed the river," said +he, "I saw a mussel open its shell to the sun. Straight an +oyster-catcher thrust in his bill to eat the mussel; which +promptly snapped the shell to and held the bird fast.--'If it +doesn't rain today or tomorrow,' said the oyster-catcher, 'there'll +be a dead mussel here.'--'And if you don't get out of this by +today or tomorrow,' said the mussel, 'there'll be a dead +oyster-catcher.' Meanwhile up came a fisherman and carried +them both off. I fear Ts'in will be our fisherman." + +------ +* The tale is taken from Dr. H.A. Gile's _Chinese Literature._ +------ + +Which duly came to pass. Even in Liehtse's time Ts'in characteristics +were well understood: he tells a sly story of a neighboring +state much infested by robbers. The king was proud of a great +detective who kept them down; but they soon killed the Pinkerton, +and got to work again. Then he reformed himself,--and the +robbers found his kingdom no place for them. In a body they +crossed the Hoangho into Ts'in;--and bequeathed to its policy +their tendencies and aptitudes. + +Ts'in had come to be the strongest state in China. Next neighbor +to the Huns, and half Hun herself, she had learned warfare in a +school forever in session. But she had had wise rulers also, +after their fashion of wisdom: who had been greatly at pains to +educate her in all the learning of the Chinese. So now she +stood, an armed camp of a nation, enamored of war, and completely +civilized in all external things. Ts'u, her strongest rival, +stretching southward to the Yangtse and beyond, had had to deal +with barbarians less virile than the Huns; and besides, dwelling +as Ts'u did among the mountains and forests of romance, she had +some heart in her for poetry and mysticism, whereas Ts'in's was +all for sheer fighting. Laotse probably had been a Ts'u man; +and also Chwangtse and Ch'u Yuan; and in after ages it was +nearly always from the forests of Ts'u that the great winds of +poetry were blown. Still--he had immense territories and +resources, and the world looked mainly to her for defense against +the northern Tiger Ts'in. Soon after Su Tai told his master the +parable of the mussel and the oyster-catcher the grand clash +came, and the era of petty wars and raidings was over. Ts'u +gathered to herself most of the rest of China for her allies, and +there was a giant war that fills the whole horizon, nearly, of +the first half of the third century B. C. New territories were +involved: the world had expanded mightily since the days of +Confucius. "First and last," says Ssema Tsien, "the allies +hurled a million men against Ts'in." But to no purpose; one +nation after another went down before those Hun-trained half-Huns +from the north-west. In 257 Chau Tsiang king of Ts'in took the +Chow capital, and relieved Nan Wang, the last of the Chows, of +the Nine Tripods of Ta Yu, the symbols of his sacred sovereignty; +--the mantle of the Caliphate passed from the House of Wen Wang +and the Duke of Chow. + +The world had crumbled to pieces: there had been changes of +dynasty before, but never (in known history) a change like this. +The Chows had been reigning nearly nine hundred years; but their +system had been in the main the same as that of the Shangs and +Hias, and of Yao, Shun, and Ta Yu: it was two millenniums, a +century, and a decade old. A Chinaman, in Chau Tsiang's place, +would merely have reshaped the old order and set up a new +feudal-pontifical house instead of Chow; which could not +have lasted, because old age had worn the old system out. +But these barbarians came in with new ideas. A new empire, +a new race, a new nation was to be born. + +Chau Tsiang died in 251; and even then one could not clearly +foresee what should follow. In 253 he had performed the significant +sacrifice to Heaven, a prerogative of the King-Pontiff: but he +had not assumed the title. Resistance was still in being. +His son and successor reigned three days only; and _his_ +son, another nonentity, five years without claiming to be +more than King of Ts'in. But when this man died in 246, he left +the destinies of the world in the hands of a boy of thirteen; +who very quickly showed the world in whose hands its destinies +lay. Not now a King of Ts'in; not a King-Pontiff of Chow;--not, +if you please, a mere _wang_ or king at all;--but Hwangti, like +that great figure of mythological times, the Yellow Emperor, who +had but to sit on his throne, and all the world was governed and +at peace. The child began by assuming that astounding title: +_Ts'in Shi Hwangti,_ the First August Emperor: peace to the +ages that were past; let them lie in their tomb; time now +should begin again!--Childish boyish swank and braggadocio, said +the world; but very soon the world found itself mistaken. +_Hwangti;_--but no sitting on his throne in meditation, no +letting the world be governed by Tao, for him! + +If you have read that delightful book _Through Hidden Shensi,_ by +Mr. F. A. Nichols, the city of Hienfang, or Changan, or, by its +modern name, Singanfu or Sian-fu in Shensi, will be much more +than a name to you. Thither it was that the Dowager Empress fled +with her court from Pekin at the time of the Boxer Rebellion; +there, long ago, Han Wuti's banners flew; there Tang Taitsong +reigned in all his glory and might; there the Banished Angel sang +in the palace gardens of Tang Hsuantsong the luckless: history +has paid such tribute of splendor to few of the cities of the +world. At Hienfang now this barbarian boy and Attila-Napoleon +among kings built his capital;--built it right splendidly, +after such ideas of splendor as a young half-Hun might cherish. +For indeed, he had but little and remote Chinese heredity +in him; was of the race of Attila and Genghiz, of Mahmoud +of Ghazna, Tamerlane, and all the world-shaking Turkish conquerors. +--Well, but these people, though by nature and function destroyers, +have been great builders too: building hugely, monumentally, +and to inspire awe, and not with the faery grace and ephemeral +loveliness of the Chinese;--though they learned the trick +of that, too,--as they learned in the west kindred qualities +from the Saracens. Grand Pekin is of their architecture; +which is Chinese with a spaciousness and monumental solemnity +added. Such a capital Ts'in She Hwangti built him at Hien +fang or Changan. In the Hall of audience of his palace within +the walls he set up twelve statues, each (I like this barbarian +touch) weighing twelve thousand pounds. Well; _we_ should +say, each costing so many thousand dollars; you need not +laugh; I am not sure but that the young Hun had the best of +it. And without the walls he built him, too, a Palace of +Delight with many halls and courtyards; in some of which +(I like this too) he could drill ten thousand men. + +All of this was but the trappings and the suits of his sovereignty: +he let it be known he had the substance as well. No great +strategist himself, he commanded the services of mighty generals: +one Meng-tien in especial, a bright particular star in the +War-God's firmament. An early step to disarm the nations, +and have all weapons sent to Changan; then, with these, to +furnish forth a great standing army, which he sent out under +Meng-tien to conquer. The Middle Kingdom and the quondam Great +Powers were quieted; then south of the Yangtse the great soldier +swept, adding unknown regions to his master's domain. Then rorth +and west, till the Huns and their like had grown very tame and +wary;--and over all these realms the Emperor spread his network +of fine roads and canals, linking them with Changan: what the +Romans did for Europe in road-building, he did for China. + +He had, of course, a host of relatives; and precedent loomed +large to tell him what to do with them: the precedent of the +dynasty-founders of old. Nor were they themselves likely to have +been backward in reminding him. Wu Wang had come into possession +of many feudal dominions, and had made of the members of his +family dukes and marquises to rule them. Ts'in Shi Hwangti's +empire was many times the size of Wu Wang's; so he was in a much +better position to reward the deserving. We must remember that +he was no heir to a single sovereignty, but a Napoleon with a +Europe at his feet. Ts'in and Ts'u and Tsin and the others were +old-established kingdoms, with as long a history behind them as +France or England has now; and that history had been filled with +wars, mutual antagonisms and hatreds. Chow itself was like an +Italy before Garibaldi;--with a papacy more inept, and holding +vaguer sway:--it had been at one time the seat of empire, and it +was the source of all culture. He had to deal, then, with a +heterogeneity as pronounced as that which confronted Napoleon; +but he was not of the stuff for which you prepare Waterloos. No +one dreamed that he would treat the world other than as such a +heterogeneity. His relations expected to be made the Jeromes, +Eugenes, and Murats of the Hollands, Spains, and Sicilies to +hand. The world could have conceived of no other way of dealing +with the situation. But Ts'in Shi Hwangti could, very well. + +He abolished the feudal system. He abolished nationalities and +national boundaries. There should be no more Ts'in and Tsin and +Ts'u; no more ruling dukes and marquises. Instead, there should +be an entirely new set of provinces, of which he would appoint +the governors, not hereditary; and they should be responsible to +him: promotable when good, dismissable and beheadable on the +first sign of naughtiness. It was an idea of his own; he had no +foreign history to go to for models and precedents, and there had +been nothing like it in Chinese History. Napoleon hardly +conceived such a tremendous idea, much less had he the force +to carry it out. Even the achievement of Augustus was smaller; +and Augustus had before him models in the history of many +ancient empires. + +Now what was the ferment behind this man's mind;--this barbarian +--for so he was--of tremendous schemes and doings? The answer is +astonishing, when one thinks of the crude ruthless human dynamo +he was. It was simply _Taoism:_ it was Laotse's Blue Pearl;-- +but shining, of course, as through the heart of a very London +Particular of Hunnish-barbarian fogs. No subtleties of +mysticism; no Chwangtsean spiritual and poetry-breeding ideas, +for him!--It has fallen, this magical Pearl, into turbid and +tremendous waters, a natural potential Niagara; it has stirred, +it has infected their vast bulk into active Niagarahood. He was +on fire for the unknown and the marvelous; could conceive of no +impossible--it should go hard, he thought, but that the subtler +worlds that interpenetrate this one should be as wonderful as +this world under Ts'in Shi Hwangti. Don't argue with him; it is +dangerous!--certainly there was an Elixir of Life, decantable +into goblets, from which Ts'in Shi Hwangti might drink and become +immortal,--the First August Emperor, and the only one forever! +Certainly there were those Golden Islands eastward, where Gods +dispensed that nectar to the fortunate;--out in your ships, you +there, and search the waves for them! And certainly, too, there +were God knew what of fairylands and paradises beyond the western +desert; out, you General Meng-tien, with your great armies and +find them! He did tremendous things, and all the while was thus +dreaming wildly. From the business of state he would seize hours +at intervals to lecture to his courtiers on Tao;--I think _not_ +in a way that would have been intelligible to Laotse or Chwangtse. +Those who yawned were beheaded, I believe. + +How would such a prodigy in time appear to his own age? Such +cataclysmic wars as Ts'in had been waging for the conquest of +China take society first, so to say, upon its circumference, +smash that to atoms, and then go working inwards. The most +conservative and stable elements are the last and least affected. +The peasant is killed, knocked about, transported, enclaved; but +when the storm is over, and he gets back to his plough and hoe +and rice-field again, sun and wind and rain and the earth-breath +soothe him back to and confirm in what he was of old: only some +new definite spiritual impulse or the sweep of the major cycles +can change him much,--and then the change is only modification. +At the other end of society you have the Intellectuals. In +England, Oxford is the home and last refuge of lost causes. A +literary culture three times as old as modern Oxford's, as +China's was then, will be, you may imagine, fixed and conservative. +It is a mental mold petrified with age; the minds participating +must conform to it, solidify, and grow harder in the matrix +it provides than granite or adamant. We have seen how in +recent times the Confucian literati resisted the onset of +westernism. All these steam-engines and telegraphs seemed to +them fearfully crude and vulgar in comparison with the niceties +of literary style, the finesses of time-taking ceremonious +courtesies, that had been to them and to their ancestors time out +of mind the true refinements of life, and even the realities. +China rigid against the West was not a semi-barbarism resisting +civilization, but an excessively perfected culture resisting the +raw energies of one still young and, in its eyes, still with the +taint of savagery: brusque manners, materialistic valuations. + +Ts'in Shi Hwangti in his day had to meet a like opposition. The +wars had broken up the structure of society, but not the long +tradition of refined learning. That had always seemed the +quarter from which light and leading must come; but it had long +ceased to be a quarter from which light or leading could come. +Mencius had been used to rate and ridicule the ruling princes; +and scholars now could not understand that Mencius and his ruling +princes and all their order were dead. They could not understand +that they were not Menciuses, nor Ts'in Shi Hwangti a kinglet +such as he had dealt with. Now Mencius had been a great man,--a +Man's son, as they say;--and very likely he and Ts'in Shi Hwangti +might have hit it off well enough. But there was no Mencius, no +Man's son, among the literati now. The whole class was wily, +polite, sarcastic, subtle, unimaginative, refined to a degree, +immovable in conservatism. The Taoist teachers had breathed in a +new spirit, but it had not reached them. How would Ts'in Shi +Hwangti, barbarian, wild Taoist, and man of swift great action, +appear to them? + +Of course they could not abide him; and had not the sense to +fear. They were at their old game of wire-pulling: would have +the feudal system back, with all the old inefficiency; in the +name of Ta Yu and the Duke of Chow they would do what they might +to undo the strivings of this Ts'in upstart. So all the +subtleties of the old order were arrayed against him,--pull +devil, pull baker. + +He knew it; and knew the extreme difficulty of striking any +ordinary blow to quiet them. He had challenged Time Past to the +conflict, and meant to win. Time Future was knocking at the +doors of the empire, and he intended it should come in and find a +home. His armies had crossed the Gobi, and smelt out unending +possibilities in the fabulous west; they had opened up the +fabulous south, the abode of Romance and genii and dragons. It +was like the discovery of the Americas: a new world brought over +the horizon. His great minister, Li Ssu had invented a new +script, the Lesser Seal, easier and simpler than the old one; +Meng-tien, conqueror of the Gobi, had invented the camel's-hair +brush wherewith to write gracefully on silk or cloth, instead of +difficultly with stylus on bamboo-strips as of old. It was the +morning stir of the new manvantara; and little as the emperor +might care for culture, he heard the Future crying to him. He +heard, too, the opposing murmur of the still unconquered Past. +The literati stood against him as the Papacy against Frederick II +of Sicily: a less open opposition, and one harder to meet. + +He did not solve the problem till near the end of his reign. In +213 he called a great meeting in the Hall of Audience at Changan. +See the squat burly figure enthroned in grand splendor; the +twelve weighty statues arranged around; the chief civil and +military officers of the empire, thorough Taoists like himself, +gathered on one side; the Academies and Censorates, all the +leaders of the literati, on the other. The place was big enough +for a largish meeting. Minister Li Ssu rises to describe the +work of the Emperor; whereafter the latter calls for expressions +of opinion. A member of his household opines that he "surpasses +the very greatest of his predecessors": which causes a subdued +sneer to run through the ranks of scholars. One of them takes +the floor and begins to speak. Deprecates flattery guardedly, as +bad for any sovereign; considers who the greatest of these +predecessors were:--Yao, Shun, and Yu, 'Tang the Completer, Wu +Wang; and--implies a good deal. Warms to his work at last, and +grows bitter; almost openly pooh poohs all modern achievements; +respectfully--or perhaps not too respectfully--advocates a return +to the feudal-- + +"Silence!" roars Attila-Napoleon from his throne; and motions Li +Ssu to make answer. The answer was predetermined, one imagines. +It was an order that five hundred of the chief literati present +should retire and be beheaded, and that thousands more should be +banished. And that all books should be burned. Attila-Napoleon's +orders had a way of being carried out. This was one. + +He had meanwhile been busy with the great material monument of +his reign: the Wall of China; and with cautious campaigns +yearly to the north of it; and with personal supervision of the +Commissariat Department of all his armies everywhere; and with +daily long _hikes_ to keep himself in trim. Now the Wall came in +useful. To stretch its fifteen hundred miles of length over wild +mountains and valleys in that bleak north of the world, some +little labor was needed; and scholars and academicians were +many and, for most purposes, useless; and they needed to be +brought into touch with physical realities to round out their +characters;--then let them go and build the wall. He buried +enough of them--alive, it is to be feared: an ugly Ts'in +custom, not a Chinese,--to make melons ripen in mid-winter +over their common grave; the rest he sentenced to four years +of wall-building,--which meant death. That, too, was the penalty +for concealing books. He was now in dead earnest that the Past +should go, and history begin again; to be read forever afterwards +in this order,--the Creation, the Reign of Ts'in Shi Hwangti. + +But he spared books on useful subjects: that is to say, on +Medicine, Agriculture, and Magic. + +So ancient China is to be seen now only as through a glass +darkly; if his great attempt had been quite successful, it would +not be to be seen at all. His crimes made no karma for China; +they are not a blot on her record;--since they were done by an +outside barbarian,--a mere publican and Ts'inner. From our +standpoint as students of history, he was a malefactor of the +first order; even when you take no account of his ruthless +cruelty to men;--and so China has considered him ever since. Yet +Karma finds ruthless agents for striking its horrible and +beneficial blows; (and woe unto them that it finds!). It seems +that Ts'in Shi Hwangti did draw the bowstring back--by this very +wickedness,--far back--that sent the arrow China tearing and +blazing out through the centuries to come. The fires in which +the books were burned were the pyre of the Phoenix,--the burning +of the astral molds,--the ignition and annihilation of the weight +and the karma of two millenniums. The Secular Bird was to burn +and be consumed to the last feather, and be turned to ashes +utterly, before she might spring up into the ether for her new +flight of ages. + +One wonders what would happen if a Ts'in Shi Hwangti were to +arise and do by modern Christendom what this one did by ancient +China. I say nothing about the literati, but only about the +literature. Would burning it be altogether an evil? Nearly all +that is supremely worth keeping would live through; and its +value would be immensely enhanced. First the newspapers would +go, that sow lies broadcast, and the seeds of national hatreds. +The light literature would go, that stands between men and +thought. The books of theology would go, and the dust of +creedalism that lies so thick on men's minds. A thousand bad +precedents that keep us bound to medievalism would go with the +law-books: there would be a chance to pronounce, here and now as +human beings, on such things as capital punishment;--which +remains, though we do not recognise the fact, solely because it +has been in vogue all these centuries, and is a habit hard to +break with. History would go; yes;--but a mort of pernicious +lies would go with it. Well, well; one speaks of course in jest +(partly). But when all is said, China was not unfortunate in +having a strong giant of a man, a foreigner withal, at her head +during those crucial decades. Ts'in Shi Hwangti guarded China +through most of that perilous intermission between the cycles. +It was the good that he did that mostly lived after him. + +In 210 he fell ill, took no precautions, and died,--in his +fiftieth year. A marvelous mausoleum was built for him: a +palace, with a mountain heaped on top, and the floor of it a map +of China, with the waters done in quicksilver. Whether his evil +deeds were interred with his bones, who can say?--certainly his +living wives were, and the thousands of living workmen who had +built the mausoleum. Ts'innish doings, not Chinese. In the +_Book of Odes,_ Confucius preserved a Ts'in ballad mourning over +men so buried alive with their dead king. + +The strong hand lifted, rebellion broke out, and for awhile it +looked as if Chu Hia must sink into the beast again. His feeble +son got rid of Meng-tien, poisoned Li Ssu, offered the feeblest +resistance to the rebels, and then poisoned himself. After four +years of fighting,--what you might call "unpleasantness all +round,"--one Liu Pang achieved the throne. He had started life +as a beadle; joined Ts'in Shi Hwangti's army, and risen to be a +general; created himself after the emperor's death Prince of +Han; and now had the honor to inaugurate, as Emperor Kaotsu, the +greatest of the Chinese dynasties. + +In the two-fifties strong barbarous Ts'in had swallowed unmanly +worn-out China, and for half a century had been digesting the +feast. Then--to mix my metaphors a little--China flopped up to +the surface again, pale, but smiling blandly. In the sunlight +she gathered strength and cohesion, and proceeded presently to +swallow Ts'in and everything else in sight; and emerged soon +young, strong, vigorous, and glowing-hearted to the conquest of +many worlds in the unknown. What was Ts'in, now is Shensi +Province, the very Heart of Han: the Shensi man today is the Son +of Han, _Ts'in_ Englished; but in Shensi, the old Ts'in, in +their tenderest moods, they call it _Han_ still,--the proudest +most patriotic name there is for it. + +Not at once was the Golden Age of Han to dawn: half a +thirteen-decade cycle from the opening of the manvantara in +the two-forties had to pass first. Ts'in Shi Hwangti had mapped +out a great empire; it fell to the Hans to consolidate it. +Han Kaotsu followed somewhat in the footsteps of his predecessor, +less the cruelty and barbarism, and most of the strength. +The sentiment of the empire was Chinese, not Ts'innish; so, +though not a brilliant or always a fortunate soldier, he +was able to assert his sway over the greater part of China +Proper. Chinesism had spread over territories never before +Chinese, and wherever it had spread, the people were glad +of a Chinese dynasty; besides, his rule was tactful and +kindly. They were glad that the Gods of the Soil of Han +were to be worshipped now, and those of Ts'in disthroned; +and that the Ts'in edicts were annulled;--as they were with +one important exception: those relating to literature. A +cultureless son of the proletariat himself. Han Kaotsu felt no +urge towards resurrecting that; and perhaps it was as well that +the sleeping dogs should be let lie awhile. The wonder is that +the old nationalities did not reassert themselves; but they did +not, to any extent worth mentioning; and perhaps this is the +best proof of Han Kaotsu's real strength. Ts'in Shi Hwangti had +dealt soundly with the everlasting Hun in his time; but when he +died, the Hun recovered. They kept Han Kaotsu busy, so that his +saddle, as he said, was his throne. They raided past the +capital and down into Ssechuan; once very nearly captured the +emperor; and had to be brought out at last with a Chinese +princess for the Hun king. Generally speaking, the Hans would +have lived at peace with them if they could, and were ready to +try better means of solving the problem than war. But it +certainly was a problem; for in these Huns we find little traces +of human nature that you could work upon. But China was a big +country by that time, and only a part of it, comparatively small, +suffered from the Huns. For the rest, Han Kaotsu was popular, +his people were happy, and his reign of twelve years was a +breathing-time in which they gathered strength. He kept a +hundred thousand workmen busy on public works, largely road- and +bridge-building: a suspension bridge that he built, a hundred +and fifty yards long, and crossing a valley five hundred feet +below, is still in use,--or was during the last century. He died +in 194. + +He was succeeded, nominally, by his son Han Hweiti; really by +his widow, the empress Liu Chi: one of the three great women who +have ruled China. At this time the Huns, under their great Khan +Mehteh, were at the height of their power. Khan Mehteh made +advances to the Empress: "I should like," said he, "to exchange +what I have for what I have not." You and I may think he meant +merely a suggestion for mutual trade; but she interpreted it +differently, thanked him kindly, but declined the flattering +proposal on the score of her age and ugliness. Her hair and +teeth, she begged him to believe, were quite inadequate, and made +it impossible for her to think of changing her condition.--I do +not know whether it was vanity or policy. + +But it was she, or perhaps her puppet son the emperor, who +started the great Renaissance. A commission was appointed for +restoring the literature: among its members, K'ung An-kuo, +twelfth in descent from Confucius. Books were found, that +devotion had hidden in dry wells and in the walls of houses; one +Fu Sheng, ninety years old, repeated the Classics word for word +to the Commissioner, all from his memory. The restrictions gone, +a mighty reaction set in; and China was on fire to be her +literary self again. A great ball was set rolling; learning +went forward by leaps and bounds. The enthusiasm, it must be +said, took directions legitimate and the reverse;--bless you, why +should any written page at all be considered lost, when there +were men in Han with inventive genius of their own, and a pretty +skill at forgery? The Son of Heaven was paying well; to it, +then, minds and calligraphic fingers! + +So there are false chapters of Chwangtse, while many true ones +have been lost. And I can never feel sure of Confucius' own +_Spring and Autumn Annals,_ wherein he thought lay his highest +claim to human gratitude, and the composition of which the really +brilliant-minded Mencius considered equal to the work of Ta Yu in +bridling China's Sorrow;--but which, as they come down to us, +are not impressive.--The tide rolled on under Han Wenti, from 179 +to 156: a poet himself, a man of peace, and a reformer of the +laws in the direction of mercy. Another prosperous reign +followed; then came the culmination of the age in the Golden +Reign of Han Wuti, from 140 to 86. + +The cyclic impulse had been working mainly on spiritual and +intellectual planes: Ssema Tsien, the Father of Chinese History, +gives gloomy pictures of things economic.* + +"When the House of Han arose," says Ssema, "the evils of their +predecessors had not passed away. Husbands still went off to the +wars; old and young were employed in transporting food, +production was almost at a standstill, and money was scarce. The +Son of Heaven had not even carriage horses of the same color; +the highest civil and military authorities rode in bullock carts; +the people at large knew not where to lay their heads. The +coinage was so heavy and cumbersome that the people themselves +started a new issue at a fixed standard of value. But the laws +were lax, and it was impossible to prevent the grasping from +coining largely, buying largely, and then holding for a rise in +the market. Prices went up enormously:"--it sounds quite modern +and civilized, doesn't it?--"rice sold at a thousand cash per +picul; a horse cost a hundred ounces of silver." + +------ +* The passages quoted are taken from Dr. Giles's work on +_Chinese Literature._ +------ + +Under the Empress Liu Chi and her successors these conditions +were bettered; until, when a half cycle had run its course, and +Han Wuti had been some twenty years on the throne, prosperity +came to a culmination. Says Ssema Tsien: + +"The public granaries were well-stocked; the government +treasuries full... The streets were thronged with the horses of +the people, and on the highroads, whole droves were to be seen, +so that it became necessary to forbid the public use of mares. +Village elders ate meat and drank wine. Petty government +clerkships lapsed from father to son, and the higher offices of +state were treated as family heirlooms. For a spirit of +self-respect and reverence for the law had gone abroad, and a +sense of charity and duty towards one's neighbor kept men +aloof from disgrace and crime." + +There had been in Kansuh, the north-westernmost province of China +Proper, a people called the Yueh Chi or White Scythians, whom the +Huns had driven into the far west; by this time they were +carving themselves an empire out of the domains of the Parthians, +and penetrating into north-west India, but Han Wuti knew nothing +of that. All that was known of them was, that somewhere on the +limits of the world they existed, and were likely to be still at +loggerheads with their ancient foes the Huns. Han Wuti had now +been on the throne seven years, and was and had been much +troubled by the Hun problem: he thought it might help to solve +it if those lost Yueh Chi could be raked up out of the unknown +and made active allies. To show the spirit of the age, I will +tell you the story of Chang Ch'ien, the general whom he sent to +find them. + +Chang Ch'ien set out in 139; traversed the desert, and was duly +captured by the Huns. Ten years they held him prisoner; then he +escaped. During those ten years he had heard no news from home: +a new emperor might be reigning, for aught he knew; or Han Wuti +might have changed his plans. Such questions, however, never +troubled him: he was out to find the Yueh Chi for his master, +and find them he would. He simply went forward; came presently +to the kingdom of Tawan, in the neighborhood of Yarkand; and +there preached a crusade against the Huns. Unsuccessfully: the +men of Tawn knew the Huns, but not Han wuti, who was too far away +for a safe ally; and they proposed to do nothing in the matter. +Chang Ch'ien considered. Go back to China?--Oh dear no! there +must be real Yueh C'hi somewhere, even if these Tawanians were +not they. On he went, and searched that lonely world until he +did find them. They liked the idea of Hun-hurting; but again, +considered China too far away for practical purposes. He struck +down into Tibet; was captured again; held prisoner a year; +escaped again,--and got back to Changan in 126. A sadder and a +wiser man, you might suppose; but nothing of the kind! Full, on +the contrary, of brilliant schemes; full of the wonder and rumor +of the immense west. These he poured into Han Wuti's most +sympathetic ears; and the emperor started now in real earnest +upon his Napoleonic career. + +The frontier was no longer at the Great Wall. Only the +other day Sir Aurel Stein discovered, in the far west, the +long straight furrows traced by the feet of Han Wuti's sentinels +on guard; the piles of reed-stalks, at regular intervals, +set along the road for fire-signals; documents giving details +as to the encampments, the clothes and arrows served out +to the soldiers, the provisions made for transforming armies +of conquest into peaceful colonies. All these things the +sands covered and preserved. + +And behind these outposts was a wide empire full of splendor +outward and inward; full of immense activities, in literature, +in engineering, in commerce. New things and ideas came in from +the west: international influences to reinforce the flaming up +of Chinese life. + +The moving force was still Taoism; the Blue Pearl, sunk deep in +the now sunlit waters of the common consciousness, was flashing +its rainbows. Ts'in Shi Hwangti, for all his greatness, had been +an uncouth barbarian; Han Wuti was a very cultured gentleman of +literary tastes,--a poet, and no mean one. He too was a Taoist; +an initiate of the Taoism of the day; which might mean in part +that he had an eye to the Elixir of Life; but it also meant +(at least) that he had a restless, exorbitant, and gorgeous +imagination. Such, indeed, inflamed the whole nation; which was +rich, prosperous, energetic, progressive, and happy. Ts'in ideas +of bigness in architecture had taken on refinement in Chinese +hands; the palaces and temples of Han Wuti are of course all +lost, but by all accounts they must have been wonderful and +splendid. Very little of the art comes down: there are some +bas-reliefs of horses, fine and strong work, realistic, but with +redeeming nobleness. How literature had revived may be gathered +from this: in Han Wuti's Imperial Library there were 3123 +volumes of the Classics and commentaries thereupon; 2705 on +Philosophy; 1318 of Poetry; 2528 on Mathematics; 868 on +Medicine; 790 on the Science of War. His gardens at Changan +were famous; he had collectors wandering the world for new and +ornamental things to stock them; very likely we owe many of our +garden plants and shrubs to him. He consecrated mountains and +magnificent ceremonies; and for the sake of the gods and genii +appeared as flaming splendors over Tai-hsing and the other sacred +heights. For the light of Romance falls on him; he is a shining +half faery figure.--Outwardly there was pomp, stately manners, +pageantry, high magnificence; inwardly, a burning-up of the +national imagination to ensoul it. The Unseen, with all its +mystery and awe or loveliness, was the very nearly visible: not +a pass nor lake nor moor nor forest but was crowded with the +things of which wonder is made. Muh Wang, the Chow king, eight +centuries before, had ridden into the West and found the garden +of that Faery Queen whose Azure Birds of Compassion fly out into +this world to sweeten the thoughts of men. Bless you, Han Wuti +married the lady, and had her to abide peaceably in his palace, +and to watch with him + + "The lanterns glow vermeil and gold, + Azure and green, the Spring nights through, + When loud the pageant galeons drew + To clash in mimic combating, + And their dark shooting flames to strew + Over the lake at Kouen Ming." + +From about 130 to 110 Han Wuti was Napoleonizing: bringing +in the north-west; giving the Huns a long quietus in 119; +conquering the south with Tonquin; the southern coast provinces, +and the lands towards Tibet. Ssema Tsien tells us that "mountains +were hewn through for many miles to establish a trade-route +through the south-west and open up those remote regions"; +that was a scheme of Chang Ch'ien's, who had ever an eye to +penetrating to India. + +There was a dark side to it. Vast sums of money were eaten up, +and estravagance in private life was encouraged. Says Ssema: + +"From the highest to the lowest, everyone vied with his neighbor +in lavishing money on houses and appointments and apparel, +altogether beyond his means. Such is the everlasting law of the +sequence of prosperity and decay.... Merit had to give way to +money; shame and scruples of conscience were laid aside; laws +and punishments were administered with severer hand." + +It is a very common thing to see signs of decline and darkness in +one's own age; and Ssema himself had no cause to love the +administration of Han Wuti; under which he had been punished +rather severely for some offense. Still, what he says is more or +less what you would expect the truth to be. And you will note +him historian of the life of the people; not mere recounter of +court scandals and chronicler of wars: conscious, too, of the +law of cycles;--all told, something a truer historian than we +have seen too much of in the West.--Where, indeed, we are wedded +to politics, and must have our annalists chronicle above all +things what we call political growth; not seeing that it is but +a circle, and squirreling round valiantly in a cage to get +perpetually in high triumph to the place you started from; a +foolish externality at best. But real History mirrors for us the +motions of the Human Spirit and the Eternal. + +I said that what Ssema tells us is what you would expect the +truth to be; this way:--After half a cycle of that adventurous +and imaginative spirit, eyes jaundiced a little would surely find +excuse enough for querulous vision. There is, is there not, +something Elizabethan in that Chang Ch'ien, taking the vast void +so gaily, and not to be quenched by all those fusty years +imprisoned among the Huns, but returning only the more fired and +heady of imagination? If he was a type of Han Wuti's China, we +may guess Ssema was not far out, and that vaulting ambition was +overleaping itself a little; that men were buying automobiles +who by good rights should have ridden in a wheelbarrow. Things +did not go quite so well with the great emperor after his twenty +flaming Napoleonic years; his vast mountain-cleaving schemes +were left unfinished; Central Asia grew more troublesome again, +and he had to call off Chang Ch'ien from an expedition into India +by way of Yunnan and Tibet and the half-cleaved mountains, to +fight the old enemy in the north-west. But until the thirteen +decades were passed, and Han Chaoti, his successor, had died in +63 B.C., the vast designs were still upspringing; high and +daring enterprise was still the characteristic of the Chinese +mind. The thirteen decades, that is, from the accession of Han +Hueiti and the beginning of the Revival of Literature in 194. + + + + +XV. SOME POSSIBLE EPOCHS IN SANSKRIT LITERATURE + + +Han Chaoti died in 63 B.C.; his successor is described as a +"boor of low tastes";--from that time the great Han impetus goes +slowing down and quieting. China was recuperating after Han +Wuti's flare of splendor; we may leave her to recuperate, and +look meanwhile elsewhere. + +And first to that most tantalizing of human regions, India; +where you would expect something just now from the cyclic +backwash. As soon as you touch this country, in the domain of +history and chronology, you are certain, as they say, to get +'hoodooed.' Kali-Yuga began there in 3102 B.C., and ever since +that unfortunate event, not a single soul in the country seems to +have had an idea of keeping track of the calendar. So-and-so, +you read, reigned. When?--Oh, in 1000 A.D. Or in 213 A.D. Or +in 78 A.D. Or in a few million B.C., or 2100 A.D. Or he did +not reign at all. After all, what does it matter?--this is +Kali-Yuga, and nothing can go right.--You fix your eyes on a +certain spot in time, which, according to your guesses at +the cycles, should be important. Nothing doing there, as +we say. Oh no, nothing at all: this is Kali-Yuga, and what +should be doing? .... Well, if you press the point, no doubt +somebody was reigning, somewhere.--But, pardon my insistence, +if seems--. Quite so, quite so! as I said, somebody must +have been reigning.--You scrutinze; you bring your lenses +to bear; and the somebody begins to emerge. And proves +to be, say, the great Samundragupta, emperor of all India +(nearly); for power and splendor, almost to be mentioned +with Asoka. And it was the Golden Age of Music, and perhaps +some other things.--Yes, certainly; the Guptas were reigning +then, I forgot. But why bother about it? This is Kali-Yuga, +and what does anything matter?--And you come away with the +impression that your non-informant could reveal enough and +plenty, if he had a mind to. + +Which is, indeed, probably the case. All this nonchalant +indefiniteness means nothing more, one suspects, than that the +Brahmans have elected to keep the history of their country +unknown to us poor Mlechhas. Then there are Others, too: the +Guardians of Esotericism in a greater sense; who have not chosen +so far that Indian history should be known. So we can only take +dim foreshadowings, and make guesses. + +We saw the Maurya dynasty,--that one seemingly firm patch to set +your feet on in the whole morass of the Indian past,--occupy the +thirteen decades from 320 to 190 B.C., (or we thought we did); +now the question is, from that _pied-a-terre_ whither shall we +jump? If you could be sure that the ebb of the wave would be +equal in length to its inrush,--the night to the day:--that the +minor pralaya would be no longer or shorter than the little +manvantara that preceded it--why, then you might leap out +securely for 60 B.C., with a comfortable feeling that there would +be some kind of turning-point in Indian history there or +thereabouts. Sometimes things do happen so, beautifully, as if +arranged by the clock. But unfortunately, enough mischief may be +done in thirteen decades to take a much longer period to +disentangle; and again, it is only when you strike an average +for the whole year, that you can say the nights are equal to the +days. We are trying to see through to the pattern of history; +not to dogmatize on such details as we may find, nor claim on the +petty strength of them to be certain of the whole. So, our +present leap (for we shall make it), while not quite in the dark, +must be made in the dusk of an hour or so after sunset. There +must be an element of faith in it: very likely we shall splash +and sink gruesomely. + +Well, here goes then! From 190 B.C. thirteen decades forward to +60 B.C., and,--squish! But, courage! throw out your arm and +clutch--at this trailing root, _57 B. C.,_ here within easy +reach; and haul yourself out. So; and see, now you are +standing on something. What it is, _Dios lo sabe!_ But there is +an Indian era that begins in 57 B.C.; for a long time, dates +were counted from that year. That era rises in undefined +legendary splendor, and peters out ineffectually you don't just +know where. There is nothing to go upon but legends, with never +a coin nor monument found to back them;--never mind; dates you +count eras from are generally those in which important cycles +begin. The legends relate to Vikramaditya king of Ujjain,--which +kingdom is towards the western side of the peninsula, and about +where Hindoostan and the Deccan join. He is the Arthur-Charlemain +of India, the Golden Monarch of Romance. In the lakes of his +palace gardens the very swans sang his praises daily-- + + "Glory be to Vikramajeet + Who always gives us pearls to eat"; + +and when he died, the four pillars that supported his throne rose +up, and wandered away through the fields and jungle disconsolate: +they would not support the dignity of any lesser man.* Such +tales are told about him by every Indian mother to her children +at this present day, and have been, presumably, any time these +last two thousand years. + +------ +* _India through the Ages,_ by Mrs. Flora Annie Steel. +------ + +Of his real existence Historical Research cannot satisfy itself +at all;--or it half guesses it may have discovered his probable +original wandering in disguise through the centuries of a +thousand years or so later. But you must expect that sort of +thing in India. + +At his court, says tradition, lived the "Nine Gems of Literature," +--chief among them the poet-dramatist Kalidasa; whom Historical +Research (western) rather infers lived at several widely +separated epochs much nearer our own day. Well; for the +time being let us leave Historical Research (western) to stew in +its own (largely poisonous) juices, and see how it likes it,--and +say that there are good cyclic chances of something large here, +in the half-cycle between the Ages of Han Wuti and Augustus. + +We may note that things Indian must be dealt with differently +from things elsewhere. You take, for example, the old story +about the Moslem conquerors of Egypt burning the Alexandrian +Library. The fact that this is mentioned for the first time by a +Christian who lived six hundred years after the supposed event, +while we have many histories written during those six hundred +years which say nothing about it at all,--is evidence amounting +to proof that it never happened; especially when you take into +account the known fact that the Alexandrian Library had already +been thoroughly burnt several times. But you can derive no such +negativing certainty, in India, from the fact that Vikramaditya +and Ujjain and Kalidasa may never have been mentioned together, +not associated with the era of 57 B.C., in any extant writing +known to the west that comes from before several centuries later. +Because the Brahman were a close corporation that kept the +records of history, and kept them secret; and gave out bits +when it suited them. Say that in 1400 (or whenever else it +may have been) they first allowed it to be published that +Kalidasa flourished at Vikrmaditya's court:--they may have been +consciously lying, but at least they were talking about what +they knew. They were not guessing, or using their head-gear +wrongfully, their lying was intentional, or their truth warranted +by knowledge. And no motive for lying is apparent here.--It +would be very satisfactory, of course, were a coin discovered +with King Vikrmaditya's image and superscription nicely engraved +thereon: _Vikramaditya De Gratia: Uj. Imp.; Fid. Def.; 57 B.C._ +But in this wicked world you cannot have everything; you must be +thankful for what you can get. + +You may remember that Han Wuti, to solve the Hun problem, sent +Chang Ch'ien out through the desert to discover the Yueh Chi' +and that Chang found them at last in Bactria, which they had +conquered from Greeks who had held it since Alexander's time. He +found them settled and with some fair degree of civilization; +spoke of Bactria under their sway as a "land of a thousand +cities";--they had learned much since they were nomads driven out +of Kansuh by the Huns. Also they were in the midst of a career +of expansion. Within thirty years of his visit to them, or by +100 B.C., they had spread their empire over eastern Persia, at +the expense of the Parthians; and thence went down into India +conquering. By 60 B.C. they held the Punjab and generally the +western parts of Hindoostan; then, since they do not seem to +have got down into the Deccan, I take it they were held up. By +whom?--Truly this is pure speculation. But the state of Malwa, +of which Ujjain was the capital, lay right in their southward +path; if held up they were, it would have been, probably, by +some king of Ujjain. Was this what happened?--that the peril of +these northern invaders roused Malwa to exert its fullest +strength; the military effort spurring up national feeling; the +national feeling, creative energies spiritual, mental and +imaginative;--until a great age in Ujjain had come into being. +It is what we often see. The menace of Spain roused England to +Elizabethanism; the Persian peril awakend Athens. So King +Vikramaditya leads out his armies, and to victory; and the Nine +Gems of Literature sing at his court. It is a backwash from Han +Wuti's China, that goes west with Chang Ch'ien to the Yueh Chi, +and south with them into India. And we can look for no apex of +literary creation at this time, either in China or Europe. In +the Roman literature of that cycle it is the keen creative note +we miss: Virgil, the nearest to it, cannot be said to have +possessed quite; and Han literature was probably its first +culmination under Han Wuti, and its second under the Eastern +Hans. One suspects that great creation is generally going on +somewhere, and is not displeased to find hints of its presence in +India; is inclined to think this may have been, after all, +the Golden Age of the Sanskrit Drama.--At which there can be +at any rate no harm in taking a glance at this point; and, +retrospectively, at Sanskrit literature as a whole;--a desperately +inadequate glance, be it said. + +I ask you here to remember the three periods of English Poetry, +with their characteristics; and you must not mind my using my +Welsh god-names in connexion with them. First, then, there was +the Period of Plenydd,--of the beginnings of _Vision;_ when the +eyes of Chaucer and his lyricist predecessors were opened to the +world out-of-doors; when they began to see that the skies were +blue, fields and forests green; that there were flowers in +the meadows and woodlands; and that all these things were +delectable. Then there was the Period of Gwron, Strength; when +Marlowe and Shakespeare and Milton evolved the Grand Manner; +when they made the great March-Music, unknown in English before, +and hardly achieved by anyone since:--the era of the great +Warrior-poetry of the Tragedies and of _Paradise Lost._ Then +came, with Wordsworth and Keats and Shelley, the Age of Alawn, +lasting on until today; when the music of intonation brought +with it romance and mystery and Natural Magic with its rich glow +and wizard insight. And you will remember how English Poetry, on +the uptrend of a major cycle, is a reaching from the material +towards the spiritual, a growth toward that. Though Milton and +Shakespeare made their grand Soul-Symbols,--by virtue of a cosmic +force moving them as it has moved no others in the language,--you +cannot find in their works, or in any works of that age, such +clear perceptions or statements of spiritual truth as in +Swinburne's _Songs before Sunrise;_ nor was the brain-mind of +either of those giants of the Middle Period capable of such +conscious mystic thought as Wordsworth's. There was an evolution +upward and inward; from Chaucer's school-boy vision, to +Swinburne's (in that one book) clear sight of the Soul. + +We appear to find in Sanskrit literature,--I speak in a very +general sense,--also such great main epochs or cycles. First a +reign of Plenydd, of Vision,--in the Age of the Sacred Books. +Then a reign of Gwron,--in the Age of the heroic Epics. Then a +reign of Alawn, in the Age of the Drama. + +But the direction is all opposite. The cycle is not upward, from +the sough of a beastly Iron Age towards the luminance of a coming +Golden; but downward from the peaks and splendors of the Age of +Gold to where the outlook is on to this latter hell's-gulf +of years. Plenydd, when he first touched English eyes, he +was Plenydd the Lord of Spiritual vision, the Seer into the +Eternities. Wordsworth at his highest only approaches,-- +Swinburne in _Hertha_ halts at the portals of, the Upanishads. + +Now, what may this indicate? To my mind, this: that you are not +to take these Sanskrit Sacred Books as the fruitage of a single +literary age. They do not correspond with, say, the Elizabethan, +or the Nineteenth-Century, poetry of England; but are rather the +cream of the output of a whole period as long (at least) as that +of all English literature; the blossoming of a Racial Mind +during (at least) a manvantara of fifteen hundred years. I do +not doubt that the age that gave birth to the _Katha-Upanishad,_ +gave birth to all manner of other things also; flippancies and +trivialities among the rest;--just as in the same England, and in +the same years, Milton was dictating _Samson Agonistes,_ and +Butler was writing the stinging scurrilities of _Hudibras._ But +the Sanskrit Hudibrases are lost; as the English one will be, +even if it takes millenniums to lose it. Full-flowing time has +washed away the impermanencies of that ancient age, and left +standing but the palaces built upon the rock of the Soul. The +Soul made the Upanishads, as it mide _Paradise Lost;_ it made +the former in the Golden Age, and the latter in this Age of Iron; +the former through men gifted with superlative vision; the +latter through a blind old bard. Therein lies the difference: +all our bards, our very greatest, have been blind,--Dante and +Shakespeare, no less than Milton. Full-flowing Time washed away +the impermanencies of that ancient age, and left standing but the +rock-built palaces of the Soul; and these,--not complete, +perhaps;--repaired to a degree by hands more foolish;--a little +ruinous in places,--but the ruins grander and brighter than all +the pomps, all the new-fangled castles of genii, of later times, +--come down to us as the Sacred Books of India, the oldest extant +literature in the world. How old? We may put their epoch well +before the death of Krishna in 3102 B. C.,--well before the +opening of the Kali-Yuga; we may say that it lasted a very long +time;--and be content that if all scholarship, all western and +modern opinion, laughs at us now,--the laugh will probably be +with us when we have been dead a long time. Or perhaps sooner. + +They count three stages in this Vedic or pre-classical literature, +wherefrom also we may infer that it was the output of a great +manvantara, not of a mere day of literary creation. These +three, they say, are represented by the Vedas, the Brahmanas, +and the Upanishads. The Vedas consist of hymns to the Gods; +and in a Golden Age you might find simple hymns to the Gods +a sufficient expression of religion. Where, say, Reincarnation +was common knowledge; where everybody knew it, and no one +doubted it; you would not bother to make poems about it: +--you do not make poems about going to bed at night and getting up +in the morning--or not as a rule. You make poems upon a reaction +of surprise at perceptions which seem wonderful and beautiful,-- +and in a Golden Age, the things that would seem wonderful and +Beautiful would be, precisely, the Sky, the Stars, Earth, Fire, +the Winds and Waters. Our senses are dimmed, or we should see in +them the eternally startling manifestations of the Lords of +Eternal Beauty. It is no use arguing from the Vedic hymns, as +some folk do, a 'primitive' state of society; we have not the +keys now to the background, mental and social, of the people +among whom those hymns arose. Poetry in every succeeding age has +had to fight harder to proclaim the spiritual truth proper to her +native spheres: were all spiritual truth granted, she would need +do nothing more than mention the Sky, or the Earth, and all the +wonder, all the mystery and delight connoted by them would +flood into the minds of her hearers. But now she must labor +difficultly to make those things cry through; she gains in glory +by the resistance of the material molds she must pierce. So the +Vedas tell us little unless we separate ourselves from our +preconceptions about 'primitive Aryans'; whose civilization may +have been at once highly evolved and very spiritual. + +The _Brahmanas_ are priest-books; the _Upanishads,_ it is +reasonable to say are Kshattriya-books;--you often find in them +Brahmans coming to Kshattriyas to learn the Inner Wisdom. The +_Brahmanas_ are books of ritual; the _Upanishads_ came much +later that the _Brahmanas:_ that they represent a reaction +towards spirituality from the tyranny of a priestly caste. But +probably the day of the Kshattriyas was much earlier than that of +the priests. The Marlow-Shakespear-Milton time was the +Kshattriya period in English poetry; also the period during +which the greatest souls incarnated, and produced the greatest +work. So, perhaps, in this manvantara of the pre-classical +Sanskrit literature, the Rig-Veda with its hymns represents the +first, the Chaucerian period; but a Golden Age Chaucerian, +simple and pure,--a time in which the Mysteries really ruled +human life, and when to hymn the Gods was to participate in the +wonder and freeddom of their being. Think, perhaps, as the cycle +mounted to its hour of noon, esotericism opened its doors to pour +forth an illumination yet stronger and more saving: mighty egos +incarnated, and put in writing the marvelous revelations of the +_Upanishads:_ there may have been a descent towards matter, to +call forth these more explicit declarations of the Spirit. The +exclusive caste-system had not been evolved by any means, nor was +to be for many ages: the kings are at the head of things; and +they, not the priests, the chief custodians of the Deeper +Wisdom.--And then, later, the Priest-cast made its contribution, +evolving in the _Brahmanas_ the ritual of their order; with an +implication, ever growing after the beginning of the Kali-Yuga, +that only by this ritual salvation could be attained. Not that +it follows that this was the idea at first. Ritual has its +place: hymns and chantings, so they be the right ones, performed +rightly, have their decided magical value; we can understand +that in its inception and first purity, this Brahmana literature +may have been a growth or birth, under the aegis of Alawn of the +Harmonies, of the magic of chanted song. + +And having said all this, and reconsidering it, one feels that +to attribute these three branches of literature to a single +manvantara is a woeful foreshortening. I suppose the Rig-Veda +is as old as the Aryan Sub-race, which, according to our +calculations, must have begun some 160,000 years ago. + +The _Upanishads_ affect us like poetry; even in Max Muller's +translation, which is poor prose, they do not lose altogether +their uplift and quality of song. They sing the philosophy of +the divine in Man; I suppose we may easily say they are the +highest thing in extant literature. They do not come to us whole +or untainted. We may remember what the Swami Dayanand Sarasvati +said to H. P. Blavatsky: that he could show the excellent "Moksh +Mooller" that "what crossed the Kalapani from India to Europe +were only the bits of rejected copies of some passages from our +sacred books." Again, Madame Blavatsky says that the best part +of the Upanishads was taken out at the time Buddha was preaching; +the Brahmans took it out, that he might not prove too clearly the +truth of his teachings by appeals to their sacred books. Also +the Buddha was a Kshattriya; so the ancient eminence of the +Kshattriyas had to be obscured a little;--it was the Brahmans, by +that time, who were monopolizing the teaching office. And no +doubt in the same way from time to time much has been added: +the Brahmans could do this, being custodians of the sacred +literature. Yet in spite of all we get in them a lark's song,-- +but a spiritual lark's song, floating and running in the golden +glories of the Spiritual Sun; a song whose verve carries us +openly up into the realms of pure spirit; a wonderful radiance +and sweetness of dawn, of dawn in its fresh purity, its +holiness,--haunted with no levity or boisterousness of youth, but +with a wisdom gay and ancient,--eternal, laughter-laden, +triumphant,--at once hoary and young,--like the sparkle of snows +on Himalaya, like the amber glow in the eastern sky. Here almost +alone in literature we get long draughts of the Golden Age: not +a Golden Age fought for and brought down into our perceptions +(which all true poetry gives us), but one actually existing, open +and free;--and not merely the color and atmosphere of it, but the +wisdom. One need not wonder that Madame Blavatsky drew so freely +on India for the nexus of her teachings. That country has +performed a marvelous function, taking all its ages together, in +the life of humanity; in preserving for us the poetry and wisdom +of an age before the Mysteries had declined; in keeping open for +us, in a semi-accessible literature, a kind of window into the +Golden Age.--Well; each of the races has some function to +fulfil. And it is not modern India that has done this; she has +not done it of her own good will,--has had no good will to do it. +It is the Akbars the Anquetil Duperrons and Sir William Joneses, +--and above all, and far above all, H. P. Blavatsky,--whom we +have to thank. + +So much, then, for the age of the Vedic literature. It passed, +and we come to an age when that literature had become sacred. It +seems to me that in the natural course of things it would take a +very long time for this to happen. You may say that in the one +analogy we have whose history is well known,--the _Koran,_--we +have an example of a book sacred as soon as written. But I do +not believe the analogy would hold good here. The _Koran_ came +as the rallying-standard of a movement which was designed to work +quick changes in the outer fabric of the world; it came when the +cycles had sunk below any possibility of floating spiritual +wisdom on to the world-currents;--and there were the precedents +of Judaism and Christianity, ever before the eyes of Mohammed, +for making the new religious movement center about a Book. But +in ancient India, I take it, you had some such state of affairs +as this: classes there would be, according to the natural +differences of egos incarnating; but no castes; religion there +was,--that is to say, an attention to, an aspiration towards, the +spiritual side of life; but no religions,--no snarling sects and +jangling foolish creeds. Those things (a God's mercy!) had not +been invented then, nor were to be for thousands of years. The +foremost souls, the most spiritual, gravitated upward to the +headship of tribes and nations; they were the _kings,_ as was +proper they should be: King-Initiates, Teachers as well as +Rulers of the people. And they ordained public ceremonies in +which the people, coming together, could invoke and participate +in the Life from Above. So we read in the Upanishads of those +great Kshattriya Teachers to whom Brahmans came as disciples. +Poets made their verses; and what of these were good, really +inspired, suitable--what came from the souls of Poet-Initiates,-- +would be used at such ceremonies: sung by the assembled +multitudes; and presently, by men specially trained to sing +them. So a class rose with this special function; and there +were other functions in connexion with these ceremonies, not +proper to be performed by the kings, and which needed a special +training to carry out. Here, then, was an opening in life for +men of the right temperament;--so a class arose, of _priests:_ +among whom many might be real Initiates and disciples of the +Adept-Kings. They had the business of taking care of the +literature sanctioned for use at the sacrifices,--for convenience +we may call all the sacred ceremonies that,--at which they +performed the ritual and carried out the mechanical and formal +parts. It is very easy to imagine how, as the cycles went on and +down, and the Adept-Kings ceased to incarnate continuously, these +religious officials would have crystallized themselves into a +close corporation, an hereditary caste; and what power their +custodianship of the sacrificial literature would have given +them;--how that literature would have come to be not merely +sacred in the sense that all true poetry with the inspiration of +the Soul behind it really is;--but credited with an extra-human +sanction. But it would take a long time. When modern creeds are +gone, to what in literature will men turn for their inspiration? +--To whatever in literature contains real inspiration, you may +answer. They will not sing Dr. Watts's doggerel in their +churches; but such things perhaps as Wordsworth's _The World is +too much with us,_ or Henley's _I am the Captain of my Soul._ +And then, after a long time and many racial pralayas, you can +imagine such poems as these coming to be thought of as not merely +from the Human Soul, an ever-present source of real inspiration, +--but as revelations by God himself, from which not one jot or +tittle should be taken without blasphemy; given by God when he +founded his one true religion to mankind. We lose sight of the +spirit, and exalt the substance; then we forget the substance, +and deify the shadow. We crucify our Saviors when they are with +us; and when they are gone, we crucify them worse with our +unmeaning worship and dogmas made on them. + +Well, the age of the Vedas passed, and pralayas came, and new +manvantaras; and we come at last to the age of Classical +Sanskrit; and first to the period of the Epics. This too is a +Kshattriya age. Whether it represents a new ascendency of the +Kshattriyas, or simply a continuance of the old one: whether the +priesthood had risen to power between the Vedas and this, and +somewhat fallen from it again,--or whether their rise was still +in progress, but not advanced to the point of ousting the kings +from their lead,--who can say? But this much, perhaps, we may +venture without fear: the Kshattriyas of the Epic age were not +the same as those of the Upanishads. They were not Adept-Kings +and Teachers in the same way. By Epic age, I mean the age in +which the epics were written, not that of which they tell. And +neither the _Mahabharata_ nor the _Ramayana_ was composed in a +day; but in many centuries;--and it is quite likely that on them +too Brahmanical hands have been tactfully at work. Some parts of +them were no doubt written in the centuries after Christ; there +is room enough to allow for this, when you think that the one +contains between ninety and a hundred thousand, the other about +twenty-four thousand couplets;--the _Mahabharata_ being about +seven times, the _Ramayana_ about twice as long as the _Iliad_ +and the _Odyssey_ combined. So the Age of the Epics must be +narrowed down again, to mean the age that gave birth to the +nuclei of them. + +As to when it may have been, I do not know that there is any clue +to be found. Modern criticism has been at work, of course, to +reduce all things to as commonplace and brain-mind a basis as +possible; but its methods are entirely the wrong ones. Mr. +Romesh Dutt, who published abridged translations of the two poems +in the late nineties, says of the _Mahabharata_ that the great +war which it tells of "is believed to have been fought in the +thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ"; and of the +_Ramayana,_ that it tells the story of nations that flourished in +Northern India about a thousand years B. C.--Is believed by whom, +pray? It is also believed, and has been from time immemorial, in +India, that Krishna, who figures largely in the _Mahabharata,_ +died in the year 3102 B.C.; and that he was the eighth avatar of +Vishnu; and that Rama, the hero of the _Ramayana,_ was the +seventh. Now brain-mind criticism of the modern type is the most +untrustworthy thing, because it is based solely on circumstantial +evidence; and when you work upon that, you ought to go very +warily;--it is always likely that half the circumstances remain +un-discovered; and even if you have ninety and nine out of the +hundred possible, the hundredth, if you had it, might well change +the whole complexion of the case. And this kind of criticism +leads precisely nowhere, does not build anything, but pulls down +what was built of old. So I think we must be content to wait for +real knowledge till those who hold it may choose to reveal it; +and meanwhile get back to the traditional starting-point; +--say that the War of the Kuravas and Pandavas happened in the +thirty-second century B.C.; Rama's invasion of Lanka, ages earlier; +and that the epics began to be written, as they say, somewhere +between the lives of Krishna and Buddha,--somewhere between 2500 +and 5000 years ago. + +Why before Buddha?--Because they are still Kshattriya works; +written before the Brahman ascendency, though after the time when +the Kshattriyas were led by their Adept-Kings;--and because +Buddha started a spiritual revolt (Kshattriya) against a Brahman +ascendency well established then,--a revolt that by Asoka's time +had quite overthrown the Brahman power. Why, then, should we not +ascribe the epics to this Buddhist Kshattriya period? To Asoka's +reign itself, for example?--Well, it has been done; but probably +not wisely. Panini in his _Grammar_ cites the Mahabharata as an +authority for usage; and even the westernest of criticism is +disinclined, on the evidence, to put Panini later than 400 B.C. +Goldstucker puts him in the seventh century B.C. _En passant,_ +we may quote this from the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ as to +Panini's _Grammar:_ "For a comprehensive grasp of linguistic +facts, and a penetrating insight into the structure of the +vernacular language, this work stands probably unrivalled +in the literature of any language."--Panini, then, cites the +_Mahabharata;_ Panini lived certainly before Asoka's time; the +greatness of his work argues that he came in a culminating period +of scholarship and literary activity, if not of literary +creation; the reign of Asoka we may surmise was another such +period;--and from all this I think we may argue without much fear +that the the nucleus and original form of it, was written long +before the reign of Asoka. Besides, if it had been written +during the Buddhist ascendency, one fancies we should find more +Buddhism in it than we do. There is some;--there are ideas that +would be called Buddhist; but that really only prove the truth +of the Buddha's claim that he taught nothing new. But a Poem +written in Asoka's reign, one fancies, would not have been +structurally and innately, as the _Mahabharata_ is, martial. + +There is this difference between the two epics,--I speak of the +nucleus-poems in each case;--the _Mahabharata_ seems much more a +natural growth, a national epic,--the work not of one man, but of +many poets celebrating through many centuries a tradition not +faded from the national memory;--but the _Ramayana_ is more a +structural unity; it bears the marks of coming from one creative +mind: even western criticism accepts Valmiki (whoever he may +have been) as its author. To him it is credited in Indian +tradition; which ascribes the authorship of the _Mahabharata_ +to Vyasa, the reputed compiler of the _Vedas;_--and this last is +manifestly not to be taken literally; for it is certain that a +great age elapsed between the _Vedas_ and the Epics. So I think +that the _Mahabharata_ grew up in the centuries, many or few, +that followed the Great War,--or, say, during the second +millennium B.C.; that in that millennium, during some great +'day' of literary creation, it was redacted into a single poem;-- +and that, the epic habit having thus been started, a single poet, +Valmiki, in some succeeding 'day,' was prompted to make another +epic, on the other great traditional saga-cycle, the story of +Rama. But since that time, and all down through the centuries, +both poems have been growing _ad lib._ + +This is an endeavor to take a bird's-eye view of the whole +subject; not to look at the evidence through a microscope, in +the modern critical way. It is very unorthodox, but I believe it +is the best way: the bird's eye sees most; the microscope sees +least; the former takes in whole landscapes in proportion; +the latter gets confused with details that seem, under that +exaggeration, too highly important,--but which might be negatived +altogether could you see the whole thing at once. A telescope +for that kind of seeing is not forthcoming; but the methods of +thought that H. P. Blavatsky taught us supply at least the first +indications of what it may be like: they give us the first +lenses. As our perceptions grow under their influence, doubtless +new revelations will be made; and we shall see more, and +further. All we can do now is to retire from the confusion +brought about by searching these far stars with a microscope; to +look less at the results of such searching, than at the old +traditions themselves, making out what we can of them through +what Theosophic lenses we have. We need not be misled by the +ridiculous idea that civilization is a new thing. It is only the +bias of the age; the next age will count it foolishness.--But to +return to our epics.-- + +First to the _Mahabharata._ It is, as it comes down to us, +not one poem, but a large literature. Mr. Dutt compares it, +both for length and variety of material, to the sermons of +Jeremy Taylor and Hooker, Locke's and Hobbes's books of Philosophy, +Blackstone's _Commentaries,_ Percy's Ballads, and the writings +of Newman, Pusey, and Keble,--all done into blank verse and +incorporated with _Paradise Lost._ You have a martial poem like +the _Iliad,_ full of the gilt and scarlet and trumpetings and +blazonry of war;--and you find the _Bhagavad-Gita_ a chapter in +it. Since it was first an epic, there have been huge accretions +to it: Whosever fancy it struck would add a book or two, with +new incidents to glorify this or that locality, princely house, +or hero. And it is hard to separate these accretions from the +original,--from the version, that is, that first appeared as an +epic poem. Some are closely bound into the story, so as to be +almost integral; some are fairly so; some might be cut out and +never missed. Hence the vast bulk and promiscuity of material; +which might militate against your finding in it, as a whole, any +consistent Soul-symbol. And yet its chief personages seem all +real men; they are clearly drawn, with firm lines;--says Mr. +Dutt, as clearly as the Trojan and Achaean chiefs of Homer. +Yudhishthira and Karna and Arjuna; Bhishma and Drona and the +wild Duhsasan, are very living characters;--as if they had been +actual men who had impressed themselves on the imagination of the +age, and were not to be drawn by anyone who drew them except from +the life. That might imply that poets began writing about them +not so long after they lived, and while the memory of them and of +their deeds was fresh. We are to understand, however,--all India +has so understood, always,--that the poem is a Soul-symbol, +standing for the wars of Light and Darkness; whether this +symbol was a tradition firmly in the minds of all who wrote it, +or whether it was imposed by the master-hand that collated their +writings into an epic for the first time. + +For it would seem that of the original writers, some had been on +the Kurava, some on the Pandava side; though in the symbol as it +stands, it is the Pandavas who represent the Light, the Kurava,-- +the darkness. There are traces of this submerged diversity of +opinion. Just as in the _Iliad_ it is the Trojan Hector who is +the most sympathetic character, so in the _Mahabharata_ it is +often to some of the Kurava champions that our sympathies +unavoidably flow. We are told that the Kurava are thoroughly +depraved and villainous; but not seldom their actions belie the +assertion,--with a certain Kshattriya magnamity for which they +are given no credit. Krishna fights for the sons of Pandu; in +the _Bhagavad-Gita_ and elsewhere we see him as the incarnation +of Vishnu,--of the Deity, the Supreme Self. As such, he does +neither good nor evil; but ensures victory for his protegees. +Philosophically and symbolically, this is sound and true, no +doubt, but one wonders whether the poem (or poems) ran so +originally; whether there may not be passages written at first +by Kuravist poets; or a Brahminical superimposition of motive on +a poem once wholly Kshattriya, and interested only in showing +forth the noble and human warrior virtues of the Kshattriya +caste. I imagine that in that second millennium B. C., in the +early centuries of Kali-Yuga, you had a warrior class with their +bards, inspired with high Bushido feeling,--with chivalry and all +that is fine in patricianism--but no longer under the leadership +of Adept Princes;--the esoteric knowledge was now mainly in the +hands of the Priest-class. The Kshattriya bards made poems about +the Great War, which grew and coalesced into a national epic. +Then in the course of the centuries, as learning in its higher +branches became more and more a possession of the Brahmans,--and +since there was no feeling against adding to this epic whatever +material came handy,--Brahmin esotericists manipulated it with +great tact and finesse into a symbol of the warfare of the Soul. + +There is the story of the death of the Kurava champion Bhishma. +The Pandavas had been victorious; and Duryodhana the Kurava king +appealed to Bhishma to save the situation. Bhishma loved the +Pandava princes like a father; and urged Duryodhana to end the +war by granting them their rights,--but in vain. So next day, +owing his allegiance to Duryodhana, he took the field; and + + "As a lordly tusker tramples on a field of feeble reeds, + As a forest conflagration on the parched woodland feeds, + Bhishma rode upon the warriors in his mighty battle car. + God nor mortal chief could face him in the gory field of war." * + +------ +* The quotations are from Mr. Romesh Dutt's translation. +------ + +Thus victorious, he cried out to the vanquished that no appeal +for mercy would be unheard; that he fought not against the +defeated, the worn-out, the wounded, or "a woman born." Hearing +this, Krishna advised Arjuna that the chance to turn the tide had +come. The young Sikhandin had been born a woman, and changed +afterwards by the Gods into a man. Let Sikhandin fight in the +forefront of the battle, and the Pandavas would win, and Bhishma +be slain.--Arjuna, who loved Bhishma as dearly as Bhishma loved +him and his brothers, protested; but Krishna announced that +Bhishma was so doomed to die, and on the following day; a fate +decreed, and righteously to be brought about by the stratagem. +So it happened: + + "Bhishma viewed the Pandav forces with a calm unmoving face; + Saw not Arjun's bow Gandiva, saw not Bhima's mighty mace; + Smiled to see the young Sikhandin rushing to the battle's + fore + Like the white foam on the billow when the mighty storm + winds roar; + Thought upon the word he plighted, and the oath that he had + sworn, + Dropt his arms before the warrior that was, but a woman + born;" + +--and so, was slain.... and the chiefs of both armies gathered +round and mourned for him.--Now it seems to me that the poets who +viewed sympathetically the magnanimity of Bhishma, which meets +you on the plane of simple human action and character, would not +have viewed sympathetically, or perhaps conceived, the strategem +advised by Krishna,--which you have to meet, to find it acceptable, +on the planes of metaphysics and symbolism. + +There is a quality in it you do not find in the _Illiad._ Greek +and Trojan champions, before beginning the real business of their +combats, do their best to impart to each other a little valuable +self-knowledge: each reveals carefully, in a fine flow of +hexameters, the weak points in his opponent's character. They +are equally eloquent about their own greatnesses, which stir +their enthusiasm highly;--but as to faults, neither takes thought +for his own; each concentrates on the other's; and a war of +words is the appetiser for the coming banquet of deeds. Before +fighting Hector, Achilles reviled him; and having killed him, +dragged his corpse shamefully round the walls of Troy. But +Bhishma, in his victorious career, has nothing worse to cry to +his enemies than--_Valiant are ye, noble princes!_ and if you +think of it on the unsymbolic plane, there is a certain nobility +in the Despondency of Arjuna in the _Bhagavad-Gita._ + +Says the _Encyclopaedia Brittanica:_ + +"To characterize the Indian Epics in a single word: though often +disfigured by grotesque fancies and wild exaggerations, they are +yet noble works, abounding in passages of remarkable descriptive +power; and while as works of art they are far inferior to the +Greek epics, in some respects they appeal far more strongly to +the romantic mind of europe, namely, by the loving appreciation +of natural beauty, their exquisite delineation of womanly love +and devotion, and their tender sentiment of mercy and forgiveness." + +--Precisely because they come from a much higher civilization +that the Greek. From a civilization, that is to say, older and +more continuous. Before Rome fell, the Romans were evolving +humanitarian and compassionate ideas quite unlike their old-time +callousness. And no, it was not the influence of Christianity; +we see it in the legislation of Hadrian for example, and +especially in the anti-Christian Marcus Aurelius. These feeling +grow up in ages unscarred by wars and human cataclysms; every +war puts back their growth. The fall of Rome and the succeeding +pralaya threw Europe back into ruthless barbarity. In the +eighteenth and nineteenth centuries humanism began to grow again; +and has been gaining ground especially since H. P. Blavatsky +began her teaching. But not much more than a century ago they +were publicly hanging, drawing, and quartering people in England; +crowds were gathering at Tyburn or before the Old Bailey to enjoy +an execution. We have hardly had four generations in Western +Europe in which men have not been ruthless and brutal barbarians +with a sprinkling of fine spirits incarnate among them; no +European literature yet has had time to evolve to the point where +it could portray a Yudhishthira, at the end of a national epic, +arriving at the gates of heaven with his dog,--and refusing to +enter because the dog was not to be admitted. There have been, +with us, too great ups and downs of civilization; too little +continuity. We might have grown to it by now, had that medieval +pralaya been a quiet and natural thing, instead of what it was:-- +a smash-up total and orgy of brutalities come as punishment for +our sins done in the prime of manvantara. + +A word or two as to the _Ramayana._ Probably Valmiki had the +other epic before his mental vision when he wrote it; as Virgil +had Homer. There are parallel incidents; but his genius does +not appear in them;--he cannot compete in their own line with the +old Kshattriya bards. You do not find here so done to the life +the chargings of lordly tuskers, the gilt and crimson, the +scarlet and pomp and blazonry, of war. The braying of the battle +conches is muted: all is cast in a more gentle mold. You get +instead the forest and its beauty; you get tender idylls of +domestic life.--This poem, like the _Mahabharata,_ has come +swelling down the centuries; but whereas the latter grew by the +addition of new incidents, the _Ramayana_ grew by the re-telling +of old ones. Thus you may get book after book telling the same +story of Rama's life in the forest-hermitage by the Godavari; +each book by a new poet in love with the gentle beauty of +the tale and its setting, and anxious to put them into his +own language. India never grows tired of these Ramayanic +repetitions. Sita, the heroine, Rama's bride, is the ideal of +every good woman there; I suppose Shakespeare has created no +truer or more beautiful figure. To the _Mahabharata,_ the +_Ramayana_ stands perhaps as the higher Wordsworth to Milton; +it belongs to the same great age, but to another day in it. +Both are and have been wonderfully near the life of the people: +children are brought up on them; all ages, castes, and +conditions make them the staple of their mental diet. Both are +semi-sacred; neither is quite secular; either relates the deeds +of an avatar of Vishnu; ages have done their work upon them, to +lift them into the region of things sacrosanct. + +And now at last we come to the age of King Vikramaditya of +Ujjain,--to the Nine Gems of Literature,--to a secular era of +literary creation,--to the Sanskrit Drama, and to Kalidisa, its +Shakespeare;--and to his masterpiece, _The Ring of Sakoontala._ + +There is a tendency with us to derive all things Indian from +Greek sources. Some Greek writer says the Indians were familiar +with Homer; whereupon we take up the cry,--The _Ramayana_ is +evidently a plagiarism from the _Iliad;_ the abduction of Sita +by Ravan, of the abduction of Helen by Paris; the siege of +Lanka, of the siege of Troy. And the _Mahabharata_ is too; +because,--because it must be; there's a deal of fighting in +both. (So Macedon plagiarized its river from Monmouth.) We +believe a Greek at all times against an Indian; forgetting that +the Greeks themselves, when they got to India, were astounded at +the truthfulness of the people they found there. Such strained +avoidance of the natural lie,--the harmless, necessary lie +that came so trippingly to a Greek tongue,--seemed to them +extraordinary.--So too our critics naturally set out from the +position that the Indian Drama must have been an offshoot or +imitation of the Greek. But fortunately that position had to be +quitted _toute de suite;_ for the Indian theory is much nearer +the English than the Greek;--much liker Shakespeare's than +Aeschylus's. _Sakoontal_ is romantic; it came in a Third or +Alawn Period; of all Englishmen, Keats might most easily have +written it; if _Endymion_ were a play, _Endymion_ would be the +likest thing to it in English. You must remember that downward +trend in the Great Cycle; that make each succeeding period in +Sanskrit literature a descent from the heights of esotericism +towards the personal plane. That is what brings Kalidasa on to a +level with Keats. + +Behind _Sakoontala,_ as behind _Endymion,_ there is a Soul-symbol; +only Kalidasa, like Keats, is preoccupied in his outer mind +more with forest beauty and natural magic and his romantic +tale of love. It marks a stage in the descent of literature from +the old impersonal to the modern personal reaches: from tales +told merely to express the Soul-Symbol, to tales told merely for +the sake of telling them. The stories in the _Upanishads_ are +glyphs pure and simple. In the epics, they have taken on much +more human color, though still exalting and ennobling,--and all +embodying, or molded to, the glyph. Now, in _The Ring of +Sakoontala,_--and it is typical of its class,--we have to look a +little diligently for the glyph; what impresses us is the +stillness and morning beauty of the forest, and,--yes, it must be +said.--the emotions, quite personal, of King Dushyanta and +Sakoontala, the hero and heroine. + +She is a fairy's child, full beautiful; and has been brought up +by her foster-father, the yogi Kanwa, in his forest hermitage. +While Kanwa is absent, Dushyanta, hunting, follows an antelope +into that quiet refuge; finds Sakoontala, loves and marries her. +Here we are amidst the drowsy hum of bees, the flowering of large +Indian forest blossoms, the scent of the jasmine in bloom; it is +what Keats would have written, had his nightingale sung in an +Indian jungle.--The king departs for his capital, leaving with +Sakoontala a magical ring with power to reawaken memory of her in +his heart, should he ever forget. But Durvasas, a wandering +ascetic, passes by the hermitage; and Sakoontala, absorbed in +her dreams, fails to greet him; for which he dooms her to be +forgotten by her husband. She waits and waits, and at last seeks +the unreturning Dushyanta at his court; who, under the spell of +Durvasas, fails to recognise her. If what she claims is true, +she can produce the ring?--But no; she has lost it on her +journey through the forest. He repudiates her; whereupon +she is caught up by the Gods into the Grove of Kasyapa beyond +the clouds. + +But the ring had fallen into a stream in the forest, and a fish +had swallowed it, and a fisherman had caught the fish, and the +police had caught the fisherman .... and so it came into the +hands of Dushyanta again; who, at sight of it, remembered all, +and was plunged in grief over his lost love. + +Years pass, and Indra summons him at last to fight a race of +giants that threaten the sovereignty of the Gods. In the course +of that warfare, mounting to heaven in the car of Indra, +Dushyanta comes to the Grove of Kasyapa, and is reunited with +Sakoontala and with their son, now grown into an heroic boy. + +As in _The Tempest_ a certain preoccupation with the magical +beauty of the island dims the character-drawing a little, +and perhaps thereby makes the symbol more distinct,--so in +Sakoontala. It is a faery piece: begining in the morning calm +and forest magic; then permitting passion to rise, and sadness +to follow; ending in the crystal and blue clearness of the upper +air. In this we see the basic form of the Soul-Symbol, which is +worked out in the incidents and characters. Dushyanta, hunting +in the unexplored forest, comes to the abode of holiness, finds +and loves Sakoontala;--and from their union is born the perfect +hero,--Sarva-Damana, the 'All-tamer.'--Searching in the +impersonal and unexplored regions within us, we do at some time +in our career of lives come to the holy place, get vision of our +Immortal Self; from the union of which with this, our human +personality is to be born some time that new being we are to +become,--the Perfect Man or Adept. But that first vision may be +lost; I suppose almost always is;--and there are wanderings and +sorrows, forgetfulness and above all heroic services to be +performed, before the final reunion can be attained. + + + + +XVI. THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME + + +We have seen an eastward flow of cycles: which without too much +Procrusteanizing may be given dates thus:--Greece, 478 to 348; +Maurya India, 320 to 190; Western Han China, 194 to 63; in this +current, West Asia, being then in long pralaya, is overleaped. +We have also seen a tide in the other direction; it was first +Persia that touched Greece to awakenment; and there is that +problematical Indian period (if it existed), thirteen decades +after the fall of the Mauryas, and following close upon the +waning of the first glory of the Hans. So we should look for the +Greek Age to kindle something westward again, sooner or later;-- +which of course it did. 478 to 348; 348 to 218; 218 to +88 B.C.; 88 B.C. to 42 A. D.: we shall see presently the +significance of those latter dates in Roman history. Meanwhile +to note this: whereas Persia woke Greece at a touch, thirteen +decades elapsed before Greece began to awake Italy. It waited to +do so fully until the Crest-Wave had sunk a little at the eastern +end of the world; for you may note that the year 63 B.C., in +which Han Chaoti died, was the year in which Augustus was born. + +With him in the same decade came most of the luminaries that made +his age splendid: Virgil in 70; Horace in 65; Vipsanius +Agrippa in 63; Cilnius Maecenas in what precise year we do not +know. The fact is that the influx of vigorous light-bearing +egos, as it decreased in China, went augmenting in Italy: which +no doubt, if we could trace it, we should find to be the kind of +thing that happens always. For about four generations the +foremost souls due to incarnate crowd into one race or quarter of +the globe; then, having exhausted the workable heredity to be +found there,--_used up_ that racial stream,--they must go +elsewhere. There you have the _raison d'etre,_ probably, of +the thirteen-decade period. It takes as a rule about four +generations of such high life to deplete the racial heredity for +the time being,--which must then be left to lie fallow. So now, +America not being discovered, and there being no further eastward +to go, we must jump westward the width of two continents +(nearly), and (that last lecture being parenthetical as it were) +come from Han Chaoti's death to Augustus' birth, from China +to Rome. + +But before dealing with Augustus and the Roman prime, we must get +some general picture of the background out of which he and it +emerged: this week and next we must give to early and to +Republican Rome. And here let me say that these two lectures +will be, for the most part, a very bare-faced plagiarism; +summarizing facts and conclusions taken from a book called _The +Grandeur that was Rome,_ by Mr. J. C. Stobart, of the English +Cambridge. One greatest trouble about historical study is, that +it allows you to see no great trends, but hides under the record +of innumerable fidgety details the real meanings of things. Mr. +Stobart, with a gift of his own for taking large views, sees this +clearly, and goes about to remedy it; he does not wander with +you through the dark of the undergrowth, labeling bush after +bush; but leads you from eminence to eminence, generalizing, and +giving you to understand the broad lie of the land: he makes you +see the forest in spite of the trees. As this is our purpose, +too, we shall beg leave to go with him; only adding now and +again such new light as Theosophical ideas throw on it;--and for +the most part, to avoid a tautology of acknowledgments, or a +plethora of footnotes in the PATH presently, letting this one +confession of debt serve. The learning, the pictures, the +marshaling of facts, are all Mr. Stobart's. + +In the fifth and sixth centuries A. D., when the old manvantara +was closing, Europe was flung into the Cauldron of Regeneration. +Nations and fragments of nations were thrown in and tossing and +seething; the broth of them was boiling over, and,--just as the +the Story of Taliesin, flooding the world with poison and +destruction: and all that a new order of ages might in due time +come into being. One result that a miscellany of racial +heterogeneities was washed up into the peninsular and island +extremities of the continent. In the British you had four Celtic +and a Pictish remnant,--not to mention Latins galore,--pressed on +by three or four sorts of Teutons. In Spain, though it was less +an extremity of Europe than a highway into Africa, you had a fine +assortment of odds and ends: Suevi, Vandals, Goths and what not; +superimposed on a more or less homogenized collection of +Iberians, Celts, Phoenicians, and Italians;--and in Italy you had +Italians broken up into numberless fragments, and overrun by all +manner of Lombards, Teutons, Slavs, and Huns. Welded by cyclic +stress, presently first England, then Spain, and lastly Italy, +became nations; in all three varying degrees of homogeneity +being attained. But the next peninsula, the Balkan, has so far +reached no unity at all; it remains to this day a curious museum +of racial oddments, to the sorrow of European peace; and each +of them represents some people strong in its day, and perhaps +even cultured. + +What the Balkan peninsula has been in our own time, the Apennine +peninsula was after the fall of Rome, and also before the rise of +Rome: a job-lot of race-fragments driven into that extremity of +Europe by the alarms and excursions of empires in dissolution +whose history time has hidden. The end of a manvantara, the +break-up of a great civilization and the confusion that followed, +made the Balkans what they are now, and Italy what she was in the +Middle Ages. The end of an earlier manvantara, the break-up of +older and forgotten civilizations, made Italy what she was in the +sixth century B.C. Both peninsulas, by their mere physical +geography, seem specially designed for the purpose. + +Italy is divided into four by the Apennines, and is mostly +Apennines. Everyone goes there: conquerors, lured by the _dono +fatale,_ and for the sake of the prizes to be gathered; the +conquered, because it is the natural path of escape out of +Central Europe. The way in is easy enough; it is only the way +out that is difficult. The Alps slope up gently on the northern +side; but sharply fall away in grand precipices on the southern. +There, too, they overlook a region that would always tempt +invaders: the great rich plain the Po waters; a land no +refugees could well hope to hold. It has been in turn Cisalpine +Gaul, the Plain of the Lombards, and the main part of Austrian +Italy; this thrice a possession of conquerors from the north. +It is the first of the four divisions. + +There never would be safety in it for refugees; you would not +find in it a great diversity of races living apart; conquerors +and conquered would quickly homogenize,--unless the conquerors +had their main seat in, and remained in political union with, +transalpine realms. Refugees would still and always have to move +on, if they desired to keep their freedom. Three ways would be +open to them, and three destinies, according to which way they +chose. They might go down into the long strip of Adriatic +coastland, where there are no natural harbors--and remain +isolated and unimportant between the mountain barrier and the +sea. Those who occupied this _cul de sac_ have played no great +part in history: the isolated never do.--Or they might cross the +Apennines and pour down into the lowlands of Etruria and +Latium, where are rich lands, some harbors, and generally, fine +opportunities for building up a civilization. Draw-backs also, +for a defeated remnant: Etruria is not too far from Lombardy to +tempt adventurers from the north, the vanguard of the conquering +people;--although again, the Apennine barrier might make their +hold on that middle region precarious. They might come there +conquering; but would form, probably, no very permanent part of +the northern empire: they would mix with the conquered, and at +any weakening northward, the mixture would be likely to break +away. So Austria had influence and suzerainty and various crown +appanages in Tuscany; but not such settled sway as over the +Lombard Plain. Then, too, this is a region that, in a time of +West Asian manvantara and European pralaya, might easily tempt +adventurers from the Near East. + +But the main road for true refugees is the high Apennines; and +this is the road most of them traveled. Their fate, taking it, +would be to be pressed southward along the backbone of Italy by +new waves and waves of peoples; and among the wild valleys to +lose their culture, and become highlandmen, bandit tribes and +raiding clans; until the first comers of them had been driven +down right into the hot coastlands of the heel and toe of Italy. +Great material civilizations rarely originate among mountains: +outwardly because of the difficulty of communications; inwardly, +I suspect, because mountain influences pull too much away from +material things. Nature made the mountains, you may say, for the +special purpose of regenerating effete remnants of civilizations. +Sabellians and Oscans, Samnites and Volscians and Aequians and +dear knows what all:--open your Roman Histories, and in each one +of the host of nation-names you find there, you may probably see +the relic of some kingdom once great and flourishing north or +south of the Alps;--just as you can in the Serbians, Roumanians, +Bulgars, Vlachs, and Albanians in the next peninsula now. + +One more element is to be considered there in the far south. Our +Lucanian and Bruttian and Iapygian refugees,--themselves, or some +of them, naturally the oldest people in Italy, the most original +inhabitants,--would find themselves, when they arrived there, +very much de-civilized; but, because the coast is full of fine +harbors, probably sooner or later in touch with settlers from +abroad. It is a part that would tempt colonists of any cultured +or commercial peoples that might be spreading out from Greece or +the West Asian centers or elsewhere; and so it was Magna Graecia +of old, and a mixing-place of Greek and old Italian blood; and +so, since, has been held by Saracens, Normans, Byzantines, and +Spaniards. + +The result of all this diversity of racial elements would be that +Italy could only difficultly attain national unity at any time; +but that once such unity was attained, she would be bound to play +an enormous part. No doubt again and again she has been a center +of empire; it is always your ex-melting-pot that is. + +Who were the earliest Italians? The earliest, it least, that we +can guess at?--Once on a time the peninsula was colonized by folk +who sailed in through the Straits of Gibraltar from Ruta and +Daitya, those island fragments of Atlantis; and (says Madame +Blavatsky) you should have found a pocket of these colonists +surviving in Latium, strong enough for the most part to keep the +waves of invaders to the north of them, and the refugees to the +high Apennines. Another relic of them you would have found, +probably, driven down into the far south; and such a relic, I +understand, the Iapygians were. + +One more ethnic influence,--an important one. Round about the +year 1000 B.C., all Europe was in dead pralaya, while West Asia +was in high manvantara: under which conditions, as I suggested +just now, such parts as the Lombard Plain and Tuscany might tempt +West Asians of enterprise;--as Spain and Sicily tempted the +Moslems long afterwards. Supposing such a people came in; they +would be, while the West Asian manvantara was in being, much more +cultured and powerful than their Italian neighbors; but the +waning centuries of their manvantara would coincide with the +first and orient portion of the European one; so, as soon as +that should begin to touch Italy, things would begin to equalize +themselves; till at last, as Europe drew towards noon and West +Asia towards evening, these West Asians of Etruria would go the +way of the Spanish Moors. There you have the probable history of +the Etruscans. + +All Roman writers say they came from Lydia by sea; which +statement could only have been a repetition of what the Etruscans +said about themselves. The matter is much in dispute; but most +likely there is no testimony better than the ancient one. Some +authorities are for Lydia; some are for the Rhaetian Alps; some +are for calling the Etruscans 'autochthonous,'--which I hold to +be, like _Mesopotamia,_ a 'blessed word.' Certainly the Gauls +drove them out of Lombardy, and some of them, as refugees, up +into the Rhaetian Alps,--sometime after the European manvantara +began in 870. We cannot read their language, and do not know +enough about it to connect it even with the Turanian Group; but +we know enough to exclude it, perhaps, from every other known +group in the Old World,--certainly from the Aryan. There is +something absolutely un-Aryan (one would say) about their art, +the figures on their tombs. Great finish; no primitivism; but +something queer and grotesque about the faces.... However, you +can get no racial indications from things like that. There is a +state of decadence, that may come to any race,--that has perhaps +in every race cycles of its own for appearing,--when artists go +for their ideals and inspiration, not to the divine world of the +Soul, but to vast elemental goblinish limboes in the sub-human: +realms the insane are at home in, and vice-victims sometimes, and +drug-victims I suppose always. Denizens of these regions, I take +it, are the models for some of our cubists and futurists. . . . I +seem to see the same kind of influence in these Etruscan faces. +I think we should sense something sinister in a people with +art-conventions like theirs;--and this accords with the popular +view of antiquity, for the Etruscans had not a nice reputation. + +The probability appears to be that they became a nation +in their Italian home in the tenth or eleventh century B.C.; +were at first war-like, and spread their power considerably, +holding Tuscany, Umbria, Latium, with Lombardy until the Gauls +dispossessed them, and presently Corsica under a treaty with +Carthage that gave the Carthaginians Sardinia as a _quid pro +quo._ Tuscany, perhaps, would have been the original colony; +when Lombardy was lost, it was the central seat of their power; +there the native population became either quite merged in them, +or remained as plebeians; Umbria and Latium they possessed +and ruled as suzerains. The Tuscan lands are rich, and the +_Rasenna,_ as they called themselves, made money by exporting the +produce of their fields and forests; also crude metals brought +in from the north-west,--for Etruria was the clearing-house for +the trade between Gaul and the lands beyond, and the eastern +Mediterranean. From Egypt, Carthage, and Asia, they imported in +exchange luxuries and objects of art; until in time the old +terror of their name,--as pirates, not unconnected with something +of fame for black magic; one finds it as early as in Hesiod, and +again in the _Medea _of Euripides,--gave place to an equally ill +repute for luxurious living and sensuality. We know that in war +it was a poor thing to put your trust in Etruscan alliances. + +According to their own account of it, they were destined to +endure as a distinct people for about nine centuries; which is +probably what they did. Their power was at its height about 600 +B.C. As they began to decline, certain small Italian cities that +had been part of their empire broke away and freed themselves; +particularly in Latium, where lived the descendants of those +old-time colonists from Ruta and Daitya,--priding themselves still +on their ancient descent, and holding themselves Patricians or +nobles, with a serf population of conquered Italians to look down +upon. Or, of course, it may have been _vice versa:_ that the +Atlanteans were the older stock, nearer the soil, and Plebeians; +and that the Patricians were later conquerors lured or driven +down from Central Europe. + +At any rate, as their empire diminished, Etruria stood like some +alien civilized Granada in the midst of surrounding medieval +barbarism; for Italy, in 500 B.C., was simply medieval. Up in +the mountains were war-like highlanders: each tribe with its +central stronghold,--like Beneventum in Samnium, which you could +hardly call a city, I suppose: it was rather a place of refuge +for times when refuge was needed, than a group of homes to live +in; in general, the mountains gave enough sense of security, and +you might live normally in your scattered farms.--But down in the +lowlands you needed something more definitely city-like: at once +a group of homes and a common fortress. So Latium and Campania +were strewn with little towns by river and seashore, or hill-top +built with more or less peaceful citadel; each holding the lands +it could watch, or that its citizen armies could turn out quickly +to defend. Each was always at war or in league with most of the +others; but material civilization had not receded so far as +among the mountaineers. The latter raided them perpetually, so +they had to be tough and abstemious and watchful; and then again +they raided the mountaineers to get their own back, (with +reasonable interest); and lastly, lest like Hotspur they should +find such quiet life a plague, and want work, it was always +their prerogative, and generally their pleasure, to go to war +with each other.--A hard, poor life, in which to be and do right +was to keep in fit condition for the raidings and excursions and +alarms; ethics amounted to about that much; art or culture, you +may say, there was none. Their civilization was what we know as +Balkanic, with perpetual Balkanic eruptions, so to speak. Their +conception of life did not admit of the absence of at least one +good summer campaign. Mr. Stobart neatly puts it to this effect: +no man is content to live ambitionless on a bare pittance and the +necessaries; he must see some prospect, some margin, as well; +and for these folk, now that they had freed themselves from the +Etruscans, the necessaries were from their petty agriculture, the +margin was to be looked for in war. + +Among these cities was one on the Tiber, about sixteen miles up +from the mouth. It had had a great past under kings of its own, +before the Etruscan conquest; very likely had wielded wide +empire in its day. A tradition of high destiny hung about it, +and was ingrained in the consciousness of its citizens; and I +believe that this is always what remains of ancient greatness +when time, cataclysms, and disasters have wiped all actual +memories thereof away. But now, say in 500 B.C., we are to think +of it as a little peasant community in an age and land where +there was no such wide distinction between peasant and bandit. +It had for its totem, crest, symbol, what you will, very +appropriately, a she-wolf.... + +Art or culture, I said, there was none;--and yet, too, we might +pride ourselves on certain great possessions to be called +(stretching it a little), _in that line;_ which had been left to +us by our erstwhile Etruscan lords, or executed for us by +Etruscan artists with their tongues in their cheeks and sides +quietly shaking.--Ha, you men of Praeneste! you men of Tibur! +sing small, will you? _We_ have our grand Jupiter on the +Capitoline, resplendent in vermilion paint; what say you to +that? Paid for him, too, (a surmise, this!) with cattle raided +from your fields, my friends! + +Everything handsome about us, you see; but not for this must you +accuse us of the levity of culture. We might patronize; we did +not dabble.--One seems to hear from those early ages, echoes of +tones familiar now. Ours is the good old roast beef and common +sense of--I mean, the grand old _gravitas_ of Rome. What! you +must have a Jupiter to worship, mustn't you? No sound as by +Parliament-Established-Religion of Numa Pompilius, Sir, and the +world would go to the dogs! And, of course, vermilion paint. It +wears well, and is a good bloody color with no levity about it; +besides, can be seen a long way off--whereby it serves to keep +you rascals stirred up with jealousy, or should. So: we have our +vermilion Jupiter and think of ourselves very highly indeed. + +Yes; but there is a basis for our boasting, too;--which +boasting, after all, is mainly a mental state; we aim to be +taciturn in our speech, and to proclaim our superiority with +sound thumps, rather than like wretched Greeks with poetry and +philosophy and such. We do possess, and love,--at the very least +we aim at,--the thing we call _gravitas;_ and--there are points +to admire in it. The legends are full of revelation; and what +they reveal are the ideals of Rome. Stern discipline; a rigid +sense of duty to the state; unlimited sacrifice of the +individual to it; stoic endurance in the men; strictest +chastity in the women:--there were many and great qualities. +Something had come down from of old, or had been acquired in +adversity: a saving health for this nation. War was the regular +annual business; all the male population of military age took +part in it; and military age did not end too early. It was an +order that tended to leave no room in the world but for the +fittest, physically and morally, if not mentally. There was +discipline, and again and always discipline: _paterfamilias_ +king in his household, with power of life and death over his +children. It was a regime that gave little chance for loose +living. A sterile and ugly regime, Nevertheless; and, later, +they fell victims to its shortcomings. Vice, that wrecks every +civilization in its turn, depend upon it had wrecked one here: +that one of which we get faint reminiscences in the stories of +the Roman kings. Then these barren and severe conditions ensued, +and vice was (comparatively speaking) cleaned out. + +What were the inner sources of this people's strength? What +light from the Spirit shone among them? Of the Sacred Mysteries, +what could subsist in such a community?--Well; the Mysteries +had, by this time, as we have seen, very far declined. Pythagoras +had made his effort in this very Italy; he died in the first +year of the fifth century soon after the expulsion of the +kings, according to the received chronology;--in reality, +long before there is dependable history of Rome at all. There +had been an Italian Golden Age, when Saturn reigned and the +Mysteries ruled human life. There were reminiscences of a long +past splendor; and an atmosphere about them, I think, more +mellow and peace-lipped than anything in Hesiod or Homer. I +suppose that from some calmer, firmer, and more benignant Roman +Empire manvantaras back, when the Mysteries were in their flower +and Theosophy guided the relations of men and nations, some thin +stream of that divine knowledge flowed down into the pralaya; +that an echo lingered,--at Cumae, perhaps, where the Sibyl was,-- +or somewhere among the Oscan or Sabine mountains. Certainly +nothing remained, regnant and recognised in the cities, to +suggest a repugnance to the summer campaigns, or that other +nations had their rights. Yet there was something to make life +sweeter than it might have been. + +They said that of old there had been a King in Rome who was a +Messenger of the Gods and link between earth and heaven; and +that it was he had founded their religion. Was Numa Pompilius, a +real person?--By no means, says modern criticism. I will quote +you Mr. Stobart:-- + + "The Seven Kings of Rome are for the most part mere names +which have been fitted by rationalizing historians, presumably +Greek, with inventions appropriate to them. Tomulus is simply +the patron hero of Rome called by her name. Numa, the second, +whose name suggests _numen,_ was the blameless Sabine who +originated most of the old Roman cults, and received a complete +biography largely borrowed from that invented for Solon." + +--He calls attention, too, to the fact that Tarquin the Proud is +made a typical Greek Tyrant, and is said to have been driven out +of Rome in 510,--the very year in which that other typical Greek +Tyrant, Hippias, was driven out of Athens;--so that on the whole +it is not a view for easy unthinking rejection. But Madame +Blavatsky left a good maxim on these matters: that tradition +will tell you more truth than what goes for history will; and +she is quite positive that there is much more truth in the tales +about the kings than in what comes down about the early Republic. +Only you must interpret the traditions; you must understand +them. Let us go about, and see if we can arrive at something. + +Before the influx of the Crest-Wave began, Rome was a very petty +provincial affair, without any place at all in the great sweep of +world-story. Her annals are about as important as those of the +Samnium of old, of which we know nothing; or those, say, of +Andorra now, about which we care less. Our school histories +commonly end at the Battle of Acium; which is the place where +Roman history becomes universal and important: a point wisely +made and strongly insisted on by Mr. Stobart. I shows how +thoroughly we lack any true sense of what history is and is for. +We are so wrapped up in politics that our vision of the motions +of the Human Spirit is obscured. There were lots of politics in +Republican Rome, and you may say none in the empire; so we make +for the pettiness that obsesses us, and ignore the greatness +whose effects are felt yet. Rome played at politics: old-time +conqueror-race Patricians against old-time conquered-race +Plebians: till the two were merged into one and she grew tired +of the game. She played at war until her little raidings and +conquests had carried her out of the sphere of provincial +politics, and she stood on the brink of the great world. Then +the influx of important souls began; she entered into history, +presently threw up politics forever, and performed, so far as it +was in her to do so, her mission in the world. What does History +care for the election results in some village in Montenegro? Or +for the passage of the Licinian Rogations, or the high exploits +of Terentilius Harsa? + +Yet, too, we must get a view of this people in pralaya, that we +may understand better the workings of the Human Spirit in its +fulness. But we must see the forest, and not lose sight and +sense of it while botanizing over individual trees. We must +forget the interminable details of wars and politics that amount +to nothing; that so we may apprehend the form, features, color, +of this aspect of humanity. + +Here is a mighty river: the practical uses of mankind are mainly +concerned with it as far up as it may be navigable; or at most, +as far up as it may be turning mills and watering the fields of +agriculture. There may be regions beyond when poets and +mythologists may bring great treasures for the Human Spirit; but +do you do well to treat such treasures as plug material for +exchange and barter? They call for another kind of treatment. +The sober science of history may be said to start where the +nations become navigable, and begin to affect the world. You can +sail your ships up the river Rome to about the beginning of the +third century B.C., when she began to ermerge from Italian +provincialism and to have relations with foreign peoples: +Pyrrhus came over to fight her in 280. What is told of the +century before may be true or not; as a general picture it is +probably true enough, and only as a general picture does it +matter; its details are supremely unimportant. The river here +is pouting through the gorges, or shallowly meandering the meads. +It is watering Farmer Balbus's fields; Grazier Ahenobarbus's +cows drink at it; idle Dolabell angles in its quiet reaches: +there are bloody tribal affrays yearly at its fords. It is +important, certainly, to Babbus and Dolabella, and the men slain +in the forays;--but to us others--. + +And then at 390 there are falls and dangerous rapids; you will +get no ships beyond these. The Gauls poured down and swept away +everything: the records were burnt; and Rome, such as it was, +had to be re-founded. Here is a main break with the past; +something like Ts'in Shi Hwangti's Book-burning; and it serves +to make doubly uncertain all that went before. Go further now, +and you must take to the wild unmapped hills. There are no +fields beyond this; the kine keep to the lush lowland meadows; +rod and line must be left behind,--and angler too, unles he is +prepared for stiff climbing, and no marketable recompense. Nor +yet, perhaps, for some time, much in things unmarketable: I will +not say there is any great beauty of scenery in these rather +stubborn and arid hills. + +As to the fourth century, then (or from 280 to 390)--we need not +care much which of Ahenobarbus's cows was brindled, or which had +the crumpled horn, or which broke off the coltsfoot bloom with +lazy ruthless hoof. As to the fifth,--we need not try to row the +quinqueremes of history beyond that Gaulish waterfall. We need +not bother with the weight Dolabella claims for the trout he says +he caught up there: that trout has been cooked and eaten these +twenty-three hundred years. Away beyond, in the high mountains, +there may be pools haunted by the nymphs; you cannot sail up to +them, that is certain; but there may be ways round..... + +Here, still in the foot-hills, is a pool that does look, if not +_nymphatic,_ at least a little fishy, as they say; the story +of Rome's dealings with Lars Porsenna. It even looks as if +something historical might be caught in it. The Roman historians +have been obviously camouflaging: they do not want you to +examine this too closely. Remember that all these things came +down by memory, among a people exceedingly proud, and that had +been used to rely on records,--which records had been burnt by +the Gauls. Turn to your English History, and you shall probably +look in vain in it for any reference to the Battle of Patay; you +shall certainly find Agincourt noised and trumpted _ad lib._ Now +battles are never decisive; they never make history; the very +best of them might just as well not have been fought. But at +Patay the forces which made it inevitable France should be a +nation struck down into the physical plane and made themselves +manifest: as far as that plane is concerned, the centuries of +French history flow from the battlefield of Patay. But what made +trumpery Agincourt was only the fierce will of a cruel, ambitious +fighting king; and what flowed from it was a few decades of war +and misery. That by way of illustration how history is envisaged +and taught: depend upon it, by every people; it is not peculiar +to this one or that.--Well then, the fish we are at liberty to +catch in this particular Roman pool is a period during which Rome +was part of the Etruscan Empire. + +The fact is generally accepted, I believe; and is, of course, +the proposition we started from. How long the period was, we +cannot say. The Tarquins were from Tarquinii in Etruria; +perhaps a line of Etruscan governors. The gentleman from Clusium +who swore by the Nine Gods was either a king who brought back a +rebellious Rome to temporary submission, or the last Etruscan +monarch in whose empire it was included. But here is the point: +whether fifty or five hundred years long--and perhaps more likely +the former than the latter--this period of foreign rule was long +enough to make a big break in the national tradition, and to +throw all preceding events out of perspective. + +At the risk of _longueurs_--and other things--let me take an +illustration from scenes I know. I have heard peasants in Wales +talking about events before the conquest;--people who have never +learnt Welsh history out of books, and have nothing to go on but +local legends;--and placing the old unhappy far-off things and +battles long ago at "over a hundred years back, I shouldn' +wonder." It is the way of tradition to foreshorten things like +that,--Nothing much has happened in Wales since those ancient +battles with the English; so the six or seven centuries of +English rule are dismissed as "over a hundred years." Rome under +the Etruscans, like Wales under the English, would have had no +history of her own: there would have been nothing to impress +itself on the race-memory. Such times fade out easily: they +seem to have been very short, or are forgotten altogether. But +this same Welsh peasant, who thus forgets and foreshortens recent +history, always remembers that there were kings of Wales once. +Perhaps, if he were put to it to write a history, with no books +to guide him, he would name you as many as seven of them, and +supply each with more or less true stories. In reality, of +course, there were eight centuries of Welsh kings; and before +them, the Roman occupation,--which he also remembers, but very +vaguely; and before that, he has the strongest impression that +there were ages of wide sovereignty and splendor. The kings he +would name, naturally, are the ones that made the most mark.--I +think the Romans, in constructing or making Greeks construct for +them their ancient history, did very much the same kind of thing. +They remembered the names of seven kings, with tales about them, +and built on those. There were the kings who had stood out and +stood for most; and the Romans remembered what they stood for. +So here I think we get real history; whereas in the stories of +republican days we may see the efforts of great families to +provide themselves with a great past. But I doubt we could take +anything _aupied de la lettre;_ or that it would profit us to do +so if we could. Here is a pointer: we have seen how in India +a long age of Kshattriya supremacy preceded the supremacy +of the Brahmins. Now observe Kshattriya Romulus followed +by Brahmin Numa. + +I do not see why Madame Blavatsky shold have so strongly insisted +on the truth of the story of the roman Kings unless there were +more in it than mere pralayic historicity. Unless it were of +bigger value, that is, than Andorran or Montenegrin annals. +Rome, after the Etruscan domination, was a meanly built little +city; but there were remains from pre-Etruscan times greater +than anything built under the Republic. Rome is a fine modern +capital now; but there were times in the age of papal rule, when +it was a miserable depopulated village of great ruins, with +wolves prowling nightly through the weed-grown streets. Yet even +then the tradition of _Roma Caput Mundi_ reigned among the +wretched inhabitants,--witness Rienzi: it was the one thing, +besides the ruins, to tell of ancient greatness. Some such +feeling, borne down out of a forgotten past, impelled Republican +Rome on the path of conquest. It was not even a tradition, at +that time; but the essence of a tradition that remained as a +sense of high destinies. + +Who, then, was Romulus?--Some king's son from Ruta or Daitya, who +came in his lordly Atlantean ships, and builded a city on the +Tiber? Very likely. That would be, at the very least, as far +back as nine or ten thousand B.C.; which is contemptibly modern, +when you think of the hundred and sixty thousand years of our +present sub-race. The thing that is in the back of my mind is, +that Rome is probably as old as that sub-race, or nearly so; but +wild horses should not drag from me a statement of it. Rome, +London, Paris,--all and any of them, for that matter.--But a +hundred and sixty thousand or ten thousand, no man's name could +survive so long, I think, as a peg on which to hang actual +history. It would pass, long before the ten millenniums were +over, into legend; and become that of a God or demigod,--whose +cult, also, would need reviving, in time, by some new avatar. +Now (as remarked before) humanity has a profound instinct for +avatars; and also (as you would expect) for Reincarnation. The +sixth-century Britons were reminded by one of their chieftains of +some mighty king or God of prehistory; the two got mixed, and +the mixture came down as the Arthur of the legend. This is what +I mean by 'reviving the cult.' Now then, who was Romulus?--Some +near or remote descendant of heroic refugees from fallen Troy, +who rebuilt Rome or reestablished its sovereignty?--Very likely, +again;--I mean, very likely both that and the king's son from +Ruta or Daitya. And lastly, very likely some tough little +peasant-bandit restorer, not so long before the Etruscan +conquest, whom the people came to mix up witl mightier figures +half forgotten. . . . . + +We see his history, as the Romans did, through the lens of a +tough little peasant-bandit city; through the lens of a pralaya, +which makes pralayic all objects seen. It is like the Irish +peasant-girl who has seen the palace of the king of the fairies; +she describes you something akin to the greatest magnificence she +knows,--which happens to be the house of the local _squireen._ +Now the Etruscan domination, as we have noted, could probably +not have begun before 1000 B.C.; at which time, to go by our +hypothesis as to the length and recurrence of the cycles, Europe +was in dead pralaya, and had been since 1480. So that, possibly, +you would have had between 1480 and 1000 a Rome in pralaya, but +independent--like Andorra now, or Montenegro. The stories we get +about the seven kings would fit such a time admirably. They tell +of pralayic provincials; and Rome, during that second half of +the second millennium B.C., would have been just that. + +But again, if the seven kings had been just that and nothing +more, I cannot see why H. P. Blavatsky should have laid such +stress on the essential truth of their stories. She is +particular, too, about the Arthurian legend:--saying that it is +at once symbolic and actually historical,--which latter, as +concerns the sixth-century Arthur, it is not and she would not +have considered it to be: no Briton prince of that time went +conquering through Europe. So there must be some further value +to the tales of the Roman kings; else why are they so much +better than the Republican annals? Why?--unless all history +except the invented kind or the distorted-by-pride-or-politics +kind is symbolic; and unless we could read in these stories the +record, not merely of some pre-Etruscan pralayic centuries, but +of great ages of the past and of the natural unfoldment of the +Human Spirit in history through long millenniums? Evolution is +upon a pattern; understand the drift of any given thousand years +in such a way that you could reduce it to a symbol, and probably +you have the key to all the past. + +So I imagine there would be seven interpretations to these kings, +as to all other symbols. Romulus may represent a Kshattriya, and +Numa a Brahmin domination in the early ages of the sub-race. +Actual men, there may yet be mirrored in them the history--shall +we say of the whole sub-race? Or Root-race? Or the whole +natural order of human evolution? It is business for imaginative +meditation,--which is creative or truth-finding meditation. But +now let us try, diffidently, to search out the last, the +historic, pre-Etruscan Numa. + +If you examined the Mohammedan East, now in these days of its +mid-pralaya and disruption: Turkey especially, or Egypt: you +should find constantly the tradition of Men lifted by holiness +and wisdom and power above the levels of common humanity: Unseen +Guardians of the race,--a Great Lodge or Order of them. In +Christendom, in its manvantara, you find no trace of this +knowledge; but it may surprise you to know that it is so common +among the Moslems, that according to the Turkish popular belief, +there is always a White Adept somewhere within the mosque of St. +Sophia,--hidden under a disguise none would be likely to +penetrate. There are hundreds of stories. The common thought is +that representatives of this Lodge, or their disciples, often +appear; are not so far away from the world of men; may be +teaching, quite obscurely, or dropping casual seeds of the Secret +Wisdom, in the next village. Well; I imagine pralayic +conditions may allow benign spiritual influences to be at work, +sometimes, nearer the surface of life than in manvantara. The +brain-mind is less universally dominant; there is not the same +dense atmosphere of materialism. You get on the one hand a +franker play of the passions, and no curbs imposed either by a +sound police system or a national conscience; in pralaya +time there is no national conscience, or, I think, national +consciousness,--no feeling of collective entity, of being a +nation,--at all; perhaps no public opinion. As it is with a man +when he sleeps: the soul is not there; there is nothing in that +body that feels then 'I am I'; nothing (normally) that can +control the disordered dreams. . . . Hence, in the sleeping +nation, the massacres, race-wars, mob-murders, and so on; which, +we should remember, affect parts, not the whole, of the race. +But on the other hand that very absence of brain-mind rule may +imply Buddhic influences at work in quiet places; and one cannot +tell what unknown graciousnesses may be happening, that our +manvantaric livelinesses and commercialism quite forbid. . . . +Believe me, if we understood the laws of history, we should waste +a deal less time and sanity in yelling condemnations. + +Italy then was something like Turkey is now. Dear knows whom you +might chance on, if you watched with anointed eyes . . . in St. +Sophia . . . or among the Sabine hills. Somewhere or other, as I +said just now, reminiscences of the Mysteries would have +survived. I picture an old wise man, one of the guardians of +those traditions, coming down from the mountains, somewhere +between 1500 and 1000 B. C., to the little city on the Tiber; +touching something in the hearts of the people there, and +becoming,--why not?--their king. For I guess that this one was +not so different from a hundred little cities you should have +found strewn over Italy not so long ago. The ground they +covered,--and this is still true,--would not be much larger than +the Academy Garden; their streets but six or seven feet across. +Their people were a tough, stern, robberish set; but with a +side, too, to which saintliness (in a high sense) could make +quick appeal. Intellectual culture they had none; the brain-mind +was the last thing you should look for (in ancient Rome at +least);--and just because it was dormant, one who knew how to go +about it could take hold upon the Buddhic side. That was perhaps +what this Numa Pompilius achieved doing. There would be nothing +extraordinary in it. The same thing may be going on in lots of +little cities today, in pralayic regions: news of the kind does +not emerge. We have a way of dividing time into _ancient and +modern;_ and think the one forever past, the other forever to +endure. It is quite silly. There are plenty of places now where +it is 753 B.C.; and no doubt there were plenty then where it was +pompous 1919.--Can anyone tell me, by the bye, what year it +happens to be in Europe now? + +How much Numa may have given his Romans, who can say? Most of it +may have worn away, before historic times, under the stress of +centuries of summer campaigns. But something he did ingrain into +their being; and it lasted, because not incompatible with the +life they knew. It was the element that kept that life from +complete vulgarity and decay. + +You have to strip away all Greekism from your conceptions, before +you can tell what it was. The Greek conquest was the one Rome +did not survive. Conquered Greece overflowed her, and washed her +out; changed her traditions, her religion, the whole color of +her life. If Greece had not stepped in, myth-making and +euhemerizing, who would have saved the day at Lake Regillus? +_Not_ the Great Twin Brothers from lordly Lace-daemon, be sure. +Who then? Some queer uncouth Italian nature-spirit gods? One +shakes one's head in doubt: the Romans did not personalize their +deities like the Greeks. Cato gives the ritual to be used at +cutting down a grove; says he--"This is the proper Roman way to +cut down a grove. Sacrifice with a pig for a peace-offering. +This is the verbal formula: 'Whether thou art a god or a goddess +to whom that grove is sacred,' "--and so on. Their gods were +mostly like that: potentialities in the unseen, with whom good +relations must be kept by strict observance of an elaborate +ritual. There were no stories about them; they did not marry +and have families like the good folk at Olympus. + +Which is perhaps a sign of this: that Numa's was a religion, the +teaching of a (minor) Teacher who came long after the Mysteries +had disappeared. Because in the Mysteries, cosmogenesis was +taught through dramas which were symbolic representations of its +events and processes; and out of these dramas grew the stories +about the gods. But when the real spiritual teaching has ceased +to flow through the Mysteries, and the stones are accepted +literally, and there is nothing else to maintain the inner life +of the people,--a Teacher of some kind must come to state things +in plainer terms. This, I take it, is what happened here; and +the very worn-outness of conditions that this implies, implies +also tremendous cultural and imperial activities in forgotten +time; I imagine Italy, then, at two or three thousand B.C., +was playing a part as much greater outwardly than Greece +was, as her part now is greater than Greece's, and has been +during recent centuries. + +This, then, is what Numa's religion did for Rome:--it peopled the +woods and fields and hills with these impersonal divinities; it +peopled the moments of the day with them; so that nothing in +space or time, no near familiar thing or duty, was material +wholly, or pertained to this world alone;--there was another side +to it, connected with the unseen and the gods. There were Great +Gods in the Pantheon; but your early Roman had no wide-traveling +imagination; and they seemed to him remote and uncongenial +rather,--and quickly took on Greekishness when the Greek +influence began. Minerva, vaguely imagined, assumed soon the +attributes of the very concretely imagined Pallas; and so on. +But he had nearer and Numaish divinities much more a part of his +life,--which indeed largely consisted of rituals in their honor. +There were Lares and Penates and Manes, who made his home a kind +of temple, and the earth a kind of altar; there were deities +presiding over all homely things and occasions; formless +impersonal deities; presences to be felt and remembered, not +clothed imaginatively with features and myths:--Cuba, who gave +the new-born child its first breath; Anna Perenna of the +recurring year; hosts of agricultural gods without much +definition, and the unseen genii of wood, field, and mountain. +Everything, even each individual man, had a god-side: there was +something in it or him greater, more subtle, more enduring, than +the personality or outward show.--To the folk-lorist, of course, +it is all 'primitive Mediterranean' religion or superstition; +but the inner worlds are wonderful and vast, if you begin to have +the smallest inkling of an understanding of them. I think +we may recognise in all this the hand of a wise old Pompilius +from the Sabine hills, at work to keep the life of his Romans, +peasant-bandits as they were, clean in the main and sound. Yes, +there were gross elements: among the many recurring festivals, +some were gross and saturnalian enough. The Romans kept near +Nature, in which are, both animal and cleansing forces; but +the high old _gravitas_ was the virtue they loved. And supposing +Numa established their religion, it does not follow that he +established what there came to be of grossness in it. + +They kept near Nature; very near the land, and the Earth Breath, +and the Earth Divinities, and the Italian soil,--and that +southern laya center and gateway into the inner world which, +I am persuaded, is in Italy. There are many didactic poems in +world-literature,--poems dealing with the operations of agriculture;-- +and they are mostly as dull as you would expect, with that for +their subject; but one of them, and one only, is undying poetry. +That one is the Roman one. Its author was a Celt, and his models +were Greek; and he was rather a patient imitative artist than +greatly original and creative;--but he wrote for Rome, and with +the Italian soil and weather for his inspiration; and their +forces pouring through him made his didactics poetry, and poetry +they remain after nineteen centuries. Nothing of the kind comes +from Greece. As if whenever you broke the Italian soil, a voice +sang up to you from it: _Once Saturn reigned in Italy!_ + +It is this that brings Cincinnatus back to his cabbage-field from +the war,--and politics, as to something sacred, a fountain at +which life may be renewed. Plug souls; no poetry in them;--but +the Earth Breath cleanses and heals and satisfies them. In place +of a literature, they have wild unpoetical chants to their Mayors +to raise as they go into battle; for art and culture, they have +that bright vermilion Jove; nothing from the Spirit to comfort +them in these! But put the ex-dictator to hoe his turnips, and +he is in a dumb sort of way in communication at once with the +Spirit and all deepest sources of comfort.--What is Samnite gold +to me, when I have my own radishes to toast,--sacred things out +of my own sacred soil? The Italian sun shines down on me, and +warms more than my physicality and limbs. See, I strike my hoe +into Italy, and the sacred essences of Earth our Mother flow up +to me, and quiet my mind from anxious and wasting thought, and +fill me with calmness and vigor and Italy, and her old quaint +immemorial gods! + +Not that the Roman had any conception, patriotically speaking, +about Italy; it was simply the soil he was after,--which +happened to be Italian. Not for him, in the very slightest, +Filicaia's or Mazzini's dream! Good practical soul, what would +he have done with dreaming?--But he had his feet on the ground, +and was soaked through, willy nilly, with its forces; he lived +in touch with realities, with the seasons and the days and +nights,--how we do forget those great, simple, life-giving, +cleansing things!--and his mind was molded to what he owed to the +soil, to the realities, to _Dea Roma;_--and Duty became a great +thing in his life. Out of all this comes something that makes +this narrow little cultureless bandit city almost sympathetic to +us,--and very largely indeed admirable. + +They knew how to keep their heads. There were those two races +among them,--races or orders;--and a mort of politics between the +two. Greek cities, in like manner but generally less radically +divided, knew no method but for one side to be perpetually +banishing the other, turn and turn about, and wholesale; but +these spare, tough Romans effect compromise after compromise, +till Patricians and Plebs are molten down into one common type. +They are not very brilliant, even at their native game of war: +given a good general, their enemies are pretty sure to trounce +them. Pyrrhus, a fine tactician but no great strategist, does so +several times;--and then they reply to his offers of peace, that +they make no peace with enemies still camped on Italian soil.-- +Comes next a real master-strategist, Hannibal; and senate and +people, time after time, are forced (like Balbus in the poem) + + "With a frankness that I'm sure will charm ye + To own it is all over with the army." + +He wipes them out in a most satisfactory and workmanlike manner. +Their leading citizens, _ipso facto_ their generals (amateur +soldiers always cabbage-hoers at heart) afford him a good deal of +amusement; as if you should send out the mayor of Jonesville, +Arkansaw, against a Foch or a Hindenburg. One of them, a fool of +a fellow, blunders into a booby-trap and loses the army which is +almost the sole hope of Rome; and comes home, utterly defeated, +--to be gravely thanked by the Senate for not committing suicide +after his defeat: "for not despairing of the Republic." Ah, +there is real Great Stuff in that; they are admirable peasant +bandits after all! Most people would have straight court +martialed and beheaded the man; as England hanged poor Admiral +Byng _pour encourager les autres._ And all the while they have +been having the sublime impudence to keep an army in Spain +conquering there. How to account for this unsubduability? Well; +there is Numa's teaching; and what you might call a latent habit +of _Caput-Mundi-ship:_ imperial seeds in the soil. + +There is that indestructible god-side to everything; especially, +behind and above this city on the seven hills, there is divine +eternal ROME. So, after the Gaulish conquest, they rejected +proffered and more desirable Etruscan sites, and came back and +provided _Dea Roma_ with a new out-ward being; the imperial +seeds, molds of empire, were on the Seven Hills, not at Veii. +So, when this still greater peril of Hannibal so nearly submerged +them, they took final victory for granted,--could conceive of no +other possibility,--and placidly went forward while being whipped +in Italy with the adventure in Spain. There was one thing they +could not imagine: ultimate defeat. It was a kind of stupidity +with them. They were a stupid people. You might thrash them; +you might give them their full deserts (which were bad), and +fairly batter them to bits; all the world might think them dead; +dozens of doctors might write death-certificates; you might have +Rome coffined and nailed down, and be riding gaily to the +funeral;--but you could not convince _her_ she was dead; and at +the very graveside, sure enough, the 'pesky critter' (as they +say) would be bursting open the coffin lid; would finish the +ceremony with you for the corpse, and then ride home smiling to +enjoy her triumph, thank God for his mercies,--and get back to +her hoe and her cabbages as quickly as might be. + +It is this that to my mind makes it philosophically certain that +she had had a vast antiquity as the seat of empire; I mean, +before the Etruscan domination. _Dea Roma,_--the Idea of Rome,-- +was an astral mold almost cast in higher than astral stuff: it +was so firmly fixed, so unalterably there, that I cannot imagine +a few centuries of peasant-bandits building it,--unimaginative +tough creatures at the best. No; it was a heritage; it was +built in thousands of years, and founded upon forgotten facts. +There was something in the ideal world, the deposit of long ages +of thinking and imagining. How, pray, are nations brought +into being? + +By men thinking and willing and imagining them into being. Such +men create an astral matrix; with walls faint and vague at +first, but ever growing stronger as more and more men reinforce +them with new thought and will and imagination. But in Rome we +see from the first the astral mold so strong that the strongest +party feelings, the differences of a conqueror and a conquered +race, are shaped by it into compromise after compromise. And +then, too, an instinct among those peasant-bandits for empire: +an instinct that few European peoples have possessed; that it +took the English, for example, a much longer time to learn than +it took the Romans. For let us note that even in those early +days it was not such a bad thing to come under Roman sway; if +you took it quietly, and were misled by no patriotic notions. +That is, as a rule. Unmagnanimous always to men, Rome was not +without justice, and even at times something quite like +magnanimity, to cities and nations. She was no Athens, to +exploit her subject peoples ruthlessly with never a troubling +thought as to their rights. She had learned compromise and horse +sense in her politics it home: if her citizens owed her a duty, +--she assumed a responsibility towards them. It took her time to +learn that; but she learned it. She went conquering on the same +principle. Her plebeians had won their rights; in other towns, +mostly, the plebeians had not. + +Roman dominion meant usually a betterment of the conditions of +the plebs in the towns annexed, and their entering in varying +degrees upon the rights the plebs had won at Rome. She went +forward taking things as they came, and making what arrangements +seemed most feasible in each case. She made no plans in advance; +but muddled trough like an Englishman. She had no Greek or +French turn for thinking things out beforehand; her empire grew, +in the main, like the British, upon a subconscious impulse to +expand. She conquered Italy because she was strong; much +stronger inwardly in spirit than outwardly in arms; and because +(I do but repeat what Mr. Stobart says: the whole picture really +is his) what should she do with her summer holidays, unless go on +a campaign?--and because while she had still citizens without +land to hoe cabbages in, she must look about and provide them +with that prime necessity. All of which amounts to saying that +she began with a habit of empire-winning,--which must have been +created in the past. On her toughness the spirited Gaul broke +as a wave, and fell away. On her narrow unmagnanimity the +chivalrous mountain Samnite bore down, and like foam vanished. +She had none of the spiritual possibilities of the Gaul; but the +Crest-Wave was coming, and the future was with Italy. She had +none of the high-souled chivalry of the Samnite; but she was the +heart of Italy, and the point from which Italy must expand. She +was hard, tough, and based on the soil; and that soil, as it +happened, the laya center,--a sort of fire-fountain from within +and the unseen. You stood on the Seven Hills, and let heaven and +hell conspire together, you _could not_ be defeated. Gauls, +Samnites, Latins,--all that ever attacked her,--were but taking a +house-cloth to dry up a running spring. The Crest-Wave was +coming to Italy; whose vital forces, all centrifugal before, +must now be made to turn and flow towards the center. That was +Rome; and as they would not flow to her of their own good will, +out she must go and gather them in. Long afterwards, when the +Caesars and Augusti of the West left her for Milan and Ravenna, +it was because the Crest-Wave was departing, the forces turning +centrifugal, and Italy breaking to pieces; long afterwards +again, in the eighteen-seventies, when the Crest-Wave was +returning, Italy must flow in centripetally to Rome; no Turin, +no Florence would do. + +So, by 264 B.C., she had conquered Italy. Then, still land-hungry, +she stepped over into Sicily, invited by certain rascals in +Messana, and light-heartedly challenged the Mistress of the +Western Seas. At this point the stream is leaving Balbus's +fields and Ahenobarbus's cattle, and coming to the broad waters, +where the ships of the world ride in. + + + + +XVII. ROME PARVENUE * + + +The Punic War was not forced on Rome. She had no good motive for +it; not even a decent excuse. It was simply that she was +accustomed to do the next thing; and Carthage presented itself +as the next thing to fight,--Sicily, the next thing to be +conquered. The war lasted from 264 to 241; and at the end of it +Rome found herself out of Italy; mistress of Sicily, Sardinia, +and Corsica. The Italian laya center had expanded; Italy had +boiled over. It was just the time when Ts'in at the other end of +the world was conquering China, and the Far Eastern Manvantara +was beginning. Manvantaras do not begin or end anywhere, I +imagine, without some cyclic event marking it in all other parts +of the world. + +--------- +* This lecture, like the preceding one, is based on Mr. J. H. +Stobart's, _The Grandeur that was Rome._ +--------- + +We have heard much talk of how disastrous the result would have +been if Carthage, not Rome, had won. But Carthage was a far and +belated outpost of West Asia and of a manvantara that had ended +over a century before:--there was no question of her winning. +Though we see her only through Roman eyes, we may judge very well +that no possibility of expansion was left in her. There was no +expansive force. She threw out tentacles to suck in wealth and +trade, but was already dead at heart. All the greatness of old +West Asia was concentrated, in her, in two men: Hamilcar Barca +and his son: they shed a certain light and romantic glory over +her, but she was quite unworthy of them. Her prowess at any time +was fitful: where money was to be made, she might fight like a +demon to make it; but she was never a fighting power like Rome. +She won her successes at first because her seat was on the sea, +and the war was naval, and sea-battles were won not by fighting +but by seamanship. If Carthage had won, they say;--but Carthage +could not have won, because the cycles were for Rome. You will +note how that North African rim is tossed between European and +West Asian control, according to which is in the ascendant. Now +that Europe's up, and West Asia down, France, Italy, and England +hold it from Egypt to the Atlantic; and in a few centuries' +time, no doubt it will be quite Europeanized. But West Asia, +early in its last manvantara, flowed out over it from Arabia, +drove out all traces of Europeanism, and made it wholly Asiatic. +Before that, while a European manvantara was in being, it was +European, no less Roman than Italy; and before that again, while +the Crest-Wave was in West Asia, it was West Asian, under Egypt +and Phoenician colonies. As for its own native races, they +belong, I suppose, to the fourth, the Iberian Sub-race; and now +in the days of our fifth Sub-race (the Aryan), seem out of the +running for wielding empires of their own. + +So if Carthage had won then, things would only have been delayed +a little; the course of history would have been much the same. +Rome might have been destroyed by Hannibal; she would have been +rebuilt when Hannibal had departed; then gone on with her +expansion, perhaps in other directions,--and presently turned, +and come on Carthage from elsewhere; or absorbed her quietly, +and let her do the carrying trade of the Mediterranean 'under the +Roman flag' as you might say,--or something of that sort. Rome +eradicated Carthage for the same reason that the Spaniards +eradicated the Moors: because the West Asian tide, to which +Moors and Carthaginians belonged, had ebbed or was ebbing, and +the European tide was flowing high. Hamilcar indeed, and +Hannibal, seem to have been touched by cyclic impulses, and to +have felt that a Spanish Empire might have received the influx +which a West Asian town in Africa could not. But Italy's turn +came before Spain's; and all Hamilcar's haughty heroism, and +Hannibal's magnanimous genius, went for nothing; and Rome, the +admirable and unlovely, that had suffered the Caudine Forks, and +then conquered Samnium and beheaded that noble generous Samnite +Gaius Pontius, conquered in turn the conqueror at Cannae, and did +for his reputation what she had done with the Samnite hero's +person: chopped its head off, and dubbed him in perfect +sincerity 'perfidus Hannibal.' Over that corpse she stood, at +the end of the third century B.C., mistress of Italy and the +Italian islands; with proud Carthage at her feet; and the old +cultured East, that had known of her existence since the time of +Aristotle at least, now keenly aware of her as the strongest +thing in the Mediterranean world. + +Now while she had been a little provincial town in an Italy deep +in pralaya, Numa's religion, what remained of it, had been enough +to keep her life from corruption. Each such impulse from the +heaven-world's, in its degree, an elixiral tincture to sweeten +life and keep it wholesome; some, like Buddhism, being efficient +for long ages and great empires; some only for tiny towns like +early Rome. What we may call the exoteric basis of Numaism +was a ritual of many ceremonies connected with home-life and +agriculture, and designed to keep alive a feeling for the +sacredness of these. It was calculated for its cycle: you could +have given no high metaphysical system to peasant-bandits of +that type;--you could not take the Upanishads to Afghans or +Abyssinians today. But as soon as that cycle was ended, and Rome +was called on to come out into the world, there was need of a new +force and a new sanction. + +Has it occurred to you to wonder why, in that epochal sixth +century B.C., when in so many lands the Messengers of Truth +were turning away from the official Mysteries, and preaching +their Theosophy upon a new plan broadcast among the peoples, +Pythagoras, after wandering the east and west to gather up the +threads of wisdom, should have elected not to return to Greece, +but to settle in Italy and found his Movement there? I suppose +the reason was this: He knew in what direction the cycles should +flow, and that the greatest need of the future ages would be for +a redeemed Italy; he foresaw, or Those who sent him foresaw, +that it was Italy should mold the common life of Europe for a +couple of thousand years. Greece was rising then, chiefly on the +planes of intellect and artistic creation; but Italy was to rise +after a few centuries on planes much more material, and therefore +with a force much more potent and immediate in its effects in +this world. The Age of Greece was nearer to the Mysteries; which +might be trusted to keep at least some knowledge of Truth alive; +the Age of Italy, farther away and on a lower plane, would be in +need of a Religion. So he chose Croton, a Greek city, because if +he had gone straight to the barbarous Italians, he could have +said nothing much at that time,--and hoped that from a living +center there, the light might percolate up through the whole +peninsula, and be ready for Rome when Rome was ready for it. He +left Athens to take care of itself;--much as H. P. Blavatsky +chose New York at first, and not immediately the then world-capitals +Paris and London;--I suppose we may say that Magna Graecia +stood to old Greece in his time as America did to western +Europe forty years ago. Had his Movement succeeded; had it +struck well up into the Italian lands; how different the whole +after-history of Europe might have been! Might?--certainly +would have been! But we know that a revolution at Croton +destroyed, at the end of the sixth century, the Pythagorean +School; after which the hope and messengers of the Movement-- +Aeschylus, Plato--worked in Greece; and that although the +Pythagorean individual Lucanians, Iapygians, and even Samnites-- +that noble Gaius Pontius of the Caudin Forks was himself a +Pythagorean and a pupil of the Pythagorean Archytas,--it was, in +the Teacher's own lifetime, practically broken up and driven out +into Sicily, where those two great Athenians contacted it. We +have seen that it was not effectless; and, what glimmer of it +came down, through Plato, into the Middle Ages. But its main +purpose: to supply nascent Italy with a saving World-Religion; +had been defeated. Of all the Theosophical Movements of the +time, this so far as we know was the only one that failed. +Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, each lasted on as a grand force +for human upliftment; but Pythagoreanism, as an organized +instrument of the Spirit, passed. When Aeschylus made his +protests in Athens, the Center of the Movement to which he +belonged had already been smashed. Plato did marvels; but the +cycle had gone by and gone down, and it was too late for him to +attempt that which Pythagoras had failed to accomplish. + +So Rome, when she needed it most, lacked divine guidance; so +drifted out on to the high seas of history pilotless and +rudderless;--so _Weltpolitik_ only corrupted and vulgarized her. +She had no Blue Pearl of Laotse to render her immortal; no +Confucian Doctrine of the Mean to keep her sober and straight; +and hence it came that, though later a new start was made, and +great men arose, once, twice, three times, to do their best for +her, she fell to pieces at last, a Humpty-Dumpty that all the +king's horses and all the king's men could never reweld into +one;--and the place she should have filled in history as Unifier +of Europe was only filled perfunctorily and for a time; and her +great duty was never rightly done. _Hinc lacrimae aetatum_--hence +the darkness and miseries of the Christian Era! + +Take your stand here, at the end of the Punic War, on the brink +of the Age of Rome; and you feel at once how fearfully things +have gone down since you stood, with Plato, looking back +over the Age of Grecce. There is nothing left now of the +high possibilities of artistic creation. Of the breath of +spirituality that still remained in the world then, now you can +find hardly a trace. A Cicero presently, for a Socrates of old; +it is enough to tell you how the world has fallen. Some fall, I +suppose, was implied in the cycles; still Rome might have gone +to her more material duties with clean heart, mind, and hands; +she might have built a structure, as Ts'in Shi Hwangti and Han +Wuti did, to endure. It would not be fair to compare the Age of +Han with the Augustan; the morning glory of the East Asian, with +the late afternoon of the European manvantara; and yet we cannot +but see, if we look at both dispassionately and with a decent +amount of knowledge, how beneficently, the Eastern Teachers had +affected their peoples, and what a dire thing it was for Europe +that the work of the Western Teacher had failed. Chow China and +Republican Rome fell to pieces in much the same way: in a long +orgy of wars and ruin;--but the rough barbarian who rebuilt China +found bricks to his hand far better than he knew he was using,-- +material with a true worth and vitality of its own,--a race with +elements of redemption in its heredity; whereas the great +statesman, the really Great Soul who rebuilt Rome, had to do it, +if the truth should be told, of materials little better than +stubble and rottenness. Roman life, when Augustus came to work +with it for his medium, was fearfully infected with corruption; +one would have said that no power human or divine could have +saved it. That he did with it as much as he did, is one of the +standing wonders of time. + +But now back to the place where we left Rome: in 200 B.C., at the +end of the Carthaginian War. No more now of Farmer Balbus's +fields; no more of the cows of Ahenobarbus; Dolabella's rod and +line, and his fish-stories, shall not serve us further. It is +the navigable river now; on which we must sail down and out on +to the sea. + +Already the little Italian city is being courted by fabulously +rich Egypt, the doyen of culture since Athens declined; and soon +she is to be driven by forces outside her control into conquest +of all the old seats of Mediterranean civilization;--and withal +she is utterly unfitted for the task in any spiritual or cultural +sense: she is still little more than the same narrow little +provincial half-barbarous Rome she has always been. No grand +conceptions have been nourished in her by a literature of her own +with high lights couched in the Grand-Manner; no olden Homer has +sung to her, with magnificent roll of hexameters to set the wings +of her soul into magnificent motion. Beyond floating folk +ballads she has had no literature at all; though latterly, she +is trying to supply the place of one with a few slave-made +translations from the Greek, and a few imitations of the decadent +Greek comedy of Alexandria;--also there has been a poet Naevius, +whom--she found altogether too independent to suit her tastes; +and a Father Ennius,--uncouth old bone of her bone, (though he +too Greek by race) who is struggling to mold her tough inflexible +provincial dialect into Greek meter of sorts,--and thereby doing +a real service for poets to come. And there is a Cato the +Censor, writing prose; Cato, typical of Roman breadth of view; +with, for the sum of a truly national political wisdom, yelping +at Rome continually that fool's jingo cry of his:--your finest +market in the western seas, your richest potential commercial +asset, must be destroyed. There you have the high old Roman +conception of _Weltpolitik;_ whereby we may understand how +little fitted Rome was for _Weltpolitik_ at all; how hoeing +cabbages and making summer campaigns,--as Mr. Stobart says, with +a commissariat put up for each soldier in a lunch-bag by his +wife,--were still her metier,--the Italian soil, whether in +actual or only potential possession--held already, or by the +grace of God soon to be stolen--still her inspiration. And this +Italian soil she was now about to leave forever. + +The forces that led her to world-conquest were twofold, inner and +outer. The inner one was the summer campaign habit, formed +during several centuries; and the fact that she could form no +conception of life that did not include it: the impulse to +material expansion was deep in her soul, and ineradicable. She +might have followed it, perhaps, north and westward; finished +with Spain; gone up into Gaul (though in Gaul she might have +found, even at that time, possibly, an unmanageable strength); +she might even have carried her own ultimite salvation up into +Germany. But we have seen Darius flow victorious eastward +towards India, but unsuccessful when he tried the passes of the +west; and Alexander follow him in the same path, and not turn +westward at all. So you may say an eastward habit had been +formed, and inner-channels were worn for conquest in that +direction, but none in the other. Besides,--and this was the +outer of the two forces,--the East was crying out to Rome. There +were pirates on the other side of the Adriatic; and for the +safety of her own eastern littoral she had been dealing with +them, as with Spain, during and before the terrible Hannibalic +time. To sit securely at home she must hold the Illyrian coast: +and, she thought, or events proved it to her, to hold that coast +safely, she must go conquering inland. Then again Egypt had +courted her alliance, for regions. The Ptolemy of the time was a +boy; and Philip of Macedon ind Antiochus of Syria had hatched a +plan to carve up his juicy realm for their own most delectable +feasting. It was the very year after peace--to call it that--had +been forced on prostrate Carthage; and you might think an +exhausted Rome would have welcomed a breathing time, even at the +expense of losing her annual outing. And so indeed the people +were inclined to do. But the summer was icumen in; and +what were consuls and Senate for? Should they be as these +irresponsibles of the comitia? Should they fail to look about +them and take thought?--As if someone should offer you a cottage +(with all modern appointments) by the seaside, or farmhouse among +the mountains, free of rent for July and August, here were all +the respectabilities of the East cooingly inviting Rome to spend +her summer with them; they to provide all accessories for a +really enjoyable time. + +In this way eastern politics assorted themselves,--thus was the +Levant divided: on the one hand you had the traditional seats +of militariasm; on the other, famous names--and the heirs to the +glory (a good deal tarnished now) that once had been Greece. The +former were Macedon and Syria, or Macedon with Syria in the +background; what better could you ask that a good square se-to +with these? Oh, one at a time; that was the fine old Roman way; +_divide et impera;_ Mecedon now, and, a-grace of God, Syria--But +let be; we are talking of this summer; for next, the Lord +(painted bright vermilion) it may be hoped will provide. So for +the present Philip of Mecedon figures as the desired enemy.--As +to the other side, the famous names to be our allies, they are: +Egypt, chief seat in recent centuries of culture and literature, +and incidentally the Golconda of the time, endowed past dreaming +of with commerce, wealth, and industries; and Rhodes, rich and +republican, and learned too; and the sacred name of Athens; and +Pergamum in Asia, cultured Attalus's kingdom. Are we not to ally +ourselves with the arts and humanities, with old fame, with the +most precious of traditions?--For Rome, it must be said, was not +all Catos: there was something in her by this time that could +thrill to the name of Greece. And Philip had been in league with +Hannibal, though truly he had left him shamefully unsupported. +_Philip had been in league with Hannibal--with Hannibal!_--Why, +it was a glorious unsought fight, such as only fortune's favored +soldiers might attain. The comitia vote against it? They say +Hannibal has made them somewhat tired?--Nonsense! let 'em vote +again! let 'em vote again!--They do so; assured pithily that it +is only a question whether we fight Philip in Macedon, or he us +on our own Italian soil. Of course, if you put it that way, it +is Hobson's choice: the voting goes all right this time. So we +are embarked on the great Eastern Adventure; and Flamininus sets +out for Greece. + +Now your simple savage is often a gentleman. I don't mean your +Congo Quashi or Borria Bungalee from the back-country blocks of +New South Wales--our Roman bore no resemblance to them; but say +your Morocco kaid, your desert chieftain from Tunis or Algiers. +Though for long generations he has lost his old-time civilized +attainments, he retains in full his manners, his native dignity, +his wild Saharan grace. But banish him to Paris, and see what +happens. He buys up automobiles,--and poodles,--and astrolabes, +--and patent-leather boots,--and a number of other things he were +much better without. He exchanges his soul for a pass into the +_demi-monde;_ and year by year sees him further sunk into depths +of vulgarism. This is precisely what in a few generations +happened to Rome. + +But meanwhile she was at an apex; touched by some few luminous +ideals here and there, and producing some few great gentlemen. +Unprovincial egos; like Scipio Africanus had been edging their +way into Roman incarnation; they were swallows of a still +far-off summer; they stood for Hellenization, and the modification +of Roman rudeness with a little imported culture. Rome had +conquered Magna Graccia, and had seen something there; had felt +a want in herself, and brought in slaves like Livius Andronicus +to supply it. Flamininus himself was really a very great +gentleman: a patrician, type of the best men there were in Rome. +He went to Greece thrilled with generous feelings, as to a sacred +land. When he restored to the Greek cities their freedom,-- +handed them back to their own uses and devices, after freeing +them from Philip,--it was with an infinite pride and a high +simplicity. We hear of him overcome in his speech to their +representatives on that occasion, and stopping to control the +lump in his throat: conqueror and master of the whole peninsula +and the islands, he was filled with reverence, as a great +simple-hearted gentleman might be, for the ancient fame and genius +of the peoples at his feet. He and his officers were proud to be +admitted to the Games and initiated at Eleusis. I think this is +the finest chapter in early Roman history. There is the +simplicity, pride, and generosity of the Roman gentleman, +confronted with a culture he was able to admire, but conscious he +did not possess;--and on the other hand the fine flow of Greek +gratitude to the liberator of Greece, in whom the Greeks +recognised that of old time, and which had been so rare in their +own life. At this moment Rome blossomed: a beautiful bloom, +we may say. + +But it was a fateful moment for her, too. The Greeks had long +lost what capacity they had ever had for stable politics. +Flamininus might hand them back their liberties with the utmost +genuineness of heart; but they were not in a condition to use +the gift. Rome soon found that she had no choice but to annex +them, one way or another. They were her proteges; and Antiochus +attacked them;--so then Antiochus had to be fought and conquered. +That fool had great Hannibal with him, and resources with which +Hannibal might have crushed Rome; but it did not suit Antiochus +that the glory should be Hannibal's. Then presently Attalus +bequeathed Pergamum to the Senate; which involved Rome in Asia +Minor. So step by step she was compelled to conquer the East. + +Now there was a far greater disparity of civilization between +Rome and this Hellenistic Orient and half-orientalized Greece, +than appeared afterwards between the Romans and Spaniards and +Gauls. Spain, very soon after Augustus completed its conquest, +was producing most of the brightest minds in Latin literature: +the influx of important egos had hardly passed from Italy before +it began to appear in Spain. Had not Rome become the world +metropolis, capable of attracting to herself all elements of +greatness from every part of the Mediterranean world, we should +think of the first century A.D., as a great Spanish Age. Gaul, +too, within a couple of generations of Ceasar's devastating +exploits there, had become another Egypt for wealth and +industries. The grandson's of the Vercingetorixes and Dumnorixes +were living more splendidly, and as culturedly, in larger and +better villas than the patricians of Italy; as Ferrero shows. +We may judge, too, that there was a like quick rise of manvantaric +conditions in Britain after the Claudian conquest: we have +news of Agricola's speaking of the "labored studies of the +Gauls," as if that people were then famed for learning,--to +which, he said, he preferred the "quick wits and natural genius +of the Britons." And here I may mention that, even before the +conquest of Gaul, Caesar's own tutor was a man of that nation, a +master of Greek and Latin learning;--but try to imagine a Roman +tutoring Epaminondas or Pelopidas! So we may gather that a touch +from Italy--by that time highly cultured,--was enough to light up +those Celtic countries at once; and infer from that that no such +long pralayic conditions had obtained in them as had obtained in +Italy during the centuries preceding the Punic Wars. Spain at +thirteen decades before Scipio, Gaul at as much before Caesar, +Britain at as much before Caesar or Claudius, may well have +been strong and cultured countries: because you wake quickly +after the thirteen decade period of rest, but slowly after +the long pralayas. + +Roman Italy woke very slowly at the touch of Greece; and woke, +not like Spain and Gaul afterwards at Rome's touch, to culture; +not to learning or artistic fertility. What happened was what +always does happen when a really inferior civilization comes +in contact with a really superior one. Rome did not become +civilized in any decent sense: she simply forwent Roman virtues +and replaced them with Greek vices; and made of these, not the +vices of a degenerate culture, but the piggishness of cultureless +boors.--Behold her Gadarene stations, after Flamininus's return:-- + +Millions of money, in indemnities, loot, and what not,--in bribes +before very long,--are flowing in to her. Where not so long +since she was doing all her business with stamped lumps of bronze +or copper, a pound or so in weight, in lieu of coinage, nor +feeling the need of anything more handy,--now she is receiving +yearly, monthly, amounts to be reckoned in millions sterling; +and has no more good notion what to do with them than ever she +had of old. If the egos (of Crest-Wave standing) had come in as +quickly as did the shekels, things might have gone manageably; +but they did not by any means. Her great misfortune was to enter +the world-currents only on the material plane; to find her poor +little peasant-bandit-souled self mistress of the world and its +money, and still provincial to the core and with no ideas of +bigness that were not of the earth earthy; with nothing whatever +that was both spiritual and Roman to thrill to life the higher +side of her;--a multimillionaire that could hardly read or write, +and knew no means of spending her money that was not essentially +vulgar. She had given up her sole means of salvation--which was +hoeing cabbages; her slaves did all that for her now;--and so +was at a loss for employment; and Satan found plenty of mischief +for her idle hands to do. There were huge all-day-long banquets, +where you took your emetic from time to time to keep you going. +There were slaves,--armies of them; to have no more than a dozen +personal attendants was poverty. There were slaves from the East +to minister to your vices; some might cost as much as five +thousand dollars; and there were dirt-cheap Sardinians and +'barbarians' of all sorts to run your estates and farms. All the +work of Italy was done by slave labor; and the city swarmed with +an immense slave population; the country slaves with enough of +manhood left in them to rise and butcher and torture their +masters when they could; the city slaves, one would say, in no +condition to keep the semblance of a soul in them at all,--living +dead. For the most part both were shamefully treated; Cato,-- +high old Republican Cato, type of the free and nobly simple +Roman--used to see personally to the scourging of his slaves +daily after dinner, as a help to his digestion.--So the rich +wasted their money and their lives. They bought estates galore, +and built villas on them; Cicero had--was it eighteen?-- +country-houses. They bought up Greek art-treasures, of which +they had no appreciation whatever,--and which therefore only helped +to vulgarize them. Such things were costly, and thought highly of +in Greece; so Rome would have them for her money, and have them +_en masse._ Mummius brought over a shipload; and solemnly +warned his sailors that they would have to replace any they might +break or lose. The originals, or such substitutes as the sailors +might supply,--it was all one to him. As to literature,--well, we +have seen how it began with translations made by a Greek slave, +Livius Andronicus, who put certain Hellenistic comedies and the +Odyssey into Latin ballad meters; the kind of verse you would +expect from a slave ordered promiscuously by his master to get +busy and do it. Then came Father Ennius; and here I shall +diverge a little to try to show you what (as I think) really +happened to the soul of Rome. + +It was a queer set-out, this job that Ennius attempted,--of +making a real Roman poem, an epic of Roman history. Between old +Latin and Greek there was the same kind of difference as between +French and English: one fundamental in the rhythm of the +languages. I am giving my own explanation of a very puzzling +problem; and needless to say, it may be wrong. The ancient +Roman ballads were in what is called Saturnian meter, which +depends on stress and accent; it is not unlike the meter of the +Scotch and English ballads. That means that old Latin was spoken +like English is, with syllabic accent. But Greek was not. In +that, what counted, what made the meters, was tone and quantity. +Now we have that in English too; but it is a subtler and more +occult influence in poetry than accent is. In English, the +rhythm of a line of verse depends on the stresses; but where +there is more than rhythm,--where there is music,--quantity is a +very important factor. For example, in the line + + "That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold," + +you can hear how the sound is held up on the word _take,_ because +the _k_ is followed by the _t_ in _to;_ and what a wonderful +musical effect is given thereby to the line. All the swing and +lilt and rhythm of Greek poetry came in that way; there were no +stresses, no syllabic accents; the accents we see written were +to denote the tones the syllables should be--shall I say _sung +on?_ Now French is an example of a language without stresses; +you know how each syllable falls evenly, all taking an unvarying +amount of time to enounce. I imagine the basic principle of +Greek was the same; only that you had to add to the syllables a +length of sound where two consonants combining after a vowel +retarded the flow of tone, as in _take to_ in the line quoted +just now. + +Now if you try to write a hexameter in English on the Greek +principle, you get something without the least likeness either to +a Greek hexameter or to music; because the language is one of +stresses, not, primarily, of tones. + + "This is the forest pimeval; the murmuring pines and +the hemlocks." + +will not do at all; there is no Greek spondee in it but--_rest +prime_--; and Longfellow would have been surprised if you had +accused that of spondeeism. What you would get would be +something like these--I forget who was responsible for them: + + "Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent, + After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order." + +Lines like these could never be poetry; poetry could never be +couched in lines like these;--simply because poetry is an +arrangement of words upon a frame-work of music: the poet has to +hear the music within before his words can drop naturally into +the places in accordance with it. You could not imitate a French +line in English, because each of the syllables would have to be +equally stressed; you could not imitate an English line in +French, because in that language there are none of the stresses +on which an English line depends for its rhythm. + +But when I read Chaucer I am forced to the conclusion that what +he tried to do was precisely that: to imitate French music; to +write English without regard to syllabic accent. The English +lyrics of his time and earlier depend on the principle of accent: + + Sum'--mer is'--i-cum'--en in, + Loud'--e sing'--cuccu'; + +--but time and again in Chaucer's lines we find that if we allow +the words their natural English stresses, we break up the music +altogether; whereas if we read them like French, without +syllabic accent, they make a very reasonable music indeed. Now +French had been in England the language of court and culture; it +was still spoken in polite circles at Stratforde-at-le-Bowe; and +Chaucer was a courtier, Anglo-French, not Anglo-Saxon; and he +had gone to France for his first models, and had translated a +great French poem; and Anglo-Saxon verse-methods were hardly +usable any longer. So it may well have appeared to him that +serious poetry was naturally French in meter and method. There +was no model for what he wanted to do in English; the English +five-iambic line had not been invented, and only the popular +lyricists, of the proletariat, sang in stresses. And anyhow, as +the upper classes, to which he belonged more or less, were only +growing out of French into English, very likely they pronounced +their English with a good deal of French accent. + +Now it seems to me that something of the same kind, with a +difference, is what happened with Ennius. You are to understand +him as, though Greek by birth, _Romanior ipsis Romanis:_ Greek +body, but ultra-Roman ego. One may see the like thing happen +with one's own eyes at any time: men European-born, who are +quite the extremest Americans. In his case, the spark of his +Greek heredity set alight the Roman conflagration of his nature. +He was born in Calabria, a Roman subject, in 239; and had fought +for Rome before Cato, then quaestor, brought him in his train +from Sardinia in 204. + +A glance at the cycles, and a measuring-up of things with our +thirteen-decade yardstick, will suggest the importance of the +time he lived in. The _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ gives A.D. 42 +as the date for the end of the golden Age of Latin Literature. +Its first great names are those of Cicero, Caesar, and Lucretius. +Thirteen decades before 42 A.D., or in 88 B.C., these three were +respectively eighteen, fourteen, and eight years old; so we may +fairly call that Golden Age thirteen decades long, and beginning +in 88. Thirteen decades back from that bring us to 218; and as +much more from that, to 348. You will remember 348 as the year +of the death of Plato, which we took as marking the end of the +Golden Age of Greek. In 218 Ennius was twenty-one. He was the +Father of Latin Poetry; as Cato the Censor, seven years his +junior, was the Father of Latin Prose. So you see, he came right +upon a Greek cycle; right upon the dawn of what should have been +a new Greek day, with the night of Hellenisticism in between. +And he took, how shall I put it?--the forces of that new day, and +transmuted them, in himself as crucible, from Greek to Roman... A +sort of Channel through which the impulse was deflected from +Greek to Latin... + +I think that, thtilled with a patriotism the keener-edged because +it was acquired, he went to work in this way:--He was going to +make one of these long poems, like those (inferior) Greek fellows +had; and he was going to make it in Latin. (I do not know which +was his native language, or which tradition he grew up in.) He +didn't see why we Romans should not have our ancient greatness +sung in epic; weren't we as good as Homer's people, anyhow? +Certainly we were; and a deal better! Well, of course there was +our old Saturnian meter; but that wasn't the kind of way serious +poetry was written. Serious poetry was written in hexameters. If +Greek was his native tongue, he may have spoken Latin all his +life, of course, with a Greek accent; and the fact that he was +sitting down to make up his 'poem' in a meter which no native-born +Latin speaker could hear as a meter at all, may have been +something of which he was profoundly unconscious. But that is +what he did. He ignored (mostly) the stresses and accents +natural to Latin, and with sweet naivete made a composition that +would have scanned if it had been Greek, and that you could make +scan by reading with a Greek rhythm or accent. The Romans +accepted it. That perhaps is to say, that he had no conception +at all of poetry as words framed upon an inner music. I think he +was capable of it; that most Romans of the time, supposing they +had had the conviction of poethood, would have been capable of +it. It was the kind of people they were. + +But that was not all there was to Ennius, by any means. A +poet-soul had incarnated there; he had the root of the matter +in him; it was only the racial vehicle that was funny, as you +may say. He was filled with a high conception of the stern +grandeur Romans admired; and somehow or other, his lines +carry the impress of that grandeur at times: there is inspiration +in them. + +And now comes the point I have fetched all this compass to arrive +at. By Spenser's time, or earlier, in England, all traces of +Chaucer's French accent had gone; the language and the poetry +had developed on lines of their own, as true expressions of the +national soul. But in Rome, not so. Two centuries later great +Roman poetry was being written: a major poet was on the scenes, +--Virgil. He, I am certain, wrote with genuine music and +inspiration. We have accounts of his reading of his own poems; +how he was carried along by the music, chanting the lines in a +grand voice that thrilled all who heard. He chanted, not spoke, +them; poets always do. They formed themselves, grew in his +mind, to a natural music already heard there, and existent before +the words arose and took shape to it. That music is the creative +force at work, the whirr of the loom of the Eternal; it is the +golden-snooded Muses at song. And therefore he was not, like +Ennius, making up his lines on an artificial foreign plan; to my +mind that is unthinkable;--he was writing in the Latin spoken by +the cultured; in Latin as all cultured Romans spoke it. But, +_mirabile dictu,_ it was Latin as Ennius had composed it: he was +writing in Ennius' meter. I can only understand that Greek had +so swamped the Latin soul, that for a century or more cultured +Latin had been spoken in quantity, not in accent; in the Greek +manner, and with the Greek rhythm. Ennius had come to be +appreciable as meter and music to Roman ears; which he certainly +could not have been in his own day. + +So we may say that there is in a sense no Roman literature at +all. Nothing grew out of the old Saturnian ballad-meter,--except +perhaps Catullus, who certainly had no high inspiring impersonal +song to sing. The Roman soul never grew up, never learned to +express itself in its own way; before it had had time to do so, +the Greek impulse that should have quickened it, swamped it. You +may think of Japan, swamped by Chinese culture in the sixth +century A.D., as a parallel case; but no; there Buddhism, under +real spiritual Teachers, came in at the same time, and fostered +all that was noblest in the Japanese soul, so that the result was +fair and splendid. A more cognate case is that of the Turks, who +suffered through suddenly conquering Persia while they were still +barbarous, and taking on, outwardly, Persian culture wholesale; +Turkish and Latin literature are perhaps on a par for originality. +But if the Greek impulse had touched and wakened Rome under +the aegis of Pythagoreanism,--Rome might have become, possibly, +as fine a thing as Japan. True, the Crest-Wave had to roll +in to Rome presently, and to raise up a great literature +there. But whose is the greatest name in it? A Gaul's, who +imitated Greek models. There is something artificial in the +combination; and you guess that whatever most splendid effort +may be here, the result cannot be supreme. The greatest name in +Latin prose, too,--Livy's--was that of a Gaul. + +And herefrom we may gather what mingling of forces is needed to +produce the great ages and results in literature. You have a +country; a tract of earth with the Earth-breath playing up +through the soil of it; you have the components or elements of a +race mixed together on that soil, and molded by that play of the +Earth-breath into homogeneity, and among them, from smallest +beginnings in folk-verse, the body of a literature must grow up. +Then in due season it must be quickened: on the outer plane by +an impulse from abroad,--intercourse with allies, or resistance +to an invader; and on the inner, by an inrush of Crest-Wave +egos. There must be that foreign torch applied,--that spark of +inter-nationalism; and there must be the entry of the vanguard +of the Host of Souls with its great captains and marshals, +bringing with them, to exhibit once more in this world, the loot +of many lands and ages and old incarnations; which thing they +shall do through a sudden efflorescence of the literature that +has grown up slowly to the point of being ready for them. Such +natural growth happened in Greece, in China; in our own cycle, +in France, Italy, England: where the trees of the nation +literatures received buddings and manurings from abroad, but +produced always their own natural national fruit:--Shakespeare +was your true English apple, grown from the Chaucer stock; +although in him flower for juices the sweetness and elixir of all +the world and the ancient ages. But in Rome, before the stock +was more than a tiny seedling, a great branch of Greece was +grafted on it,--and a degenerate Greece at that--and now we do +not know even what kind of fruit-tree that Roman stock should +have grown to be. + +How, then, did this submersion and obliteration of the Roman soul +come to pass? It is not difficult to guess. Greek meant +culture: if you wanted culture you learnt Greek. All education +was in Greek hands. The Greek master spoke Latin to his boys; +no doubt with a Greek accent. So cultured speech, cultured +Latin, came to mean Latin without its syllabic stresses; spoken, +as nearly as might be, with Greek evenness and quantity.--As if +French should so submerge us, that we spoke our United States +dapping out syllable by syllable like Frenchmen. But it is a +fearful thing for a nation to forgo the rhythm evolved under the +stress of its own Soul,--especially when what it takes on instead +is the degenerate leavings of another: Alexandria, not Athens. +This Rome did. She gained the world, and lost her own soul; and +the exchange profited her as little as you might expect. + +Imitation of culture is often the last touch that makes the +parvenu unbearable; it was so in Rome. One likes better in some +ways Cato's stult old Roman attitude: who scorned Greek all his +life for sheer foppery, while he knew of nothing better written +in it than such trash as poetry and philosophy; but at eighty +came on a Greek treatise on manure and straightway learned the +language that he might read and enjoy something profitable and +thoroughly Roman in spirit.--Greek artists flocked to Rome; and +doubtless the more fifth-rate they were the better a thing they +made of it: but it was risky for good men to rely on Roman +appreciations. Two flute-players are contending at a concert; +Greek and perhaps rather good. Their music is soon drowned in +catcalls: What the dickens do we Romans want with such _footling +tootlings?_ Then the presiding magistrate has an idea. He calls +on them to quit that fooler and get down to business:--Give us +our money's worth, condemn you to it, ye naughty knaves: +_fight!_--And fight they must, poor things, while the audience, +that but now was bored to death, howls with rapture. + +So Rome passed away. Where now is the simple soul who, while +his feet were on his native soil and he asked nothing better +than to hoe his cabbages and turn out yearly for patriotic +throat-cuttings, was reputable--nay, respect-worthy,--and above +all, not a little picturesque? Alas! he is no more.--You remember +Kelly,--lovable Kelly, who in his youth, trotting the swate ould +bogs of Cohhacht, heard poetry in every sigh of the wind,--saw +the hosts of the Danaan Sidhe riding their flamey steeds +through the twilight,--listened, by the cabin peat-fire in +the evenings, to tales of Finn MacCool and Cuculain and the +ancient heroes and Gods of Ireland?--Behold this very Kelly +now!--What! is this he?--this raucous, pushing, red-haired, +huge-handed, green-necktied vulgarian who has made his pile +bricklaying in Chicago;--this ward-politician; this--Well, +well; _Sic transit gloria mundi!_ And the Roman cad of the +second century B.C. was worse than a thousand Kellys. He +had learned vice from past-masters in the Levant; and added +to their lessons a native brutality of his own. His feet +were no longer on the Italian soil; _that_ was nothing sacred +to him now. His moral went as his power grew. His old tough +political straightforwardness withered at the touch of Levantine +trickery; his subjects could no longer expect a square deal +from him. He sent out his gilded youth to govern the provinces, +which they simply fleeced and robbed shamelessly; worse +than Athens of old, and by much. The old predatory instinct +was there still: Hellenisticism had supplied no civilizing +influence to modify that. But it was there minus whatever +of manliness and decency had once gone with it. + +Karma travels by subtle and manifold links from the moral cause +to the physical effect. There are historians who will prove to +you that the ruin of Rome came of economic causes: which were, +in fact, merely some of the channels through which Karma flowed. +They were there, of course; but we need not enlarge on them too +much. The secret of it all is this: a people without the +Balance of the Faculties, without the saving doctrine of the +Mean, with but one side of their character developed, was called +by cyclic law, while still semi-barbarian, to assume huge +responsibilities in the world. Their qualities were not equal to +the task. The sense of the Beautiful, their feeling for Art and +Poetry, had not grown up with their mateial strength. Why should +it? some may ask; are not strength and moral enough?--No; they +are not: because it is only the Balance which can keep you on +the right path; strength without the beauty sense,--yes, even +fortitude, strength of will,--turns at the touch of quickening +time and new and vaster conditions, into gaucherie, disproportion, +brutality; ay, it is not strength:--the saving quality of +strength, morale, dribbles out and away from it: only the +Balance is true strength. The empires that were founded upon +uncompassion, through they swept the world in a decade, within a +poor century or so were themselves swept away. Rome, because she +was only strong, was weak; her virtues found no exit into life +except in things military; the most material plane, the farthest +from the Spirit. Her people were not called, like the Huns +or Mongols, to be a destroyer race: the Law designed them +for builders. But to build you must have the Balance, the +proportionate development spiritual, moral, mental, and physical: +it is the one foundation. Rome's grand assets at the start were +a sense of duty, a natural turn for law and order: grand assets +indeed, if the rest of the nature be not neglected or atrophied. +In Rome it was, largely. + +To be strong-willed and devoted to duty, and without compassion: +--that means that you are in train to grow a gigantic selfhood, +which Nature abhors; emptiness of compassion is the vacuum +nature most abhors. You see a strong man with his ambitions: +scorning vices, scorning weakness; scorning too, and lashing +with his scorn, the weak and vicious; bending men to his will +and purposes. Prophesy direst sorrow for that man! Nature will +not be content that he shall travel his chosen path till +a master of selfishness and a great scourge for mankind has +been evolved in him. She will give him rope; let him multiply +his wrong-doings; because, paradoxically, in wrong-doing is +its own punishment and cure. His selfishness sinks by its own weight +to the lowest levels; prophesy for him that in a near life he shall +be the slave of his body and passions, yet keeping the old desire +to excel;--that common vice shall bring him down to the level of +those he scorned, while yet he forgets not the mountain-tops +he believed his place of old. Then he shall be scourged with +self-contempt, the bitterest of tortures; and the quick natural +punishments of indulgence shall be busy with him, snake-locked +Erinyes with whips of wire. In that horrible school, struggling +to rise from it, he shall suffer all that a human being can in +ignominy, sorrow and shame;--and at last shall count it all well +worth the while, if it has but taught him That which is no +atribute, but Alaya's self,--Compassion. So Karma has its +ministrants within ourselves; and the dreadful tyrants within +are to be disthroned by working and living, not for self, but for +man. This is why Brotherhood is the doctrine and practice that +could put a stop to the awful degeneratioin of mankind. + +Rome was strong without compassion; so her strength led her on +to conquests, and her conquests to vices, and her vices to +hideous ruin and combustion. She loved her _gravitas,_--which +implied great things;--but contemned the Beautiful; and so, when +a knowledge of the Beautiful would have gone far to save her, by +maintaining in her a sense of proportion and the fitness of +things--she lost her morale and became utterly vulgarian. But +think of China, taking it as a matter of course that music was an +essential part of government; or of France, with her _Ministre +des Beaux Arts_ in every cabinet. Perhaps; these two, of all +historical nations, have made the greatest achievements; for you +must say that neither India nor Greece was a nation.--As for +Rome, with all her initial grandeur, it would be hard to find +another nation of her standing that made such an awful mess of it +as she did; one refers, of course, to Republican Rome; when +Augustus had had his way with her, it was another matter. + +She took the Gadarene slope at a hand-gallop; and there you have +her history during the second century B.C. Not till near the end +of that century did the egos of the Crest-Wave begin to come in +in any numbers. From the dawn of the last quarter, there or +thereabouts, all was an ever-growing rout and riot; the hideous +toppling of the herd over the cliff-edge. It was a time of wars +civil and the reverse; of huge bloody conscriptions and +massacre; reforms and demagogism and murder of the Gracchi:-- +Marius and Sulla cat and dog;--the original Spartican movement, +that wrecked Italy and ended with six thousand crucifixions along +the road to Capua;--ended so, and not with a slave conquest +and wiping-out of Rome, simply because Spartacus's revolted +slave-army was even less disciplined than the legions that +Beast-Crassus decimated into a kind of order and finally conquered +them with. It was decade after decade of brutal devasting wars, +--wars chronic and incurable, you would say: the untimely wreck +and ruin of the world. + +It is a strange gallery of portraits that comes down to us from +this time: man after notable man arising without the qualities +that could save Rome. Here are a few of the likenesses, as they +are given Dr. Stobart: there were the Gracchi, with so much that +was fine in them, but a ruining dash of the demagog,--an idea +that socialism could accomplish anything real;--and no wisdom to +see through to ultimite causes. There was Marius, simple peasant +with huge military genius: a wolf of a soldier and foolish lamb +of a politician; a law-maker who, captured by the insinuations +and flatteries of the opposite side, swears to obey his own laws +"so far as they may be legal." There was Sulla, of the class +of men to which Alcibiades and Alexander belonged, but an +inferior specimen of the class and unscrupulous rip, and a brave +successful commander; personally beautiful, till his way of +living made his face "like a mulberry sprinkled with flour";-- +with many elements of greatness always negatived by sudden +fatuities; much of genius, more of fool, and most of rake-helly +demirep; highly cultured, and plunderer of Athens and Delphi; +great general, who maintained his hold on his troops by unlimited +tolerance of undiscipline. There was Crassus the millionaire, +and all his millions won by cheatery and ugly methods; the man +with the slave fire-brigade, with which he made a pretty thing +out of looting at fires. There was Cicero, with many noble and +Roman qualities and a large foolish vanity: thundering orator +with more than a _soupcon_ of the vaudeville favorite in him: a +Hamlet who hardly showed his real fineness until he came to die. + +And there was Pompey;--real honesty in Pompey, perhaps the one +true-hearted gentleman of the age: a man of morale, and a +great soldier,--who might have done something if his general +intelligence had been as great as his military genius and his +sense of honor:--surely Pompey was the best of the lot of them; +only the cursed spite was that the world was out of joint, and it +needed something more than a fine soldier and gentleman to set it +right.--And then Caesar--could he not do it? Caesar, the +Superman,--the brilliant all-round genius at last,--the man of +scandalous life--scandalous even in that cesspool Rome,--the +epileptic who dreamed of world-dominion,--the conqueror of Gaul, +says H.P. Blavatsky, because in Gaul alone the Sacred Mysteries +survived in their integrity, and it was his business, on behalf +of the dark forces against mankind, to quench their life and +light for ever;--could not this Caesar do it? No; he had the +genius; but not that little quality which all greatest +personalities,--all who have not passed beyond the limits of +personality: tact, impersonality, the power that the disciple +shall covet, to make himself as nothing in the eyes of men:-- +and because he lacked that for armor, there were knives +sharpened which should reach his heart before long.--And then, +in literature, two figures mentionable: Lucretius, thinker and +philosopher in poetry: a high Roman type, and a kind of +materialist, and a kind of God's warrior, and a suicide. And +Catullus: no noble type; neither Roman nor Greek, but Italian +perhaps; singing in the old Saturnian meters with a real lyrical +fervor, but with nothing better to sing than his loves.--And +then, in politics again, Brutus: type, in sentimental history of +the Republican School, of the high old roman and republican +virtues; Brutus of the "blood-bright splendor," the tyrant-slayer +and Roman Harmodios-Aristogeiton; the adored of philosophic +French liberty-equality-fraternity adorers; Shakespeare's +"noblest Roman of them all";--O how featly Cassius might +have answered, when Brutus accused him of the "itching palm," +if he had only been keeping _au fait_ with the newspapers +through the preceding years! _"Et tu, Brute,"_ I hear him say, +quoting words that should have reminded his dear friend of the +sacrd ties of friendship,-- + + "Art thou the man will rate thy Cassius thus? + This is the most unkindest cut of all; + For truly I have filched a coin or two:-- + Have been, say, _thrifty;_ gathered here and there + _Pickings,_ we'll call them; but, my Brutus, thou-- + Didst thou not shut the senators of Rhodes + (I think 'twas Rhodes) up in their senate-house, + And keep them there unfoddered day by day. + Until starvation forced them to disgorge + All of their million to thee? Didst not thou--" + +Brutus is much too philosophical, much to studious, to listen +to qualities of that kind, and cuts the conversation short right +there. Cassius was right: that about starving the senators of +his province that surrendered their wealth was precisely what our +Brutus did.--Then there was Anthony, the rough brave soldier,--a +kind of man of the unfittest when the giants Pompey and Caesar +had been in; Anthony, master of Rome for awhile,--and truly, God +knows Rome will do with bluff Mark Anthony for her master!--It is +a very interesting list; most of them queer lobsided creatures, +fighting with own hands or for nothing in particular; most with +some virtues: Then that might have saved Rome, if, as Mrs Poyser +said, "they are hatched again, and hatched different." + + + + +XVIII. AUGUSTUS + + +We left Rome galloping down the Gadarene slope, and scrimmaging +for a vantage point whence to hurl herself headlong. Down she +came; a riot and roaring ruin: doing those things she ought not +to have done, and leaving undone those things she ought to have +done, and with no semblance of health in her. There was nothing +for it but the downfall of the world; good-bye civilization and +all that was ever upbuilded of old. Come now; we should become +good Congo forester in our time, with what they call 'long pig' +for our daintiest diet. It is a euphemism for your brother man. + +But supposing this mist-filled Gadarene gulf were really +bridgable: supposing there were another side beyond the roar of +hungry waters and the horror; and that mankind,--European +mankind,--might pass over, and be saved, were there but staying +the rout for a moment, and affording a means to cross? + +There is a bardic proverb in the Welsh: _A fo Ben, bydded +Bont:_--'He who is Chief, let him be the bridge': Bran the +Blessed said it, when he threw down his giant body over the gulf, +so that the men of the Island of the Mighty might pass over into +Ireland. And the end of an old cycle, and the beginning of a +new, when there is--as in our Rome at that time--a sort of +psychic and cyclic impasse, a break-down and terrible chasm in +history, if civilization is to pass over from the old conditions +to the new, a man must be found who can be the bridge. He must +solve the problems within himself; he must care so little for, +and have such control of, his personality, that he can lay it +down, so to speak, and let humanity cross over upon it. History +may get no news of him at all; although he is then the Chief of +Men, and the greatest living;--or it may get news, only to +belittle him. His own and the after ages may think very little +of him; he may possess no single quality to dazzle the +imagination:--he may seem cold and uninteresting, a crafty +tyrant;--or an uncouth old ex-rail-splitter to have in the White +House;--or an illiterate peasant-girl to lead your armies; yet +because he is the bridge, he is the Chief; and you may suspect +someone out of the Pantheons incarnate in him. + +For the truth of all which, humanity has a sure instinct. When +there is a crisis we say, _Look for the Man._ Rome thought (for +the most part) that she had found him when Caesar, having +conquered Pompey, came home master of the world. If this phoenix +and phenomenon in time, now with no competitor above the +horizons, could not settle affairs, only Omnipotence could. +Every thinking (or sane) Roman knew that what Rome needed was a +head; and now at last she had got one. Pompey, the only +possible alternative, was dead; Caesar was lord of all things. +Pharsalus, the deciding battle, was fought in 48; he returned +home in 46. From the year between, in which he put the finishing +touches to his supremacy, you may count the full manvantara of +Imperial Rome: fifteen centuries until 1453 and the fall of +the Eastern Empire. + +All opinion since has been divided as to the character of Caesar. +To those whose religion is democracy, he is the grand Destroyer +of Freedom; to the worshipers of the Superman, he is the chief +avatar of their god. Mr. Stobart,* who deals with him sanely, +but leaning to the favorable view, says he was "not a bad man, +for he preferred justice and mercy to tyranny and cruelty, and +had a passion for logic and order"; and adds, "he was a man +without beliefs or illusions or scruples." He began by being a +fop and ultra-extravagant; and was always, if we may believe +accounts, a libertine of the first water. He was, of course, an +epileptic. In short, there is nothing in history to give an +absolutely sure clue to his real self. But there is that passage +in Madame Blavatsky, which I have quoted before, to the effect +that he was an agent of the dark forces, and conquered Gaul for +them, to abolish the last effective Mysteries; and I think in +the light of that, his character, and a great deal of history +besides, becomes intelligible enough.--I will be remembered that +he stood at the head of the Roman religion, as Potifex Maximus. + +------ +* On whose book, _The Grandeur that was Rome,_ this paper also +largely leans. +------ + +But it was not the evil that he did that (obviously) brought +about his downfall. Caesar was fortified against Karma by the +immensity of his genius. Whom should he fear, who had conquered +Pompeius Magnus? None in the roman world could reach so high as +to his elbow;--for sheer largeness of mind, quickness and daring, +he stoood absolutely the Superman among pygmies. He knew his +aim, and could make or wait for it; and it was big and real. +Other men crowed or fumbled after petty and pinch-beck ends; +impossible rhetorical republicanisms; vain senatorial prestiges; +--or pleasure pure and simple--say rather, very complex and +impure. Let them clack, let them fumble! Caesar would do +things and get things done. He wore the whole armor of his +greatness, and could see no chink or joint in it through which a +hostile dagger might pierce. Even his military victories were +won by some greater than mere military greatness.--Karma, +perhaps, remembering the Mysteries at Gaulish Bibracte, and the +world left now quite lightless, might have a word to say; might +even be looking round for shafts to speed. But what, against a +man so golden-panoplied? "Tush!" saith Caesar, "there are no +arrows now but straws." + +One such straw was this: (a foolish one, but it may serve)-- + +Rome for centuries has been amusing herself on all public +occasions with Fourth of July rhetoric against kings, and in +praise of tyrannicides. Rome for centuries has been cherishing +in her heart what she calls a love of Freedom,--to scourge your +slaves, steal from your provincials, and waste your substance in +riotous living. All of which Julius Caesar,--being a real man, +mind you,--holds in profoundest contempt for driveling unreality; +which it certainly is. But unrealities are awfully real +at times. + +Unluckily, with all his supermannism, he retained some traces of +personality. He was bald, and sensitive about it; he always had +been a trifle foppish. So when they gave him a nice laurel +wreath for his triumph over Pompey, he continued, against all +precedent, to wear it indefinitely,--as hiding certain shining +surfaces from the vulgar gaze.... "H'm," said Rome, "he goes +about the next thing to crowned!" And here is his statue, set up +with those of the Seven Kings of antiquity; he allowing it, or +not protesting.--They remembered their schoolboy exercises, their +spoutings on many Latins for Glorious Fourth; and felt very +badly indeed. Then it was unlucky that, being too intent on +realities, he could not bother to rise when those absurd old +Piccadilly pterodactyls the Senators came into his presence; +that he filled up their ridiculous house promiscuously with +low-born soldiers and creatures of his own. And that there was a +crowd of foolish prigs and pedants in Rome to take note of these +so trivial things, and to be more irked by them than by all the +realities of his power:--a lean hungry Cassius; an envious +brusque detractor Casca; a Brutus with a penchant for being +considered a philosopher, after a rather maiden-auntish sort +of conception of the part,--and for being considered a true +descendant of his well-known ancestor: a cold soul much +fired with the _ignis fatuus_ of Republican slave-scourging +province-fleecing freedom. An unreal lot, with not the ghost +of a Man between them;--what should the one Great Man of the +age find in them to disturb the least ofhis dreams? + +Came, however, the Ides of March in B.C. 44; and the laugh once +more was with Karma,--the one great final laugher of the world. +Caesar essayed to be Chief of the Romans: he who is chief, let +him be the bridge;--this one, because of a few ludicrous personal +foibles, has broken down now under the hurry and thunder of the +marching cycles. The fact being that your true Chief aspires +only to the bridgehood; whereas this one overlooked that part of +it, intent on the chieftaincy.--And now, God have mercy on us! +there is to be all the round of wars and proscriptions and +massacres over again: _Roma caput mundi_ herself piteously +decapitate; and with every booby and popinjay rising in turn to +kick her about at his pleasure;--and here first comes Mark +Anthony to start the game, it seems. + +Well; Mark Anthony managed wisely enough at that crisis; you +would almost have said, hearing him speak at Caesar's funeral, +that there was at least a ha'porth of brains hidden somewhere +within that particularly thick skull of his. Half an hour +changes him from a mere thing alive on sufferance--too foolish to +be worth bothering to kill--into the master of Rome. And yet +probably it was not brains that did it, but the force of genuine +feeling: he loved dead Caesar; he was trying now to be +cautious, for his own skin's sake: was repressing himself;--but +his feelings got the better of him,--and were catching,-- +and set the mob on fire. Your lean and hungry ones; your +envious detractors; your thin maiden-auntish prig republican +philosophers:--all very wisely sheer off. Your grand resounding +Cicero,--_vox et praeterea almost nihil_ (he had yet to die and +show that it was _almost,_ not _quite,_) sheers off too, into the +country, there to busy himself with an essay on the _Nature of +the Gods_ (to contain, be sure, some fine eloquence), and with +making up his mind to attack Anthony on behalf of Republican +Freedom.--Anthony's next step is wise too: he appoints himself +Caesar's executor, gets hold of the estate, and proceeds to +squander it right and left buying up for himself doubtful +support.--All you can depend on is the quick coming-on of final +ruin and dismay: of all impossibilities, the most impossible is +to imagine Mark Anthony capable of averting it. As to Caesar's +heir, so nominated in the will--the persona from whom busy +Anthony has virtually stolen the estate,--no one gives him a +thought. Seeing who he was, it would be absurd to do so. + +And then he turned up in Rome, a sickly youth of eighteen; +demanded his moneys from Anthony; dunned him till he got some +fragment of them;--then borrowed largely on his own securities, +and proceeded to pay--what prodigal Anthony had been much too +thrifty to think of doing--Ceasar's debts. Rome was surprised. + +This was Caesar's grand-nephew, Octavius; who had been in camp +at Apollonia in Illyricum since he had coolly proposed to his +great-uncle that the latter, being Dictator, and about to start +on his Parthian campaign, should make him his Master of the +Horse. He had been exempted from military service on account of +ill-health; and Julius had a sense of humor; so he packed him +off to Apollonia to 'finish' a military training that had never +begun. There he had made a close friend of a rising young +officer by the name of Vipsanius Agrippa; a man of high +capacities who, when the news came of Caesar's death, urged him +to lose no time, but rouse the legions in their master's name, +and march on Rome to avenge his murder.--"No," says Octavius, "I +shall go there alone." + +Landing in Italy, he heard of the publication of the will, in +which he himself had been named heir. That meant, to a very vast +fortune, and to the duty of revenge. Of the fortune, since it +was now in Mark Anthony's hands, you could predict nothing too +surely but its vanishment; as to the duty, it might also imply a +labor for which the Mariuses and Sullas, the Caesars and Pompeys, +albeit with strong parties at their backs, had been too small +men. And Octavius had no party, and he was no soldier, and he +had no friends except that Vipsanius back in Apollonia. + +His mother and step-father, with whom he stayed awhile on his +journey, urged him to throw the whole matter up: forgo the +improbably fortune and very certain peril, and not rush in where +the strongest living might fear to tread. Why, there was Mark +Anthony, Caesar's lieutenant--the Hercules, mailed Bacchus, Roman +Anthony--the great dashing captain whom his soldiers so adored-- +even he was shilly-shallying with the situation, and not daring +to say _Caesar shall be avenged._ And Anthony, you might be +sure, would want no competitor--least of all in the boy named +heir in Caesar's will.--"Oh, I shall go on and take it up," said +Octavius; and went. And paid Caesar's debts, as we have +seen, presently: thereby advertising his assumption of all +responsibilities. Anthony began to be uneasy about him; the +Senatorial Party to make advances to him; people began to +suspect that, possibly, this sickly boy might grow into a man to +be reckoned with. + +I am not going to follow him in detail through the next thirteen +years. It is a tortuous difficult story; to which we lack the +true clues, unless they are to be found in the series of +protrait-busts of him taken during this period. The makers of +such busts were the photographers of the age; and, you may say, +as good as the best photographers. Every prominent Roman availed +himself of their services. Mr. Baring-Gould, in his _Tragedy of +the Caesars,_ arranges, examines, and interprets these portraits +of Augustus; I shall give you the gist of his conclusions, +which are illuminating.--First we see a boy with delicate and +exceedingly beautiful features, impassive and unawakend: +Octavius when he came to Rome. A cloud gathers on his face, +deepening into a look of intense anguish; and with the anguish +grows firmness and the clenched expression of an iron will: this +is Octavian in the dark days of the thirties.--the anguish +passes, but leaves the firmness behind: the strength remains, +the beauty remains, and a light of high serenity has taken the +place of the aspect of pain: this is Augustus the Emperor. The +same writer contrasts this story with that revealed by the busts +of Julius: wherein we see first a gay insouciant dare-devil +youth, and at last a man old before his time; a face sinister (I +should say) and haunted with ugly sorrow. + +We get no contemporary account of Augustus; no interpeting +biography from the hand of any one who knew him. We have to read +between the lines of history, and with what intuition we can +muster: and especially the story of that lonely soul struggling +through the awful waters of the years that followed Caesar's +death. We see him allying himself first with one party, then +with another; exercising (apparently) no great or brilliant +qualities, yet by every change thrown nearer the top; till with +Anthony and Lepidus he is one of the Triumvirate that rules the +world. Then came those cruel proscriptions. This is the picture +commonly seen:--a cold keen intellect perpetually dissembling; +keen enough to deceive Anthony, to decieve the senate, to decieve +Cicero and all the world; cruel for policy's sake, without ever +a twinge of remorse or compunciton: a marble-cold impassive +_mind,_ and no heart al all, with master-subtlety achieving +mastery of the world.--Alas! a boy in his late teens and early +twenties, so nearly friendless, and with enemies so many and so +great... A boy "up aginst" so huge and difficult circumstances +always, that (you would say) there was no time, no possibility, +for him to look ahead: in every moment the next agonizing +perilous step that must be taken vast enough to fill the whole +horizon of his mind, of any human mind perhaps;--ay, so vast and +compelling that every day with wrenches and torsion that horizon +must be pushed back and back to contain them,--a harrowing +painful process, as we may read on his busts... As to the +proscriptions, Dio, a writer, as Mr. Baring-Gould says, "never +willing to allow a good quality to one of the Caesars, or to put +their conduct in other than an unfavorable light," says that +they were brought about mainly--"by Lepidus and Anthony, who, +having been long in honor under Julius Caesar, and having held +many offices in state and army, had acquired many enemies. But +as Octavian was associated with them in power, an appearance of +complicity attached to him. But he was not cruel by nature, and +he had no occasion for putting many to death; moreover, he had +resolved to imitate the example of his adoptive father. Added to +this, he was young, was just entering on his career, and sought +rather to gain hearts than to alienate them. No sooner was he in +sole power than he showed no signs of severity, and at that time +he caused the death of very few, and saved very many. He +proceeded with the utmost severity against such as betrayed their +[proscribed?] masters or friends; but was most favorable to such +as helped the proscribed to escape." + +It was that "appearance of complicity" that wrote the anguish on +his face: the fact that he could not prevent, and saw no way but +to have a sort of hand in, things his nature loathed. In truth +he appears to us now rather like a pawn, played down the board by +some great Chess-player in the Unseen: moving by no volition or +initiative of its own through perils and peace-takings to +Queenhood on the seventh square. But we know that he who would +enter the Path of Power must use all the initiative, all the +volition, possible in any human being, to attain the balance, to +master the personality, to place himself wholly and unreservedly +in the power, under the control, of the Higher thing that is +"within and yet without him"' The Voice of his Soul, that speaks +also through the lips of his Teacher; whether that Teacher be +embodied visibly before men or not. He obeys; he follows the +gleam; he sufferes, and strives, and makes no question; and his +striving is all for more power to obey and to follow. In this, I +think, we have our clue to the young Octavian.--'Luck' always +favored him; not least when, in dividing the world, Anthony +chose the East, gave Lepidus Africa, and left the most difficult +and dangerous Italy to the youngest partner of the three. + +He had two friends, men of some genius both: Vipsanius Agrippa +the general, and Cilnius Maecenas the statesman. Both appear to +us as great personalities; the master whom they served so +loyally and splendidly remains and Impersonality,--which those +who please may call a 'cold abstraction.' While Octavian was +away campaigning, Maecenas, with no official position, ruled Rome +on his behalf; and so wisely that Rome took it and was well +content. As for those campaigns, 'luck' or Agrippa won them for +him; in Octavian himself we can see no qualities of great +generalship. And indeed, it is likely he had none; for he +was preeminently a man of peace. But they always were won. +Suetonius makes him a coward; yet he was one that, when occasion +arose, would not think twice about putting to sea in an open boat +during a storm; and once, when he heard that Lepidus was +preparing to turn against him, he rode alone into that general's +camp, and took away the timid creature's army without striking a +blow: simply ordered the soldiers to follow him, and they did. +If he seems now a colorless abstraction, he could hardly have +seemed so then to Lepidus' legions, who deserted their own +general--and paymaster--at his simple word of command. Or to +Agrippa, or to Maecenas, great men who desired nothing better +than to serve him with loyal affection. Maecenas was an +Etruscan; a man of brilliant mind and culture; reputed somewhat +luxurious when he had nothing to do, but a very dynamo when there +was work.--A man, be it said, of great ideals on his own account: +we see it in his influence on Virgil and Horace. In his last +years some coldness, unexplained, sprung up between him and his +master; yet when Maecenas died, it was found he had made +Augustus his sole heir.--But now Augustus is still only Octavian, +moving impassively and impersonally to his great destiny; as if +no thing of flesh and blood and common human impulses, but a +cosmic force acting;--which indeed the Impersonal Man always is. + +What he did, seems to have done, or could not help doing, always +worked out right, whether it carries for us an ethical look or +no. The problems and difficulties that lay between that time and +Peace flowed to him: and as at the touch of some alchemical +solvent, received their solution. We get one glimpse of the +inner man of him, of his beliefs or religion. He believed +absolutely in his _Genius_ (in the Roman sense); his luck, or +his Karma, or--and perhaps chiefly--that God-side of a man which +Numaism taught existed:--what we should call, the Higher Law, the +Warrior, and the Higher Self. There, as I think, you have the +heart of his mystery; he followed that, blindly,--and made no +mistakes. In the year 29 B.C. it led him back to Rome in +Triumph, having laid the world at his feet. He had been the +bridge over that chasm in the cycles; the Path through all the +tortuosities of that doubtful and wayward time; over which the +Purposes of the Gods had marched to their fulfilment. He had +been strong as destiny, who seemed to have little strength in his +delicate body. With none of Caesar's dash and brilliance, he had +repeated Caesar's achievement; and was to conquer further in +spiritual + + "regions Caesar never knew." + +With none of Anthony's soldiership, he had easily brought Anthony +down.--Why did Cleopatra lose Actium for Anthony? + +We face the almost inexplicable again in the whole story of +Octavian's dealings with Cleopatra. She is one of the characters +history has most venomously lied about. Mr. Wiegand has shown +some part of the truth about her in his biography; but I do not +think he has solved the whole problem; for he takes the easy +road of making Octavian a monster. Now Augustus, beyond any +question, was one of the most beneficent forces that ever +appeared in history; and no monster can be turned, by the mere +circumstance of success achieved, into that. Cleopatra had made +a bid to solve the world-problem on an Egyptian basis: first +through Caesar, then through Anthony. We may dismiss the idea +that she was involved in passionate attachments; she had a grand +game to play, with World-stakes at issue. The problem was not to +be solved through Caesar, and it was not to be solved through +Anthony; but it had been solved by Octavian. There was nothing +more for her to do, but step aside and be no hindrance to the man +who had done that work for the Gods that she had tried and been +unable to do. So she sailed away from Actium. + +Julius Caesar in his day had married her; and young Caesarion +their son was his heir by Egyptian, but not by Roman, law. When, +in the days of Caesar's dictatorship, she brought the boy to +Rome, Caesar refused to recognise her as his wife, or to do the +right thing by Caesarion. To do either would have endangered his +position in Rome; where by that time he had another wife, the +fourth or fifth in the series. He feared the Romans; and they +feared Egypt and its Queen. It seemed very probably at that time +that the headship of the world might pass to Egypt; which +was still a sovereign power, and immensely rich, and highly +populated, and a compact kingdom;--whereas the Roman state was +everywhere ill-defined, tenebrous, and falling to pieces. At +this distance it is hard to see in Egypt anything of strength or +morale that would have enable it to settle the world's affairs; +as hard, indeed, as it is to see anything of the kind in Rome. +But Rome was haunted with the bogey idea; and terribly angry, +aftewards, with Anthony for his Egyptian exploits; and hugely +relieved when Actium put an end to the Egyptian peril. Egypt, it +was thought, if nothing else, might have starved Italy into +submission. But in truth the cycles were all against it: +Cleopatra was the only Egyptian that counted,--the lonely +Spacious Soul incarnate there. + +When Octavian reached Alexandria, all he did was to refuse to be +influenced by the queen's wonderfully magnetic personality. He +appears to me to have been uncertain how to act: to have been +waiting for clear guidance from the source whence all his +guidance came. He also seems to have tried to keep her from +committing suicide. It is explained commonly on the supposition +that he intended she should appear in his triumph in Rome; and +that she killed herself to escape that humiliation. I think it +is one of those things whose explanation rests in the hands of +the Gods, and is not known to men. You may have a mass of +evidence, that makes all humanity certain on some point; and yet +the Gods, who have witnessed the realities of the thing, may know +that those realities were quite different. + +Then her two elder children were killed; and no one has +suggested, so far as I know, that it was not by Octavians's +orders. It is easy, even, to supply him with a motive for it; +one in keeping with accepted ideas of his character:--as he was +Caesar's heir, he would have wished Caesar's own children out of +the way;--and Caesar's children by that (to Roman ideas) loathed +Egyptian connexion. His family honor would have been touched.... + +Up to this point, then, such a picture as this might be the true +portrait of him:--a sickly body, with an iron will in it; a +youth with no outstanding brilliancies, who never lost his nerve +and never made mistakes in policy; with no ethical standars +above those of his time:--capable of picking his names coldly on +the proscription lists; capable of having Cleopatra's innocent +children killed;--one, certainly, who had followed the usual +custom of divorcing one wife and marrying another as often as +expediency suggested. Above all, following the ends of his +ambition unerringly to the top of success. + +The ends of his ambition?--That is all hidden in the intimate +history of souls. How should we dare say that Julius was +ambitious, Augustus not? Both apparently aimed at mastery of the +world; from this human standpoint of the brain-mind there is +nothing to choose, and no means of discrimination. But what +about the standpoint of the Gods? Is there no difference, as +seen from their impersonal altitudes, between reaching after a +place for your personality, and supplying a personality to fill a +place that needs filling? There is just that difference, I +think, between the brilliant Julius and the staid Octavian. The +former might have settled the affairs of the world,--as its +controller and master and the dazzling obvious mover of all the +pieces on the board. I do not believe Octavian looked ahead at +all to see any shining pinnacle or covet a place on it; but time +and the Law hurled one situation after another at him, and he +mastered and filled them as they came because it was the best +thing he could do.... If we say that the two men were as the +poles apart, there are but tiny indications of the difference: +the tactlessness and small vanities that advertise personality in +the one; the supreme tact and balance that affirm impersonality +in the other. The personality of Julius must tower above the +world; that of Augustus was laid down as a bridge for the world +to pass over. Julius gave his monkeys three chestnuts in the +morning and four at night;--you remember Chwangtse's story;--and +so they grew angry and killed him. Augustus adjusted himself; +decreed that they should have their four in the morning. His +personality was always under command, and he brought the world +across on it. It never got in the way; it was simply the +instrument wherewith he (or the Gods) saved Rome. He--we may say +he--did save Rome. She was dead, this time; dead as Lazarus, +who had been three days in the tomb, etc. He called her forth; +gave her two centuries of greatness; five of some kind of life +in the west; fifteen, all told, in west and east. Julius is +always bound to make on the popular eye the larger impression of +greatness. He retains his personality with all its air of +supermanhood; it is easy to see him as a live human being, to +imagine him in his habit as he lived,--and to be astounded by his +greatness. But Augustus is hidden; the real man is covered by +that dispassionate impersonality that saved Rome. If all that +comes down about the first part of his life is true, and has been +truly interpreted, you could not call him _then_ even a good man. +But the record of his reign belies every shadow that has been +cast on that first part. It is altogether a record of beneficence. + +H.P. Blavatsky speaks of Julius as an agent of the dark forces. +Elsewhere she speaks of Augustus as an Initiate. + +Did she mean by that merely an initiate of the Official Mysteries +as they still existed at Eleusis and elsewhere? Many men, good, +bad and indifferent, were that: Cicero,--who was doubtless, as +he says, a better man for his initiation: Glamininus and his +officers; most of the prominent Athenians since the time of +Pericles and earlier. I dare say it had come to mean that though +you might be taught something about Karma and Reincarnation, you +were not taught to make such teachings a living power in your own +life or that of the world. There is nothing of the Occultists, +nothing of the Master Soul, in the life and actions of Cicero; +but there was very much, as I shall try to show, in the life and +actions of Augustus. And, we gather from H.P. Blavatsky, the +only Mysteries that survived in their integrity to anything like +this time had been those at Bibracte which Caesar destroyed. +(Which throws light, by the bye, on Lucan's half-sneering remark +about the Druids,--that they alone had real knowledge about the +Gods and the things beyond this life.) So it seems to me that +Augustus' initiation implied something much more real,--much more +a high status of the soul,--than could have been given him by any +semi-public organized body within the Roman world. + +Virgil, in the year 40 B.C., being then a pastoral poet imitating +Theocritus,--nothing very serious,--wrote a strange poem that +stands in dignity and depth of purpose far above anything in his +model. This was the Fourth Eclogue of his Bucolics, called the +_Pollio._ In it he invokes the "Sicilian Muse" to inspire him to +loftier strains; and proceeds to sing of the coming of a new +cycle, the return of a better age, to be ushered in, supposedly, +by a 'child' born in that year:-- + + _Ultima Cumaci venit jam carminis aetas; + Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo; + Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna; + Jam nora progenies coelo demittitur alto._ + +This was taken in the Middle Ages as referring to the birth of +Jesus; and on the strength of having thus prophesied, Virgil +came to be looked on as either a true prophet or a black +magician. Hence his enormous reputation all down the centuries +as a master of the secret sciences. The chemist is the successor +to the alchemist; and in Wales we still call a chemist +_fferyll,_ which is _Virgil_ Cymricized. Well; his reputation +was not altogether undeserved; he did know much; you can +find Karma, Reincarnation, Devachan, Kama-loka--most of the +Theosophical teachings as to the postmortem-prenatal states,-- +taught in the Sixth Book of the _Aeneid._ But as to this +_Pollio_ Eclogue: even in modern textbooks one often sees it +asserted that he must have been familiar with the Hebrew +Scriptures;--because in the Book of Isaiah the coming of a +Messiah to the Jews is prophesied in terms not very unlike those +he used. To my mind this is far-fetched: Virgil had Gaul behind +him, if you must look for explanations in outside things; and at +least in after ages Celtic Messianism was as persistent a +doctrine as Jewish. A survival, of course; in truth the +initiated or partly initiated among all ancient peoples knew that +avatars come. Virgil, if he understood as much about Theosophy +as he wrote into the Sixth Aeneid, would also have known, from +whatever source he learnt it, the truth about cycles and +Adept Messengers. + +There has been much speculation as to who the child born in the +year of Pollio's consulship, who was to bring in the new order of +ages, could have been. But we may note that in the language of +Occultism (and think of Virgil as an Occultist), the 'birth of a +child' had always been a symbolical way of speaking of the +inititation of a candidate into the (true) Mysteries. So that it +does not follow by any means that he meant an actual baby born in +that year; he may have intended, and probably did intend, some +Adept then born into his illumination,--or that, according to +Virgil's own ideas, might be thought likely soon to be. One +cannot say; he was a very wise man, Virgil. At least it +indicates a feeling,--perhaps peculiar to himself, perhaps +general,--that the world stood on the brink of a great change in +the cycles, and that an Adept Leader might be expected, who +should usher the new order in. + +His eyes may have been opened to the possibilities of the young +Octavian. It is possible that the two were together at school in +Rome, studying rhetoric under Epidius, in the late fifties; and +certainly Virgil had recently visited Rome and there interviewed +the Triumvir Octavian; and had obtained from him an order for +the restitution of his parental farm near Mantua, which had been +given to one of the soldiers of Philippi after that battle. Two +or three of the Eclogues are given to the praises of Octavian; +whom, even as early as that, Virgil seems to have recognised as +the future or potential savior of Rome. The points to put side +by side are these: Virgil, a Theosophist, expected the coming of +an avatar, an Initiate who should save Rome;--H.P. Blavatsky +speaks of Augustus as an Initiate;--Augustus did save Rome. + +When did he become an Initiate? Was there, at some time, such a +change in his life that it was as if a new Soul had come in to +take charge of that impersonal unfailing personality? There are +tremendous mysteries connected with incarnation; the possibility +of a sudden accession of entity, so to say,--a new vast increment +of being. As Octavius and Octavian, the man seems like one +without will or desires of his own, acting in blind obedience to +impersonal forces that aimed at his supremacy in the Roman +world. As Augustus, he becomes another man altogether, almost +fathomlessly wise and beneficient; a Master of Peace and Wisdom. +He gave Rome Peace, and taught her to love peace. He put _Peace_ +for a legend on the coinage; and in the west _Pax,_ in the east +_Irene,_ became favorite names to give you children. He did what +he could to clean Roman life; to give the people high ideals; +to make the empire a place,--and in this he succeeded,--where +decent egos could incarnate and hope to progress; which, +generally speaking, they cannot in a chaos. His fame as a +benefactor of the human race spread marvelously: in far-away +India (where at that time the Secret Wisdom and its Masters were +much more than a tradition), they knew of him, and struck coins +in his honor; coins bearing the image and superscription of this +Roman Caesar. + +I said that he went to work like an Occultist: like one with an +understanding of the inner laws of life, and power to direct +outward things in accordance with that knowledge. Thus:--the +task that lay before him was to effect a complete revolution. +Rome could not go on under the old system any longer. That +system had utterly broken down; and unless an efficient +executive could be evolved, there was nothing for it but that +the world should go forward Kilkenny-catting itself into +non-existence. Now an efficient executive meant one-man rule; or +a king, by whatsoever name he might be called. But the tradition +of centureis made a king impossible. There were strongly formed +astral molds; and whoever should attempt to break them would, +like Caesar, ensure his own defeat. Whoever actually should +break them,--well, the result of breaking astral molds is always +about the same. H.P. Blavatsky said that she came to break molds +of mind; and so she did; but it was not in politics; and the +while she was laying her trains of thought-dynamite, and +exploding them gloriously, she was also building up fair and +glorious mansions of thought to house those made homeless. The +situation we are looking at here is on a different plane, the +political. You break the astral molds there; and they may be +quite worthless, quite effete and contemptible,--yet they are the +things which alone keep the demon in man under restraint. It is +the old peril of Revolutions. They may be started with the best +of intentions, in the name of the highest ideals; but, unless +there be super-human strength (like Ts'in Shi Hwangti's) or +superhuman wisdom (like Augustus') to guide them, as surely as +they succeed in breaking the old molds, they degenerate into +orgies,--blood, vice, and crime. + +Augustus effected his revolution and kept all that out; he +substituted peace and prosperity for the blood and butchery of a +century. And it was because he went to work with the knowledge +of an Occultist that he was able to do so. + +He carefully abstained from breaking the molds. He labored to +keep them all intact,--for the time being, and until new ones +should have been formed. Gently and by degrees he poured a new +force and meaning into them; which, in time, would necessarily +destroy them; but mean-while others would have been growing. +He took no step without laboriously ascertaining that there +were precedents for it. Rome had been governed by Consuls +and Tribunes; well, he would accept the consulate, and the +tribuniciary power; because it was necessary now, for the time +being at any rate, that Rome should be governed by Augustus. It +is as well to remember that it was the people who insisted +on this last. The Republican Party might subsist among the +aristocracy, the old governing class; but Augustus was the hero +and champion of the masses. Time and again he resigned: handed +back his powers to the senate, and what not;--whether as a matter +of form only, and that he might carry opinion along with him; or +with the real hope that he had taught things at last to run +themselves. In either case his action was wise and creditable; +you have to read into him mean motives out of your own nature, if +you think otherwise. Let there be talk of tyrants, and plots +arising, with danger of assassination,--and what was to become of +re-established law, order, and the Augustan Peace? The fact was +that the necessities of the case always compelled the senate to +reinstate him: it was too obvious that things could not run +themselves. If there had been any practicable opposition, it +could always have made those resignations effectual; or at least +it could have driven him to a show of illegalism, and so, +probably, against the point of some fanatic theorist's dagger. +In 23 B.C. there was a food shortage; and the mob besieged the +senate house, demanding that new powers should be bestowed on the +Caesar: they knew well what mind and hands could save them. + +But he would run up no new (corrugated iron or reinforced +concrete) astral molds, nor smash down any old ones. There +should be no talk of a king, or, perpetual dictator. Chief +citizen, as you must have a chief,--since a hundred years had +shown that haphazard executives would not work. _Primus inter +Pares_ in the senate: _Princeps,_--not a new title, nor one that +implied royalty,--or meant anything very definite; why define +things, anyhow, now while the world was in flux? Mr. Stobart, +who I think comes very near to showing Augustus as he really was, +still permits himself to speak of him as "chilly and statuesque." +But can you imagine the mob so in love with a chilly and +statuesque--tyrant, or statesman, or politician,--as to besiege +the senate-house and clamor for an extension of his powers? And +this chilly statuesque person was the man who delighted in +sharing in their games with children! + +Another reason why there was no talk of a king: he was no Leader +of a spiritual movement, but merely dealing with politics, with +which the cycles will have their way: a world of ups and downs, +not stable because linked to the Heart of Things. Supposing he +should find one to appoint as his worthy successor: with the +revolutions of the cycles, could that one hope to find another to +succeed him? Political affairs move and have their being at best +in a region of flux, where the evils, and especially the duties, +of the day are sufficient therefor. In attending to these,-- +performing the duties, fighting the evils,--Augustus laid down +the lines for the future of Rome. + +He tried to revive the patriciate; he wanted to have, cooperating +with him, a governing class with the ancient sense of responsibility +and turn for affairs. But what survived of the old aristocracy +was wedded to the tradition of Republicanism, which meant +oligarchy, and doing just what you liked or nothing at all. +The one thing they were not prepared to do was to cooperate +in saving Rome. At first they showed some eagerness to flatter +him; but found that flattery was not what he wanted. Then +they were inclined to sulk, and he had to get them to pass a +law making attendance at the senate compulsory. Mean views as to +his motives have become traditional; but the only view the facts +warrant is this: he lent out his personality, not ungrudgingly, +to receive the powers and laurels that must fall upon the central +figure in the state, while ever working to vitalize what lay +outward from that to the circumference, that all Romans might +share with him the great Roman responsibility of running and +regenerating the world. Where there was talent, he opened a way +for it. He made much more freedom than had ever been under the +Republic; gave all classes functions to perform; and curtailed +only the freedom of the old oligarchy to fleece the provinces and +misdirect affairs. + +And meanwhile the old Rome that he found on his return in 29,-- +brick-built ignobly at best, and now decaying and half in ruins, +--was giving place to a true imperial city. In 28, eighty-two +temples were built or rebuilt in marble; among the rest, one to +Apollo on the Palatine, most magnificent, with a great public +library attached. The first public library in Rome had been +built by Asinius Pollio nine years before; soon they became +common. Agrippa busied himself building the Pantheon; also +public baths, of which he was responsible for a hundred and +seventy within the limits of the city. Fair play to the Romans, +they washed. All classes had their daily baths; all good houses +had hot baths and swimming-tanks. The outer Rome he found in +brick and left in marble:--but the inner Rome he had to rebuild +was much more ruinous than the outer; as for the material he +found it built of--well, it would be daring optimism and +euphemism to call those Romans _bricks_--says someone. + +Time had brought southern Europe to the point where national +distinctions were disappearing. No nation could now stand apart. +Greek or Egyptian or Gaul, all were, or might be, or soon would +be, Romans; and if any ego with important things to say should +incarnate anywhere, what he said should be heard all round the +Middle Sea. This too is a part of the method of natural Law; +which now splits the world into little fragments, the nations, +and lets them evolve apart, bringing to light by the intensive +culture of their nationalisms what hidden possibilities lie +latent in their own soils and atmospheres;--an anon welds them +into one, that all these accomplished separate evolutions may +play upon each other, interact,--every element quickening and +quickened by the contact. In the centrifugal or heterogenizing +cycles national souls are evolved; in the centripetal or +homogenizing they are given freedom to affect the world. We have +seen what such fusion meant for China; perhaps some day we may +see what such fusion may mean for the world entire. In Augustus' +time, fusion was to do something for the Mediterranean basin. If +he had been an Occultist, to know it, his great cards lay in +Italy and Spain: the former with her cycle of productiveness due +to continue, shall we say until about 40 A.D.?--the latter with +hers due soon to begin. + +Well, it does look rather as if he knew it. We shall see +presently how he dealt with Italy; within two years of his +triumph he was turning his attention to Spain, still only +partly conquered. We may picture that country, from its first +appearance in history until this time we are speaking of, as in +something like modern Balkan conditions. Hamilcar Barca, a great +proud gentlman, the finest fruit of an ancient culture, had +thought no scorn to marry a Spanish lady; as a king of Italy +nowadays found it nowise beneath him to marry a Montenegrin +princess. In either case it meant no unbridgable disparity in +culture. Among any of the Spanish people you should have found +men who would have been at home in Greek or Carthaginian +drawing-rooms, so to say; though the break-up of a forgotten +civilization there had left the country in fragments and small +warfares and disorder. If you read the earliest Spanish accounts +of their conquests in the new world, you cannot escape the +feeling that, no such long ages ago, Spain was in touch with +America; not so many centuries, say, before Hamilcar went to +Spain. Such accounts are no doubt unscientific; but may be the +more intuitional and true and indicative for that. When Augustus +turned his eyes on Spain, Basque and Celtic chieftains in +the northern mountains and along the shores of Biscay, the +semi-decivilized _membra disjecta_ of past civilizations, were +always disposed to make trouble for the Roman south. He could not +have left them alone, except at the cost of keeping huge garrisons +along the border, with perpetual alarms for the province. So he +went there in person, and began the work of conquering those +mountains in B.C. 27. It was a long and difficult war with +hideous doings on both sides: the Romans crucified the +Spaniards, and the Spaniards jeered at them from their crosses. +This because Augustus was too sick to attend to things himself; +half the time he was at death's door. Not till he could afford to +take Agrippa from work elsewhere was any real progress made. But +at one point we see his own hand strike into it; and the +incident is very instructive. + +Spain had her Vercingetorix in one Corocotta, a Celt who kept all +Roman efforts useless and all Roman commanders tantalized +and nervous till a reward of fifty thousand dollars was offered +for his capture. Augustus, recovered a little, was in camp; +and things were going ill with the Spainiards. One day an +important-looking Celt walked in, and demanded to see the Caesar +upon business connected with the taking of Corocotta. Led into +the Caesar's presence, he was asked what he wanted.--"Fifty-thousand +dollars," said he; "I am Corocotta." Augustus laughed long and +loud; shook hands with him heartily; paid him the money down, +and gave him his liberty into the bargain; whereafter soon this +_Quijote espanol_ married a Roman wife, and as Caius Julius +Corocottus "lived happily ever after." It was a change from the +'generous' Julius' treatment of Vercingetorix; but that Rome +profited by the precedent thus established, we may judge from +Claudius' treatment of the third Celtic hero who fell into Roman +hands,--Caradoc of Wales. + +Spain was only one of the many places where the frontier had to +be settled. The empire was a nebulous affair; you could not say +where it began and ended; and to bring all out of this +nebulosity was one of the labors that awaited Augustus. Even a +Messenger of the Gods is limited by the conditions he finds in +the world; and is as great as his age will allow him to be. +Though an absolute monarch, he cannot change human nature. He +must concentrate on points attackable, and do what he can; +deflect currents in the right direction; above all, sow ideals, +and wait upon the ministrations of time. He must take conditions +as he finds them, following the lines of least resistance. It is +nothing to him that posterity may ask, Why did he not change this +or that?--and add he was no better than he should be. At once to +change outer things and ways of feeling that have grown up +through centuries is not difficult but impossible; and sometimes +right courses, violently taken, are wronger than wrong ones. +Augustus was a man of peace, if anybody ever was, yet (as in +Spain) made many wars. The result of this Spanish conquest was +that the Pax Romana came into Spain, bringing with it severa +centuries of high prosperity; the world-currents flowed in there +at once and presently the light of Spain, such as it was at that +time, shone out over the Roman world. Most of the great names of +the first century A.D. are those of Spaniards. + +After Spain, the most immediate frontier difficulty was with +Parthia; and there Augustus won his greatest victory. At +Carrhae the Parthians had routed Crassus and taken the Roman +eagles. Rome was responsible for the provinces of Asia; and she +was nominally at war with Parthia,--so those provinces were in +trim to be overrun at any time. The war, then, must be finished; +and could Rome let it end on terms of a Parthian victory? Where +(it would be argued) would then be Roman prestige? Where Roman +authority (a more real and valuable thing)? Where the Pax +Romana?--All very true and sound; everybody knew that for the +war to reopen was only a question of time;--Julius had been on +the point of marching east when the liberators killed him. Yes, +said Augustus; the matter must be attended to. But Parthia was +a more of less civilized power: a state at least with an +established central government; and when you have that, there is +generally the chance to settle things by tact instead of by +fighting. He found a means. He opened negotiations, and brought +all his tact to bear. He was the chief, and a bridge again. +Over which presently came Phraates king of Parthia, amenable and +well-disposed, to return the eagles and such of the prisoners as +were still alive. Rome had won back her prestige; Parthia was +undegraded; peace had won a victory that war would have spent +itself in vain striving after. + +But the frontier was enormous, and nowhere else marched with that +of an established power. There was no winning by peace along +that vast northern line from the Black to the North Sea, at the +most vital spot of which an unlucky physical geography makes +Italy easily invadable and rather hard to defend. Negotiations +would not work here, since there was no union to negotiate with; +only ebullient German tribes whose game was raiding and whose +trade plunder. So the Alps had to be held, and a line drawn +somewhere north of them,--say along the Danube and the Rhine or +Elbe; a frontier that could be made safe with a minimum of +soldiers. All this he did; excluding adventurous schemes: +leaving Britain, for example, alone;--and was able to reduce the +army, before he died, to a mere handful of 140,000 men.--Varus +and his lost legions? Well; there is something to be said about +that. Augustus was old, and the generals of the imperial family, +who knew their business, were engaged elsewhere. And Germany was +being governed by a good amiable soul by the name of Quintilius +Varus, who persisted in treating the Germans as if they had been +civilized Italians. And there was a young Cheruscan who had +become a Roman citizen, spoke Latin fluently, and had always been +a good ally of Rome. His Latin cognomen was Arminius; of which +German patriotism has manufactured a highly improbable _Hermann._ +The trustful Varus allowed himself to be lured by this seemingly +so good friend into the wilds of the Saltus Teutobergiensis, +where the whole power of the Cheruscans fell on and destroyed +him. Then Tiberius came, and put the matter right; but there +was an ugly half hour of general panic first. There had been no +thought of adding Germany to the empire but only as to whether +the frontier should be on the Elbe or the Rhine. Varus' defeat +decided Augustus for the Rhine. + +Now we come to what he did for Italy: his second trump card, if +we call Spain his first. Spain belonged to the future, Italy to +the present. Her cycle was half over, and she had done nothing +(in B.C. 29) very worthy with it. First, an effort should be +made towards the purificatior of family-life: a pretty hopeless +task, wherein at last he was forced to banish his own daughter +for notorious evil-living. He made laws; and it may be supposed +that they had some effect _in time._ A literary impulse towards +high dignified ideals, however, may be much more effective than +laws. He had Maecenas with his circle of poets. + +Of course, poetry written to order, or upon imperial suggestion, +is not likely to be of the highest creative kind. But the high +creative forces were not flowing in that age; and we need not +blame Augustan patronage for the limitations of Augustan +literature. There is no time to argue the question; this much +we may say: the two poets who worked with the emperor, and wrote +under his influence and sometimes at his suggestion, left work +that endures in world-literature; that is noble and beautiful, +and still interesting. I mean Virgil and Horace, of course. +Ovid, who was not under that influence, but of the faction +opposed to it, wrote stuff that it would be much better were +lost entirely. + +The poet's was the best of pulpits, in those days: poets stood +much nearer the world then than for all the force of the +printing-press they can hope to do now. So, if they could preach +back its sacredness to the soil of Italy; if they could recreate +the ideal of the old agricultural life; something might be done +towards (among other things) checking the unwholesome crowding to +the capital,--as great an evil then as now. Through Maecenas and +directly Augustus influenced Virgil, the laureate; who responded +with his _Georgics._ + +It is a wonderful work. Virgil was a practical farmer; he tells +you correctly what to do. But he makes a work of art of it all +poetical. He suffuses his directions for stock-raising and +cabbage-hoeing with the light of mythology and poetry. He gives +you the Golden Age and Saturn's Italy, and makes the soil seem +sacred. He had the Gaul's feeling for grace and delicacy, and +brought in Celtic beauty to illumine the Italian world. The +lines are impregnated with the soul, the inner atmosphere, of the +Italian land; full of touches such as that lovely + + _Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba,_ + +of violets and popies and narcissus; quinces and chestnut trees. +All that is of loveliness in rural (and sacred) Italy is there; +the landscapes are there, still beautiful; and the dignity and +simplicity of the old agricultural life. It is a practial +treatise on farming; yet a living poem. + +Horace too played up for his friend Maecenas and for Caesar. +Maecenas gave him that Sabine farm; and Horace made Latin songs +to Greek meters about it: made music that is a marvel to this +day, so that it remains a place of pilgrimage, and you can still +visit, I believe, that + + _fons Bandusia splendidiot vitro_ + +that he loved so well and set such sweet music to. He give you +that country as Virgil gives you the valley vistas, not unfringed +with mystery, of Appenines and the north. Between them, Italy is +there, as it had never been interpreted before. If--in Virgil at +least--there is a direct practical purpose, there is no less +marvelous art and real vision of Nature. + +And then Augustus set both of them to singing the grandeur of +Rome; to making a new patriotism with their poetry; to +inspiring Roman life with a sense of dignity,--a thing it needed +sorely: Virgil in the _Aeneid_ (where also, as we have seen, he +taught not a little Theosophy); Horace in the _Carmen Saeculare_ +and some of the great Odes of the third and fourth books. The +lilt of his lines is capable of ringing, and does so again and +again, into something very like the thrill and resonance of the +Grand Manner. Listen for it especially in the third and fourth +lines of this: + + _Quid debeas, o Roma, Neronibus + Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal + Devictus, et pulcher fugatis + Ille dies Latio tenebris._ + +I am not concerned here to speak of his limitations; nor of +Virgil's; who, in whatever respect the _Aeneid_ may fall short, +does not fail to cry out in it to the Romans. Remember the +dignity and the high mission of Rome!--By all these means +Augustus worked towards the raising of Roman ideals. + +To that end he wrote, he studied, he made orations. He searched +the Latin and Greek literatures; and any passage he came on that +illumined life or tended towards upliftment, he would copy out +and send to be read in the senate; or he would read it there +himself to the senators; or publish it as an edict. There is a +touch of the Teacher in this, I think. He has given Rome Peace; +he is master of the world, and now has grown old. He enjoys no +regal splendor, no pomp or retinue; his life is as that of any +other senator, but simpler than most. And his mind is ever +brooding over Rome, watchful for the ideas that may purify Roman +life and raise it to higher levels. + +Many things occurred to sadden his old age. His best friends +were dead; Varus was lost with his legions; there had been the +tragedy of Julia, whom he had loved well, and the deaths of the +young princes, her sons. He was a man of extraordinarily keen +affections, and all these losses came home to him sorely. + +But against every sadness he had his own achievements to set. +There was Rome in its marble visibly about him, that he had found +in brick and in ruins; Rome now capable of centuries of life, +that had been, when he came to it, a ghastly putridity. + + + + +XIX. AN IMPERIAL SACRIFICE + + +"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" + + +This is the secret of writing: look at the external things until +you see pulsating behind them the rhythm and beauty of the +Eternal. Only look for it, and persist in your search, and +presently the Universal will be revealed shining through the +particular, the sweep of everlasting Law through the little +object, and happenings of a day. + +Come to history with the same intent and method, and at last +things appear in their true light. Here, too, as in a landscape, +is the rhythm of the Eternal; here are the Basic Forms. I doubt +if the evidence of the annalists is ever worth much, unless +they had an eye to penetrate to these. When one sees behind +the supposed fact narrated and the judgments pronounced the +glimmering up of a basic form, one guesses one is dealing with a +true historian. + +Recently I read a book called _The Tragedy of the Caesars,_ by +the novelist Baring-Gould; and in it the life of a certain man +presented in a sense flatly contradictory to the views of +nineteen centuries anent that man; but it seemed to me at last +an account that had the rhythm, the basic form, showing through. +So in this lecture what I shall try to give you will be Mr. +Baring-Gould's version of this man's life, with efforts of my +own to go further and make quite clear the basic form. + +What does one mean by 'basic form'? In truth it is hard to +define. Only, this world, that seems such a heterogeneous +helter-skelter of mournful promiscuities, is in fact the pattern +that flows from the loom of an Eternal Weaver: a beautiful +pattern, with its rhythms and recurrences; there is no haphazard +in it; it is not mechanical,--yet still flawless as the +configuarations of a crystal or the petals of a perfect flower. + +The name of the man we are to think of tonight has come down as a +synonym for infamy: we imagine him a gloomy and bloodthirsty +tyrant; a morose tiger enthroned; a gross sensualist;--well, I +shall show you portraits of him, to see whether you can accept +him for that. The truth is that aristocratic Rome, degenerate +and frivolous, parrot-cried out against the supposed deneracy of +the imperial, and for the glories of the old republican, regime; +for the days when Romans were Romans, and 'virtuous.' One came +to them in whom the (real) ancient Roman honor more appeared than +in another man in Italy, perhaps before or since;--and they could +not understand the honor, and hated the man. They captured his +name in a great net of lies; they breathed a huge fog of lies +about him, which come down to us as history. Now to see whether +a plain tale may not put them down. + +Once more take your stand, please, on the Mountain of the Gods: +the time, in or about the year 39 B.C.:--and thence try to +envisage the world as Those do who guide but are not involved in +the heats and dusts of it. The Western World; in which +Rome, _caput mundi,_ was the only thing that counted. _Caput +mundi;_ but a kind of idiot head at that: inchoate, without +co-ordination; maggots scampering through what might have been +the brain; the life fled, and that great rebellion of the many +lives which we call decay having taken its place. And yet, it +was no true season for Rome to be dead; it was no natural +death; not so much decent death at all as the death in life +we call madness. For the Crest-Wave men were coming in; it +was the place where they should be. The cycle of Italy had +begun, shall we say, in 94 B.C., and would end in 36 A.D.; +--for convenience one must give figures, though one means +only approximations by them;--and not until after that latter +date would souls of any caliber cease to be incarnate in +Roman bodies. Before that time, then, the madness had to +be cured and Rome's mission had to be fulfilled. + +The mission was, to homogenize the world. That was the task the +Law had in mind for Rome; and it had to be done while the +Crest-Wave remained in Italy and important egos were gathered +in Rome. Some half dozen strong souls, under the Gods' special +agent Octavian, had gone in there to do the work; but the +Crest-Wave had flowed into Rome when Rome was already vice-rotten; +and how could she expect to run her whole thirteen decades a great +and ruling people? None of those strong souls could last out the +whole time. Octavian himself, should he live to be eighty, would +die and not see the cycle finished: twenty years of it would +remain--to be filled by one worthy to succeed him, or how +should his work escape being undone? The world must be made +homogensous, and Rome not its conqueror and cruel mistress, but +its well-respected heart and agreed-on center; and all this must +be accomplished, and established firmly, before her cyclic +greatness had gone elsewhere:--that is, before 37 A.D. + +The Republic, as we have seen, had had its method of ruling the +provinces: it was to send out young profligates to fleece and +exploit them, and make them hate Rome. This must be changed, and +a habit formed of ruling for the benefit of the subject peoples. +Two or three generations of provincials must have grown up in +love with Rome before the end of the cycle, or the Empire would +then inevitably break. By 37 A.D., the Crest-Wave would have +left Italy, and would be centering in Spain. Spain, hating Rome, +would shake off the Roman yoke; she would have the men to do +it;--and the rest of the world would follow suit. Even if Spain +should set herself to the Gods' work of union-making, what path +should she take towards it? Only that of conquest would be open; +and how should she hope to conquer, and then wipe out the evil +traces of her conquering, and create a homogeneity, all within +her possible cycle of thirteen decades? Rome's great opportunity +came, simply because Rome had done the conquering before ever the +Crest-Wave struck her; in days when the Crest-Wave was hardly in +Europe at all. Even so, it would be a wonder if all could be +finished in the few years that remained. + +By Rome it never could have been done at all: it was the office +of a Man, not of a state or nation. The Man who should do it, +must do it from Rome: and Rome had first to be put into such +condition as to be capable of being used. It devolved upon +Augustus to do that first, or his greater work would be +impossible. He had to win Rome to acquiescence in himself as +Princeps. So his primary need was a personality of infinite +tact; and _that_ he possessed. He was the kind of man everybody +could like; that put everyone at ease; that was friendly and +familiar in all sorts of society; so he could make that +treacherous quagmire Rome stable enough to be his _pied-a-terre._ +That done, he could stretch out his arms thence to the provinces, +and begin to weld them into unity. For this was the second +part and real aim of his work: to rouse up in the Empire a +centripetalism, with Rome for center, before centripetalism, in +Rome itself, should have given place to the centrifugal forces of +national death. + +Rome ruled the world, and Augustus Rome, by right of conquest; +and that is the most precarious right of all, and must always +vanish with a change in the cycles. He had to, and did, +transmute it into a stable right: first with respect to his own +standing in Rome,--which might be done, with _tact_ for weapon,-- +in a few years; then with respect to Rome's standing in the +world,--which could not be done in less than a couple of +lifetimes, and with the best of good government as means. If +the work should be interrupted too early it would all fall to +pieces. So then he must have one successor at least, a soul of +standing equal to his own: one that could live and reign until +37 A.D. Let the Empire until that year be ruled continuously +from Rome in such a manner as to rouse up Roman--that is, World, +--patriotism in all its provinces, and the appearance of the +Crest-Wave in a new center would not be the signal for a new +break-up of the world. The problem was, then, to find the man +able to do this. + +The child: for he must not be a man yet. And seeing what was at +stake, he must be better equipped than Augustus: he must be +trained from childhood by Augustus. Because he was to work in +the midst of much more difficult conditions. Augustus had real +men to help him: the successor probably would have none. When +the Crest-Wave struck it, Rome was already mean and corrupt and +degenerate. Augustus, not without good human aid, might hope to +knock it into some kind of decency during the apex-time of the +thirteen decades. His reign would fall, roughly, in the third +quarter of the cycle, which is the best time therein; but his +successor would have to hold out through the last quarter, which +is the very worst. The Crest-Wave would then be passing from +Italy: Rome would be becoming ever a harder place for a Real Man +to live and work in. Meaner and meaner egos would be sneaking +into incarnation; decent gentlemanly souls would be growing ever +more scarce. By 'mean egos' I intend such as are burdened with +ingrate personalities: creatures on whom sensuality has done its +disintegrating work; whose best pleasure is to exempt themselves +from any sense of degradation caused by fawning on the one strong +enough to be their master, by tearing down as they may his work +and reputation, circulating lies about him, tormenting him in +every indirect way they can. Among such as these, and probably +quite lonely among the, the successor of Augustus would lave to +live, fulfilling Heaven's work in spite of them. Where to find a +Soul capable, or who would dare undertake the venture? Well; +since it was to be done, and for the Gods,--no doubt the Gods +would have sent their qualified man into incarnation. + +In B.C. 39 Octavian proclaimed a general amnesty; and among +these who profited by it was a certain member of the Claudian +gens,--one of that Nero family to which Rome owed so much-- + + _Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal + Devictus_ + +He had been a friend of Caesar's and an enemy of Octavian's; and +had been spending his time recently in fleeing from place to +place in much peril; as had also his wife, aged eighteen, and +their three-year-old son. On one occasion this lady was hurrying +by night through a forest, and the forest took fire; she +escaped, but not until the heat singed the cloak in which the +baby boy in her arms was wrapped. Now they returned, and +settled in their house on the Palatine not far from the house +of Octavian. + +In Rome at that time marriage was not a binding institution. To +judge by the lives of those prominent enough to come into +history, you simply married and divorced a wife whenever +convenient. Octavian some time before had married Scribonia, to +patch up an alliance with her kins-man Sextus Pompey, then +prominent on the high seas in the role--I think the phrase is Mr. +Stobart's--of gentleman-pirate. As she was much older than +himself, and they had nothing in common, it occurred to no one +that, now the utility of the match had passed, he would not +follow the usual custom and divorce her. He met Livia, the wife +of this Tiberius Claudius Nero, and duly did divorce Livia. A +new wedding followed, in which Claudius Nero acted the part of +father to his ex-wife, and gave her away to Octavian. It all +sounds very disgraceful; but this must be said: the great +Augustus could never have done his great work so greatly had he +not had at his side the gracious figure of the empress Livia,-- +during the fifty-two years that remained to him his serenest +counselor and closest friend. + +And then--there was the boy: I believe the most important +element in the transaction. + +His father died soon afterwards, and he came to live in the +palace, under the care of his mother,--and of Augustus; who had +now within his own family circle the two egos with whom he was +most nearly concerned, and without whom his work would have been +impossible. So I think we may put aside the idea that the +marriage with Livia was an 'affair of the heart,' as they call +it:--a matter of personal and passional atraction. He was guided +to it, as always, by his _Genius,_ and followed the promptings of +the Gods. + +But,--Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. The divorced +Scribonia never forgave Augustus. She became the center of a +faction in society that hated him, hated Livia, loathed and +detested the whole Claudian line. There must have been bad blood +in Scribonia. Her daughter Julia became profligate. Of Julia's +five children, Agrippa Postumus went mad through his vices; +Julia inherited her mother's tendencies, and came to a like end. +Agrippina, a bitter and violent woman, became the evil genius of +the next reign. Of this Agrippina's children, Drusus and +Caligula went mad and her daughter was the mother of the madman +Nero. To me the record suggest this: that the marriage with, +not the divorce of, Scribonia was a grave mistake on the part of +Octavian; bringing down four generations of terible karma. He +was afloat in dangerous seas at that time, and a mere boy to take +arms against them: did he, trusting in material alliances and +the aid of Sextus Pirate, forget for once to trust in his +_Genius_ within? We have seen how the lines of pain became +deeply graven on his face during the years that followed Caesar's +death. A high soul, incarnating, must take many risks; and +before it has found itself and tamed the new personality, may +have sown griefs for itself to be reaped through many lives. The +descendants of Augustus and Scribonia were the bane of Augustus +and of Rome. But Livia was his good star, and always added to +his peace. + +But now, back to the household on the Palatine, in the thirties B.C. + +Julia (Scribonia's daughter), pert, witty, bold, and daring, was +the darling of her father, whom she knew well how to amuse. +Drusus, the younger son of Livia and Claudius Nero, was a bold +handsome boy of winning manners and fine promise, generally +noticed and loved. To these two you may say Augustus stood in +only human relations: the loving, careful, and _jolly_ father, +sharing in all their games and merriment. He always liked +playing with children: as emperor, would often stop in his walks +through the streets to join in a game with the street-boys. But +with Livia's elder son, Tiberius, he was different. Tiberius had +no charm of manner: Drusus his brother quite put him in the +shade. He carried with him the scars of his babyhood's perilous +adventures, and the terror of that unremembered night of fire. +He was desperately shy and sensitive; awkward in company; +reserved, timid, retiring, silent. Within the nature so pent up +were tense feelings; you would say ungovernable, only that he +always did govern them. He went unnoticed; Drusus was the pet +of all; under such conditions how much harmony as a rule exists +between two brothers? But Tiberius loved Drusus with his whole +heart; his thoughts knew no color of jealousy; unusual harmony +was between them until Drusus died.--The world said Augustus +disliked the boy: we shall see on what appearances that opinion +was based. But Tiberius, then and ever afterwards, held for +Augustus a feeling deeper and stronger than human or filial +affection: it was that, with the added reverence of a disciple +for his Teacher.--You shall find these intense feelings sometimes +in children of his stamp; though truly children of the stamp of +Tiberius are rare enough; for with all his tenderness, his +over-sensitiveness and timidity, put him to some task, whisper +to him _Duty!_--and the little Tiberius is another child altogether: +unflinching, silent, determined, pertinacious, ready to die +rather than give in before the thing is most whole-souledly done. + +Augustus, merriest and most genial of men, never treated him as +he did Julia and Drusus: there were no games and rompings with +Tiberius. Let this grave child come into the room, and all +ended; as if the Princeps were a school-boy caught at it by some +stern prowling schoolmaster. Indeed, it was common talk that +Augustus, until the last years of his life, never smiled in +Tiberius' presence; that his smile died always on his stepson's +entry; the joke begun went unfinished; he became suddenly grave +and restrained;--as, I say, in the presence of a soul not to be +treated with levity, but always upon a considered plan. + +The children grew up, and people began to talk of a successorship +to Augustus in the Principate. It would be, of course, through +Julia, his daughter. He married her to Marcellus, aged +seventeen, his sister Octavia's son, who he adopted. Marcellus +and Julia, then, would succeed him; no one thought of retiring +Tiberius. Marcellus, however, died in a couple of years; and +folk wondered who would step into his place. Augustus gave Julia +to Vipsanius Agrippa, the man who had won so many campaigns for +him. Agrippa was as old as the Princeps, but of much stronger +constitution; and so, likely to outlive him perhaps a long +while. Very appropriate, said Rome: Agrippa will reign next: +an excellent fellow. No one thought of shy Tiberius.--Agrippa, +by the way, was a strong man and a strict disciplinarian,--with +soldiers, at any rate: it might be hoped also with wives. It +was just as well for lady Julia to be under a firm hand. + +Ten years later Agrippa died, and the heirship presumptive passed +to his two eldest children by Julia: the princes Caius and +Lucius. Augustus adopted them in due course. Heirship +presumptive means here, that they were the ones Rome presumed +would be the heirs: a presumption which Augustus, without being +too definite, encouraged. The Initiate Leaders and Teachers of +the world do not, as a rule, as far as one can judge, advertise +well beforehand the identity of their successors.--As for +Tiberius;--why, said Rome, his stepfather does not even like +him. Drusus, now, and _his_ children,--ah, that might be +a possibility. + +For the marriages of the two brothers told a tale. Drusus had +married into the sacred Julian line: a daughter of Octavia and +Mark Anthony; his son Germanicaus was thus a grand-nephew of +Augustus, and a very great pet. But Tiberius had made a +love-match, with a mere daughter of Agrippa by some former wife: +an alliance that could not advance him in any way. Her name was +Vipsania; the whole intensity of his pent-up nature went into +his feeling for her; he was remarkably happily married;--that +is, for the human, the tender, sensitive, and affectionate +side of him. + +Meanwhile both brothers had proved their worth. At twenty-two, +Tiberius set up a kind in Armenia, and managed for Augustus the +Parthian affair, whereby the standards of Crassus were returned. +There were Swiss and German campaigns: in which Drusus was +rather put where he might shine,--and he did shine;--and Tiberius +a little in the shade. But Drusus in Germany fell from his +horse, and died of his injuries; and then Tiberius was without +question the first general of his age, and ablest man under the +Princeps. As a soldier he was exceedingly careful of the welfare +of his men; cautious in his strategy, yet bold; reserved; he +made his own plans, and saw personally to their carrying out;-- +above all, he never made mistakes and never lost a battle. His +natural shyness and timidity and awkwardness vanished as soon as +there was work to be done: in camp, or on the battlefield, he was +a very different man from the shy Tiberius of Roman society. + +Gossip left his name untouched. It took advantage of Augustus; +natural _bonhomie,_ and whispered tales agains _him_ galore: +even said that Livia retained her hold on him by taking his +indiscretions discreetly;--which is as much as to say that an +utterly corrupt society judged that great man by its own corrupt +standards. But Tiberius was too austere; his life chilled even +Roman gossip into silence. There was also his patent devotion to +Vipsania..... You could only sneer at him, if at all, for +lack of spirit. + +He had, then, great and magnificent qualities; but the scars of +his babyhood peril remained. There was that timid and clinging +disposition; that over-sensitiveness that came out when he was +away from camp, or without immediate business to transact, or in +any society but that of philosophers and occultists:--for we do +know that he was a student of Occult Philosophy. He had grand +qualities; but felt, beneath his reserve, much too strongly; +had a heart too full of pent-up human affections. But it +is written: + + _"Before the Soul can stand in the prescence of the Masters, +its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart."_ + +It devolved upon his Teacher to break that heart for him; so +that he might stand in the presence of the Masters. + +Agrippa had died; and for Julia's sake it was wise and better to +provide her with a husband. Augustus hesitated long before he +dared take the tremendous step he did: as one doubtful whether +it would accomplish what he hoped, or simply kill at once the +delicate psychic organism to be affected by it. Then he struck, +--hurled the bolt. Let Tiberius put away Vipsania and marry Julia. + +Put away that adored Vipsania:--marry that Julia,--whom every +single instinct in his nature abhorred! Incompatible:--that is +the very least and mildest thing you can say about it;--but he +must say nothing, for he is speaking to her father. He resists a +long time, in deep anguish; but there is one word that for +Tiberius was ever a clarion call to his soul. + +What, cries he, is this terrible thing you demand of me?--and his +Teacher answers: _Duty._ Duty to Rome, that the Julian and +Claudian factions may be united; duty to the empire, that my +successors, Caius and Lucius, may have, after I am gone, a strong +man for their guardian.--You will note that, if you please. +Augustus had just adopted these two sons of Julias; they were, +ostensibly, to be his successors; there was no bait for ambition +in this sacrifice Tiberius was called on to make; he would not +succeed to the Principate; the marriage would not help him; +there was to be nothing in it for him but pure pain. In the name +of duty he was called on to make a holocaust of himself. + +He did it; and the feet of his soul were indeed washed in the +blood of his heart. He said no word; he divorced Vipsania and +explained nothing. But for months afterwards, if he should +chance to meet her, or see her in the street far off, he could +not hide the fact that his eyes filled with tears.--Then Rome in +its own kindly way took upon itself the duty or pleasure of +helping him out a little: gossip got to work to soothe the ache +of his wound. "Vipasania," said gossip;--"you are well rid of +her; she was far from being all that you thought her." Probably +he believed nothing of it; but the bitterness lay in its being +said. A shy man is never popular. His shyness passes for pride, +and people hate him for it. Tiberius was very shy. So society +was always anxious to take down his pride a little. The truth +was, he was humble to the verge of self-distrust. + +He did his best for Julia: lived under the same roof with her +for a few agonized months, and discovered what everyone knew or +suspected about her. The cup of his grief was now quite full; +and indeed, worse things a man could hardly suffer. Austere, +reserved, and self-controlled as he was, at sight of Vipsania he +could not hide his tears. But it is written: + + _"Before the eyes can see, they must become incapable of +tears."_ + +--He was the butt of Roman gossip: in all rancorous mouths +because of the loved Vipsania; in all tattling mouths because of +the loathed Julia; laughed at on both accounts; sympathized +with by nobody; hearing all whispers, and fearfully sensitive to +them. But + + _"Before the ear can hear, it must have lost its sensitiveness."_ + +The storm was upon him; the silence was ahead; he was rocked +and shaken and stunned by the earthquakes and thunders of +Initiation: when a man has to be hopeless, and battered, and +stripped of all things: a naked soul afflicted with fiery rains +and torments; and to have no pride to back him; and no ambition +to back him; and no prospect before him at all, save such as can +be seen with the it may be unopened eyes of faith. This is the +way Tiberius endured his trials:-- + +All Rome knew what Julia was, except Augustus. So it is said; +and perhaps truly; for here comes in the mystery of human +duality: a thing hard enough to understand in ourselves, that +are common humanity; how much harder the variety that appears in +one such as Augustus! You may say, He must have known. Well, +there was the Adept Soul; that, I doubt not, would have known. +But perhaps it is that those who have all knowledge at their beck +and call, have the power to know or not know what they will?--to +know what shall help, not to know what shall hinder their work? +Julia was not to be saved: was, probably, tainted with madness +like so many of her descendants:--then what the Adept Soul could +not forfend, why would the human personality, the warn-hearted +father, be aware of? Had that last known, how should he escape +being bowed down with grief: then in those years when all his +powers and energies were needed? Octavian had gone through storm +and silence long since: in the days of the Triumvirate, and his +enforced partnership in its nefarious deeds;--now his personal +mind and his hands were needed to guide the Empire: and needed +clear and untrammeled with grief... Until Tiberius should be +ready; at least until Tiberius.... So I imagine it possible that +the soul of Augustus kept from its personality that wounding +knowledge about Julia. + +Tiberius was not the one to interfere with its purposes. Why did +he not get a divorce? The remedy was clear and easy; and he +would have ceased to be the laughing stock of Rome. He did not +get a divorce; or try to; he said no word; he would not +lighten his own load by sharing it with the Teacher he loved. He +would not wound that Teacher to save himself pain or shame. +Augustus had made severe laws for punishing such offenses as +Julia's; and--well, Tiberius would bear his griefs alone. No +sound escaped him. + +But, as no effort of his could help or save her, live with Julia, +or in Rome, he could not. His health broke down; he threw up +all offices, and begged leave to retire to Rhodes. Augustus was +(apparently) quite unsympathetic; withheld the permission until +(they say) Tiberius had starved himself for four days to show it +was go or die with him. And no, he would not take Julia; and he +would give no reason for not taking her. Well; what was +Augustus to do, having to keep up human appearances, and suit his +action to the probabilities? What, but appear put out, insulted, +angry? Estrangement followed; and Tiberius went in (apparent) +disgrace. I find the explanation once more in _Light on the +Path;_ thus-- + +"In the early state in which a man is entering upon the silence +he loses knowledge of his friends, of his lovers, of all +who have been near and dear to him: _and also loses sight of +his teachers._" + +So in this case. "Scarce one passes through," we read, "without +bitter complaint." But I think Tiberius did. + +How else to explain the incident I cannot guess. Or indeed, his +whole life. Tacitus' account does not hang together at all; the +contraditions trip each other up, and any mud is good enough to +fling. Mr. Baring-Gould's version goes far towards truth; but +the well is deep for his tackle, and only esotericism, I think, +can bring up the clear water. Whether Augustus knew all +personally, or was acting simply on the promptings of his inner +nature, or of Those who stoood behind him,--he took the course, +it seems to me, which as an Occult Teacher he was bound to take. +His conduct was framed in any case to meet the needs of his +disciple's initiation. He, for the Law, had to break that +disciple's outer life; and then send him lonely into the silence +to find the greater life within. Truly these waters are deep; +and one may be guessing with the utmost presumption. But hear +_Light on the Path_ again; and judge whether the picture that +emerges is or is not consistent. It says: + +"Your teacher or your predecessor, may hold your hand in his, and +give you the utmost sympathy the human heart is capable of. But +when the silence and the darkness come, you lose all knowledge of +him: you are alone, and he cannot help you; not because his +power is gone, but because you have invoked your great enemy." + +--Tiberius was alone, and Augustus could not help him; and +he went off, apparently quite out of favor, to seven years +of voluntary exile in Rhodes, there to don the robe of a +philosopher, and study philosophy and "astrology," as they say. +Let us put it, the Esoteric Wisdom; I think we may. + +The truth about Julia could not be kept from Augustus forever. +It came to his ears at last; when his work was by so much nearer +completion, and when Tiberius was by so much nearer his +illumination. The Princeps did his duty, thought it made an old +man of him: he banished Julia according to his own law. Then it +was the wronged husband who stepped in and interceded; who wrote +pleading letters to his stepfatehr, imploring him to have mercy +on the erring woman: to lighten her punishment; to let her +mother, at least, be with her in her exile. He knew well what +tales Julia had been telling her father about him; and how +Augustus had seemed to believe them; but "a courageous endurance +of personal injustice" is demanded of the disciple; and very +surely it was found in him. Rome heard of his intercession, +and sneered at him for his weak-spiritedness; as kindly +letter-writers failed not to let him know. + + "Look for the flower to bloom in the silence that follows +the storm, not till then." + +The flower bloomed in this case during those seven years at +Rhodes; then Tiberius was fit to return. Outer events shaped +themseves to fit inner needs and qualifications: here now at +last was the Man who was to succeed Augustus, duly and truly +prepared, worthy and well-qualified: initiated, and ready to be +named before the world Heir to the Principate. Within a few +months of each other Caius and Lucius, the hitherto supposed +successors designate, died; their brother Agrippa Postumus was +already showing signs of incipient madness. True, there +were many of the Julian line still alive and available, were +Augustus (as had been thought) bent on making Julian blood the +qualification necessary: there was Germanicus, married to +Agrippina; he the son of Drusus and Antonia, Octavia's +daughter; she the daughter of Julia, and so grand-daughter of +Augustus himself: there were these two with their several +children. But all else might wait upon the fact that Tiberius, +the real man, was now ready. The Princeps adopted him, and no +one was left to doubt who was to be the successor. The happiest +years in Tiberius's life began: he had at last the full, +unreserved, and undisguised friendship of his Teacher. His +portarait-busts taken at this period show for the fist and only +time a faint smile on his gravely beautiful face. + +Also he was given plenty of work. His great German campaigns +followed quickly; and the quelling of the Pannanian insurrection +that called him back from the Rhine; and Varus' defeat while +Tiberius was in Pannonia; and Tiberius's triumphant saving of +the situation. It was then, when the frontier was broken and all +the world aquake with alarm, that he consulted his generals; the +only time he ever did so. Says Velleius Paterculus, who served +uner him:--"There was no ostentation in his conduct; it was +marked by solid worth, practicality, humaneness. He took as much +care of any one of us who happened to be sick, as if that one's +health were the main object of his concern." Ambulances, he +continues, were always in attendance, with a medical staff, warm +baths, suitable food, etc., for the sick. "The general often +admonished, rarely punished; taking a middle part, dissembling +his knowledge of most faults, and preventing the commission of +others.... He preferred the approval of his own conscience to the +acquisition of renown." + +He returned to Rome in triumph in the autumn of A.D. 12; and +dismissed his chief captives with present, instead of butchering +them in the fine old Roman way. He was at the height of his +fame; undeniably Rome's savior, and surely to be Princeps on his +Teacher's death. Augustus, in letters that remain, calls him +"the only strength and stay of the Empire." "All who were with +you," says he, "admit that this verse suits you:" + + 'One man by vigilance has restored the state.' + +Whenever anything happens that requires more than ordinary +consideration, or when I am out of humor, then, by Hercules, I +long for the presence of my dear Tiberius; and Homer's lines +rise in my mind: + + 'Bold from his prudence, I could e'en aspire + To dare with him the burning rage of fire.' + +"When I hear that you are worn out with incessant fatigue, the +Gods confound me if I am not all in a quake. So I entreat you +to spare yourself, lest, should we hear of your being ill, the +news prove fatal to your mother and myself, and the Roman people +be alarmed for the safety of the Empire. I pray heaven to +preserve you for us, and bless you with health now and ever,--if +the Gods care a rush for the Roman people. ....Farewell, my +dearest Tiberius; may good success attend you, you best of all +generals, in all that you undertake for me and for the Muses." + +Two years later Augustus died, and Tiberius became emperor; and +the persecution broke out that was not to end till his death. +Let us get the whole situation firmly in mind. There was that +clique in high society of men who hated the Principate because it +had robbed them of the spoils of power. It gathered first round +Scribonia, because she hated Augustus for divorcing her; then +round Julia, because she was living in open contempt of the +principles her father stood for. Its chief bugbear of all +was Tiberius, because he was the living embodiment of those +principles; and because Julia, the witty and brilliant, hated +him above all things and made him in the salons the butt for her +shafts. Its darling poet was Ovid; whose poetic mission was, in +Mr. Stobart's phrase, "to gild uncleannes with charm." Presently +Augustus sent him into exile: whiner over his own hard lot. But +enough of unsavory him: the clique remained and treasured his +doctrine. When Caius and Lucius died, it failed not to whisper +that of course Tiberius had poisoned them; and during the next +twenty-five years you could hardly die, in Rome, without the +clique's buzzing a like tale over your corpse.--A faction that +lasted on, handing down its legends, until Suetonius and Tacitus +took them up and immortalized them; thus creating the Tiberius +of popular belief and "history," deceiving the world for +twenty centuries. + +The Augustan system implied no tyranny; not even absolutism:--it +was through no fault of its founder, or of his successor, that +the constitutional side of it broke down. Remember the divine +aim behind it all: to weld the world into one. So you must +have the provinces, the new ones that retaineed their national +identity, under Adept rule; there must be no monkeying by +incompetents there. Those provinces were, absolutely all in the +hands of Caesar. But in Rome, and Italy, and all quiet and +long-settled parts, the senate was to rule; and Augustus' effort, +and especially Tiberius' effort, was to make it do so. But by +this time, you may say, there was nothing resembling a human ego +left among the senators: when the Manasaputra incarnated, these +fellows had been elsewhere. They simply could not rule. +Augustus had had constantly to be intervening to pull them out of +scrapes; to audit their accounts for them, because they could +not do the sums themselves; to send down men into their +provinces to put things right whenever they went wrong. Tiberius +was much more loath to do this. At times one almost suspects him +of being at heart a republican, anxious to restore the Republic +the first moment it might be practicable. That would be, when +the whole empire was one nation and some few souls to guide +things should have appeared. At any rate (in his latter years) +it must have seemed still possible that the Principate should +continue: there was absolutely no one to follow him in it. So +the best thing was to leave as much as possible the senate's duty +to the senate, that responsibility might be aroused in them. For +himself, he gave his whole heart and mind to governing the +provinces of Caesar. He went minutely into finances; and would +have his sheep sheared, not flayed. His eyes and hands were +everywhere, to bring about the Brotherhood of Man. There is, +perhaps, evidence in the Christian Evangels: where we see the +Jewish commonalty on excellent good terms with the Roman soldier, +and Jesus consorting freindily with Tiberius' centurions and +tax-gatherers; but the Jewish national leaders as the enemies of +both--of the Romans, and of the democratic Nazarene. If this +emperor's life had come down through provincial, and not +metropolitan, channels, we should have heard of him as the most +beneficent of men. Indeed, Mr. Baring-Gould argues that among +the Christians a tradition came down of him as of one "very near +the Kingdom of God." It may be so; and such a view may even be +the reflexion of the Nazarene Master's own opinion as to +Tiberius. At any rate, we must suppose that at that time the +Christian Movement was still fairly pure: its seat was in the +provinces, far from Rome; and its strength among humble people +seeking to live the higher life. But those who were interested +to lie against Tiberius, and whose lies come down to us for +history, were all metropolitans, and aristocrats, and apostles +of degeneracy. I do not mean to include Tacitus under the last +head; but he belonged to the party, and inherited the tradition. + + +It was on the provinces that Tiberius had his hand, not on the +metropolis. He hoped the senators would do their duty, gave them +every chance to; he rather turned his eyes away from their +sphere, and kept them fixed on his own. We must understand this +well: the histories give but accounts of Roman and home affairs; +with which, as they were outside his duty, Tiberius concerned +himself as little as he might. + +But the senate's conception of duty-doing was this: flatter the +Caesar in public with all the ingenuity and rhetoric God or the +devil has given you; but for the sake of decency slander him in +private, and so keep your self-respect.--I abased my soul to +Caesar, I? Yes, I know I licked his shoes in the senate house; +but that was merely camouflage. At Agrippina's _at home_ I made +up for it; was it not high-souled I who told that filthy story +about him?--which, (congratulate me!) I invented myself. How +dare you then accuse me of being small-spirited, or one to +reverence any man soever?--So these maggots crawled and tumbled; +untill they brought down their own karma on their heads like the +Assyrian in the poem, or a thousand of bricks. Constitutuionalism +broke down, and tyranny came on awfully in its place; and those +who had not upheld the constitution suffered from the tyranny. +But it was not heroic Tiberius who was the tyrant. + +He was unpopular with the crowd, because austere and taciturn; +he would not wear the pomps and tinsels, or swagger it in public +to their taste. He was too reserved; he was not a good mixer: +if you fell on your knees to him, he simply recoiled in disgust. +He would not witness the gladiatorial games, with their sickening +senseless bloodshed; nor the plays at the theatre, with their +improprieties. In these things he was an anomaly in his age, and +felt about them as would any humane gentleman today. So it was +easy for his enemies to work up popular feeling aginst him. + +At the funeral of Augustus he had to read the oration. A lump in +his throat prevented him getting through with it, and he handed +the paper to his son Drusus to finish. "Oh!" cried his enemies +then and Tacitus after them, "what dissimulation! what rank +hypocrisy! when in reality he must be overjoyed to be in the +dead man's shoes." When that same Drusus (his dear son and sole +hope) died some years later, he so far controlled his feelings +that none saw a muscle of his face moved by emotion while he read +the oration. "Oh!" cried his enemies then and Tacitus after +them, "what a cold unfeeling monster!" Tiberius, with an +absolute eye for reading men's thoughts, knew well what was being +said on either occasion. + +When Augustus died, his one surviving grandson, Agrippa Postumus, +was mad and under restraint in the island of Planasia, near Elba. +A plot was hatched to spirit him away to the Rhine, and have him +there proclaimed as against Tiberius by the legions. One Clemens +was deputed to do this; but when Clemens reached Planasia, he +found Agrippa murdered. Says Suetonius: + +"It remained doubtful whether Augustus left the order (for the +murder) in his last moments, to prevent any public disturbance +after his death; or whether Livia issued it in the name of +Augustus, or whether it was issued with or without the knowledge +of Tiberius."--Tacitus in the right,--though truly this Agrippa +Postumus was a peculiarly violent offensive idiot, and Augustus +knew well what the anti-Claudian faction was capable of. Nor can +one credit that gracious lady Livia with it; though it was she +who persuaded Tiberius to hush the thing up, and rescind his +order for a public senatorial investigation. For an order to +that effect he issued; and Tacitus, _more suo,_ puts it down to +his hypocrisy. Tacitus' method with Tiberius is this: all his +acts of mercy are to be attributed to weak-spiritedness; all his +acts of justice, to blood-tyranny; everything else to hypocrisy +and dissimulation. + +Neither Augustus, nor yet Livia, then, had Agrippa killed; must +we credit it to Tiberius? Less probably, I think, it was he than +either of the others: I can just imagine Augustus taking the +responsibility for the sake of Rome, but not Tiberius criminal +for his own sake. Here is an explanation which incriminates +neither: it may seem far-fetched; but then many true things do. +We know how the children of darkness hate the Messengers of +Light. Tiberius stood for private and public morality; the +Julian-republican clique for the opposite. He stood for the +nations welded into one, the centuries to be, and the high +purposes of the Law. They stood for anarchy, civil war, and the +old spoils system.--Down him then! said they. And how?--Fish up +mad Postumus, and let's have a row with the Legions of the +Rhine.--Yes; that sounds pretty--for you who are not in the deep +know of the thing. But how far do you think the Legions of the +Rhine are going to support this young revolting-habited madman +against the first general of the age? You are green; you are +crude, my friends;--but go to it; your plot shall do well. But +we, the cream and innermost of the party,--we have another. Let +the madman be murdered,--and who shall be called the murderer? + +I believe they argued that way;--and very wisely; for Tiberius +still carries the odium of the murder of Agrippa Postumus. + +Why did he allow himself to be dissuaded from the public +investigation? Was it weakness? His perturbation when he heard +of the murder, and his orders for the investigation, were natural +enough. One can perhaps understand Livia, shaken with the grief +of her great bereavement, fearing the unknown, fearing scandal, +fearing to take issue with the faction whose strength and +bitterness she knew, pleading with her son to let the matter be. +Was it weakness on his part, that he concurred? This much must +be allowed: Tiberius was always weak at self-defense. Had he +taken prompt steps against his personal enemies, it might have +been much better for him, in a way. But then and always his eyes +were upon the performance of his duty; which he understood to be +the care of the empire, not the defense of himself. We called +Augustus the bridge; Tiberius was the shield. He understood the +business of a shield to be, to take shafts, and make no noise +about it. Proud he was; with that sublime pride that argues +itself capable of standing all things, so that the thing it cares +for--which is not its own reputation--is unhurt. You shall see. +We might call it unwisdom, if his work had suffered by it; but +it was only his peace, his own name--and eventually his enemies-- +that suffered. He brought the world through. + +Detail by detail, Mr. Baring-Gould takes the incidents of his +reign, and show how the plot was worked up against him, and every +happening, all his deeds and motives, colorless or finely +colored, given a coat of pitch. We can only glance at one or two +points here: his relations with Germanicus, and with Agrippina; +the rise and fall of Sejanus. + +Germanicus, his nephew, was fighting on the Rhine when Tiberius +came to the throne. There was a mutiny; which Germanicus +quelled with much loss of dignity and then with much bloodshed. +To cover the loss of dignity, he embarked on gay adventures +against the Germans; and played the fool a little, losing some +few battles. Tiberius, who understood German affairs better than +any man living, wanted peace in that quarter; and recalled +Germanicus; then, lest there should be any flavor of disgrace in +the recall, sent him on a mission to the East. Your textbooks +will tell you he recalled him through jealousy of his brilliant +exploits. Germanicus being something flighty of disposition, the +emperor sent with him on his new mission a rough old fellow by +the name of Calpurnius Piso to keep a weather eye open on him, +and neutralize, as far as might be, extravagant actions. The +choice, it must be said, was a bad one; for the two fought like +cat and dog the better part of the time. Then Germanicus died, +supposing that Piso had poisoned him; and Agrippina his wife +came home, an Ate shrieking for revenge. She had exposed her +husband's naked body in the marketplace at Antioch, that all +might see he had been poisoned; which shows the kind of woman +she was. Germanicus was given a huge funeral at Rome; he +was the darling of the mob, and the funeral was really a +demonstration against Tiberius. then Piso was to be tried for +the murder: a crabbed but honest old plebeian of good and +ancient family, who Tiberius knew well enough was innocent. +There were threats of mob violence if he should be acquitted; +and the suggestion studiously sown that Piso, guilty, had been +set on to the murder by the Princeps. Tiberius, knowing the +popular feeling, did not attend the funeral of his nephew. It +was a mistake in policy, perhaps; but his experience had been +unpleasant enought at the funeral of Augustus. Tacitus says he +stayed away fearing lest the public, peering into his face thus +from close to, might see the marks of dissimulation in it, and +realize that his grief was hypocrisy. How the devil did Tacitus +know? Yet what he says comes down as gospel. + +This sort of thing went on continually, and provided him a poor +atmosphere in which to do his great and important work. As he +grew older, he retired more and more. He trusted in his minister +Sejanus who had once heroically save his life: an exceedingly +able, but unfortunately also an exceedingly wicked man. Sejanus +became his link with Rome and the senate; and used that +position, and the senate's incompetence, to gather into his own +hands a power practically absolute in home affairs. Home +affairs, be it always remembered, were what the Princeps expected +the senate to attend to: their duty, under the constitution. +Instead, however, they fawned on Sejanus _ad lib._ Sejanus +murdered Tiberius' son Drusus, and aspired to the hand of +Livilla, his widow: she was the daughter of Germanicus and +Agrippina; and she certainly, and Agrippina probably, were +accessories to the murder of Drusus. For Agrippina was obsessed +with hatred for Tiberius: with the idea that he had murdered her +husband, and with thirst for revenge. Sejanus was thus in a fair +way to the ends of his ambition: to be named the successor to +the Principate. + +Then Tiberius found him out; and sent a message to a senate +engaged in Sejanus-worship, demanding the punishment of the +murderers of Drusus. + +Sejanus had built up his power by fostering the system of +delation. There was no public prosecutor in the Roman system: +when any wrong had been done, it was anyone's business to +prosecute. The end of education was rhetoric, that you might get +on in life. The first step was to bring an accusation against +some public man, and support it with a mighty telling speech. If +you succeeded, and killed your man,--why, then your name was +made. On this system, with developments of his own, Sejanus had +built; had employed one half of Rome informing against the +other. It took time to bring about; but he had worked up by +degrees a state of things in which all went in terror of him; +and the senate was eager perpetually to condemn any one he might +recommend for condemnation. When Tiberius found him out, they +lost their heads entirely, and simply tumbled over themselves +in their anxiety to accuse, condemn, and execute each other. +Everyone was being informed against as having been a friend of +Sejanus, and therefore an enemy of their dear Princeps; who was +away at Capri attending to his duty; and whose ears, now Sejanus +was gone, they might hope to reach with flatteries. You supped +with your friend overnight; did your best to diddle him into +saying something over the wine-cups;--then rose betimes in the +morning to accuse him of saying it: only too often to find that +he, (traitorly wretch!) had risen half an hour earlier and +accused you; so you missed your breakfast for nothing; and +dined (we may hope) in a better world. Thus during the last +years of the reign there was a Terror in Rome: in the senate's +sphere of influence; the senatorial class the sufferers and +inflictors of the suffering. Meanwhile Tiberius in his +retirement was still at his duty; his hold on his provinces +never relaxed. When the condemned appealed to him, the records +show that in nearly every case their sentences were commuted. +Tiberius' enemies were punishing themselves; but the odium of it +has been fastened on Tiberius. He might have interfered, you +say?--What! with Karma? I doubt. + +His sane, balanced, moderate character comes out in his own words +again and again: he was a wonderful anomaly in that age. Rome +was filled with slanders against him; and the fulsome senate +implored him to punish the slanderers. "We have not much time to +spare," Tiberius answered; "we need not involve ourselves in +this additional business." "If any man speaks ill of me, I shall +take care so to behave as to be able to give a good accound of my +words and acts, and so confound him. If he speaks ill of me +after that, it will be time enough for me to think about hating +him." Permission was asked to raise a temple to him in Spain; +he refused to grant it, saying that if every emperor was to be +worshiped, the worship of Augustus would lose its meaning. "For +myself, a mere mortal, it is enough for me if I do my duties as a +mortal; I am content if posterity recognises that... This is the +only temple I desire to have raised in my honor,--and this only +in men's hearts."--the senate, in a spasm of flattery, offered to +swear in advance to all his acts. He forbade it, saying in +effect that he was doing and proposed to do his best; but all +things human were liable to change, and he would not have them +endorsing the future acts of one who by the mere failure of his +faculties might do wrong. + +In those sayings, I think, you get the man: perhaps a disciple +only, and never actually a Master; perhaps never absolutely sure +of himself, but only of his capacity and determination to do his +duty day by day: his own duty, and not other men's:--never +setting himself on a level with his Teacher; or thinking himself +able, of his own abilities, to run the world, as Augustus had had +the power and the mission to do,--but as probably no man might +have had the power to do in Tiberius' time;--and by virtue of +that faith, that high concentration on duty, carrying the world +(but not Rome) through in spite of Rome, which had become then a +thing incurable, nothing more than an infection and lamentable scab. + +He left it altogether in his last years; its atmosphere and +bitterness were too much for him. Form the quiet at Capri he +continued to rule his provinces until the end; ever hoping that +if he did his duty, someone or some spirit might arise in the +senate to do theirs. Tacitus explains his retirement--as Roman +society had explained it when it happened,--thus: Being then +seventy-two years old, Tiberius, whose life up to that time had +been irreproachable and untouched by gossip, went to Capri to +have freedom and privacy for orgies of personal vice. But why +did he not stay at Rome for his orgies: doing at Rome as the +Romans did, and thereby perhaps earning a measure of popularity? + +Over the bridge Augustus, western humanity had made the crossing; +but on the further shore, there had to be a sacrifice to the +Fates. Tiberius was the sacrifice. And that sacrifice was not +in vain. We get one glimpse through provincial (and therefore +undiseased) eyes of the empire he built up in the provinces. It +is from Philo Judaeus, a Jewish Theosophist of Alexandria, who +came to Rome in the reign of Caligula, Tiberius' successor. +(Tiberius, it must be said, appointed no successor; there was +none for him to appoint.) Caligula, says Philo, + +"....succeeded to an empire that was well organized, tending +everywhere to conceed--north, south, east, and west brought into +friendship; Greeks and barbarians routed, soldiers and civilians +linked together in the bonds of a happy peace." + +That was the work of Tiberius. + +In the Gospel narrative, Jesus is once made to allude to him; +in the words quoted at the head of this paper: "Render unto +Caesar"--who was Tiberius--"the things which are Caesar's" I +think it is about time it should be done: that the wreath of +honor should at last be laid on the memory of this brave, just, +sane, and merciful man; this silent duty-doer, who would speak +no word in his own defense; this Agent of the Gods, who endured +all those years of crucifixion, that he might build up the Unity +of Mankind. + +Says Mr. Baring-Gould: + +"In the galleries of Rome, of Naples, Florence, Paris, one sees +the beautiful face of Tiberius, with that intellectual brow and +sensitive mouth, looking pleadingly at the passer-by, as though +seeking for someone who would unlock the secret of his story and +vindicate his much aspersed memory." + + + + +XX. CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW + + +That mankind is a unit;--that the history of the world, however +its waters divide,--whatever islands and deltas appear,--is one +stream;--how ridiculous it is to study the story of one nation or +group of nations, and leave the rest ignored, coming from your +study with the impression (almost universal,) that all that +counts of the history of the world is the history of your own +little corner of it:--these are some of the truths we should have +gathered from our survey of the few centuries we have so far +glanced at. For take that sixth century B.C. The world seems +all well split up. No one in China has ever heard of Greece; no +one in Italy of India. What do the Greeks know about Northern +Europe, or the Chinese about the Indians or Persians?--And yet we +find in Italy, in Persia, in India, in China, men appearing,-- +phenomenal births,--evolved far above their fellows: six +of them, to do the same work: Founders of Religions, all +contemporary more or less; all presenting to the world and +posterity the same high passwords and glorious countersigns. Can +you conceive that their appearance, all in that one epoch, was a +matter of chance? Is not some prearrangement suggested,--a +_put-up job,_ as they say: a definite plan formed, and a definite +end aimed at? Then by whom? Can you escape the conclusion that, +behind all this welter of races and separate histories aloof or +barking at each other, there is yet somewhere, within the +ringfence of humankind, incarnate or excarnate, One Center from +which all the threads and currents proceed, and all the great +upward impulses are directed? + +Those Six Teachers came, and did their work; then two or three +centuries passed; time enough for the seeds they sowed to sprout +a little; and we come to another phase of history, a new region +in time. High spiritual truth has been ingeminated in all parts +of the world where the ancient vehicle of truth-dissemination +(the Mysteries) has declined; A Teacher, a Savior, has failed to +appear only in the lands north and west of Italy, because there +among the Celts, and there alone, the Mysteries are still +effective:--so you may say the seeds of spirituality have been +well sown along a great belt stretching right across the Old +World. Why? In preparation for what? For something, we may +suppose. Certainly for something: for example, for the next two +thousand five hundred years,--the last quarter, I would say, of a +ten-millennium cycle, which was to end with a state of things +in which every part of the world should be know to, and in +communication with, every other part. So now in the age that +followed that of the Six Teachers, in preparation for that +coming time (our own), the attempt must be made to weld nations +into unities. Nature and Law compel it: whose direction now is +towards grand centripetalism, where before they had ordained +heterogeneity and the scattering and aloofness of peoples. + +But Those who sent out the great six Teachers have a hand to play +here: they have to put the welding process through upon their +own designs. They start at the fountain of the cyclic impulses, +on the eastern rim of the world: as soon as the cycle rises +there, they strike for the unification of nations. Then they +follow the cycle westward. To West Asia?--Nothing could be done +there, because this was the West Asian pralaya; those parts must +wait for Mohammed. In Europe then,--Greece?--No; its time and +vigor had passed; and the Greeks are not a building people. +They must bide their time, then, till the wave hits Italy, and +what they have done in China, attempt to do there. + +Only, what they had done in China was a mere Ts'in Shi Hwangti,-- +because Laotse and Confucius had not failed spiritually to +prepare the ground,--they must send forth Adept-souled Augustus +and Tiberius to do,--if human wisdom and heroism could do it,--in +Italy;--because Pythagoras' Movement had failed. + +The Roman Empire was the European attempt at a China; China was +the Asiatic creation of a Rome. We call the Asiatic creation, +_China, Ts'in-a;_ it may surprise you to know that they called +the European attempt by the same name: Ta _Ts'in,_ 'the Great +Ts'in.' Put the words _Augustus Primus Romae_ into Chinese, and +without much straining they might read, _Ta Ts'in Shi Hwangti._ +The whole period of the Chinese manvantara is, from the +two-forties B.C. to the twelve-sixties A.D., fifteen centuries. +The whole period of the Roman Empire, Western and Eastern, is from +the forties B.C. to the Fourteen-fifties A.D., fifteen centuries. +The first phase of the Chinese Empire, from Ts'in Shi Hwangti to +the fall of Han, lasted about 460 years; the Western Roman +Empire, from Pharsalus to the death of Honorius, lasted about as +long. Both were the unifications of many peoples; both were +overturned by barbarians from the north: Teutons in the one +case, Tatars in the other. But after that overturnment, China, +unlike Rome, rose from her ashes many times, and still endures. +Thank the success of Confucius and Laotse; and blame the failure +of Pythagoreanism, for that! + +But come now; let me draw up their histories as it were in +parallel columns, and you shall see the likeness clearly; you +shall see also, presently, how prettily time and the laws that +govern human incarnation played battledore and shuttlecock with +the two: what a game of see-saw went on between the East and West. + +From 300 to 250 B.C. there was an orgy of war in which old Feudal +China passed away forever, and from which Ts'in emerged Mistress +of the world. From 100 to 50 B. C. there was an orgy of war in +which Republican Rome passed away forever, and out of which +Caesar emerged World-Master. Caesar's triumph came just two +centuries after Ts'in Shi Hwangti's accession; Kublai Khan the +Turanian, who smashed China, came just about as much before +Mohammed II the Turanian, who swept away the last remnant of Rome. + +In the first cycles of the two there is a certain difference in +procedure. In China, a dawn twilight of half a cycle, sixty-five +years, from the fall of Chow to the Revival of Literature under +the second Han, preceded the glorious age of the Western Hans. +In Rome, the literary currents were flowing for about a half-cycle +before the accession of Augustus: that half-cycle formed a +dawn-twilight preceding the glories of the Augustan Age. + +It was just when the reign of Han Wuti was drawing towards a +sunset a little clouded,--you remember Ssema Ts'ien's strictures +as to the national extravagance and its results,--that the +Crest-Wave egos began to come in in Rome. Cicero, eldest of +the lights of the great cycle of Latin literature, would have +been about twenty when Han Wuti died in 86. We counted the +first "day" of the Hans as lasting from 194 (the Revival of +the Literature) to the death of Han Wuti's successor in 63; +in which year, as we saw, Augustus was born. During the next +twenty years the Crest-Wave was rolling more and more into +Rome: where we get Julius Caesar's career of conquest;-- +it was a time filled with wine of restlessness, and, you may +say, therewith 'drunk and disorderly.' Meanwhile (from 61 +to 49) Han Suenti the Just was reigning in China. His "Troops +of justice" became, after a while, accustomed to victory; +but in defensive wars. Here it was a time of sanity and order, +as contrasted with the disorder in Rome; of pause and reflexion +compared with the action and extravagance of the preceding +Chinese age. It was Confucian and ethical; no longer Taoist +and daringly imaginative; Confucianism began to consolidate +its position as the state system. So in England Puritan +sobriety followed Elizabethanism. Han Wuti let nothing impede +the ferment of his dreams: Han Suenti retrenched, and walked +quietly and firmly. His virtues commanded the respect of Central +Asia: the Tatars brought him their disputes for arbitration, +and all the regions west of the Caspian sent him tribute. +China forwent her restless and gigantic designs, and took +to quietude and grave consideration.--So we may perhaps distribute +the characteristics of these two decades thus between the +three great centers of civilization: in China, the stillness +that follows an apex time; in India, creation at its apex; in +Rome, the confusion caused by the first influx of Crest-Wave Souls. + +As Octavian rose to power, the House of Han declined. We hear of +a gorging Vitellius on the throne in the thirties; then of +several puppets and infants during the last quarter of the +century; in A.D. 1, of the dynasty overthrown by a usurper, Mang +Wang, who reigned until A.D. 25. Thus the heyday of Augustan +Rome coincides with the darkest penumbra of China. Then +Kwang-wuti, the eldest surviving Han prince, was reinstated; but +until two years before the death of Tiberius, he had to spend his +time fighting rebels. Now turn to Rome. + +While Han Kwang-wuti was battling his way towards the restitution +of Han glories, Tiberius, last of the Roman Crest-Wave Souls, was +holding out grimly for the Gods until the cycle should have been +completed, and he could say that his and their work was done. +For sixty-five years he and his predecessor had been welding the +empire into one: now, that labor had been so far accomplished +that what dangerous times lay ahead could hardly imperil it. So +far it had been a case of Initiate appointing Initiate to succeed +him: Augustus, Tiberius;--but whom should Tiberius appoint? +There was no one. The cycle was past, and for the present Rome +was dead; and on the brink of that unfortunate place to which +(they say) the wicked dead must go. Tiberius finally had had to +banish Agrippina, her mischief having become too importunate. +You remember she was the daughter of Julia and Agrippa, and +Germanicus' widow. His patience with her had been marvelous. +Once, at a public banquet, to do her honor he had picked a +beautiful apple from the dish, and handed it to her: with a +scowl and some ostentation, she gave it to the attendant behind +her, as who should say: 'I know your designs; but you do not +poison me this time'; all present understood her meaning well. +Once, when he met her in the palace, and she passed him with some +covert insult, he stopped, laid a hand on her shoulder, and said: +"My little woman, it is no hurt to you that you do not reign." +But his patience only encouraged her in her machinations; and at +last he was compelled to banish her. Also to keep one of her +sons in strictest confinement; of which the historians have made +their for him discreditable tale: the truth is, it was an heroic +effort on his part to break the boy of his vices by keeping him +under close and continuous supervision. But that is more easily +said than done, sometimes; and this Drusus presently died a +madman. He then took the youngest son of Agrippina to live with +him at Capri; that he, Tiberius, might personally do the best +with him that was to be done; for he foresaw that this youth +Caius would succeed him; his own grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, +being much younger. He foresaw, too, that Caius, once on the +throne, would murder Gemellus; which also happened. But there +was nothing to be done. Had he named his grandson his successor, +a strong regent would have been needed to carry things through +until that successor's majority, and to hold the Empire against +the partisans of Caius. There was no such strong man in sight; +so, what had to come, had to come. _Apres lui le deluge:_ +Tiberius knew that. _Le deluge_ was the four years' terror of +the reign of Caius, known as Caligula; who, through no good will +of his own, but simply by reason of his bloodthirsty mania, amply +revenged the wrongs done his pedecessor. Karma put Caligula on +the throne to punish Rome. + +The reign was too short, even if Caligula had troubled his head +with the provinces, for him to spoil the good work done in them +during the preceding half-cycle. He did not so trouble his head; +being too busy murdering the pillars of Roman society. Then a +gentleman who had been spending the afternoon publicly kissing +his slippers in the theater, experienced, as they say, a change +of heart, and took thought to assassinate him on the way home; +whereupon the Praetorians, let loose and having a thoroughly good +time, happened on a poor old buffer of the royal house by the +name of Claudius; and to show their sense of humor, made him +emperor _tout de suite._ The senate took a high hand, and +asserted _its_ right to make those appointments; but Claudius +and the Praetorians thought otherwise; and the senate, after +blustering, had to crawl. They besought him to allow them the +honor of appointing him.--what a difference the mere turn of a +cycle had made: from Augustus bequeathing the Empire to +Tiberius, ablest man to ablest man, and all with senatoral +ratification; to the jocular appointment by undisciplined +soldiery of a sad old laughingstock to succeed a raging maniac. + +Claudius was a younger brother of Germanicus; therefore +Tiberius' nephew, Caligula's uncle, and a brother-in-law to +Agrippina. Mr. Baring-Gould says that somewhere deep in him was +a noble nature that had never had a chance: that the soul of him +was a jewel, set in the foolish lead of a most clownish +personality. I do not know; certainly some great and fine +things came from him; but whether they were motions of his own +soul (if he had one), or whether the Gods for Rome's sake took +advantage of his quite negative being, and prompted it to their +own purposes, who can say?--Sitting down, and keeping still, and +saying nothing, the old man could look rather fine, even +majestic; one saw traces in him of the Claudian family dignity +and beauty. But let hm walk a few paces, and you noted that his +feet dragged and his knees knocked together, and that he had a +paunch; and let him get interested in a conversation, and you +heard that he first spluttered, and then roared. Physical +wakness and mental backwardness had made him the despair of +Augustus: he was the fool of the family, kept in the background, +and noticed by none. Tiberius, in search of a successor, had +never thought of him; had rather let things go to mad Caligula. +He had never gone into society; never associated with men of his +own rank; but chose his companions among small shopkeepers and +the 'Arries and 'Arriets of Rome, who, 'tickled to death' at +having a member of the reigning family to hobnob with them in +their back-parlors, would refrain from making fun of his +peculiatities. Caligula had enjoyed using him as a butt, and so +had spared his life. He had never even learned to behave at +table: and so, when he came to the throne, made a law that +table-manners should no longer be incumbent on a Roman gentleman. +All this is recorded of him; one would hardly believe it, but +that his portraits bear it out.* + +------ +* The accounts of Claudius and Nero are from _The Tragedy of the +Caesars,_ by S. Baring-Gould. +------ + +For all that he did well at first. He made himself popular with +the mob, cracking poor homely jokes with them at which they +laughed uproariously. He paid strict attention to business: +made some excellent laws; wisely extended Roman citizenship +among the subject peoples; undertook and pushed through useful +public works. Rome was without a decent harbor: corn from Egypt +had to be transshipped at sea and brought up the Tiber in +lighters; which resulted in much inconvenience, and sometimes +shortage of food in the city. Claudius went down to Ostia and +looked about him; and ordered a harbor dredged out and built +there on a large scale. The best engineers of the day said it +was impossible to do, and would not pay if done. But the old +fool stuck to his views and made them get to work; and they +found it, though difficult and costly, quite practicable; and +when finished, it solved the food problem triumphantly. This is +by way of example.--Poor old fool! it was said he never forgot a +kindness, or remembered an injury. He came soon, however, to be +managed by various freedmen and rascals and wives; all to the +end that aristocratic Rome should be well punished for its sins. +One day when he was presiding in the law courts, someone cried +out that he was an old fool,--which was very true.--and threw a +large book at him that cut his face badly,--which was very +unkind. And yet, all said, through him and through several fine +and statesmanlike measures he put through, the work of Augustus +and Tiberius in the empire at large was in many ways pushed +forward: he did well by the provinces and the subject races, and +carried on the grand homogenization of the world. + +He reigned thirteen years; then came Nero. If one accepts the +traditional view of him, it is not without evidence. His +portraits suggest one ensouled by some horrible elemental; one +with no human ego in him at all. The accounts given of his moods +and actions are quite credible in the light of the modern medical +knowledge as to insanity; you would find men like Tacitus Nero +in most asylums. Neither Tacitus nor Suetonius was in the habit +of taking science as a guide in their transcriptions; they did +not, in dealing with Tiberius for example, suit their facts to +the probabilities, but just set down the worst they had heard +said. What they record of him is unlikely, and does not fit in +with his known actions. But in drawing Nero, on the contrary, +they made a picture that would surprise no alienist. Besides, +Tacitus was born some seventeen years after Tiberius died; but +he was fourteen years old at the death of Nero, and so of an age +to have seen for himself, and remembered. Nero did kill his +mother, who probably tried to influence him for good; and he did +kill Seneca, who certainly did. His reign is a monument to the +rottenness of Rome; his fall, a proof, perhaps, of the soundness +of the provinces. For when _they_ felt the shame of his conduct, +they rose and put him down; Roman Gaul and Germany and Spain and +the East did. Here is a curious indication: Galba, Otho, and +Vitellius, who made such a sorry thing of the two years (68 and +69) they shared in the Principate, had each done well as a +provincial governor. In the provinces, then, the Tiberian +tradition of honest efficient government suffered not much, if +any, interruption. The fact that Rome itself stood the nine +years of Nero's criminal insanity,--and even, so far as the mob +was concerned, liked it (for his grave was long kept strewn with +flowers)--shows what a people can fall to, that the Crest-Wave +had first made rotten, and then left soulless. + +By the beginning of 70, things were comfortably in the hands of +Vespasian, another provincial governor; under whom, and his son +Titus after him, there were twelve years of dignified government; +and seven more of the same, and then seven or eight of tyranny, +under his second son, Domitian. Against the first two of these +Flavians nothing is to be said except that the rise of their +house to the Principate was by caprice of the soldiery. +Vespasian was an honest Sabine, fond of retiring to his native +farm; he brought in much good provincial blood with him into +Roman society.--Then in 96 came a revolution which placed the +aged senator Nerva on the throne; who set before himself the +definite policy--as it was intended he should--of replacing +personal caprice by legality and constitutionalism as the +instrument of government. He reigned two years, and left the +empire to Trajan; who was strong enough as a general to hold his +position, and as a statesman, to establish the principles of +Nerva. And so things began to expand again; and a new strength +became evident, the like of which had not been seen since (at +least) the death of Tiberius. + +Octavian returned to Rome, sole Master of the world, in B.C. 29. +A half-cycle on from that brings us to 36 A.D., the year before +Tiberius died: that half-cycle was one, for the Empire all of +it, and for Rome most of it, of bright daylight. The next +half-cycle ends in 101, in the third year of Trajan: a time, +for the most part, of decline, of twilight. You will notice +that the Han day lasted the full thirteen decades before twilight +came; the Roman, but six decades and a half. + +We ought to understand just how far this second Roman half-cycle +was an age of decline: just how much darkneww suffused the +twilight it was. We talk of representative government; as +if any government were ever really anything else. Men get +the government that represents them; that represent their +intelligence, or their laxity, or their vices:--whether it be +sent in by the ballot or by a Praetorian Guard with their caprice +and spears. In a pralayic time there is no keen national +consciousness, no centripetalism. There was none in Rome in +those days; or not enough to counteract the centrifugalism that +simply did not care. The empire held together, because Augustus +and Tiberius had created a centripetalism in the provinces; and +these continued in the main through it all to enjoy the good +government the first two emperors had made a tradition in them, +and felt but little the hands of the fools or madmen reigning in +Rome. And then, blood from the provinces was always flowing into +Rome itself; particularly in the Flavian time; and supplied or +fed a new centripetalism there which righted things in the next +half-cycle. It was Rome, not the provinces, that Nero and +Caligula represented in their day; the time was transitional; +you may call Otho and Vitellius the first bungling shots of the +provinces at having a hand in things at the center; wholesome +Vespasian was their first representative emperor: Nerva and +those that followed him represented equally the provinces and a +regenerated Rome.--This tells you what Nero's Rome was, and how +it came to tolerate Nero; when Vitellius came in with his band +of ruffians from the Rhine, and the streets flowed with blood day +after day, the places of low resort were as full as ever through +it all; while carnage reigned in the forums, riotous vice +reigned within doors. + +But look outside of Rome, and the picture is very different. The +Spaniard, Gaul, Illyrian, Asiatic and the rest, were enjoying the +Roman Peace. There was progress; if not at the center, +everywhere between that and the periphery of civilization. Life, +even in Italy (in the country parts) was growing steadily more +cultured, serious, and dignified; and in all remote regions was +assimilating its standards to the best in Italy. From the +Scottish Lowlands to the Cataracts of the Nile a single people +was coming into being; it was a wide and well-tilled field in +which incarnate souls might grow. The satirists make lurid +pictures of the evils Rome; and the evils were there, with +perhaps not much to counter-balance them, _in Rome._ Paris has +been latterly the capital of civilization; and one of its phases +as such has been to be the capital of the seven deadly sins. The +sins are or were there: Paris provided for the sinners of the +world, in her capacity of world-metropolis; just as she provided +for the artists, the _litteratuers,_ and so on. Foolish people +drew from that the conclusion that therefore Frenchmen were more +wicked than other people: whereas in truth the life of +provincial France all along has probably been among the soundest +of any. So we must offset Martial's and Juvenal's pictures of +the calm and gracious life in the country: virtuous life, often, +with quiet striving after usefulness and the higher things. He +reveals to us, in the last quarter of the century, interiors in +northern Italy, by Lake Como; you should have found the like +anywhere in the empire. And where, since Rome fell, shall you +come on a century in which Britain, Gaul, Spain, Italy, the +Balkans, Asia and Africa, enjoyed a Roman or any kind of peace? +Be not deceived: there has been no such success in Europe since +as the empire that Augustus the Initiate made, and for which +Tiberius his disciple was crucified. + +Yet they captured it, as I find things, out of the jaws of +failure and disaster. Failure: that of Pythagoreanism six +centuries before;--disaster: Caesar's conquest of Gaul and +destruction of the Mysteries there. Men come from the Masters of +the World to work on this plane or on that: to found an empire +perhaps, or to start a spiritual movement. Augustus came +commissioned to the former, not to the latter, work. Supposing +in his time the Gaulish Mysteries had been intact. We may trust +him to have established relations somehow: he would have had +close and friendly relations with the Gaulish hierophants; even +if he had conquered the people, he would not have put out their +light. But I imagine he would have found a means to union +without conquest. Then what would have happened? We have seen +that the cyclic impulse did touch Gaul at that time; it made her +vastly rich, hugely industrial;--as Ferero says, the Egypt of the +West. That, and nothing better than that, because she had lost +her spiritual center, and might not figure as the world Teacher +among nations. But, you say, Augustus proscribed Druidism--which +sounds like carrying on Julius' nefarious work. He did, I +believe;--but why? Because Julius had seen to it that the +white side of Druidism had perished. The Druids were magicians; +and now it was the dark magic and its practitioners that remained +among them,--at least in Gaul. So of course Augustus proscribed it. + +Remember how France has stood, these last seven centuries, as the +teacher of the arts and civilization to Europe; and this idea +that she might have been, and should have been, something far +higher to the Roman world, need not seem at all extravagant. I +think it was a possibility; which Caesar had been sent by the +kings of night to forestall. And so, that Augustus lacked that +reinforcement by which he might have secured for Europe a unity +as enduring as the Chinese Teachers secured for the Far East. + +And yet the Lodge did not leave Rome lightless; there was much +spiritual teaching in the centuries of the Empire; indeed, a new +out-breathing in each century, as an effort to retrieve the great +defeat;--and this has been the inner history of europe ever +since. This: raidings from the Godworld: swift cavalry +raidings, that took no towns as a rule, nor set up strongholds +here on hell's border; yet did each time, no doubt, carry off +captives. Set up no strongholds;--that is, until our own times; +so what we have missed is the continuous effort; the established +base 'but here upon this bank and shoal,' from which the shining +squadrons of the Gods might ride. Such a base was lost when +Caesar conquered Gaul; then some substitute for Gaul had to be +found. It was Greece and the East; where, as you may say, +abjects and orts of truth came down; not the live Mysteries, but +the _membra disjecta_ of the vanished Mysteries of a vanished +age. With these the Teachers of the Roman world had to work, +distilling out of them what they might of the ancient Theosophy. +So latterly H.P. Blavasky must gather up fragments in the East +for the nexus of her teaching; she must find seeds in old +sarcophagi, and plant and make them grow in this soil so +uncongenial; because there was no well-grown Tree patent to the +world, with whose undeniable fruitage she might feed the nations. +This was one great difficulty in her way; whe had to introduce +Theosphy into a world that had forgotten it ever existed. + +So,--but with a difference,--in that first century. The +difference was that Pythagoreanism, the nexus, was only six +hundrd years away, and the memory of it fairly fresh. Stoicism +was the most serious living influence within the empire; a +system that concerned itself with right and brave living, and was +so far spiritual; but perhaps not much further. The best in men +reacted against the sensuality of the mid-century, and made +Stoicism strong; but this formed only a basis of moral grit for +the higher teaching; of which, while we know it was there, +there is not very much to say. I shall come to it presently; +meanwhile, to something else.--In literature, this was the cycle +of Spain: the Crest-Wave was largely there during the first +thirteen decades of the Christian era. Seneca was born in +Cordova about 3 B. C.; Hadrian, the last greatman of Spanish +birth (though probably of Italian race), died in 138. Seneca was +a Stoic: a man with many imperfections, of whom history cannot +make up its mind wholly to approve. He was Nero's tutor and +minister during the first five golden years of the reign; his +government was wise and beneficent, though, it is said, sometimes +upheld by rather doubtful means. In the growing gloom and horror +of the nightmare reign of Nero, he wrote many counsels of +perfection; his notes rise often, someone has said, to a sort of +falsetto shriek; but then, the wonder is he could sing at all in +such a hell's cacophony. A man with obvious weaknesses, perhaps; +but fighting hard to be brave and hopeful where there was nothing +in sight to encourage bravery or foster hope; when every moment +was pregnant with ghastly possibilities; when death and +abominable torture hobnobbed in the Roman streets with riots of +disgusting indulgence, abnormal lusts, filthiness parading +unabashed. He speaks of the horrors, the gruesome impalings; +deprecating them in a general way; not daring to come down to +particulars, and rebuke Nero. Well; Nero commanded the legions, +and was kittle cattle to rebuke. If sometimes you see tinsel and +tawdriness about poor Seneca, look a little deeper, and you seem +to see him writing it in agony and bloody sweat. . . . He was +among the richest men in Rome, when riches were a deadly peril: +he might even, had he been another man, have made himself +emperor; perhaps the worst thing against him is that he did +not. His counsels and aspirations were much better than his +deeds;--which is as much as to say his Higher Self than his +lower. He stood father-confessor to Roman Society: a Stoic +philosopher in high, luxurious, and most perilous places: he +cannot escape looking a little unreal. Someone in some seemingly +petty difficulties, writes asking him to sue his influence on his +behalf; and he replies with a dissertation on death, and what +good may lie in it, and the folly of fearing it. Cold comfort +for his correspondent; a tactless, strained, theatrical thing to +do, we may call it. But what strain upon his nerves, what +hideous knowledge of the times and of evils he did not see his +way to prevent, what haunting sense of danger, must have driven +him to that fervid hectic eloquence that now seems so unnatural! +One guesses there may be a place in the Pantheons or in Valhalla +of the heroes for this poor not untawdry not unheroic Seneca. +One sees in him a kind of Hamlet, hitting in timorous indecision +on the likely possibility of converting his Claudius by a string +of moral axioms and eloquence to a condition that should satisfy +the Ghost and undo the something rotten in the state.... Yet the +Gods must have been grateful to him for the work he did in +holding for Stoicism and aspiration a center in Rome during that +dreadful darkness. Perhaps only the very strongest, in his +position, could have done better; and then perhaps only by +killing Nero.* + +------ +* Dill: _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius._ +------ + +But there was a greater than Seneca in Rome, even in Nero's +reign;--there intermittently, and not to abide: Appollonius of +Tyana, presumably the real Messenger of the age:--and by the +change that had come over life by the second century, we may +judge how great and successful. But there is not getting at the +reality of the man now. We have a _Life_ of him, written about a +hundred years after his death by Philostratus, a Greek sophist, +for the learned Empress Julia Domna, Septimius Severus' wife; +who, no doubt, chose for the work the best man to hand; but the +age of great literature was past, and Philostratus resurrects no +living soul. The account may be correct enough in outline; the +author was painstaking; visited the sites of his subject's +exploits, and pressed his inquiries; he claims to have based his +story on the work of Damis of Neneveh, a disciple of Apollonius +who accompanied him everywhere. But much is fabulous: there is +a gorgeous account of dragons' in India, and the methods used in +hunting them; and you know nothing of the real Apollonius when +you have read it all. Here, in brief, is the outline of the +story: Apollonius was born at Tyana in Cappodocia somewhere +about the year 1 A.D., and died in the reign of Nerva at nearly a +hundred: tradition ascribed to his birth its due accompaniment +of signs and portents. At sixteen he set himself under Pythagorean +discipline; kept silence absolute for five years; traveled, +healing and teaching, and acquired a great renown throughout +Asia Minor. He went by Babylon and Parthia to India; spent +some time there as the pupil of certain Teachers on a sacred +mountain; they, it appears, expected his coming, received +him and taught him; ever afterwards he spoke of himself as a +disciple of the Indian Master Iarchus. Nothing in the book is +more interesting than the curious light it throws on popular +beliefs of the time in the Roman World as to the existence of +these Indian masters of the Secret Wisdom;--India, of course, +included the region north of the Himalayas. Later he visited the +Gymnosophists of the Tebaid in Egypt; according to the account, +these were of a lower standing than the Indian Adepts; and +Apollonius came among them not as a would-be disciple, but as an +equal, or superior.--He was persecuted in Rome by Nero; but over +awed Tigellinus, Nero's minister, and escaped. He met Vespasian +and Titus at Alexandria, soon after the fall of Jerusalem; and +was among those who urged Vespasian to take the throne. He was +arrested in Rome by Domitian, and tried on charges of sorcery and +treason; and is said to have escaped his sentence and execution +by the simple expedient of vanishing in broad daylight in court. +One wonders why this from his defense before Domitian, as +Philostratus gives it, has not attracted more comment; he says: +"All unmixed blood is retained by the heart, which through the +blood-vessels sends it flowing as if through canals over the +entire body."--According to tradition, he rose from the dead, +appeared to several to remove their doubts as to a life beyond +death, and finally bodily ascended into heaven. Reincarnation +was a very cardinal point in his teaching; perhaps the name of +Neo-Pythagoreanism, given to his doctrine, is enough to indicate +in what manner it illuminated the inner realms and laws which +Stoicism, intent only on brave conduct and the captaincy of one's +own soul, was unconcerned to inquire into. Another first century +Neo-Pythagorean Teacher was Moderatus of Gades in Spain. The +period of Apollonius's greatest influence would have corresponded +with the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, from 69 to 83; the +former, when he came to the throne, checked the orgies of vice +and brought in an atmosphere in which the light of Thesophy might +have more leave to shine. The certainty is that the last third +of the first century wrought an enormous change: the period that +preceded it was one of the worst, and the age that followed it, +that of the Five Good Emperors, was the best, in known European +history.--Under the Flavians, from 69 to 96,--or roughly, during +the last quarter,--came the Silver Age, the second and last great +day of Latin literature: with several Spanish and some Italian +names,--foam of the Crest-Wave, these latter, as it passed over +from Spain to the East. It will, by the way, help us to a +conception of the magnitude of the written material at the +disposal of the Roman world, to remember that Pliny the Elder, in +preparing his great work on Natural History, consulted six +thousand published authorities. That was in the reign of Nero; +it makes one feel that those particular ancients had not so much +less reading matter at their command than we have today. + +Of the great Flavian names in literature, we have Tacitus; +Pliny the Younger, with his bright calm pictures of life; +Juvenal, with his very dark ones: these were Italians. Juvenal +was a satirist with a moral purpose; the Spaniard Martial, +contemporary, was a satirist without one. Martial drew from +life, and therefore his works, though coarse, are still interesting. +We learn from him what enormous activity in letters was to be +found in those days in his native Spain; where every town +had its center of learning and apostles and active propaganda +of culture. Such things denote an ancient cultural habit, +lapsed for a time, and then revived. + +Another great Spainiard, and the best man in literature of the +age, was Quintilian: gracious, wise, and of high Theosophic +ideals, especially in education. He was born in A.D. 35; and +was probably the greatest literary critic of classical antiquity. +For twenty years, from 72 until his death, he was at the head of +the teaching profession in Rome. The "teaching" was, of course, +in rhetoric. Rome resounded with speech-makings; and Gaul, +Spain, and Africa were probably louder with it than Rome. Though +the end of education then was to turn out speech-makers,--as it +is now to turn out money-makers,--I do not see but that the +Romans had the best of it,--Quintilian saw through all to +fundamental truths; he taught that your true speech-maker must +be first a true man. He went thoroughly into the training of the +orator,--more thoroughly, even from the standpoint of pure +technique, than any other Greek or Roman writer;--but would base +it all upon character, balance of the faculties,--in two words, +Raja-Yoga. Pliny the Younger was among his pupils, and owed much +to him; also is there to prove the value of Quintilian's +method;--for Quintilian turned out Pliny a true gentlman. Prose +in those days,--that is, rhetoric,--was tending ever more to +flamboyancy and extravagance: a current which Quintilian stood +against valiantly. We find in him, as critic, just judgment, +sane good taste, wide and generous sympathies;--a tendency to +give the utmost possible credit even where compelled in the main +to condemn;--as he was in the case of Senaca. He had the faculty +of hitting off in a phrase the whole effect of a man's style; as +when he speaks of the "milky richness of Livy," and the "immortal +swiftness of Sallust." * + +------ +* _Encyclopaedia Britannica;_ article 'Quintilian' +------ + +So then, to sum up a little: I think we gain from these times a +good insight into cyclic workings. First, we shall see that the +cycles are there, and operative: action and reaction regnant in +the world,--a tide in the affairs of men; and strong souls +coming in from time to time, to manipulate reactions, to turn the +currents at strategic points in time; making things, despite +what evils may be ahead, flow on to higher levels than their own +weight would carry them to: thus did Augustus and Tiberius; +--or throwing them down, as the merry Julius did, from bright +possibilities to a sad and lightless actuality. For perhaps we +have been suffering because of Julius' exploit ever since; and +certainly, no matter what Neros and Caligulas followed them, the +world was a long time the better for the ground the great first +two Principes captured from hell.--And next, we shall learn to +beware of being too exact, precise, and water-tight with out +computations and conceptions of these cycles: we shall see that +nature works in curves and delicate wave-lines, not in broken off +bits and sudden changes. Rome was going down in Tiberius' reign: +she was bad enough then, heaven knows; though we may put +her passing below the meridian at or near the end of it;-- +conveniently, in the year 36. And then, what with (1) the +tenseness of the gloom and the severity of suffering in the +reigns of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian;--and (2) the inflow of +new and cleaner blood from the provinces at all times but +especially under Vespasian; and above all, (3) the Theosophic +impulse whose outward visible sign is the mission of Apollonius +and Moderatus:--we find her ready to emerge into light in 96, +when Nerva came to the throne, instead of having to wait the five +more years for the end of the half-cycle;--although we may well +suppose it took that time at least for Nerva and Trajan to clear +things up and settle them. So we may keep this scheme of dates +in memory as indicative: a (rough) half-cycle before 29 B.C., +that of dawn and darkest hour preceding it; 29 B.C. to 36 A.D. +daylight; 36 to 101, night and the beginnings of a new dawn. + +And now we must turn to China. + +Dusk came on in Rome with the death of Tiberius in A.D. 37; but +what is dusk in the west is dawn in the east of the world. In 35 +Han Kwang-wuti had put down the Crimson-Eyebrow rebellion, and +seated himself firmly on the throne. The preceding half-cycle, +great in Rome under Augustus and Tiberius, had been a time, first +of puppet emperors, then of illegalism and usurpation, then of +civil war. Han Kwang-wuti put an end to all that, and opened, in +35, a new cycle of his own. + +But there is also an old cycle to be taken into account: the +original thirteen-decade period of the Hans, that began in 194, +and ended its first "day" in 63 or so,--to name convenient dates. +I should, if I believed in this cyclic law, look for a recurrence +of that: a new day to dawn, under its influence, in 66 or 67 +A.D., thirteen decades after the old one ended,--and to last +until 196 or 197. But on the other hand, here is Han Kwang-wuti +starting things going in 35, a matter of thirty-two years ahead +of time,--catching the flow of force just as it diminished in +Rome.--And this thirty-two years, you may note, with what odd +months we may suppose thrown in, is in itself a quarter-cycle. + +Now cyclic impulses waste; a second day of splendor will +commonly be found a Silver Age, where the first was Golden: it +will often be more perfect and refined, but much less vigorous, +than the first. So I should look for the second "day" of the +Hans to come on the whole with less light to shine and less +strength to endure than its predecessor; I should expect a +gentleness as of late afternoon in place of the old noontide +glory. But then there is the complication induced by Han +Kwang-wuti, who started his cycle in 35.... or more probably +his half-cycle;--I should look for it to be no more than that, +on account of this same wastage of the forces;--this also has +to be taken into consideration. + +Brooding over the whole situation, I should foretell the history +of this second Han Dynasty in this way: from 35 to 67,--the +latter date the point where the old and new cycles intersect,-- +would be a static time: of consolidation rather than expansion; +of the gathering of the wave, not of its outburst into any +splendor of foam. Between 67 and 100, or when the two cycles +coincide, I should look for great things and doings; for some +echo or repetition of the glories of Han Wuti,--perhaps for a +finishing and perfecting of his labors. From then on till 197 I +should expect static, but weakening conditions: static mainly +till 165, weakening rapidly after. Advise me, please, if this is +clear.--Well, if you have followed so far, you have a basis for +understanding what is to come. + +The dynasty, as thus re-established by Kwang-wuti, is known as +that of the Eastern Hans; for this reason:--just as late in the +days of the Roman empire, Diocletian was stirred by cyclic +flowing east-ward to move his capital from Rome to Nicomedia,-- +Constantine changed it afterwards to Byzantium,--so was Han +Kwang-wuti to move his from Changan in Shensi, in the west, +eastward to Loyang or Honanfu,--the old Chow capital,--in Honan. + +While Rome was weltering under Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, +China was recovering herself, getting used to a calm equanimity, +under Haii Kwang-wuti: the conditions in the two were as +opposite as the poles. She dwelt in quietness at home, and held +her own, and a little more, on the frontiers. In 57, two years +before Nero went mad and took the final plunge into infamy, Han +Kwang-wuti died, and Han Mingti succeeded him. As Nero went +down, Han Mingti went up. His ninth or tenth year, remember, was +to be that of the recurrence of the old Han cycle. It was the +year in which the provinces rose against Nero,--the lowest point +of all in Rome. I do not know that it was marked by anything +special in China; the fact being that all the Chinese sixties +were momentous. + +In the third Year of his reign Han Mingti dreamed a dream: he +saw a serene and "Golden Man" descending towards him out of the +western heavens. It would mean, said his brother, to whom he +spoke of it, the Golden God worshiped in the West,--the Buddha. +Buddhism had first come into China in the reign of Tsin Shi +Hwangti; but that imperial ruffian had made short work of it:-- +he threw the missionaries into prison, and might have dealt worse +with them, but that a "Golden Man" appeared in their cell in +the night, and opened all doors for their escape. Buddhist +scriptures, probably, were among the books destroyed at the great +Burning. So there may have been Buddhists in China all through +the Han time; but if so, they were few, isolated and inconspicuous; +it is Han Mingti's proper glory, to have brought Buddhism in. + +He liked well his brother's interpretation, and sent inquirers +into the west. In 65 they returned, with scriptures, and an +Indian missionary, Kashiapmadanga,--who was followed shortly by +Gobharana, another. A temple was built at Loyang, and under the +emperor's patronage, the work of translating the books began.--We +have seen before how some touch from abroad is needed to quicken +an age into greatness: such a touch came now to China with these +Indian Buddhists;--who, in all likelihood, may also have been in +their degree Messengers of the Lodge. + +In the usual vague manner of Indian chronology, the years 57 and +78 A.D. are connected with the name of a great king of the Yueh +Chi, Kanishka, whose empire covered Northern India. Almost every +authority has a favorite point in time for his habitat; but +these dates, not so far apart but that he may well have been +reigning in both, will do as well as another. You will note that +72 A.D. (which falls between them) is a matter of thirteen +decades from 58 B.C., the date sometimes ascribed to that +much-legended Vikramaditya of Ujjain. Or, if we go back to the +(fairly) settled 321 B.C. of Chandragupta Maurya, and count +forward thirteen-decade periods from that, we get 191 for the end +of the Mauryas (it happened about then); 61 for Vikramaditya +(which may well be); 69 for Kanishka,--which also is likely +enough, and would make him contemporary with Han Mingti. As the +years 57 and 78 are both ascribed to him, it may possibly be that +they mark the beginning and end of his reign respectively. + +We know very little about him, except that he was a very great +king, a great Buddhist, a man of artistic tastes, and a great +builder; that he loved the beautiful hills and valleys of +Cashmere; and that his reign was a wonderful period in sculptue, +--that of the Gandhara or Greco-Buddhist School. Again, +he is credited (by Hiuen Tsang) with convening the Fourth +Buddhist Council: following in this, as in other matters, the +example of Asoka. We are at liberty I suppose, if we like, to +assign that cyclic year 69 to the meeting of this Council: this +year or its neighborhood. So that all this may have had +something to do with the missionary activity that responded to +Han Mingti's appeal. But there is something else to remember; +something of far higher importance; namely, that during all this +period of her most uncertain chronology, India was in a peculiar +position: the Successors of the Buddha were more or less openly +at work there;--a long line of Adept leaders and teachers that +can be traced (I believe) through some thirteen centuries from +Sakya-muni's death. We may suppose, not unreasonably, that +Kashiapmadanga and Gobharana were disciples and emissaries of the +then Successor. + +It is, so far, and with so little translated, extremely hard to +get at the undercurrents in these old Chinese periods; but I +suspect a strong spiritual influence, Buddhist at that, in the +great events of the years that followed. For China proceeded to +strike into history in such a way that the blow resounded, if not +round the world, at least round as much of it as was discovered +before Columbus; and she did it in such a nice, clean, artistic +and quiet way, and withal so thoroughly, that I cannot help +feeling that that glorious warriorlike Northern Buddhism of the +Mahayana had something to do with it. + +It was not Han Mingti himself who did it, but one of his sevants; +of whom, it is likely, you have never heard; although east or +west there have been, probably, but one or two of his trade so +great as he, or who have mattered so much to history. His name +was Pan Chow; his trade, soldiering. He began his career of +conquest about the time the major Han Cycle was due to recur,--in +the sixties; maintained it through three reigns, and ended it at +his death about when the Eastern Han half-cycle, started in 35, +was due to close;--somewhere, that is, about 100 A.D., while +Trajan was beginning a new day and career of conquest in Rome. + + + + +XXI. CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW (CONTINUED) + + +During the time of Chinese weakness Central Asia had relapsed +from the control the great Han Wuti had imposed on it, and that +Han Suenti had maintained by his name for justice; and the Huns +had recovered their power. One wonders what these people were; +of whom we first catch sight in the reign of the Yellow Emperor, +nearly 3000 B.C.; and who do not disappear from history until +after the death of Attila. During all those three millenniums +odd they were predatory nomads, never civilized: a curse to +their betters, and nothing more. And their betters were, you may +say, every race they contacted. + +It seems as if, as in the human blood, so among the races of +mankind, there were builders and destroyers. I speculate as to +the beginnings of the latter: they cannot be . . . races apart, +of some special creation;--made by demons, where it was the Gods +made men. . . . "To the Huns," says Gibbon, "a fabulous origin +was assigned worthy of their form and manners,--that the witches +of Scythia, who for their foul and deadly practices had been +driven from society, had united in the desert with infernal +spirits, and that the Huns were the offspring of this execrable +conjunction." But it seems to me that it is in times of +intensive civilization, and in the slums of great cities, that +Nature--or anti-Nature--originates noxious human species. I +wonder if their forefathers were, once on a time, the hooligans +and yeggmen of some very ancient Babylon Bowery or the East End +of some pre-Nimrodic Nineveh? Babylon was a great city,--or +there were great cities in the neighborhood of Babylon, before +the Yellow Emperor was born. One of these may have had, God +knows when, its glorious freedom-establishing revolution, its +up-fountaining of sansculottes,--patriots whose predatory +proclivities had erstwhile been checked of their free brilliance +by busy-body tyrannical police;--and then this revolution may +have been put down, and the men of the underworld who made turned +out now from their city haunts, driven into the wilderness and +the mountains,--may have taken,--would certainly have taken, one +would say,--not to any industry, (they knew none but such as are +wrought by night unlawfully in other men's houses); not to +agriculture, which has ever had, for your free spirit, something +of degradation in it;--but to pure patriotism, freedom and +liberty, as their nature was: first to cracking such desultory +cribs as offered,--knocking down defenseless wayfarers and the +like: then to bolder raidings and excursions;--until presently, +lo, they are a great people; they have ridden over all Asia like +a scirocco; they have thundered rudely at the doors of proud +princes,--troubling even the peace of the Yellow Emperor on +his throne. + +Well,--but isn't the stature stunted, physical, as well as mental +and moral, when life is forced to reproduce itself, generation +after generation, among the unnatural conditions of slums and +industrialism? . . . Can you nourish men upon poisons century by +century, and expect them to retain the semblance of men? + +They had bothered Han Kwang-wuti; who could do little more than +hold his own against them, and leave them to his successor to +deal with as Karma might decree. Karma, having as you might +say one watchful eye on Rome and Europe, and what need of +chastisement should arise after awhile at that western end of the +world, provided Han Mingti with this Pan Chow; who, being a +soldier of promise, was sent upon the Hun war-path forthwith. +Then the miracles began to happen. Pan Chow strolled through +Central Asia as if upon his morning's constitutional: no fuss; +no hurry; little fighting,--but what there was, remarkably +effective, one gathers. Presently he found himself on the +Caspian shore; and if he had left any Huns behind him, they were +hardly enough to do more than pick an occasional pocket. He +started out when the Roman provinces were rising to make an end +of Nero; in the last year of Domitian, from his Caspian +headquarters he determined to discover Rome; and to that end +sent an emissary down through Parthia to take ship at the port of +Babylon for the unknown West. The Parthians (who were all +against the two great empires becoming acquainted, because they +are making a good thing of it as middle-men in the Roman-Chinese +caravan trade), knew better, probably, than to oppose Pan Chow's +designs openly; but their agents haunted the quays at Babylon, +tampered with west-going skippers, and persuaded the Chinese +envoy to go no farther. But I wonder whether some impulse +achieved flowing across the world from east to west at that +time, even though its physical link or channel was thus left +incomplete? It was in that very year that Nerva re-established +constitutionalism and good government in Rome. + +Pan Chow worked as if by magic: seemed to make no effort, yet +accomplished all things. For nearly forty years he kept that +vast territory in order, despite the huge frontier northward, and +the breeding-place of nomad nations beyond. All north of Tibet +is a region of marvels. Where you were careful to leave only the +village blacksmith under his spreading chestnut-tree, or the +innkeeper and his wife, for the sake of future travelers, let a +century or two pass, and their descendants would be as the +sea-sands for multitude; they would have founded a power, and be +thundering down on an empire-smashing raid in Persia or China or +India: Whether Huns, Sienpi, Jiujen, Turks, Tatars, Tunguses, +Mongols, Manchus: God knows what all, but all destroyers. But +as far as the old original Huns were concerned, Pan Chow settled +their hash for them. Bag and baggage he dealt with them; and +practically speaking, the land of their fathers knew them no +more. Dry the starting tear! here your pity is misplaced. Think +of no vine-covered cottages ruined; no homesteads burned; no +fields laid waste. They lived mainly in the saddle; they were +as much at home fleeing before the Chinese army as at another +time. A shunt here; a good kick off there: so he dealt with +them. It is in European veins their blood flows now;--and prides +itself on its pure undiluted Aryanism and Nordicism, no doubt. I +suppose scarcely a people in continental Europe is without some +mixture of it; for they enlisted at last in all foraying armies, +and served under any banner and chief. + +Pan Chow felt that they belonged to the (presumably) barbarous +regions west of the Caspian. Ta Ts'in in future might deal with +them; by God's grace, Han never should. He gently pushed them +over the brink; removed them; cut the cancer out of Asia. Next +time they appeared in history, it was not on the Hoangho, but on +the Danube. Meanwhile, they established themselves in Russia; +moved across Central Europe, impelling Quadi and Marcomans +against Marcus Aurelius, and then Teutons of all sorts against +the whole frontier of Rome. In the sixties, for Han Mingti, Pan +Chow set that great wave in motion in the far east of the world. +Three times thirteen decades passed, and it broke and wasted in +foam in the far west: in what we may call the Very First Battle +of the Marne, when Aetius defeated Attila in 451. I can but +think of one thing better he might have done: shipped them +eastward to the remote Pacific Islands; but it is too late to +suggest that now. But I wonder what would have happened if Pan +Chow had succeeded in reaching his arm across, and grasping hands +with Trajan? He had not died; the might of China had not begun +to recede from its westward limits, before the might of Rome +under that great Spaniard had begun to flow towards its limits +in the east. + +Through the bulk of the second century China remained static, or +weakening. Her forward urge seems to have ended with the death +of Pan Chow, or at the end of the half-cycle Han Kwang-wuti began +in 35. We might tabulate the two concurrent Han cycles, for the +sake of clearness, and note their points of intersection, thus: + +--Western Han Cycle, 130 years + +--Eastern Han Half-Cycle, 65 yrs + +--35 A.D. Opened by Han Kwang-wuti. + +--A static and consolidating time until 67 A.D., thirteen decades +from the death of Han Chaoti. Introduction of Buddhism in 65. + +--The period of Pan Chao's victories; the Golden Age of the +Eastern Hans, lasting until (about): + +--100 A. D. the end of the Eastern Han 'Day'; death of Pan Chow. + +--Continuance of Day under this, and supervention of Night under +this Cycle, produce: + +--A static, but weakening period until: + +--165, the year in which a new Eastern Han Day should begin. A +weak recrudescence should be seen. + +--197: the year in which the main or original Han Cycle should +end. We should expect the beginnings of a downfall. By or before: + +--230, the end of the second, feeble, Eastern Han Day, the +downfall would have been completed. + +Now to see how this works out. + +The first date we have to notice is 165. Well; in the very +scant notices of Chinese history I have been able to come on, two +events mark this date; or rather, one marks 165, and the other +166. To take the latter first: we saw that at a momentous point +in Roman history,--in the year of Nerva's accession, 96,--China +tried to discover Rome. In 166 Rome actually succeeded in +discovering China. This year too, as we shall see, was momentous +in Roman history. You may call it a half cycle after the other; +for probably the ambassadors of King An-Tun of Ta Ts'in who +arrived at the court of Han Hwanti at Loyang in 166, had been a +few years on their journey. You know King An-tun better by his +Latin name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. + +The event for 165 is the foundation of the Taoist Church, under +the half-legendary figure of its first Pope, Chang Taoling; +whose lineal descendants and successors have reigned Popes of +Taoism from their Vatican on the Dragon-Tiger Mountain in Kiangsi +ever since. They have not adverertised their virtues in their +names, however: we find no Innocents and Piuses here: they are +all plain Changs; his reigning Holiness being Chang the +Sixth-somethingth. It was from Buddhism that the Taoists took +the idea of making a church of themselves. Taoism and Buddhism +from the outset were fiercely at odds; and yet the main +splendor of China was to come from their inner coalescence. +Chu Hsi, the greatest of the Sung philosophers of the brilliant +twelfth century A.D., says that "Buddhism stole the best +features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism: +as if the one took a jewel from the other, and the other +recouped the loss with a stone." * This is exact: the jewel +stolen by Buddhism was Laotse's Blue Pearl,--Wonder and Natural +Magic; the stone that Taoism took instead was the priestly +hierarchy and church organization, imitated from the Buddhists, +that grew up under the successors of Chang Taoling. + +------ +* _Chinese Literature:_ H.A. Giles +------ + +If Laotse founded any school or order at all, it remained quite +secret. I imagine his mission was like Plato's, not Buddha's: +to start ideas, not a brotherhood. By Ts'in Shi Hwangti's time, +any notions that were wild, extravagant, and gorgeous were +Taoism; which would hardly have been, perhaps, had there been a +Taoist organization behind them;--although it is not safe to +dogmatize. It was, at any rate, mostly an inspiration to the +heights for the best minds, and for the masses (including Ts'in +Shi Hwangti) a rumor of tremendous things. After Han Wuti's next +successor, the best minds took to thinking Confucianly: which +was decidedly a good thing for China during the troublous times +before and after the fall of the Western Hans. Then when +Buddhism came in, Taoism came to the fore again, spurred up to +emulation by this new rival. I take it that Chang Taoling's +activities round about this year 165 represent an impulse of the +national soul to awakenment under the influence of the recurrence +of the Eastern Han Day half-cycle. What kind of reality Chang +Taoling represents, one cannot say: whether a true teacher in +his degree, sent by the Lodge, around whom legends have gathered; +or a mere dabbler in alchemy and magic. Here is the story told +of him; you will note an incident or two in it that suggest the +former possibility. + +He retired to the mountains of the west to study magic, cultivate +purity of life, and engage in meditation; stedfastly declining +the offers of emperors who desired him to take office. Laotse +appeared to him in a vision, and gave him a treatise in which +were directions for making the 'Elixir of the Dragon and the +Tiger.' While he was brewing this, a spirit came to him and +said: "On the Pesung Mountain is a house of stone; buried +beneath it are the Books of the Three Emperors (Yao, Shun, and +Yu). Get these, practise the discipline they enjoin, and you +will attain the power of ascending to heaven." He found the +Pesung Mountain; and the stone house; and dug, and discovered +the books; which taught him how to fly, to leave his body at +will, and to hear all sounds the most distant. During a thousand +days he disciplined himself; a goddess came to him, and taught +him to walk among the stars; then he learned to cleave the seas +and the mountains, and command the thunder and the winds. He +fought the king of the demons, whose hosts fled before him +"leaving no trace of their departing footsteps." So great +slaughter he wrought in that battle that, we are told, "various +divinities came with eager haste to acknowledge their faults." +In nine years he gained the power of ascending to heaven. His +last days were spent on the Dragon-Tiger Mountain; where, at the +age of a hundred and twenty-three, he drank the elixir, and +soared skyward in broad daylight;--followed (I think it was he) +by all the poultry in his barnyard, immortalized by the drops +that fell from the cup as he drank. He left his books of magic, +and his magical sword and seal, to his descendants; but I think +the Dragon-Tiger Mountain did not come into their possession +until some centuries later. + +I judge that the tales of the Taoist _Sennin_ or Adepts, if told +by some Chinese-enamored Lafcadio, would be about the best +collection of fairy-stories in the world; they reveal a +universe so deliciously nooked and crannied with bewildering +possibilities:--as indeed this our universe is;--only not all its +byways are profitable traveling. It is all very well to cry out +against superstition; but we are only half-men in the West: we +have lost the faculty of wonder and the companionship of +extrahuman things. We walk our narrow path to nowhere safely +trussed up in our personal selves: or we not so much walk at +all, as lie still, chrysalissed in them:--it may be just as well, +since for lack of the quality of balance, we are about as capable +of walking at ease and dignity as is a jellyfish of doing Blondin +on the tight-rope. China, in her pralaya and dearth of souls, +may have fallen into the perils of her larger freedom, and some +superstition rightly to be called degrading: in our Middle Ages, +when we were in pralaya, we were superstitious enough; and being +unbalanced, fell into other evils too such as China never knew: +black tyrannies of dogmatism, burnings of heretics wholesale. +But when the Crest-Wave Egos were in China, that larger freedom +of hers enabled her, among other things, to achieve the highest +heights in art: the Yellow Crane was at her disposal, and she +failed not to mount the heavens; she had the glimpses Wordsworth +pined for; she was not left forlorn. This merely for another +blow at that worst superstition of all: Unbrotherliness, and our +doctrine of Superior Racehood.--Many of the tales are mere +thaumatolatry: as of the man who took out his bones and washed +them once every thousand years; or of the man who would fill his +mouth with rice-grains, let them forth as a swarm of bees to +gather honey in the valley,--then readmit them into his mouth as +to a hive, where they became rice again,--presumably "sweetened +to taste." But in others there seems to be a core of symbolism +and recognition of the fundamental things. There was a man +once,--the tale is in Giles's Dictionary of Chinese Biography, +but I forget his name--who sought out the Sennin Ho Kwang (his +name might have been Ho Kwang); and found him at last in a +gourd-flask, whither he was used to retire for the night. In +this retreat Ho Kwang invited our man to join him; and he was +enabled to do so; and found it, once he had got in, a fair and +spacious palace enough. Three days he remained there learning; +while fifteen years were passing in China without. Then Ho Kwang +gave him a rod, and a spell to say over it; and bade him go his +ways. He would lay the rod on the ground, stand astride of it, +and speak the spell; and straight it became a dragon for him to +mount and ride the heavens where he would. Thenceforth for many +years he was a kind of Guardian Spirit over China: appearing +suddenly wherever there was distress or need of help: at dawn in +mountain Chungnan by Changan town in the north; at noon, maybe, +by the southern sea; at dusk he might be seen a-dragon-back +above the sea-mists rolling in over Yangtse;--and all in the same +day. But at last, they say, he forgot the spell, and found +himself riding the clouds on a mere willow wand;--and the wand +behaving as though Newton had already watched that aggravating +apple;--and himself, in due course dashed to pieces on the earth +below.--There is some fine symbolism here; the makings of +a good story. + +And now we come to 197, "the year in which (to quote our +tabulation above) the main or original Han Cycle should end," and +in which "we should expect the beginnings of a downfall." The +Empire, as empires go, is very old now: four hundred and forty +odd years since Ts'in Shi Hwangti founded it; as old as Rome was +(from Julius Caesar's time) when the East and West split under +Arcadius and Honorius; nearly three centuries older than the +British Empire is now;--the cyclic force is running out, +centripetalism very nearly wasted. In these one-nineties we find +two non-entitous brothers quarreling for the throne: who has +eyes to see, now, can see that the days of Han are numbered. All +comes to an end in 220, ten years before the third half-cycle +(and therefore second 'day') of the Eastern Han series; there is +not force enough left to carry things through till 230. Han +Hienti, the survivor of the two brothers aforesaid, retired into +private life; the dynasty was at an end, and the empire split in +three. In Ssechuan a Han prince set up a small unstable throne; +another went to Armenia, and became a great man there; but in +Loyang the capital, Ts'ao Ts'ao, the man who engineered the fall +of the Hans, set his son as Wei Wenti on the throne. + +He was a very typical figure, this Ts'ao Ts'ao: a man ominous of +disintegration. You cannot go far in Chinese poetry without +meeting references to him. He rose during the reign of the last +Han,--the Chien-An period, as it is called, from 196 to 221,--by +superiority of energies and cunning, from a wild irregular youth +spent as hanger-on of no particular position at the court,--the +son of a man that had been adopted by a chief eunuch,--to be +prime minister, commander of vast armies (he had at one time, +says Dr. H. A. Giles, as many as a million men under arms), +father of the empress; holder of supreme power; then overturner +of the Han, and founder of the Wei dynasty. Civilization had +become effete; and such a strong wildling could play ducks and +drakes with affairs. But he could not hold the empire together. +Centrifugalism was stronger than Ts'ao Ts'ao. + +The cycles and all else here become confused. The period from +220 to 265--about a half-cycle, you will note, from 196 and the +beginning of the Chien-An time, or the end of the main Han +Cycle,--is known as that of the San Koue or Three Kingdoms: its +annals read like Froissart, they say; gay with raidings, +excursions, and alarms. It was the riot of life disorganized in +the corpse, when organized life had gone. A great historical +novel dealing with this time,--one not unworthy, it is said, of +Scott,--remains to be translated. Then, by way of reaction, came +another half-cycle (roughly) of reunion: an unwarlike period of +timid politics and a super-refined effeminate court; it was, +says Professor Harper Parker, "a great age of calligraphy, belles +lettres, fans, chess, wine-bibbing and poetry-making." Then, +early in the fourth century, China split up again: crafty +ladylike Chinese houses ruling in the South; and in the north a +wild medley of dynasties, Turkish, Tungus, Tatar, and Tibetan,-- +even some relics of the Huns: sometimes one at a time, sometimes +half a dozen all together. Each barbarian race took on hastily +something of Chinese culture, and in turn imparted to it certain +wild vigorous qualities which one sees very well in the northern +art of the period: strong, fierce, dramatic landscapes: Nature +painted in her sudden and terrific moods. China was still in +manvantara, though under obscuration; she still drew her moiety +of Crest-Wave souls: there were great men, but through a lack of +co-ordination, they failed to make a great empire or nation. So +here we may take leave of her for a couple of centuries. +Just why the vigor of the Crest-Wave was called off in the +two-twenties, causing her to split then, we shall see presently. +Back now to Rome, at the time of the death of Pan Chow the +Hun-expeller and the end of the one glorious half-cycle of the +Eastern Hans. + +As China went down, Rome came up. Pan Chow died early in the +reign of Trajan, the first great Roman conqueror since Julius +Caesar; and only the Caspian Sea, and perhaps a few years, +divided Trajan's eastern outposts from the western outposts of +the Hans. We need not stay with this Spaniard longer than to +note that here was a case where grand military abilities were of +practical value: Trajan used his to subserve the greatness of +his statesmanship; only a general of the first water could have +brought the army under the new constitutional regime. The +soldiers had been setting up Caesars ever since the night they +pitched on old Claudius in his litter; now came a Caesar who +could set the soldiers down.--His nineteen years of sovereignty +were followed by the twenty-one of Hadrian: a very great emperor +indeed; a master statesman, and queer mass of contradictions +whose private life is much better uninquired into. He was a +mighty builder and splendid adorner of cities; all that remained +unsystematized in the Augustan system, he reduced to perfect +system and order. His laws were excellent and humane; he +introduced a special training for the Civil Service, which +wrought enormous economies in public affairs: officials were no +longer to obtain their posts by imperial appointment, which might +be wise or not, but because of their own tested efficiency for +the work.--Then came the golden twenty-three years of Antoninus +Pius, from 138 to 161: a time of peace and strength, with a wise +and saintly emperor on the throne. The flower Rome now was in +perfect bloom: an urbane, polished, and ordered civilization +covered the whole expanse of the empire. Hadrian had legislated +for the down-trodden: no longer had you power of life and death +over your slaves; they were protected by the law like other men; +you could not even treat them harshly. True, there was slavery, +--a canker; and there were the gladiatorial games; we may feel +piously superior if we like. But there was much humanism also. +There was no proletariat perpetually on the verge of starvation, +as in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. If we can look +back now and say, There this, that, or the other sign of oncoming +decay; the thing could not last;--it will also be remarkably +easy for us, two thousand years hence, to be just as wise about +these present years 'of grace.' It is perhaps safe to say, +--as I think Gibbon says--that there was greater happiness +among a greater number then than there has been at any time in +Christendom since. Gibbon calculates that there were twice as +many slaves as free citizens: we do know that their number was +immense,--that it was not unusual for one man to own several +thousand. But they were well treated: often highly educated; +might become free with no insuperable difficulty:--their position +was perhaps comparable with that of slaves in Turkey now, who +are insulted if you call them servants. Gibbon estimates the +population at a hundred and twenty millions; many authorities +think that figure too high; but Gibbon may well be right, or +even under the mark,--and it may account for the rapid decline +that followed the age of the Antonines. For I suspect that a too +great population is a great danger, that hosts at such times pour +into incarnation, besides those that have good right to call +themselves human souls;--that the maxim "fewer children and +better ones" is based upon deep and occult laws. China in her +great days would never appear to have had more than from fifty to +seventy millions: the present enormous figures have grown up +only since the Manchu conquest. + +There was no great stir of creative intellect and imagination in +second century Rome: little noteworthy production in literature +after Trajan's death. The greatest energies went into building; +especially under Hadrian. The time was mainly static,--though +golden. There were huge and opulent cities, and they were +beautiful; there was enormous wealth; an even and widespread +culture affecting to sweetness and light the lives of millions-- +by race Britons, Gauls, Moors, Asiatics or what not, but all +proud to be Romans; all sharing in the blessings of the Roman +Citizenship and Peace. Not without self-government, either, in +local affairs: thus we find Welsh clans in Britain still with +kings, and stranger still, with senates, of their own. + +It was the quiet and perfect moment at the apex of a cycle: the +moment that precedes descent. The old impulse of conquest +flickered up, almost for the last time, under Trajan, some of +whose gains wise Hadrian wisely abandoned. Under whom it was, +and under the first Antonine, that the empire stood in its +perfect and final form: neither growing nor decreasing; neither +on the offensive nor actively on the defensive. Now remember +the cycles: sixty-five years of manvantara under Augustus and +Tiberius,--B.C. 29 to A. D. 36. Then sixty-five mostly of +pralaya from 36 to 101; and now sixty-five more of mnavantara +under the Five Good Emperors (or three of them), from 101 to 166. + +But why stop at 166, you ask. Had not Marcus Aurelius, the best +of them all, until 180 to reign?--He had; and yet the change +came in 166; after that year Rome stood on the defensive until +she fell. It was in that year, you will remember, that King +An-tun Aurelius's envoys reached Loyang by way of Bumiah +and the sea. + +But note this: Domitian was killed, and Nerva came to the +throne, and Rome had leave to breathe freely again, in five years +before the half-cycle of shadows should have ended: the two +years of Nerva, and the first three of Trajan, we may call +borrowed by the dawning manvantara from the dusk of the pralaya +that was passing. Now if we took the strictness of the cycles +_au_ very _pied de lettre,_ we should be a little uneasy about +the last five years of that manvantara; we should expect them at +least to be filled with omens of coming evil; we should expect +to find in them a dark compensation for the five bright years at +the tail of the old pralaya.--Well, cycles have sometimes a +pretty way of fulfilling expectations. For see what happened:-- + +Marcus Aurelius came to the throne in 161: a known man, not +untried; one, certalnly, to keep the Golden Age in being,--if +kept in being it might be. Greatly capable in action, saintly in +life and ideals: what could Rome ask better? Or what had she to +fear?--The king is the representative man: it must have been a +wonderful Rome, we may note in passing, that was ruled by and +went with and loved well those two saintly philosophic Antonines +enthroned.--Nothing, then, could seem more hopeful. Under the +circumstances it was rather a mean trick on the part of Father +Tiber (to whom the Romans pray), that before a year was out he +must needs be breeding trouble for his votaries: overflowing, +the ingrate, and sweeping away large parts of his city; wasting +fields and slaughtering men (to quote Macaulay again); drowning +cattle wholesale, and causing shortage of supplies. And he does +but give the hint to the other gods, it seems; who are not slow +to follow suit. Earthquakes are the next thing; then fires; +then comes in Beelzebub with a plague of insects. There is no +end to it. The legions in Britain,--after all this long +peace and good order,--grow frisky: mind them of ancient and +profitable times when you might catch big fish in troubled +waters;--and try to induce their general to revolt. Then +Parthian Vologaeses sees his chance; declares war, annihilates a +Roman army, and overruns Syria. Verus, co-emperor by a certain +too generous unwisdom that remains a kind of admirable fly in the +ointment of the character of Aurelius, shows his mettle against +the Parthians,--taking his command as a chance for having a +luxurious fling beyond the reach and supervision of his severe +colleague;--and things would go ill indeed in the East but for +Avidius Cassius, Verus' second in command. This Cassius returns +victorious in 165, and brings in his wake disaster worse than any +Parthians:--after battle, murder, and sudden death come plague, +pestilence, and famine. In 166 the first of these latter three +broke out, devastated Rome, Italy, the empire in general; famine +followed;--it was thought the end of all things was at hand. It +was the first stroke of the cataclysm that sent Rome down. . . . +Then came Quadi and Marcomans, Hun-impelled, thundering on the +doors of Pannonia; and for the next eleven years Aurelius was +busy fighting them. Then Avidius Cassius revolted in Asia;--but +was soon assassinated. Then the Christians emerged from their +obscurity, preachers of what seemed anti-national doctrine; and +the wise and noble emperor found himself obliged to deal with +them harshly. He _was_ wise and noble,--there is no impugning +that; and he _did_ deal with them harshly: we may regret it; +as he must have regretted it then. + +So the reign marks a definite turning-point: that at which the +empire began to go down. In it the three main causes of the ruin +of the ancient world appeared: the first of the pestilences that +depopulated it; the first incursion of the barbarians that broke +it down from without; the new religion that, with its loyalty +primarily to a church, an _imperium in imperior,_ undermined +Roman patriotism from within. Nero's persecution of the +Christians had been on a different footing: a madman's lust to +be cruel, the sensuality that finds satisfaction in watching +torture: there was neither statecraft nor religion in it; but +here the Roman state saw itself threatened. It was threatened; +but it is a pity Aurelius could find no other way. + +In himself he was the culmination of all the good that had been +Roman: a Stoic, and the finest fruit of Stoicism,--which was the +finest fruit of philosophy unillumined (as I think) by the +spiritual light of mysticism. He practised all the virtues; but +(perhaps) we do not find in him that knowledge of the Inner Laws +and Worlds which alone can make practise of the virtues a saving +energy in the life of nations, and the imspiration of great ages +and awakener of the hidden god in the creative imagination of +man. The burden of his _Meditations_ is self-mastery: a +reasoning of himself out of the power of the small and great +annoyances of life;--this is to stand on the defensive; but +the spiritual World-Conqueror must march out, and flash his +conquering armies over all the continents of thought. An +underlying sadness is to be felt in Aurelius's writings. He +lived greatly and nobly for a world he could not save... that +could not be saved, so far as he knew. He died in 180; and +another Nero, without Nero's artistic instincts, came to the +throne in his son Commodus; pralaya, military rule, disruption, +had definitely set in. + +Now anciently a manvantara had begun in Western Asia somewhere +about 1890 B.C.; had lasted fifteen centuries, as the wont of +them appears to be; and had given place to pralaya about 390; +and that, in turn, was due to end in or about 220 A.D. We +should, if we had confidence in these cycles, look for what +remained of the Crest-Wave in Europe to be wandering flickeringly +eastward about this time. Hitherto it had been in two of the +three world-centers of civilization: in China and in Europe; +now for a few centuries it was to be divided between three.--I am +irrigating the garden, and get a fine flow from the faucet, which +gives me a sense of inward peace and satisfaction. Suddenly the +fine flow diminishes to a miserable dribble, and all my happiness +is gone. I look eastward, to the next garden below on the slope; +and see my neighbors busy there: their faucet has been turned +on, and is flowing royally; and I know where the water is going. +The West-Asian faucet was due to be turned on in the two-twenties; +now watch the spray from the sprinklers in the Chinese and +Roman gardens. In those two-twenties we saw China split into +three; and it rather looked as if the manvantara had ended. I +shall not look at West Asia yet, but leave it for a future +lecture. But in Europe, with Marcus Aurelius died almost the +last Italian you could call a Crest-Wave Ego. The cyclic forces, +outworn and old, produced after that no order that you can go +upon: events followed each other higgledipiggledy and inertly;-- +but it was the Illyrian legions that put him on the throne. Note +that Illyria: it is what we shall soon grow accustomed to +calling _Jugoslavia._ Severus's reign of eighteen years, from +193 to 211, was the only strong one, almost the only one not +disgraceful, until 268; by which time the Roman world was in +anarchy, split into dozens, with emperors springing up like +mushrooms everywhere. Then came a succession of strong soldiers +who reestablished unity: Claudius Gothicaus, an Illyrian +peasant; Aurelian, an Illyrian peasant; Tacitus, a Roman +senator, for one year only; Probus, an Illyrian peasant; Caus, +an Illyrian; then the greatest of all statesmen since Hadian, +who refounded the empire on a new plan,--the Illyrian who began +life as Docles the slave, rose to be Diocles the soldier, and +finally, in 284, tiaraed Diocletian reigning with all the pomp +and mystery and magnificence of an Eastern King of kings. He it +was who felt the cyclic flow, and moved his capital to Nicomedia, +which is about fifty miles south and east from Constaintinople. + +One can speak of no Illyrian cycle; rather only of the Crest-Wave +dropping a number of strong men there as it trailed eastward +towards West Asia. The intellect of the empire, in that third +century, and the spiritual force, all incarnated in the Roman +West-Asian seats; in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria, as we shall +see in a moment. But you not how bueautifully orderly, in a +geographical sense, are the movements of the Wave in Roman world +and epoch: beginning in Italy in the first century B.C.; going +west to Spain about A.D. 1,--and to Gaul too, though there +kindling chiefly material and industrial greatness; passing +through Italy again in the late first and in the second century, +in the time of the Glavians and the five Good Emperors; then in +the third like a swan flying eastward, with one wing, the +material one, stretched over Illyria raising up mighty soldiers +and administrators there, and the other, the spiritual wing, over +Egypt, there fanning (as we shall see) the fires of esotericism +to flame. + +For it was in that third century, while disaster on disaster was +engulfing the power and prestige of Rome, that the strongest +spiritual movement of all the Roman period came into being. +History would not take much note of the year in which a porter in +Alexandria was born; so the birth-date of the man we come to now +is unknown. It would have been, however, not later than 180; +since he had among his pupils one man at least born not later +than 185. According to Eusebius, he was born a Christian; and +H.P. Blavatsky, in _The Key to Theosophy,_ seems to accept, or at +least not to contradict, this view. I think she often did allow +popular views on non-essentials to pass, for lack of time and +immediate need to contradict them. But Eusebius (of who she has +much to say, and none of it complimentary to his truthfulness) +is, I believe, the sole authority for it; and scholars since +have found good reason for supposing that he was mixing this man +with another of the same name, who _was_ a Christian; whereas +(it is thought) this man was not. Be that as it may, we know +almost nothing about him; except that he began life as a porter, +with the job of carrying goods in sacks; whence he got the +surname Sakkophoros, latter shortened to Saccas;--from which you +will have divined by this time that his personal name was +Ammonius. We know also that early in the third century he had +gathered disciples about him, and was teaching them a doctrine he +called _Theosophy;_ very properly, since it was and is the +Wisdom of the gods or divine Wisdom. An eclectic system, as they +say; wherein the truths in all such philosophies and religions as +come handy were fitted together and set forth. But in truth all +this was but the nexus of his teaching: Theosophy, then as now, +is eclectic only in this sense: that some truth out of it +underlies all religions and systems; which they derive from it, +and it from them nothing. + +All through the long West-Asian pralaya,--West-Asian includes +Egyptian,--the seeds of the Esoteric Wisdom remained in those +parts; they lacked vitalization, because the world-currents were +not playing there then; but they survived in Egypt from the +Egyptian Mysteries of old; and as in India you might have found +men who knew about them, but not how to use them for the +uplifting of the world,--so doubtless you should have found such +men in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Hence the +statement of Diogenes Laertius, that the Theosophy of Ammonius +Saccas originated with one Pot Ammun, a priest of Ptolemaic +times: who, perhaps, was one of those who transmitted the +doctrine in secret. The seeds were there, then; and how that +the Crest Wave was coming back to West Asia, it was possible for +Ammonius to quicken them; and this he did. But it had not quite +come back; so he made nothing public. He wrote nothing; he had +his circle of disciples, and what he taught is to be know from +them. Among them was Origen, who was born, or became, a +Christian; but who introduced into, or emphasized in, his +Christianity much sound Theosophical teaching; very likely he +was deputed to capture Christianity, or some part of it, for +truth. Here I may offer a little explanation of something that +may have puzzled some of us: it will be remembered that Mr. +Judge says somewhere that Reincarnation was condemned by the +Council of Constantinople; and that in a series of learned +articles which appeared in THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH recently, the +late Rev. S.J. Neill contradicted this asserion. The truth seems +to be this: Origen taught, if not Reincarnation, at least +the pre-existence of souls; and, says the _Encyclopaedia +Britannica:_ "It is true that many scholars deny that Origen +[read, his teachings] was condemned by this council [of Constantinople, +A.D. 553]; but Moller rightly holds that the condemnation is proved." + +Another pupil of Ammonius was Cassius Longinus, born in 213 at +Emessa (Homs) in Asia Minor. Later he taught Platonism for +thirty years at Athens; then in the two-sixties went east to the +court of Zenobia at Palmyra,--whose brilliant empire, though it +fell before the Illyrian Aurelian, was a sign in its time that +the Crest-Wave had come back to West Asia. Longinus became her +chief counselor; it was by his advice that she resisted +Aurelian;--who pardoned the Arab queen, and, after she had +paraded Rome in his triumph, became very good friends with her; +but condemned her counselor to death. But Longinus I think had +failed to follow in the paths laid down for him by his Teacher: +we find him in disagreement with that Teacher's successor. + +Who was Plotinus, born of Roman parents at Lycopolis in Egypt. +It is from his writings we get the best account of Ammonius' +doctrine. He was with the latter until 243; then joined Gordian +III's expedition against Persia, with a view to studying Persian +and Indian philosophies at their source. But Gordian was +assassinated; and Plotinus, after a stay at Antioch, made his +way to Rome and opened a school there. This was in the so-called +Age of the Thirty Tyrants, when the central government was at its +weakest. Gallienus was emperor in Rome, and every province +had an emperorlet of its own;--it was before the Illyrian +peasant-soldiers had set affairs on their feet again. A +lazy erratic creature, this Gallienus; says Gibbon: "In +every art that he attempted his lively genius enable him +to succeed; and, as his genius was destitute of judgement, +he attempted every art, except the important ones of war +and government. He was master of several curious but useless +sciences, a ready orator, an elegant poet, a skilful gardener, +an excellent cook, and a most contemptible prince." Yet he +had a curious higher side to his nature, wherewith he might +have done much for humanity,--if he had ever bothered to +bring it to the fore. He, and his wife, were deeply interested +in the teachings of Plotinus. Such a man may sometimes be +'run,' and made the instrument of great accomplishment: a +morass through which here and there are solid footholds; +if you can find them, you may reach firm ground, but you +must walk infinitely carefully. It is the old tale of the +Prince with the dual nature, and the Initiate who tries to use +him for the saving of the world,--and fails. + +Plotinus knew what he was about. Was it last week we were +talking of the endless need of the ages: a stronghold of the +Gods to be established in this world, whence they might conduct +their cyclic raidings? What had Pythagoras tried to do in his +day?--Found a Center of Learning in the West, in which the Laws +of Life, physical, mental, moral, and spiritual, should be +taught. He did found it,--at Croton; but Croton was destroyed, +and all the history of the next seven centuries suffered from the +destruction. Then--it was seven centuries after his death,-- +Ammonius Saccas arose, and started things again; and left a +successor who was able to carry them forward almost to the point +where Pythagoras left them. For the fame of this Neo-Platonic +Theosophy had traveled by this time right over the empire; and +Plotinus in Rome, and in high favor with Gallienus, was a man on +whom all eyes were turned. He proposed to found a Point Loma in +Campania; to be called Platonopolis. Things were well in hand; +the emperor and empress were enthusiastic:--as your Gallieneuses +will be, for quarter of an hour at a time, over any high project. +But certain of his ministers were against it; and he wobbled; +and delayed; and thought of something else; and hung fire; and +presently was killed. And Claudius, the first of the Illyrian +emperors, who succeeded him, was much to busy defeating the Goths +to come to Rome even,--much less could he pay attention to +spiritual projects. Two years later Plotinus died, in 270;--and +the chance was not to come again for more than sixteen centuries. + +But Neo-Platonism was not done with yet, by any means. Plotinus +left a successor in his disciple Porphyry, born at Tyre or at +Batanea in Syria in 233. You see they were all West Asians, at +least by birth: the first spiritual fruits of the Crest-Wave's +influx there. Porphyry's name was originally Malchus (the Arabic +_Malek,_ meaning _king_); but as a king was a wearer of the +purple, someone changed it for him to Porphyry or 'Purple.' In +262 he went to Rome to study under Plotinus, and was with him for +six years; then his health broke down, and he retired to Sicily +to recover. In 273 he returned,--Plotinus had died three years +before, and opened a Neo-Platonic School of his own. He taught +through the last quarter of that century, while the Illyrian +emperors were smashing back invaders on the frontiers or upstart +emperors in the provinces. Without imperial support, no +Platonopolis could have been founded; and there was no time for +any of those Illyrians to think of such things.--even if they had +had it in them to do so, as they had not:--witness Aurelian's +execution of Longinus. The time had gone by for that highest of +all victories: as it might have gone by in our own day, but for +events in Chicago, in February, 1898. When Porphyry died in 304, +he left a successor indeed; but now one that did not concern +himself with Rome. + +It was Iamblichus, born in the Lebanon region; we do not know in +what year; or much about him at all, beyond that he was an +aristocrat, and well-to-do; and that he conducted his Theosophic +activities mainly from his native city of Chalcis. he died +between 330 and 333; thus through thirteen decades, from the +beginning of the third century, these four great Neo-Platonist +Adepts were teaching Theosophy in the Roman world;--Ammonius in +Egypt; Plotinus and Porphyry,--the arm of the Movement stretched +westward to save, if saved they might be, the Roman west Europe, +--in Rome itself; then, since that was not be done, Iamblichus in +Syria. We hear of no man to be named as successor to Iamblichus; +I imagine the great line of Teachers came to an end with him. +Yet, as we shall see, their impulse, or movement, or propaganda, +did not cease then: it did not fail to reach an arm down into +secular history, and to light up one fiery dynamic soul on the +Imperial Throne, who did all that a God-ensouled Man could do to +save the dying Roman world. Diocletian, that great but quite +unillumined pagan, was dead; the new order, that subverted Rome +at last, had been established by Constantine; and the House of +Constantine, with all that it implied, was in power. But a year +or two before the death of Iamblichus it chanced that a Great +Soul stole a march on the House of Constantine, and (as you may +say) surreptitiously incarnated in it, for the Cause of the Gods +and Sublime Perfection. And to him, in his lonely and desolate +youth, kept in confinement or captivity by the Christian on the +throne, came one Maximus of Smyrna, a disciple of Iamblichus;-- +and lit in the soul of Prince Julian that divine knowledge of +Theosophy wherewith afterwards he made his splendid and tragic +effort for Heaven. + + + + +XXII. EASTWARD HO! + + +The point we start out from this evening is, in time, the year +220 A.D., in place, West Asia: 220, or you may call it 226,-- +sixty-five years, a half-cycle, after 161 and the accession of +Marcus Aurelius; and therewith, in Rome, the beginning of the +seasons prophetic of decline. So now we are in 226; look well +around you; note your whereabouts;--for there is no resting +here. You have seen? you have noted? On again then, I beseech +you; and speedily. And, please, backwards: playing as it were +the crab in time; and not content till the whole pralaya is +skipped, and you stand on the far shore, in the sunset of an +elder day: looking now forward, into futurity, from 390, perhaps +394 B.C.; over first a half-cycle of Persian decline,--long +melancholy sands and shingle, to--there on the edge of the great +wan water,--that July in 330 when mean Satrap Bessus killed his +king, Codomannus, last of the Achaemenidae, then in flight from +Alexander;--and the House of Cyrus and Darius came to an end. +What a time it was that drifted into Limbo then! One unit of +history; one phase of the world's life-story! It had seen all +those world-shaking Tiglath-pilesers eastward; all those proud +Osirified kings by the Nile;--and now it was over; had died in +its last stronghold, Persia, and there was nowhere else for it to +be reborn; and, after a decent half-cycle of lying in state +under degenerate descendants of the great Darius, had been furied +(cataclysmal obsequies!) beneath a landslide of Hellenistic +Macedonianism. Its old civilization, senile long since, was +gone, and a new kind from the west superimposed;--Babylon was a +memory vague and splendid;--the Assyrian had gone down, and +should never re-arise:--Egypt of the Pharaohs had fallen forever +and ever;--Aryan Persia was over-run;-- + + "Iran indeed had gone, with all his rose, + And Jamshyd's seven-ringed cup, where no one knows:" + +--And the angel that recorded their deeds and misdeed had written +_Tamam_ on the last page, sprinkled sand over the ink,--shut the +volume, and put it away on the shelf;--and with a _Thank God +that's done with!_ settled down to snooze for six hundred years +and ten. + +For what had he to do with what followed? With Alexander's +wedding-feast in 324,--when upwards of ten thousand couples, the +grooms all Macedonian, the brides all Persian, were united: what +had he to do with the new race young Achilles Redivivus thus +proposed to bring into being? These were mere Macedonian doings, +to be recorded by his brother angel of Europe; as also were the +death of Alexander, and his grand schemes that came to nothing. +There was no West Asia now; only Europe: all was European and +Hellenized to the borders of India, with periodical overflowings +beyond;--just as, long afterwards, Spain was a province of West +Asia; and just as Egypt now is submerged under a European power. + +Only the trouble is that the seed of something native always +remains in regions so overflowed with an alien culture; and +Alexander dreamed never of what might lie quiescent, resurrectable +in time, in the mountains of Persis, the Achaemenian land, +out of the path of the eastward march of his phalanxes;--or +indeed, in those wide deserts southward, parched Araby, that +none but a fool--and such was not Alexander--would trouble +to invade or think of conquering: something that should +in its time reassert West Asia over all Hellenedom, in Macedonia +itself, and West beyond the Pillars of Hercules and the limits of +the world. But let that be: it need trouble no one in this year +of 324 B.C.! Only remember that "that which hath been shall be +again, and there is nothing new under the sun." + +In this study of comparative history one finds after awhile that +there are very few dates that count, and they are very easy to +keep in mind. The same decades are important everywhere; and +this because humanity is one, and however diversified on the +outside, inwardly all history is the history of the one Host of +Souls. Take 320 B.C. Alexander is dead three years, but the +world is still vibrating with him. Chandragupta Maurya has just +started his dynasty and great age in India, which is to last its +thirteen decades until the neighborhood of 190. Seleucus +Nicataor, the only one of the Macedonian _diadochi_ who has not +divorced his Persian bride, is about to set up for himself a +sovereignty in Babylon,--which Scipio Africanus, thirteen decades +afterwards, struck from the list of the Great Powers when he +defeated Seleucus' descendant Antiochus at Magnesia,--in 190 +again; at which time the Romans first broke into Asia. And it +was in the one-nineties, too, that the second Han Emperor came to +the Dragon Thone, and the glorious age of the Western Hans began. + +Though the Seleucidae possessed for some time a great part of +Darius Hystaspes' empire,--and, except Egypt, all the old +imperial seats of the foregone manvantara,--they do not belong to +West Asia at all; their history is not West-Asian, but European; +they are a part of that manvantara whose forces were drifting +West from Greece to Italy. The history of all the Macedonian +kingdoms is profoundly uninteresting. There was enough of Greek +in them to keep them polished; enough of Macedonian to keep them +essentially barbarous; they sopped up some of the effeteness of +the civilizations they had displaced, Egyptian and Asiatic; but +the souls of those old civilizations remained aloof. There was +mighty little Egypt in the Egypt of the Ptolemies: what memories +and atmosphere of a grand antiquity survived, hid in the crypts +and pyramids; all one saw was a sullen fanatic people scorning +their conquerors. So too in Seleucus' Babylon there was little +evidence of the old Childacan wisdom, or the Assyrian power, or +the pride and chivalry of the Persian. It was Europe occupying +West Asia; and not good Europe at that; and only able to do so +(as is always the case) because the Soul of West Asia was +temporarily absent. The Seleucidae maintained a mimic greatness +in tinsels until 190 and Scipio and Magnesia; then a mere +rising-tide-lapped sand-castle of a kingdom until, in 64 B.C., +Pompey made what remained of it a Roman province,--just twice +thirteen decades after the marriage-feast at Babylon; just when +the great age of the Western Hans was ending, and when Augustus +was thinking of being born, and (probably or possibly) Vikramaditya +of starting up a splendor at Ujjain. What Pompey took,--what +remained for him to take,--consisted only of Syria; all the +eastern part of the Seleucid empire had gone long since. + +In 255 Diodotus, the Seleucid satrap of Bactria, rebelled and +made himself a kingdom; and that the kingdom might become an +empire, went further on the war-path. On the eastern shores of +the Caspian he defeated one of the myriad nomad tribes of +Turanian stock that haunt those parts,--first cousins, a few +times removed perhaps, to our friends the Huns; a few more times +removed, to that branch of their race that had, so to say, +married above them and become thus a sort of poor relations to +the aristocracy,--the Ts'inners who were at that time finishing +up their conquest of China. Thus while the far eastern branch of +the family was prospering mightily, the far western was getting +into trouble: I may mention that they were known, these far +westerners, as the _Parni;_ and that their chief had tickled his +pride with assumption of the Persian name of Arsaces;--just as I +dare say you should find various George Washingtons and Pompey +the Greats now swaying empire in the less explored parts of +Africa. South of this Parnian country lies what is now the +province of Khorasan, mountainous; then a Seleucan satrapy known +as Parthia;--also inhabited by Turanians, but of a little more +settled sort; the satrap was Andragoras, who, like Diodotus in +Bactria (only not quite so much so), had made himself independent +of the reigning Antiochus (II). With him Arsaces found refuge +after his defeat by Diodotus, and there spent the next seven +years:--whether enjoying Andragoras' hospitality, or making +trouble for him, this deponent knoweth not. In 248, however, he +proceeeded to slay him and to reign in his stead. Two years +later, Arsaces died, and his brother Tiridates succeeded him and +carried on the good work; he was driven out by Seleucus II in +238, but returned to it when the latter was called westward by +rebellions soon after. Thenceforward the Parthian kingdom was, +as you might say, a fact in nature; though until a half-cycle +had passed, a small and unimportant one, engaged mostly in +reinvogorating the native Turanianism of the Parthians with fresh +Parnian importations from the northern steppes. Then, in 170, +Mithradates I came to the throne, and seriously founded an +empire. He fought Eucratidas of Bactria, and won some territory +from him. He fought eastward as far as to the Indus; then +conquered Meida and Babylonia in the west. In 129 Demetrius II +Nicator, the reigning Seleucid, attacked Mithradates' son, +Phraates II, and was defeated; and the lands east of the +Euphrates definitely passed from Seleucid to Parthian control. + +Why not, then, count as manvantaric doings in West Asia +this rise of the Parthians to power? Why relegate them +and their activities to the dimness of pralaya? Says the +_Encyclopaedia Britannica:_ + +"The Parthian Empire as founded by the conquests of Mithradates I +and restored, once by Mithradates II (the Great, c. 124 to 88 +B.C.), and again by Phraates II (B.C. 76 to 70), was, to all +exterior appearances, a continuation of the Achaemenid dominion. +Thus the Arsacids now began to assume the old title 'King of +kings' (the shahanshah of modern Persia), though previously their +coins as a rule had borne only the legend 'great king.' The +official version preserved by Arrian in his _Parthica,_ +derives the line of These Parnian nomads from [the Achaemenian] +Artaxerxes II. In reality however the Parthian empire was +totally different from its predecessor, both externally and +internally. It was anything rather than a world empire. The +countries west of the Euphrates never owned its dominion, and +even of Iran itself not one half was subject to the Arsacids. +There were indeed vassal states on every hand, but the actual +possessions of the kings--the provinces governed by their +satraps--consisted of a rather narrow strip of land stretching +from the Euphrates and north Babylonia through southern Media and +Parthia as far as north-western Afghanistan... Round these +provinces lay a ring of minor states which as a rule were +dependent on the Arsacids. They might, however, partially +transfer their allegiance on the rise of a new power (e.g. +Tigranes in Armenia) or a Roman invasion. Thus it is not without +justice that the Arsacid period is described, in the later +Persian and Arabian tadition, as the period of the 'kings of the +part-kingdoms'--among which the Ashkanians (i.e. the Arsacids) +had won the first place.... + +"It may appear surprising that the Aracids made no attempt to +incorporate the minor states in the empire and create a great and +united dominion, such as existed under the Achaemenids and was +afterwards restored by the Sassanians. This fact is the clearest +symptom of the weakness of their empire and of the small power +wielded by their King of kings. In contrast alike with its +predecessors and successors the Arsacid dominion was peculiarly a +chance formation--a state which had come into existence through +fortuitous external circumstances, and had no firm foundation +within itself, or any intrinsic _raison d'etre._" + +A Turanian domination over Iran, it had leave to exist only +because the time was pralaya. When a man dies, life does not +depart from his body; but only that which sways and organizes +life; then life, ungoverned and disorganized, takes hold and +riots. So with the seats of civilization. One generally finds +that at such times some foreign power receives, as we are getting +to say, a mandate (but from the Law) to run these dead or +sleeping or disorganized regions,--until such time as they come +to life again, and proceed to evict the mandataries.--As well to +remember this, now that we are proposing, upon a brain-mind +scheme, to arrange for ourselves what formerly the Law saw to:-- +the nations that are now to be great and proud manditaries, +shall sometime themselves be mandataried; and those that are +mandataried now, shall then arrange their fate for them; there +is no help for it: you cannot catch Spring in a trap, or cage +up Summer lest he go.--It seems now we must believe in a new +doctrine: that certain 'Nordics' are the Superior Race, and you +must be blue-eyed and large and blond, or you shall never pass +Peter's wicket. One of these days we shall have some learned +ingenious Hottentot arising, to convince us poor others of the +innate superiority of Hottentottendom, and that we had better bow +down! . . . But to return: + +The Parthians remained little more than Central-Asian nomads: +something between the Huns who destroved civilization, and the +Turks who cultivated it for all they were worth (in a Central +Asian-nomad sort of way). All their magnates were Turanian; +they retained a taste for tent-life; their army and fighting +tactics where of the desert-horseman type: mounted bowmen, +charging and shooting, wheeling and scattering in flight,--which +put not your trust in, or 'ware the "Parthian shot." They were +not armed for close combat; and were quite defenseless in +winter, when the weather slackened their bow-string. True, Aryan +Iran put its impress on them: so that presently their kings wore +long beards in the Achaemenian fashion, made for themselves an +Achaemenian descent, called themselves by Achaemenian names. +They took on, too, the Achaemenian religion of Zoroaster:--so, +but much more earnestly and adventurously and _opera-bouffe_ +grimly. Ts'in Shi Hwangti took on the quest of Tao. There was +also a stratum of Hellenistic culture in their domains, and they +took on something of that. When they conquered Babylonia, it was +inevitable that they should move their headquarters down into +that richest and most thickly-populated part of their realm--to +Seleucia, the natural capital, one might suppos?--a huge +Hellenistic city well organized for world-commerce.--But let +these nomad kings come into it with their horde, and what would +become of the ordered civic life? Nomads do not take well +to life in great cities; they love the openness of their +everlasting plains, and the narrrow streets and high buildings +irk their sensibilities. For this reason, and perhaps because +they recognised their deficienceies, they shunned Seleucia; and +built themselves lumbering straggling gawky Ctesiphon across the +Tigris to be their chief capital;--for they had many; not +abiding to be long in one place, but gadding about as of old. +Still, Greek culture was not to be denied. They coined money, +copying the inscriptions on the coins of the Seleucids, and +copyting them ever worse and worse. Not until after 77 A.D., and +then only occasionally, do Parthian coins bear inscriptions in +Aramaic. Yet sometimes we hear of their being touched more +deeply with Greekness. Orodes I,--he who defeated Crassus,-- +spoke good Greek, and Greek tragedies were played at his court.-- +As with nomads generally, it was always easy for a Parthian king +to shark up a great army and achieve a striking victory; but +as a rule impossible to keep the horde so sharked up thogether +for solid conquests; and above all, it was impossible to +organize anything. + +But they played their part in history: striking down to cut +off the flow of Greek culture eastward. It had gone, upon +Alexander's impulse, up into Afghanistan and down into India; +may even have touched Han China,--probably did. I do not suppose +that the touch could have done anything but good in India and +China; where culture was well-established, older, and in all +essentials higher, than in Greece. But in Persia itself the case +was different. Persia was under pralaya, in retreat among its +original mountains; and submergence under Hellenisticism might +have meant for its oblivion of its own native Persianism. +Consder: of the two great centers of West-Asian culture, Egypt +fell under Greek, and then under Roman, dominion; and the old +Egyptian civilization became, so far as we can tell, utterly a +thing of the past. When Egypt rose again, under the Esotericist +Sultans of the tenth century A.D., I dare not quite say that her +new glory was linked by nothing whaterver to the ancient glory of +the Pharaohs; but that would be the general--as it is the +obvious--view. Fallen into pralaya, she had no positive strength +of her own to oppose to the active manvantaric influence of +Greekism under the Ptolemies; and in Roman days it was her +imported Greekism that she opposed to the Romans, not her own old +and submerged Khemism. Her soul was buried very deep indeed, if +it remained with her at all. In Persia, on the other hand, +West Asia retained much more clearly its cultural identity. +Persianism was submerged for about thirteen decades under the +Seleucids; then the Parthians cut in, and the drowning waters +were drained away. The Parthians had no superior culture to +impose on the Persians; whereas the Greeks had,--because theirs +was active and in manvantara, while that of the Persians +themselves was negative, because in pralaya. One might say +roughly that a nation under the dominance of a people more highly +or actively cultured than itself, tends to lose the integrity of +its own culture,--as has happened in Ireland and Wales under +English rule:--they take on, not advantageously, an imitation of +the culture of their rulers. But under the dominance of a +stronger, but less advanced, people, they tend to seek refuge the +more keenly in their own cultural sources: as the Finns and +Poles have done under the Russians. This explains in part the +difference between Egypt and Persia it the dawn of the new +West-Asian manvantara. We have seen that in the former the seeds +were ready to sprout, and did,--in Ammonius Saccas and his movement. +They were Egyptian seeds; but the soil and fertilizers were so +Greek that the blossom when it appeared seemed not Egyptian, not +West-Asian, but Neo-Greek; and turned not to the rising, but to +the setting sun. The new growth affiliated itself to the +European manvantara that was passing, not to the West-Asian one +that was to begin. Persia was in a different position. + +Certain events went to quicken the Persian seed within the +Parthian empire. One was the rise of the Yueh Chi. During the +period between the end of the brilliance of the Western, and the +beginning of that of the Eastern Hans, these people were +consolidating an empire in Northern India, and figuring there as +the Kushan Dynasty: their power culminated, probably, in the +reign of Kanishka. They had wrested from the Parthians some of +their eastern provinces;--really, the overlordship of these +rather than the sovereignty, for the Parthians held all things +lightly except the ground they happened to be camping on; and +this made a change in the center of Parthian gravity which was of +enormous help to the Persians. + +The heart of Persiandom was the province of Fars or Persis, the +mountain-land lying to the east of the Persian Gulf, and between +it and the Great Persian Desert. Mesopotamia, where were +Ctesiphon, the Parthian's chief capital, and Seleucia, their +greatest city,--the richest and most populated part of their +empire, stretches northward from the very top of the gulf, a long +way from Fars; and the main routes eastward from Mesopotamia run +well to the north of the latter avoiding its mountains and desert +beyond. So this province is remote, and well calculated to +maintain appreciable independence of any empire not born in +itself. The Parthian writ had never run there much; nor had the +Median in the days when the Medes were in power; though of that +empire, as of the Parthian, it had been more or less nominally a +dependent province. It was from these mountains that a chieftain +came, in the five-fifties B.C., to over turn Astyages the Mede's +sovereignty, and replace it with his own Achaemenian Persian; +and to take Persianism out of mountain Fars, and spread it over +all West Asia. Back to Fars, when the Achaemenians fell, that +Persianism receded; there to maintain itself unimportantly aloof +through the Seleucid and Arsacid ages; probably never very +seriously menaced by Greekism, even in Seleucid times, because so +remote from the routes of trade and armies. The conquests of the +Yueh Chi put Fars still nearer the circumference of Parthia: +threw the center of that more definitely into Mesopotamia, and +closed the avenues eastward. The change made Fars the more +conscious of herself. + +But there were Persians all over the Parthian domain; and had +been ever since they first went down out of their mountains under +Cyhrus to conquer. It was in accordance with what I may call the +Law of Cyclic Backwashes, that the rise of Yueh Chi should have +stirred up Persian feeling in them everywhere. Thus: the +impulse of Han Wuti's westward activities passed as a quickening +into the Yueh Chi; and on from them, not into the Parthians, who +were but an unreality and mirage of empire, but into these +Persians, the true possessors of the land whose turn it was to be +quickened. They began remembering, now, their ancient greatness; +and turning their eyes to their still half-independent ancestral +mountains, whence--dared they hope it?--another Cyrus might appear. + +Then came another psychic impulse, from the west: when Trajan's +eastward victories shook the Parthian power again. Then,--you +will remember how the Roman world was shaken at the time +of Marcus Aurelius' accession: how Vologaeses seized the +opportunity to attack; how Verus the co-emperor went against +him, and made a mess of things; how Avidius Casius (who brought +back the plague to Rome) saved the situation. In doing so, he +conferred unwittingly untold benefits on the Persian subjects of +Parthia. He destroyed Seleucia as a punitive measure. Now +Seleucia had been the cultureal capital of the Parthian empire; +and it was a Greek city. Its culture was Greek; and Greek +culture had ever been, for Persianism, a graver danger and more +present check than Parthian ignorance; or it submerged and +abashed, where the other only ignore, the Persian spirit. So +when Seleucia was wiped out, in 165, the chief and real enemy of +the National Soul had vanished. The Persians might no longer +look to Hellenism for their cultural inspiration; might no more +set up _Its_ light against the Parthian darkness; they must find +a light instead proper to their own souls;--and must look +towards mountain Fars to find it. Within a half-cycle they +were up. They were due to be up, as you will remember, in +the two-twenties: the decade in which we saw the stream in +China, as in Rome, diminish. Troubles had begun in Rome in +162, the second year of Aurelisus. 162 plus 65 are 227. In +227 Persia rose and Parthia vanished. + +In the second century A.D. there had been a man in Fars named +Papak the son of Sassan, who took as his motto the well-known +lines from Marlowe: + + "Is it not passing brave to be a king + And ride in triumph through Persepolis?" + +--Persepolis, indeed, was gone, and only its vast and pillared +ruins remained in the wilderness; but near by the town of +Istakhr had grown up, to be what Persepolis had been in the old +Achaemenian days,--the heart and center of Fars, which is +spiritually, the heart and center of all Iran. Papak thought he +would make Istakhr serve his purpose; and did;--and reigned +there in due course without ever a Parthian to say him nay. In +212 he died; and what he had been and desired to be, that his +son Ardashir would be in turn, and much more also. This Ardashir +was very busy remembering the story of the Achaemenidae: men, +like himself, of Fars; men, like himself, of the One and Only +True Religion: but further, conquerors of the world and Kings of +the kings of Iran and Turan. And if they, why not he?--So he +goes to it, and from king of Istakhr becomes king of Fars; and +then unobtrusively takes in Karmania eastward;--until news of his +doings comes to the ears of his suzerain Artabanus King of +Parthis, who does not like it. Artabanus has recently (217) +received in indemnity a matter of seven and a half million +dollars from a well-whipped Roman emperor; and is not prepared +to see his own uderlings give themselves airs;--so whistles up +his horde of cavalry, and marches south and east to settle +things. Three battles, and the Parthian empire is a thing of the +past; and Ardashir (which is Artaxerxes) the son of Papak the +son of Sassan sits in the great seat of the Achaemenidae. + +Now this is the key to all the history of the west in those +times; and we may include West Asia in the west:--the world was +going down, and each new phase of civilization was something +worse than the one before. I cannot but see degeneracy, and with +every age a step further from ancient truth: Rome with less +light than Greece; the Sassanians a feebble copy of the +Achaemenians:--knowledge of the Realities receding ever into the +past. A new spirit had been coming in since the beginning of the +Christian era, or since the living flame of the last-surviving +Mysteries was quenched. It is one we are but painfully +struggling away from now; it has tainted all life west of China +since. China, with her satellite nations, alone in the main +escaped it: I mean, the spirit of religious intolerance. + +The odium of introducing it belongs not (as you might think) to +one particular religious body, but to the evil in humanlty; on +which, since the Mysteries were destroyed, there had been no +effective check. The corner-stone of true religion is the Divine +Spirit omnipresent in Nature; the Divine Soul in Man. As well +forbid the rest of men to breathe the air you breathe, or walk +under your private stretches of sky, as try to peg yourself out a +special claim in these! You cannot do it, and the first +instinct of man should be that you cannot do it. But lose sight +of these Divine Things; lose the sense that perceives them, +their essential universality, their inevitable universality;--and +where are you? What are you to do about the inner life?--Why, +for lack of reality, you shall take a sham: you shall hatch up +some formula of words; or better still, take the formula already +hatched that comes handiest; call it your creed or confession of +faith; fix your belief on that, as supreme and infallible, the +sure and certain key to the mysteries within and around you;-- +then you may cease to think of those mysteries altogether; the +word-formula will be enough; it is that, not thought, not +action, that saves. I believe in--such and such an arrangement of +consonants and vowels;--and therefore I am saved, and highly +superior; and you, poor reptile, who possess not this arrangement, +but some other and totally false one;--you, thank God, are +damned. You are lost; you shall go to hell; I scorn and +look down on you from the heights of the special favor of the +Maker of the Stars and Suns: as if I lay already snug in +Abraham's bosom, and watched you parched and howling.--The +Mysteries were gone; there was no Center of Light in the West, +from which the thought-essence of common sense might seep out +purifying year by year into men's minds; Theosophy the grand +antiseptic was not; so such tomfoolery as this came in to take +its place. You must react to this from indifference, and to +indifference from this;--two poles of inner darkness, and +wretched unthinking humanity wobbling between them;--so long as +you have no Light. What then is the Light?--Why, simply +something you cannot confine in a church or bottle in a creed: +and this is a proposition that needs no proving at all, because +it is self-evident. There was a fellow in English Wiltshire +once, they say, who planted a hedge about his field to keep +in the cuckoo from her annual migration. The spirit of +Cuckoo-hedging came in, in the first centuries A. D. + +It was totally unknown to the Roman polity. Whatever inner +things any man or nation chose to bear witness to, said the Roman +state, were to be supposed to exist; and might be proclaimed, +were they not subversive of the public order, for the benefit of +any that needed them. There were two exceptions: Druidism; we +have glanced at a possible reason why it was proscribed in Gaul +by Augustus; another reason may been that the Druids clung to +the memories of Celtic--and so anti-Roman--great things forelost. +The other exception was the first historical world-religion that +proclaimed the doctrine,--_Believe or be damned!_ + +Over the portals of the first century A.D., says H.P. Blavatsky, +the words "the Karma of Israel" are written. Judaism had never +tried to impress itself on the world, as the religion that was +born from it did.--It is rarely that one finds sane views taken +as to Jewish history; it is a history, and a race, that provoke +extreme feelings. A small people, originally exiled from India, +that had had eight thousand years of vicissitudes since; +sometimes, it is necessary to think, high fortunes;--no doubt an +age of splendor once under their great king Solomon, or some one +else for whom the traditional Solomon stands; oftenest, perhaps, +subjected to their powerful neighbors in Egypt, Babylon, or +Assyria, and latterly Rome: you may say that no doubt they were +in the long run no better and no worse than the rest of mankind. +They had great qualities, and the failings correspondent. They +had, like all other races, their champions of the Light, their +Prophets and wise Rabbis; and in ages of darkness their stiff +necked fierce materialism incased in dogma and inthroned in high +places in the national religion. Their history has been lifted +to a bad eminence,--bad for them and the rest of us,--by the +ignorance of the last two millenniums; in reality, that history, +sanely understood, and not gathered too much from their own +records, amply explains their failings and their virtues, and +should leave us not unduly admiring, nor unfraternally the +reverse. They were human; which means, subject to human +duality, to cycles of light, and cycles of darkness. The +centuries after the sixth B.C. were, as we have seen, a cycle of +growing darkness for most of the world. The position of the +Jews, a small people surrounded by great ones, and therefore +always liable to be trampled on, had intensified their national +feeling to an extraordinary pitch; and their religion was the +one lasting bond of their nationality. So, at the beginning of +the Christian era, they were notoriously the most difficult +people to govern in the Roman world. The passing of the Egyptian +Mysteries had left those Egyptians who still were Egyptian +sullenly fanatical; but the reaction from ancient greatness kept +that fanaticism aloof,--the energies were dormant: Egypt, +thoroughly conquered, turned her face from the world, and hoped +for nothing. But the Jews maintained an inextinguishable hope; +they nourished on it a fighting spirit which entered fiercely +into the religion that was for them the one and only truth, and +that lifted them in their own estimation high above the rest of +mankind. Romans and Egyptians alike worshiped the Gods, though +they called them by different names; but the Jews abhorred the +Gods. The Maker of Sirius and Canopus and the far limits of the +galaxy was a good Jew like themselves, their peculiar property; +He had his earthly headquarters in Jerusalem; spoke, I suppose, +only Hebrew, and considered other languages gibberish; of +all this earth, was only interested in a tiny corner at the +south-east end of the Mediterrancan; and of all the millions of +humanity only in the million or two of his Chosen People. I say +at once that, considering their history, and the universal +decline of the Mysteries, and the gathering darkness of the age, +there is nothing surprising in their attitude. Much oppression, +many conquests,--never accepted by themselves,--had driven them +in on themselves and kept their racial self-consciousness at a +perpetual boiling-point; and it all went into their religion, +which compensated them with unearthly dignities for the +indignities they suffered on earth .... _them_.... the Chosen +People of the Lord! It bred in them scorn of the Gentiles, for +which there was no solvent in the Roman polity, the Roman +citizenship, the Roman peace.--There must have been always noble +protest-ants among them. The common people,--as the picture in +the Gospels shows,--were ready enough to fraternize humanly with +Gentiles and Romans; but the fact remains that at the time +Judaism gave birth to Christianity, this narrow fierce antagonism +to all other religions was the official attitude of the Jewish +church. It was, perhaps, the darkest moment in Jewish spiritual +history; and it was the moment chosen by a Teacher as that in +which he should be born a Jew. + +The story in the Gospels cannot, I suppose, be taken as _au pied +de lettre_ historical; but no doubt it gives a general picture +which is true enough. And the picture it gives shows the Jewish +proletariat in very favorable contrast with the officials heads +of the church and state. They, the common people, received the +Teacher well; to them, he was a gracious figure whom they came +in multitudes to hear. He was in fierce opposition to the +hierarchic aristocracy,--the "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," +as he called them: the body that nourished the tradition of +exclusiveness and intolerance. He preached pure ethics to the +people, and they loved him for it. He gathered round him +disciples,--men eager to learn from him that which it would have +been ridiculous to have tried to teach the mob: the Secret +Wisdom, without which to keep them sweet, ethics become +sentimentalism, and philosophy a cold corpse. It is a law +in the Schools of this Wisdom that seven years of training +are necessary before the disciple can reach that grade of +insight and self-mastery which will enable him in turn to +become a Teacher: seven years at the very least. Within +four years of the beginning of his mission, before, in the +nature of things, one single disciple could have been more +than half-trained, the hierarchic aristrocracy had had this +Teacher crucified. + +Who, then, was to transmit his doctrine? he wrote nothing of it +down; in the truest sense it never can be written down: had +never had time to teach it; from any writings whatsoever each +student can only gain the nexus of what he is to learn from life; +for teaching does not mean giving dissertations, arguments, +proofs; enunciating principles, and explaining them, or the +like. It means, so far as one dare try to express it, bringing +such experiences to bear on the lives of those who are to be +taught, as shall awaken their own inner perceptions to truth. So +this Man's doctrine _was never transmitted._ His disciples, good +and earnest men, as we may imagine, had not the weapons spiritual +wherewith to wage effective warfare for the Light. Supposing +H.P. Blavatsky had died in 1879....? + +The next step was, the inevitable materialization of the whole +movement. It followed the course all such movements must follow, +that are without spiritual leadership at the head, spiritual +wisdom at the core. It reacted against the exclusiveness of +Judaism,--and at the same time inherited it. Feelings of that +sort lie far deeper than the articles of belief; a change of +creed will not remove them; it needs special, defined, and +herculean efforts to remove them. You might, for example, react +from a bigoted creed to one whose sole proclaimed article was +universal toleration, and become a fierce bigot in that,--for the +creed, not the idea; because creeds always obscure ideas: when a +creed is formulated, it means that ideas are shelved. So now +Chrisitianity inherited the Chosen People dogma, but transferred +it from a racial-ecclesiastical to a wholly ecclesiastical basis; +and, since every Teacher comes upon a cyclic impusle outward, +took on a missionary spirit. The Chosen People now were the +members of the church, who might belong to any race. Within that +churchly pale you were saved; you were a special protege of the +Maker of Sirius and Canopus and the far limits of the galaxy; +who had--for a dogma had to be invented to explain the untimely +disastrous death of the Teacher,--incarnated and been crucified +in Judea. Outside that pale you were damned,--from Caesar on his +throne to the smallest newsboy yelling false news in the Forum. +While such a spirit had been confined to the Jews, it had been +comparatively harmless; now it was spreading broadcast through +the Roman world, an entirely new thing, and the darkest and most +ominous yet. + +Whom, then, shall we blame? These sectarians?--No: to understand +is to forgo the imagined right apportioning blame. It was that +humanity had entered on a dark region in time: a region whose +terrors had not been forefended; to be entered perforce by a +humanity, or section of humanity, that had no Center of Light +established in its midst. Had Croton of Pythagoras survived; or +the Mysteries at Gaulish Bibracte: had there been but one firm +foothold for the Lodge in the world of men;--I think none of +these things could have come about; and that for the same reason +that you cannot have total darkness in a room in which a lamp is +lighted. But this darkness was total: intolerance is the +negation of spiritual light. Of all the various movements in the +Roman world that had not actual members of the Lodge behind and +moving them, Christianity had the greatest impetus; and it was +the one that first entered into this murk and deadly gloom. So +that it may seem, to an impartial but not too deeply-seeing eye, +as if it were Christianity that invented the gloom. Not so; nor +Judaism neither; nor any Christians nor Jews. It was the men +who burned Croton; the man who killed the Mysteries in Gaul. +For every disaster there are causes far and far back. + +Christianity had spread, by this third century, perhaps as +much through the Parthian empire as through the Roman. The +Zoroastrians had been as tolerant as the Romans; much more so to +Christianity;--though the motive of their toleration had been +pure indifference to everything religious; whereas in Rome there +was statesmanship and wisdom behind theirs. The Persians reacted +against Parthianism in all its manifestations. They were shocked +at Parthian indifference. The Persian is as naturally religious +as the Hindoo: and has the virtues and vices of the religious +temperament. The virtues are a tendency to mysticism, a need to +concern oneself with the unseen; the vices, a non-immunity to +fanaticism and bigotry. They came down now from their mountains +determined to combat the slackness; the indifference, the +materialism of the world. The virus of intolerance was in the +air,--a spirit like the germ of plague or any epidemic; one +religion catches it from another. Let it be about, and you are +in danger of catching it, unless your faith is based on actual +inner enlightenment, and not faith at all, but knowledge; or +unless you have a Teacher so enlightened to adjust you, and keep +you too busy to catch it;--or unless you are totally heedless of +the unseen. The Persians were not indifferent, but very much in +earnest; and they had no knowledge, but only faith: so they +stood in peculiar danger. And presently a Teacher came to them, +and they rejected him. + +His name was Mani; he was born in Ctesiphon, of noble Persian +family, probably in 215; and came forward as a Teacher (according +to the Mohammedan tradition, which is the most trustworthy) +at the coronation of Sapor I, Ardashir's successor, in 242. +Sapor at first was disposed to hear him; but the Magi moved +heaven and earth to change that disposition. Ardashir had +bound church and state together in the closest union: no worship +but the Zoroastrian was allowed in his dominions. This was +mainly aimed at the Christians, and must have caused them much +discomfort. But Mani, it would seem, rose against all this +narrow-ness. It has been said that he taught Reincarnation, and +again denied;--this much he taught certainly,--that all religions +are founded on one body of truth. He drew his own doctrine from +Zoroistrianism, Christianity (chiefly Gnostic), and Buddhism; +taking from each what he found to be true. Manichaeism spread +quickly, through the Roman world as well as through Persia; in +the former it replaced Mithraism, another Persian growth, that +had come to be preeminently the religion of the Roman soldier. +Sapor looked on him favorably; Hormizd, the heir apparent, was +more or less a disciple; but the Magi agitated. They arranged a +great debate before the king, and therein convinced him; +persuaded him, at least, to withdraw from the Teacher the light +of his countenance;--and Mani found it expedient, or perhaps was +compelled, to go into exile. In China; where the fimily of the +Ts'ao Ts'ao who expelled the Eastern Hans, was reigning as the +House of Wei in the north. There Mani busied himself, less in +teaching his religion than in studying Chinese civilization,-- +especially its arts and crafts, and most of all, carpet-weaving. +Presently he ventured back to Persia, with a large knowledge of +Chinese methods and a large collection of specimens;--with which +he gave a new impetus to Persian art and manufactures. Hormizd +came to the throne in 271, and befriended him and his doctrine; +but reigned only a single year. His successor Bahram I in the +name of Zoroastrianism had him flayed and crucified. + +So Sassanian history is, on the whole, uninteresting. Their +culture stood for no great ideas; only for a narrow persecuting +church. West Asia was not ready yet for great and world-important +doings; it must wait for these till Mohammed, who struck +into the very least promising quarter of it, and kindled +in the barbarous wilderness a light to redeem the civilization of +the western world. I shall hardly have to turn to the Sassanians +again; so will say here what is to be said. We have seen that +their empire was quite unlike the Parthian; it was a reversion +to, and copy in small of, the Achaemenian of Cyrus and Darius. +It never attained the size of that; and only late in its +existence, and to a small degree, overflowed the Parthian limits. +But it was a well-organized state, with a culture of its own; +and enough military power to stand throughout its existence the +serious rival of Rome. Its arts and crafts became famous, +--thanks largely to Mani; in architecture it revived the +Achaemenian tradition, with modifications of its own; and passed +the result on to the Arabs when they rose, to be the basis of the +Saracenic Style. There was a fairly extensive literature: +largely religious, but with much also in _belles lettres,_ +re-tellings of the old Iranian sagas, and the like. Its history is +mainly the record of gigantic wars with Rome; these were +diversified later by tussles with the Turks, Ephthalites or White +Huns, _et hoc genus omne._ Its whole period of existence lasted +from 227 to 637; 410 years;--which we may compare with the 426 +of the Hans, and the Roman 424 from the accession of Augustus to +the final division of the empire. Of its cycles, there is a +little information forthcoming; but we may say this: Sapor I +came to the throne in 241, succeeding his father Ardashir; he +had on the whole a broad outlook; favored Mani at first; was at +pains to bring in teachers of civilization from all possible +sources;--with his reign the renaissance of the arts and +learning, such as it was,--and it was by no means contemptible,-- +began. Three times thirteen decades from that, and we are at +631. The thirteen decades (less a year) from 499 to 628 are +mainly filled with the reigns of Kavadh I and the two Chosroeses,-- + + "Kai-Kobad the great and Kai-Khusru," + +--all three strong kings and conquerors. When Chosroes II was +killed in 628, after a war with Heraclius that began brilliantly +and ended in disaster,--the empire practically fell: split up +under several pretenders, to be an easy prey for the Moslems a +few years later. Was the whole Sassanian period divisible into a +day, a night, and a day? Information is not at hand whereby one +might gauge the life of the people, and say. The last thirteen +decades, certainly, seem to have left their mark as an age of +glory on the Persian imagination, and to have been remembered as +such in the days of Omar Khayyam.--And here we must leave the +Sassanians, having other fish to fry. + +We saw the Crest-Wave strike Rome (at Nerva's accession) in 96; +then, 131 years later, raise up Ardashir and Persia in 227; +--and so, I suppose, should incline to look east again, and +jump another thirteen decades, and land in India, in 357 or +thereabouts,--praying God to keep us from a bad fall. _India_ +I allow; but look before you leap;--or, if you will, in mid-air +turn over in your minds the old Indian cycles, as far as you know +them, and see if they offer you any prospect of a landing-place. +As thus: there were the Mauryas, 320 to 190 B. C.; thence on +thirteen decades to 60 B.C.,--and near enough to the reputed 58 +of the reputed Vikramaditya of Ujjain. On again (thirteen +decades as usual) to the seventies A.D.--and good enough in all +conscience for that slippery Kanishka who so dodges in and out +among the early centuries, and is fitted with a new date by +everyone who has to do with him. On again, from 70 to 200; +nothing doing there, I regret to say, (that we know about). +Never mind; on thence to 320,--the nearest point to our 357; +let us land in the three-twenties then, and see what happens. + +On solid ground: for India, remarkably solid. There actually +was a Golden Age there at that time; and everybody seems to +agree that it lasted, say, one hundred and twenty-nine years; +from 326 to 455. This you will note, was the period of the last +phase of the Roman Empire: that of its rapid decline. In 323 +Constantine came to the throne, and began making Chrisitianity +the state religion; in 330 he moved his capital. After 456, no +emperor ruled in the west but for puppets set up by the German +Ricimer, two set up by Constantinople, and Romulus Augustulus, +the last,--and all within twenty years. There is no bright spot +within the whole thirteen decades, except the two years of +Julian. The faucet was turned on in India; and the Roman garden +went waterless, and wilted. + +What happened was this: in 320, one Chandragupta Gupta married +the Pincess of Magadha; and an era was dated from their +coronation on the 26th of February in that year. Their son +Samudragupta succeeded his father in 326, and reigned until 375. +It is characteristic of India that this, probably the greatest +monarch since Asoka, is absolutely unmentioned in any history or +contemporary literature: the sole evidence for his reign and +greatness comes from coins and inscriptions. One of the latter +is to be found on a pillar originally set up and inscribed by +Asoka, now in the fort at Allahabad. It shows him a mighty +conqueror, reigning over all Hindustan; victorious in the +Deccan; and, by influence and alliances, dominant from Ceylon to +the Oxus. His coins picture him playing on the lyre; the +inscriptions speak of him as a poet and musician; in his reign +began a great renaissance in art, architecture, literature, and +perhaps especially in music,--a renaissance which reached its +culmination in the reign of his successor. Another thing to +note: when of old time Pushyamitra overturned the Buddhist +Mauryas, he showed his Brahmin orthodoxy by performing the great +Horse Sacrifice;--a sign that the ancient religion had come back +in triumph. They let loose a horse to wander where it would, and +followed it with an army for a whole year; then sacrificed it. +Samudragupta performed the same rites;--and it is known that the +Gupta age was one of strong reaction against Buddhism. I know +that it is disputed now that there was ever a persecution of the +Buddhists in India; but the tradition remains; and one of the +Teachers, in a letter that appears either in the _Occult World_ +or _Esoteric Buddhism,_ speaks of India as a land from which the +Light of the Lodge had been driven with the followers of the +Buddha. Certainly there were Buddhists in India long after this +time: even a great Buddhist king in the seventh century: but it +seems more than probably that the spirit of intolerance went east +with the eastward cyclic flow we have noted this evening: from +Christianity to Zoroastrianism: from Zoroastrianism under the +Sassanids to Brahminism under the Guptas. + +Not, perhaps, that there was actual persecution, yet. Emissaries +from the king of Ceylon found the shrine at Buddhagaya fallen +into decay; and they themselves were not well treated at the +site. The Buddhist kind, however, determined to remedy things as +well as he could. He sent ambassadors with rich gifts to +Samundragupta; who called the gifts tribute, and permitted him, +on consideration thereof, to restore the shrine. The monastery +then built by the Sinhalese was afterwards visited by Hiuen +Tsang; who describes it as having three storeys, six halls, +three towers, and accommodation for a thousand monks. "On it," +says Hiuen Tsang, "the utmost skill of the artist has been +employed; the ornamentation is in the richest colors, and the +statue of Buddha is cast in gold and silver, decorated with gems +and precious stones." + +A revolution took place in architecture in this age: the +Buddhist style was abandoned, for something which, says Mrs. +Flora Annie Steel: * + + ".....more ornate, less self-evident, served to reflect the +new and elaborate pretensions of the priesthood." + +------ +* To whose book _India through the Ages,_ I am indebted for these +facts concerning the Gupta Age. +------ + +It is summed up, says Mrs. Steel, in the words: + + "...._cucumber and gourd_... tall curved vimanas or towers, +exactly like two thirds of a cucumber stuck in the ground and +surmounted by a flat gourd-like 'amalika.' .... Exquisite in +detail, perfect in the design and execution of their ornamentation, +the form of these temples leaves much to be desired. The flat +blob at the top seems to crush down the vague aspirings of +the cucumber, which, even if unstopped, must erelong have +ended in an earthward curve again." + +The age culminated in the next reign, that of Chandragupta II +Vikramaditya. Heaven knows how to distingusih between him and +his half-mythological namesake of B.C. 58 and Ujjain. Very +possibly the Nine Gems of Literature and Kalidasa and _The Ring +of Sakoontala_ belong to this reign really. At any rate it +was a wonderful time. Fa-hien, the Chinese Buddhist traveler, +obligingly visited India during its process, and left a picture +of conditions. Personal liberty, says Mrs. Steel, was the +keynote feature. There was no capital punishment; no hard +pressure of the laws; there were excellent hospitals and +charitable institutions of all sorts.--We are to see in the whole +age, I imagine, a period of great brilliance, and of humaneness +resulting from eight centuries of the really civilizing influence +of Buddhism: far higher conditions than you should have found +elsewhere to east or west at that time;--and also, the moment +when the impulse of culture had reached its outward limit, and +the reaction against the spiritual sources of culture began. + +Chandragupta Vikramaditya reigned until 413; Kumaragupta, great +and successful also, until 455. Then, thirteen decades after +Samudragupta's accession, came Skandagupta; and with him, the +White Huns. He defeated them on a large scale in the fifties; +but they returned again and again to the attack; during the next +thirty years their pressure was breaking up the empire; till +when Skandagupta died in 480, it fell to pieces. + + + + +XXIII. "THE DRAGON, THE APOSTATE, THE GREAT MIND" + + +The time is the middle of the fourth century A.D. The top of the +Crest-Wave is in India, now the greatest country in the world. +The young Samudragupta, about thirty years old now, has been +filling the whole peninsula with his renown as warrior, poet, +conqueror, patron of arts and letters, musician. The Hindus are +a busy and efficient people, masterly in this material world. +Their colonies are spread over Java, Sumatra, and the other +islands; Formosa (think where it lies) has a Sanskrit, but not +yet (so far as we know) a Chinese, name; all those seas are +filled with Indian shipping.--And with Arab shipping, too, by the +way; or are coming to be so; and spray of the Wave (in the +shape of Indian and Arab ships) is falling in the port of Canton. +But China as a whole is in a deep trough of sea: an intriguing, +ceremonious, ultra-elegant, and wily-weak court and dynasty have +lately been expelled from precarious sovereignty at Changan in +the North to Nankin south of the Yangtse; there to abide a +little while un-overturned, looking down in lofty impotent +contempt on the uncouth Wether Huns, Tunguses, and Tibetans +who are sharing and quarreling over the ancient seats of the +Black-haired People in the Hoangho basin, after driving this same +precious House of Tsin into the south.--Persia is on the back of +the Wave, something lower than the Crest: Sapor II, a dozen or +so years older than Samudragupta, has been on the throne since +some months before his (Sapor's) birth; and has now grown up +into a particularly vigorous monarch; conquering here and there; +persecuting the Christians with renewed energy since Constantine +took them into favor;--and of late years unmercifully banging +about Constantius son of Constantine in the open field, and +besieging and sometimes taking his fortresses. This, you may +say, with one hand: with the other he has been very busy with +his neighbors in the north-east, the nomads; he has been +punishing them a little; and incidentally founding, as a +protection against their in roads, the city of New Sapor in +Khorassan,--famed later as Nai-shapur, and the birthplace of a +certain Tent-maker of song-rich memory. In Armenia an Arsacid-- +that is, Parthian--house has survived and holds sovereignty: and +Armenia is a sort of weak Belgium between Persia and Rome; +inclining to the latter, of course, because ruled by Arsacids, +who are the natural dynastic enemies of the Sassanids of Persia. +Rome has turned Christian; so, to cement his alliance with Rome +and insure Roman aid against powerful Persia, the Armenian king +has had himself coverted likewise, and his people follow suit +with great piety;--which sends Shah Sapor, King of the kings of +Iran and Turan, Brother of the Sun and Moon, to it with a +missionary as well as a dynastic zeal; and a war that is to be +of nearly thirty years' duration has been in process along the +frontier since 336. Persia, better called a kingdom, perhaps, +than an empire, commands about forty millions of subjects; as +against imperial Rome's--who can say? The population there must +have gone down by many millions since the days of the Antonines, +with all the civil wars, plagues, pestilences, and famines that +have harrowed the years between. + +The sons of Constantine have succeeded to the throne of their +father; and the portions of Constantine II, the eldest of the +three, and Constans, the youngest, have at last fallen into +the hands, or the web, of Constantius,--a sort of cross between +a spider, an octopus, and an elderly maiden aunt,--and in +general about as unpleasant a creature as ever sat on a throne. +Constantine the Great, indeed, had willed the succession into the +hands of a much larger number of his relatives; but this +Constantius, his father once decently buried, had taken time by +the forelock, and insured things to his two brothers and himself +by killing out two of his uncles and seven of their sons; so +that now, Constantine II and Constans being dead, no male scions +of the house of Constantius Chlorus remain as possible rivals to +him, except two boys who had been at the time of the massacre, +the one too young, and the other too sickly, to count. We shall +come to them by and by. + +Christianity is well established; though Constantius, followed +his father's wise example, is deferring his baptism until the +last possible moment: he partly knows the weakness of his +nature, and desires to have license for a little pleasant sinning +until the end, with the certainty of a glorious resurrection to +follow in despite of it.--Dismiss your kindly apprehensions; God +was good to Constantius; no untimely accident cut him off +unbaptized; his plan worked excellently, and providing an Arian +heretic may go to heaven, in heaven he is to this day, singing +his Alleluias with the best of them,--and perhaps between whiles +arguing it out with the various uncles and cousins he murdered. + +Meanwhile, however, priests and bishops are the great men of his +empire; and they enjoy immunities from duties and taxation to an +extent that throws the whole rational order of government out of +gear. Thus, for example, the upkeep of the great roads and posts +system,--the lines of communication,--falls upon a certain class +called the Decurions, who in each district at their own expense +have to maintain all in order. But churchmen,--an enormous class +now,--are immune from the decurionship; and are allowed further +the use of the post-horses and inns free of cost;--with the +result that, practically speaking, no one else can use them at +all. Because these churchmen are forever hurrying hither and +thither to conference, council, or synod; there each sect,-- +Arian and Athanasian chiefly,--to damn to eternal perdition (and +temporal excommunication when possible) the vile heretics of the +other: Homoiousian to thunder against Homoousian, Homoousian +against Homoiousian: _Arius contra Athanasium,_ and _Athanasius +contra mundum:_--till the air of the whole Roman world is thick +with the fumes of brimstone and the stench of the Nether Pit. +Taxation, on those left to tax, falls an intolerable burden; +--we have seen how Shah Sapor is dealing with one end of the +empire;--at the other end, in Gaul, one Magnentius rose against +Constantius, and the latter thoughtfully invited in the Germans +to put him down and help themselves to what they found handy;-- +and a certain Chnodomar, a king in those trans-Rhenish regions, +has taken him much at his word. Result: a strip forty miles +wide along the left bank of the Rhine from source to mouth has +been conquered and annexed; three times as much this side is a +perfectly desolate No-man's land; forty-five important cities, +including Cologne and Strasbourg, have been reduced to ashes, +with innumerable smaller towns and villages; all open towns in +north-eastern Gaul have been abandoned; the people of the walled +cities are starving on what corn they can grow on vacant corner +lots and in their own back-gardens; hundreds of thousands have +been killed out, or carried off into slavery in Germany; and +King Chnodomar has every reason to think that God is behaving +in a very reasonable manner.--As for the rest of the empire, +whatever may be its population in human bodies, there is a +plentiful lack of human souls to inhabit them; the Roman world +has fallen on evil years, truly, but is by no means unchanged;-- +and the one thing you can prophesy with any decent security is +that affairs cannot go on in this way much longer. Rome has +conducted a number of funerals in her day, of this nation and +that conquered and put an end to; not much intuition is required +now, to foresee that the next funeral will be her own.--(Though +indeed, I doubt you should have found half-a-dozen in the Roman +world who could foresee it.) + +Now there is a Way, narrow and most difficult to find,--a Way of +conducting the affairs of this life and this world, in balance, +in equilibrium; in that fine I condition through which alone the +life-renewing forces from the vaster worlds within may flow down, +and keep existence here in harmony, and forefend decay. This +was, of course, the essence of Chinese thought, Confucian and +Taoist. You maintained the inner harmony, and the forces of +heaven might use you as their channel. You found Tao (the Way), +and grew never old; you succeeded in all enterprises; walked +through life unruffled,--duty flowing, beautifully accomplished, +at every moment from your hands. You met with no snags or +adjusted yourself always to conditions as they arose, and +over-rode them in quietest triumph.--They said that, possessing Tao, +one might live on many times the common threescore years and ten; +very likely there is some truth in it; it seems as if it were +true at any rate, of the life of nations. China caught glimpses, +and lived on and on; grew old, and reviewed her youth time and +again. But normally, what do we find with these un-Taoist +nations of the West?--They go easily for some period; then it +becomes harder and harder for them to adjust theniselves to +conditions. They become clogged with the detritus of old thought +and action. What is the meaning of the incessant need we see for +reform? Under whatever form of government a nation may be, it +arises perpetually; it carries us around the ring of the-archies +and-cracies, and there is no finality anywhere.--No; there is no +straight line of political progress; but round in a ring you go! +You turn out your kings, because they are tyrannical: which +means that their government is no longer efficient, and cannot +cope with affairs; there is a lack of adjustment between the +inner and the outer, between the needs and the provision made to +meet them. The monarchy, which was at first representative and +the true expression of the nation,--because it, or anything else, +when there was no detritus, but things were new and the inner +air uncluttered, gave freedom to the national aspirations to pour +themselves out in action,--gives such freedom no longer; it +irks; it misfits; you feel it chafing everywhere. And yet it +has not ceased by any means to be representative: it represents +now a nation which has lost its adjustment to the inner things +and is clogged up by the detritus of old thought and action, and +it is that detritus that irks and misfits and chafes you. So you +rise and smash an astral mold or two; turn out your kings; +shout freedom and liberty, and are very glorious for a time under +a totally free and independent republic;--which means, at once or +after a while, government by a class. And this succeeds just as +well and badly as its predecessor; neither has found Tao, the +Way,--following which, your detritus should be consumed as it +goes, and life lifted above the sway of Karma. So once more the +detritus accumulates, and blocks the channels; and the life of +the nation labors and is oppressed. Need arises for reforms; +and the reforms are difficultly carried through; the franchise +is extended, and there is loud talk about political growth and +what not; we see the millennium at hand, and ourselves its +predestined enjoyers. And the old process repeats itself, till +you have a very full-fledged democracy:--you make all the men +vote, and all the women; and presently no doubt all the +children; but even when you have all adult dogs and cats and +cows voting as well,--you will not find that that order is Tao, +the Way, any more than the others were. The presence of a cow or +two, or an ass or two, more or less, in your parliament will not +really insure efficiency of administration. The detritus grows +again, under the most democratic of democracies; and weighs +things down;--and you cast about for new methods of reform. +Democratic government, somehow, does nothing of what was expected +of it; is not the panacea;--you see that, to bring the chaos of +affairs into order, you must stop all this jabber and tinkering, +and set up some undivided council,--some Man, for God's sake!--a +Dictator who can keep his own and other people's mouths shut and +hands busy, and get things done unimpeded. So you make one more +grand reform for the sake of efficiency, and set up your +Imperator, and have peace, and decent government; and you have, +wittingly or not, started up old bugbear Monarchy again; and +things go well for a time. But, bless you, you have not found +the Way; you know nothing about Tao, which is not to be +discovered in the fields of politics, and has nothing whatever to +do with forms of government. So you go in search once more for a +political method of dealing with that one and only oppressing +thing, the detritus,--your karma;--and away you go squirreling +round the changes again; and all this you call political +evolution, as I dare say the squirrel does his own gyrations in +his cage;--whereas if you found Tao,--if you lived balancedly,-- +if you kept open the channels between this and the God-world,-- +there would be no political evolution at all--no squirreling,-- +but only calm, untrammeled beautiful life. All the claptrap +about Western Superiority to the Orient, and the growth of +freedom in the West, in contrast with Eastern political immobility, +simply means that the Orient is less fond of squirreling than +we are; taking its aces by and large, there has been a little +more Tao with them than with us: more consuming the detritus +as they went; more balanced living, and thus more keeping +the channels open.--At least, I imagine so. + +Now Rome was very old; and, since Augustus' day, the detritus +had grown and grown. Diocletian had devoted a political sagacity +amounting in some respects to genius to setting things right, and +had accomplished something. He had moved out of Rome itself, +where the psychic atmosphere was too thickly encumbered; had +gone eastward, where the air, after long pralaya, was clearer; +had propped up imperial authority, now for the first time, with +the definite insignia of imperial state: wore a tiara, was to be +kneeled to, addressed as _Dominus,_ and so forth:--all outward +expedients, and Brummagem substitutes for that inner adjustment +which Laotse called Tao: the Way that you are to seek by +retreating within, and by advancing boldly without; and not +by any one road, because it is not found by devotion alone, +nor by religous contemplation alone, or by ardent progress, +self-sacrificing labor, or studious observation of life, alone; +but the whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who +desire to enter it. Diocletian knew nothing of this; so, great +statesman as he was, his methods were effective only while he sat +on the throne; in his old age and retirement he had to watch, +from his palace at Spalato, the empire he had piloted banging +about in a thousand storms again; and to plead in vain to those +to whom he had given their thrones for the safety and life of his +own wife and daughter;--the total failure of his life and labors +thus miserably brought home to him before he died. + +"Where there is no vision the people perish," said that learned +Hebrew of old, King Solomon; and by that one saying proclaimed +his right to his title of 'the Wise.' Look into it, and you have +almost the whole philosophy of history. The incessant need of +humanity is this thing _Vision:_ men and nations go mad for lack +of it: they seek in hell the joys of heaven which should be +theirs, and which they cannot see. It means vision of the Inner +Worlds, of the heaven that lies around us. Oh, nothing spooky or +foolish; one is far from meaning the Astral Light. People who +go burrowing into that are again seeking a substitute for +Vision, and a very poisonous one.--If I may speak of a personal +experience: coming to Point Loma from London was like coming +from the bottom of the sea into the upper ether. There, in the +heart of that old civilization, the air is thick with detritus; +here--if only because a long pralaya and fallow time have made +the land new,--the detritus is negligible; perhaps it is not +even forming, but consumed as we go; because at least we have +glimpses of the Way. Result: the mental outlook that extended +there, in visionary moments, to some six inches, before one's +nose, here has broadened out to take in some seas and mountains; +in comparison, it runs to far horizons. I take it that this is +the experience of us all. So this is what that wise Solomon +meant: "When the detritus has accumulated to the point where, +like a thick fog, it shuts away all vision of the True, then the +nation must go into abeyance; it must fall."--Rome was very near +that point. + +One wishes one could say something about those Inner Worlds of +Beauty. When the voices of self are silenced, and desires +abashed and at peace,--how they shine through! This outer world, +truly, reflects them; but another and ugly world of our own making. + + .....is too much with us; late and soon, + Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. + Little we see in Nature that is ours; + We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! + + The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, + The winds that will be howling at all hours, + And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers,-- + For this, for everything, we are out of tune. + +Sometimes; not always, thank God! Look again: there are +the mountains, and above them the mournful glories of the +anti-sunset; the mute and golden trumpetings of the dawn; +--there is the sea, and over it the wistfulness and pomp +and pageantry of the setting sun, and the gentleness of heaven +at evening;--there is the whole drama of Day with its tremendous +glories; and the huge mystery of Night-time: Niobe Night, +silent in the heavens, + + "Glittering magnificently unperturbed;" + +--and there are the flowers in the garden, those _Praelarissimi_ +and _Nobilisimi_ in the Court of God, the Pansy, the Blue +Larkspur, the Purple Anemone;--and what are all these things?-- +Just symbols; just mirrorings of a beauty in the World of Ideas +within; just places where the Spirit has touched matter, and +matter, at that fiery and creative touch, has flamed up into the +likeness of God, which is Beauty.--What is Vision?--It is to have +luminous forms rising in the imagination, like Wordsworth had, +like Shelley; it is with shut eyes to see the beauty and wonder +of the Gods; it is to have no grayness or dearth or darkness +within; but to have the 'bliss of solitude' crowded with +beautiful squadrons of deities, trembling with the light of +legions on legions of suns. For: + + Not all we are here + Where this darkness oppresses us; + Not this oblivion + Of Beauty expresses us. + + Gaze not on it, + To be stained with its stain; + The Lonely All-Beautiful + Calls us again. + + In galleried palaces, + Turquoise blue, + With the sweetness of many suns + Filtering through,-- + + In the Suns's own garden, + Where galaxies flame + For lilac and daffodil, + Each on his stem,-- + + Where apple-bloom Capricorn + Hangs from his tree, + Glittering dim o'er + The dim blue sea,-- + + And billowing dim o'er + The dim blue lawns + Of heaven come the nebular + Sunsets and dawns,-- + + We too have the regallest + Part of our being, + Far beyond dreaming of, + Hearing of, seeing. + + And the Lonely All-Beautiful + Calls to us here:-- + "My knights, my commissioned, + My children dear! + + "The hell where affrighted, + Enchanted, ye roam,-- + Ye set forth to make it + A heaven for my home!" + +--And it is Vision, not to mistake mankind for less or other than +Deific Essence cruelly encumbered over with oblivion; it is to +see the flame of Eternal Beauty and valiant Godhood in all men; +and not to rest or sit content without doing something to uncover +that Beauty, to rescue that Godhood.--You go into the slums +of a great city; and you do not wonder that the God-essence, +inmingling and involved in the clay which is (the lower) man, +goes there quite distraught and unrecognizable; where life is so +far from the great reflexion of the Worlds of Beauty; where the +Sun is no bright brother and confidential friend, but a breeder +up of pestilences; where the sky is shut away and there are no +flowers to bloom;--whether we like it or no, these things, the +unperverted manifestations of the formative pressure of the +Spirit, are needed to keep men sane. Beauty you must have, to +nourish the Divine within you; alas for him that thinks he may +attain to the Good or the True, and in a thin meager or Puritan +spirit, strives to shut out their divine sister from his needs +and aspirations!--But there, in our hideous modern conditions, +there is no vision, without or within; so men go mad with +fearful lusts and despairs; and it is the van of the Battle, in +one sense, between Godhood and Chaos; and reeks with the +slaughter and bloodshed and the madness of that conflict; there +too the Holy Spirit of Man is incarnate; there the Host of +Souls;--but in the shock and din and the carnage, there on the +slippery brink of yet unconquered hell,--all the divine descent +and ancient glory of the Host is forgotten:--_there is no Vision, +and the people perish._ + +(It may seem I go a long way round to come to him; but in +reality I am already trying to draw you a character-sketch of the +subject of this evening's lecture: to present you the permanent +part and significance of a strange incarnation of Vision that +appeared in Rome's dark and dying days: the man to whom Saint +Gregory Nazianzen, in his grand attack, applied that ringing +triplet of epithets I have taken for the title of the lecture: +"The Dragon, the Apostate, the Great Mind." Know him first in +his impersonality thus: a great white flame of Vision; a +tremendous Poet of the Gods in action;--and then, when you +come to his personality, with what it might have retained of +personality, of hereditary impairments, perhaps, that should have +vanished had he lived past his young manhood, these will not +hinder you from understanding the greatness and beauty and +tragedy of that life apparently wasted. But we shall come to him +in our time.) + +Back in the sixth century B. C., when all those Great Teachers +came: when the forces that until then had been pent up in the +Mysteries were suddenly let loose upon the world,--and the more +vehement for their having been so pent up, and their now being so +let loose;--what a flood of vision they brought with them! In +Greece, to rouse up almost at once that wonderful wave of +artistic creation; in Persia, to create quickly a splendid and +chivalrous empire; in India, (so far as we know) to pervade as +an ethical illumination the life of the people for some centuries +before manifesting in art or empire; in China, to work in a +twofold current, on one side upon the imagination, on the other +upon the moral conceptions of the race, until the Chinese +manvantara began. Its effect in each case was according to the +cyclic position of the country at the time: those, seemingly, +being the most fortunate, that had to wait longest for the full +fruition. Thus it struck China in the midst of pralaya, and lay +in the soil fructifying until the pralaya had passed; then, +appearing and re-appearing according to cyclic law, was a saving +health in the nation for fifteen centuries at least;--India, I +imagine, when the manvantara there some five centuries old, and +under a minor shadow; which shadow once passed, it produced its +splendors in the Maurya time; and was in all effective for a +thousand years. But it came to Persia in the autumn of the great +cycle, when the forces it brought had to ripen quickly, and +descend at once on to the military (the lowest) plane;--and to +Greece just at noon or early summer,--just before the most +intellectual moment,--and so there, too, had no time to ripen, +but must burst out at once in artistic creation without ever a +chance first to work in and affect the moral life of the race. +This last is what Pythagoras at Croton had in mind to do: had +Croton endured, there would have been a stable moral basis for +the intellectual spendors.--I believe that you have here the very +archeus and central clue to history. In China, it was enough for +Laotse to float his magical ideas, and for confucius to give out +his extremely simple (but highly efficient) philosophy, and to +provide his grand Example; in India it was enough for the Lord +Buddha to teach his wisdom and to found his Order; he might +trust the future to them;--For Persia, one cannot say: the facts +as to Zoroaster are not enough known; there might seem to have +been some failure there too;--but in Greece, it was imperative +that Pythagoras should establish his Lomaland; nothing else +could save the forces from squandering themselves at once, in +that momentous time, on the intellectual and artistic planes, and +leaving life unredeemed and unaffected. + +Which indeed they did; and thence on it Europe we see century by +century vision waning and the world on a downward path, until the +moment comes when a new effort may be made. Augustus calls a +halt then; moves heaven and earth; works like ten Herculeses, +along all lines, to bring about an equilibrium in outer affairs; +and so far succeeds that in his time one or two men may have the +Vision, at any rate:--Virgil may catch more than glimpses of the +Inner Beauty, and leave the outer world a litle less forlorn. +But in place of the rush and fine flow of the Grecian Age, what +painful strivings we find in the Augustan!--When too, Teachers +labor to illumine the vastnesses within; Apollonius; Moderatus; +shall we add, the Nazarene?--So the downward tendency is checked; +in the following centuries we see a slow pushing upward,--in the +heroic effort of the Stoics, not after Vision--that was beyond +their scope and ken,--but after at least that which should bring +it back,--a noble method of life. + +And then, at last, a dawn eastward: and the bugles of the +Spirits of the Dawn heard above the Pyramids, heard over the +shadowy plains where Babylon was of old;--and out of that yellow +glow in the sky come, now that the cycle permits them, masters of +the Splendid vision. They come with something of light from the +ancient Mysteries of Egypt; with some shining from Star Plato, +and from Pythagoras; and at their coming light up the dark +worlds and the intense blue deeps of the sky,--wherein you can +see now, under their guidance, immeasurable and beautiful things +to satisfy the highest cravings of your heart: winged Aeons on +Aeons, ring above ring,--mystery emanating mystery, beauty, +beauty, from here up to the Throne of the Lonely All-Beautiful.-- +What growth there had been in Roman Europe, to prepare the way +for the spread of Neo-Platonism, I cannot say; but imagine +Gnosticism had something to do with it; and that Gnosticism was +a graft on the parent stem of Christianity set there by some real +Teacher who came later than Jesus. If we knew more of the +realities about Simon Magus on the one hand, and Paul of Tarsus +on the other, we might have clearer light on the whole problem; +at present must be content with saying this much:--that Gnosticism, +with its deep mystical truths, emerges into the light of +well-founded history about neck and neck with orthodox Christianity; +was considered a branch of the same movement, equally Christian; +but was at least tinged with esoteric truth, and deeply Hellenized, +and perhaps Persianized;--whereas the orthodox branch was +the legitimate heir of exoteric Judaism. How much of real +vision there may have been in Gnosticism; how much of mere +speculation, which is but a step towards vision,--I am not +prepared to guess; but have little doubt that Gnostic activities +made ready the ground for Neo-Platonism; so that when the +latter's Manasaputric light incarnated, it found fit rupas +to inhabit. + +This was the Lodge's most important effort to sow truth in Europe +since Pythagoras. Says even the _Enyclopaedia Britannica_ +(without help from Esotericism): + +"Neo-Platonism is in one aspect ... the consummation of ancient +philosophy. Never before in Greek or Roman speculation had the +consciousness of man's dignity and superiority to Nature received +such adequate expression.... From the religious and moral point +of view, it must be admitted that the ethical 'mood' which +Neo-Platonisni endeavored to create and maintain is the highest +and purest ever reached by antiquity.... It is a proof of the +strength of the moral instincts of mankind that the only phase of +culture which we can survey in all its stages from beginning to +end culminated not in materialism but in the highest idealism." + + +It asserted the Gods, the great stars and luminaries of the Inner +World; it asserted the Divinity of Man,--superior, truly, as the +_Encyclopaedia_ says to (the lower) Nature, but of the Higher, +one part or factor in the whole. It came into Europe trailing +clouds of splendor and opening the heavens of Vision. The huge +menace and perils of the age, the multiplying disasters, +were driving men to seek spiritual refuge of some kind; and +there were, in the main, two camps that offered it:--this of +Neo-Platonism, proclaiming Human Divinity and strong effort +upward in the name of that; and that other which proclaimed +human helplessness, and that man is a poor worm and weakling, +originally sinful, and with nothing to hope from his own +efforts, but all from the grace, help, or mercy of Extracosmic +Intervention. It was a terribly comfortable doctrine, this last, +for a race staggering towards the end of its manvantara under a +fearful load of detritus, a culture old and thoroughly tired. No +wonder Europe chose this path, and not the Neo-Platonist path of +flaming idealism and endeavor. Ammonius, Plotinus, Porphyry, +Iamblichus,--they had worked wonders; but not the crowning +wonder of that which could save the age and the age to come: +Plotinus had failed of that, because there no tool at hand for +the Gods, but a silly, weak Gallienus.--So now Constantine has +made the great change; and the empire that was Roman is now +Roman no longer: You owe your first allegiance now, not to the +state or to the emperor at its head, but to an _imperium_ within +the state which claims immunity from laws and duties: the +kingdom is divided within itself, and must look for the fate of +divided kingdoms. Zeus on Olympus now weighs the Roman empire in +his scales,--and finds the fate is death, and no help for it: +there are to be thirteen decades of moribundity, and then +Christian burial, with Odoacer and sundry other the like +barbarians to be mourners and heirs; and then,--blackest night +over the western world for God knows how long: night, with +nightmare and horror, and no Vision, no beautiful dreams, no +refreshment, no peace. For the party that Constantine has now +made dominant despises cordially all the ancient light of +Hellenism; Aeschylus, Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Euripides,-- +everyone you could in any sense a light-bearer that came of old, +to bring mankind even the merest brain-mind culture,--these +people condemn and abhor for heathen, and take pleasure in the +thought that they are now, and have been since they died, and +shall be forever, frizzling in the nether fires: they condemn +the substance of their writings, and will draw no ideas, no +saving grace, from them whatever;--will learn from them nothing +in the world but grammar and eloquence with which to thunder at +them and all their like from barren raucous pulpits. So, +Vision having gone, culture is to go too, and all you can call +civilization; and therewith law and order, and the decencies of +life: all that _soap_ stands symbol for is to be anathema +maranatha; all that the Soul stands symbol for is to be anathema +maranatha;--a pretty prospect! Zeus sighs in heaven, and his +sigh is a doleful thunder prophetic of the gloom that is to +overspread all the western skies for many centuries to come. + +--And then comes Helios, the Unconquered Sun, and lays a hand on +his arm, and says: "Not so fast!; Never despair yet; look +down--_there!_" + +And the Gods look down: to a gloomy castle upon a crag in the +wild mountains of Cappadocia; and they see there a youth, a +captive banished to that desolate grand region: well-attended, +as befits a prince of the royal blood, but lonely and overshadowed; +--not under fear, because fear is no part of his nature; but +yet never knowing when the order for his death may come. They +read all this in his mind, his atmosphere. They see him +deep in his books: a soul burning with earnestness, but +discontented, and waiting for something: all the images of Homer +rising about him beckoning on the one hand, and on the other a +grim something that whispers, These are false; I alone am true! +--"What of him?" says Zeus; "he too is a Christian."--"Watch!" +says Sol Invictus; "I have sent my man to him."--And they watch; +and sure enough, presently they see a man coming into this +youth's presence, and pointing upwards towards themselves; and +they see the youth look up, and the shadow pass from his eyes as +a great blaze of light and splendor breaks before him,--as he +catches sight of them, the Gods, and his eye meets theirs, and he +rises, illumined and smiling;--and they know that in the Roman +world there is this one man with the Grand Vision; this man who +may yet (if they play their cards well) wear the Roman diadem;-- +that there is vision in the Roman world again, and it may be the +people shall not perish. + +It was Julian, "the Dragon, the Apostate, the Great Mind"; I +thank thee, Gregory of Nazianzus, for teaching me that word!--and +the one that came to him there in Cappadocia was Maximus of +Smyrna, Iamblichus' disciple. His story has been told and +re-told; I expect you know it fairly well. How he was a son +of Julius Constantius, son of Constantius Chlorus,--and thus a +nephew of Constantine the Great, and a first cousin to the +Octopus-Spider-Maiden Aunt Constantius then on the throne;--how +he because of his infancy, and his half-brother Gallus because of +a delicate constitution which made it seem impossible he should +grow up, were spared when Constantius had the rest of the family +massacred;--how he was banished and confined in that Cappadocian +castle;--of Gallus' short and evil reign that ended, poor +fool that he was, in his being lured into the spider-web of +Constantius and beheaded;--how Julian was called then to the +court at Milan, expecting a like fate;--how he spent seven months +there, spied on at every moment, and looking for each to be his +last;--how he was saved and befriended by the noble Empress +Eusebia (a strangely beautiful figure to find in those sinister +surroundings);--and sent presently to the University of Athens, +there to spend the happiest moments of his life;--then called +back to be made Caesar: he who had never been anything but a +student and a dreamer, called from his books and dreams at +twenty-four, and set to learn (as Caesar) his elementary drill,-- +which he found very difficult to learn indeed;--and then sent to +fight the Germans in Gaul. How Constantius tried always to +thwart him while he was there: setting underlings over him with +power to undo or prevent all he might attempt or do;--how in +spite of it all he fought the Germans, and drove them across the +Rhine, and followed them up, and taught them new lessons in their +own remote forests; and took the gorgeous Chnodomar, their king, +prisoner; and sent for him, prepared to greet friendlily one so +great in stature and splendid in bearing; but was disgusted when +the gentleman, on coming into his presence, groveled on the floor +and whined for his life,--whereupon Julian, instead of treating +him like a gentleman as he had intended, packed him off to his +(Chnodomar's) old ally the Maiden Aunt at Milan to see what +they would make of each other;--how he fought three campaigns +victoriously beyond the Rhine; restored the desolated Cisrhenish +No-man's land, and brought in from Britain, in six hundred +corn-ships, an amount Gibbon calculates at 120,000 quarters of +wheat to feed its destitute population.--And this fact is worth +nothing: if Britain could export all that wheat, it surface +was not, as some folks hold, mainly under forest: it was a +well-cultivated country, you may depend, with agriculture +in a very flourishing condition,--as Gibbon does not fail +to point out. + +--And you know, probably, how Julian loved his Paris, and +governed Gaul thence in civil affairs in such a manner that Paris +and Gaul loved him;--how his own special legions, his pets, +his Tenth, so to say, were the _Celts_ and _Petulants,_ and +after these, the _Herulians_ and _Batavians_ (or shall I say +_Dutchmen?_);--how Constantius tried to deprive him of these, +ordering him to send them off to him for wars with Sapor in the +east;--how Julian sorrowfully bade them go, judging well by +Gallus his brother's experience (whom Constantius had treated in +the same way as a first step towards cutting off his head) what +the next thing should be;--but how they, (bless their Celtic and +Petulant and Herulian and Dutch hearts!) told him very plainly +that that kind of thing would not wash with them: "Come!" said +they; "no nonsense of this sort; be you our emperor, and +_condemn_ that old lady your cousin Constantius!--or we kill you +right now." Into his bed-room in Paris they poured by night with +those terms,--an ultimatum; whether or not with a twinkle in +their eyes when they proposed the alternative, who can say?--What +was a young hero to do, whom the Gods had commissioned to strike +the grand blow for them; and who never should strike it, that +was certain, if Constantius should have leave to take away from +him, first his Celts and Petulants, and then his head? So he +accepts; and writes kindly and respectfully to his Maiden Aunt-- +Spidership the Emperor telling him he must manage _without_ the +legions, and _with_ a Co-Augustus to share the empire with him,-- +ruling (it was to be hoped in perfect harmony with himself) the +west and leaving the east to Constantius. However, all will not +do: Constantius writes severe and haughtily, Send the men, and +let's hear no more of that presumptuous fooling about the second +Augustus!--So Julian marches east; whither, accompanying him, +the lately rebellious Celts and Petulants are ready enough to go +now; and Constantius might after all have fallen in battle, and +so missed his saving baptism; but his plans had gone agley, and +the whole situation was extremely disturbing; and you never +knew what might happen: and really, when you thought how you +had treated this Julian's father, and his two brothers, and +numberless uncles and cousins, you might fear the very worst;-- +and so, good maiden-auntish soul, he fell into a sadness, and +thence into a decline; and while Julian and his Petulants were +yet a long way off, got baptized respectably, and slipped +off to heaven. + +And you know, too, probably, how Julian, being now sole emperor, +reigned: working night and day; wearing out relays of secretaries, +but never worn out himself; making the three years of his +reign, as I think Gibbon says, read like thirty; disestablishing +Christianity, and refounding Paganism,--not the Paganism +that had been of old, but a new kind, based upon compassion, +human brotherhood, and Theosophical ethics, and illumined +by his own ever-present vision of the Gods;--how he reformed +the laws; governed; made his life-giving hand felt from +the Scottish Wall to the Nile Cataracts;--instilled new vigor +into everything; forced toleration upon the Christians, +stopping dead their mutual persecutions, and recalling from +banishment those who had been banished by their co-religionists +of other sects;--made them rebuild temples they had torn down, +and disgorge temple properties they had plundered;--and amidst +all this, and much more also, found time in the wee small hours +of the nights to do a good deal of literary work: Theosophical +treatises, correspondence, sketches....--And you will know +of the spotless purity, the asceticism, of his life; and how +he stedfastly refused to persecute;--whereby his opponents +complained that, son of Satan as he was, he denied them the glory +of the martyr's crown;--and of his plan to rebuild the Temple at +Jerusalem, and to re-establish Jews and Judaism in their native +land:--of his letter to the Jewish high priest or chief Rabbi, +beginning "My brother";--of the charitable institutions he +raised, and dedicated to the Lord of Vision, his God the +Unconquered Sun;--of his contests with frivolity and corruption +at Antioch, and his friendship with the philosophers;--and then, +of his Persian expedition, with its rashness,--its brilliant +victories,--its over-rashness and head-strong advance;--of the +burning of the fleet, and march into the desert; and retreat; +and that sudden attack,--the Persian squadrons rising up like +afreets out of the sands, from nowhere; and Julian rushing +unarmed through the thickest of the fight, turning, first here, +then there, confusion into firmness, defeat into victory;--and of +the arrow, Persian or Christian, that cut across his fingers and +pierced his side; and how he fainted as he tried to draw it out; +and recovered, and called for his horse and armor; and fainted +again; and was carried into a tent hastily run up for him:--and +of the scene there in the night, that made those who were with +him think of the last scene in the life of Socrates; Julian +dying, comforting his mourning officers; cheering them; talking +to them quietly about the beauty and dignity of death, and the +divinity of the Soul; then suddenly inquiring why Anatolius was +not present,--and learning that Anatolius had fallen,--and +(strange inconsistency!) the dying man breaking into tears of the +death of his friend.--And you will know of the hopeless march of +the army back under ignominious Jovian, all Shah Sapor's hard +terms accepted;--and the doom of the Roman Empire sealed. + +That was the Man: that is the record, outwardly, of a Soul fed +upon the immensities of Vision. Vision is the keynote of him: +the intense reality to him of the ever-beautiful compassionate +Gods.... It is true there was a personality attached; and all +his defenders since have found much in it that they wished had +not been there. A lack of dignity, it is said; a certain +self-consciousness... Well; he was very young; he died a very +boy at thirty-two; he never attained to years of discretion:--in +a sense we may allow that much. You say, he might very well have +followd the reaonable conventions of life; and condescended, +when emperor, not to dress as a philosopher of the schools. So +he might. They laughed at his ways, at his garb, at his beard;-- +and he went the length of sitting up one night to write the +_Misopogon,_ a skit upon his personality. Only philosophers wore +beards in those days; it was thought most unsuitable in an +emperor. I do not know what the men of Antioch said about +it; but he speaks of it as unkempt and,--in the Gibbonistic +euphemism,--_populous;_ indeed, names the loathsome cootie +outright, which Gibbon was much too Gibbonish to do. In the +nature of things, this was a libel. + +I read lately an article, I think by an Irish writer, on the +eccentricities of youthful genius. It often happens that a soul +of really fine caliber, with a great work to do in the world, +will waste a portion of his forces, at the outset, in fighting +the harmless conventions. But as his real self grows into +mastery, all this disappears, and he comes to see where his +battle truly lies. Julian died before he had had time quite to +outgow the eccentricities; but for all that, not before he had +shown the world what the Soul in action is like. + +Every great soul, incarnating, has still this labor to carry +through as prolog to his life's work:--he must conquer the new +personality, with all its hereditary tendencies; he must mold it +difficultly to the perfect expression of the glory and dignity of +himself. Julian had to take up a body in which on the one side +ran the warrior blood of Claudius Gothicus and Constantius +Chlorus, on the other, the refinement and culture of the +senatorial house of the Anicii. Two such streams, coming +together, might well need some harmonizing: might well produce, +for example, an acute self-consciousness,--to be mastered. What +he got from them, for world-service, was on the one hand his +superb military leadership and mastery of affairs; on the other, +his intense devotion to learning and culture. Thus the two +streams of heredity appeared, dominated by his own quality of +Vision. The paternal stream, by his generation, had grown much +vitiated: it was pure warriorism in Claudius Gothicus, and even +in Constantius Chlorus; it was warriorism refined with subtlety +and cruelty in Constantine I; it was mere fussy treacherous +cruelty in the Spider-Octopus,--and sensual brutality in Julian's +brother Gallus. The vices of the latter may indicate how great a +self-conqueror the unstained Julian was. + +He was a Keats in imperial affairs, dying when he had given no +more than a promise of what he should become. He laws, his +valor, his victories, his writings, are no more than _juvenilia:_ +they are equal to the grand performance, not the promise, of many +who are counted great. He came out from his overshadowment and +long seclusion, from him books and dreams; was thrown into +conditions that would have been difficult for an experienced +statesman, and won through them all triumphantly; was set to +conduct a war that would have taxed the genius of a Caesar, a +Tiberius, or an Aurelius,--and swept through to as signal +victories as any of theirs. He learnt the elements of drill, and +was straight sent to conquer the conquering Germans; and did it +brilliantly. He came to a Gaul as broken and hopeless as Joan of +Arc's France; and found within himself every quality needed to +heal it and make it whole. + +Joan conquered with her Vision; Julian conquered with his. He +set out with this before his eyes and in his soul:--The Gods are +there; the beautiful Gods; uttermost splendor of divinity is at +the heart of things. The glory of the Gods and of their world +filled his eyes; and the determination filled his soul to make +this outer world conform to the beauty of his vision. The thing +he did not care about,--did not notice, except in a humourous +way,--was that queer thing of a personality that had been +allotted to himself. How could he have succeeded, in the world +that then was?--And yet even a Christian poet was constrained to +say,--and to rise, says Gibbon, above his customary mediocrity in +saying it,--that though Julian was hateful to God, he was +altogether beneficent to mankind. + +I do not know how to explain the Persian expedition. He himself +said, when dying, that he had loved and sought peace, and had but +gone to war when driven to it. We cannot see now what were the +driving factors. Did he go to reap glory that he might have +used, or thought he might have used, in his grand design? Did he +go to break a way into India, perhaps there to find a light +beyond any that was in Rome? ... Or was it the supreme mistake of +his life.... one would say the only mistake? + +It failed, and he died, and his grand designs came to nothing; +and Rome went out in utter darkness. And men sneered at him +then, and have been sneering at him ever since, for his failure. +Perhaps we must call it that; it was a forlorn hope at the best +of times. But you cannot understand him, unless you think of him +as a Lord of Vision lonely in a world wholly bereft of it: a man +for whom all skies were transparent, and the solid earth without +opacity, but with the luminous worlds shining through wherein +Apollo walks, and all the Masters of Light and Beauty;--unless +you think of him as a Lord of Vision moving in an outer world, a +phase of civilization, old, tired, dying, dull as ditch-water, +without imagination, with no little vestige of poetry, no gleam +of aspiration,--with wit enough to sneer at him, and no more; by +no means with wit enough to allow him to save it from itself and +from ruin. + + + + +XXIV. FROM JULIAN TO BODHIDHARMA + + +When the news came drifting back over the Roman world that +the Emperor had been killed in Persia, and that an unknown +insignificant Jovian reigned in his stead;--and while three parts +of the population were rejoicing that there was an end of the +Apostate and his apostasy; and half the rest, that there was an +end of this terrible strenuosity, this taking of the Gods (good +harmless useful fictions--probably fictions) so fearfully in +earnest: I wonder how many there were to guess how near the end +of the world had come? The cataclysm was much more sudden and +over-whelming than we commonly think; and to have prophesied, in +Roman society, in the year 363, that in a century's time the +empire and all its culture would be things of the past (in the +West), would have sounded just as ridiculous, probably, as such a +prophesy concerning Europe and its culture would have sounded in +a London drawing-room fifteen years ago. There were signs and +portents, of course, for the thoughtful; and no doubt some few +Matthew Arnolds in their degree to be troubled by them. And of +course (as in our own day, but perhaps rather more), an idea with +cranks that at any moment Doomsday might come. But while the +world endured, and the Last Trump had not sounded, of course the +Roman empire would stand.--Christianity? Well, yes; it had +grown very strong; and the extremists among the Christians were +rabid enough against culture of any sort. But there were also +Christians who, while they hated the olden culture of Paganism, +were ambitious to supply a Christian literature in prose and +verse to take the place of the Classical. There had been an +awful devastation of Gaul; the barbarians of the north had been, +now and again, uneasy and troublesome; but see how Julian--even +he, with the Grace of God all against him--had chastised them! +The head of the Roman State would always be the Master of the +World. + +And strangely enough, this was an idea that persisted for +centuries; facts with all their mordant logic were impotent to +kill it. Hardly in Dante's time did men guess that the Roman +empire and its civilization were gone. + +Life, when Julian died, was still capable of being a very +graceful and dignified affair,--outwardly, at any rate. On their +great estates in Gaul, in Britain, in Italy, great and polished +gentlemen still enjoyed their _otium cum dignitate._ The culture +of the great past still maintained itself amongst them; although +thought and all mental vigor were buried deep under the detritus. +In fourth century Gaul there was quite a little literary +renaissance; centering, as you might expect, in the parts +furthest from German invasion. Its leading light was born in +Bordeaux in the three-thirties; and was thus (to link things up +a little) a younger contemporary of the Indian Samudragupta. He +was Ausonius: teacher of rhetoric, tutor to the prince Gratian, +consul, country gentleman, large land-owner, and, in a studious +uninspired reflective way, a goodish poet. Also a convert to +Christianity, but unenthusiastic:--altogether, a dignified and +polished figure; such as you might find in England now, in the +country squire who has held important offices in India in his +time, hunts and shoots in season, manages his estates with +something between amateur and professional interest, reads Horace +for his pleasure, and even has a turn for writing Latin verses. +Ausonius leaves us a picture of the life of his class: a placid, +cultured life, with quite a strong ethical side to it; sterile +of any deep thought or speculation; far removed from unrest.-- +Another respresentative man was his friend Symmachus at Rome: +also highly cultured and of dignified leisure; a very upright +and capable gentleman widely respected for his sterling honesty; +a pagan, not for any stirring of life within his heart or +mind, but simply for love of the ancient Roman idea,--sheer +conservatism;--for much the same reasons, in fact, as make the +Englishman above-mentioned a staunch member of the English Church. + +There were many such men about: admirable men; but unluckily +without the great constructive energies that might, under +Julian's guidance for example, have saved the empire. But the +empire! In that crisis,--in that narrow pass in time! It is not +excellent gentlemen that can do such near-thaumaturgic business; +but only disciples; for the proposition is, as I understand it, +to link this world with the God-world, and hold fast through +thunders and cataclysm, so that what shall come through,--what +shall be when the thunder is stilled and the cataclysm over,-- +shall flow on and up onto a new order of cycles, higher, nearer +the Spirit. . . . . No; it is not to be done by amiable +gentlemen, or excellent administrators, or clever politicians. . +. . Julian had come flaming down into the world, to see if he +could rouse up and call together those who should do it; but his +bugles had sounded in the empty desert, and died away over the +sands. + +There were tremendous energies abroad; but they were all with +the Destroyers, and were to be, ever increasingly: with such men +as, at this time, Saint Martin of Tours, that great tearer-down +of temples; or in the next century, Saint Cyril of Alexandria +and Peter the Reader, the tearers-to-pieces of Hypatia. Perhaps +the greatest energies of all you should have found, now and +later, in the Christian mob of Alexandria,--wild beasts innocent +of nothing but soap and water. + +It was Symmachus who was chosen by the Roman Senate to remonstrate +with the emperor Valentinian against the removal of the altar +and statue of Victory,--the Pagan symbols,--from the senate +house. I quote you Gibbon's summary of a part of his petition: + +"The great and incomprehensible Secret of the Universe eludes the +enquiry of man. Where reason cannot instruct, custom may be +permitted to guide; and every nation seems to consult the +dictates of prudence by a faithful attachment to those rites and +opinions which have received the sanction of ages. If those ages +have been crowned with glory and prosperity--if the devout people +have frequently obtained the blessings which they have solicited +at the altars of the Gods--it must appear still more advisable to +persist in the same salutary practise and not to risk the unknown +perils that may attend any rash inovations. The test of antiquity +and success, (continues Gibbon), was applied with singular +advantage to the Religion of NUMA, and Rome herself, the +celestial genius that presided over the fates of the city, is +introduced by the orator to plead her own cause before the +tribunal of the emperors. 'Most excellent princes,' says the +venerable matron, 'fathers of your country! pity and respect my +age, which has hitherto flowed in an uninterrupted course of +piety. Since I do not repent, enjoy my domestic institutions. +This religion has reduced the world under my laws. These rites +have repelled Hannibal from the city, and the Gauls from the +Capitol. Were my grey hairs reserved for such intolerable +disgrace? I am ignorant of the new system I am required to +adopt; but I am well assured that the correction of old age is +always an ungrateful and ignominious office.'" + +Symmachus was addressing a Christian emperor; and it was an ill +thing then, as in the days of Hadrian, to argue with the master +of the legions. Still, the method he chooses is interesting: +it holds a light up to the inwardness of the age, and shows +it dead. This was at twenty-one years after the death of the +Dragon-Apostate; whose appeal had all been to the realities and +the divinity of man and the living splendor of the Gods he knew and +loved. That splendor, said he, should burn away the detritus, +and make Romans men and free again. But Symmachus, for all his +admirable restraint, his rhetorical excellence, his good manners +and gentlemanly bearing,--which I am sure we should admire,-- +appeals really only to the detritus; to nothing in the world +that could possibly help or save Rome. The Christians wanted to +be free of it, because they felt its weight; the Pagans wanted +to keep it, because they found it warm and comfortable. Symmachus +sees nothing higher or better than custom; the secret of the +universe, says he, is unknowable; there is no inner life. +--He was confuted by a much more alive and less estimable +man: Ambrose, bishop of Milan,--with whom, also, both he and +Ausonius were on friendly terms. Ambrose's argument, too, is +illuminating: like the King of Hearts', it was in the main that +"you were not to talk nonsense." How ridiculous, said he, to +impute the victories of old Rome to the Religion of Numa and +favor of the Gods,--when the strength and valor of the Roman +soldier were quite enough to account for all. Thus he appears in +the strange role of a rationalist. Christianity, he continued, +was the one and only true religion; and all the rest--etc., +etc., etc. Ambrose and his party were fighting towards a +definite and positive end; knew what they wanted, and meant to +get it. Of course they won. Symmachus and the senate were +fighting only for a sentiment about the past, and had no chance +at all. And it really did not matter: Rome was doomed anyway. + +But in passing I must e'en linger on a note of sublimity in this +petition of Symmachus: of sublime faith;--when he makes Dea +Roma refer to her history as having "hitherto flowed in an +uninterrupted course of piety." It makes one think that they +taught Roman history in their schools then much in the same way +that we teach our national histories in our schools today; here +and in England, and no doubt elsewhere, _"An uninterrupted course +of piety!"_ quotha. Marry come up! + +But all this is anticipating the years a little: looking into +the eighties, whereas we have not finished with the sixties yet. +Julian died in 363, on the 26th of June; and within a couple of +years, you may say,--many said so then,--the Gods began to avenge +him. Nature herself took a hand, to warn a degenerate world. In +365 came an earthquake; gollowed by a huge withdrawal of the +sea, so that you could explore dry-shod the antres of the +sea-gods. And then a tidal wave which threw large ships up onto the +roofs of houses two miles inland, and killed in Alexandria alone +fifty thousand people.--"Aha!" said the Pagans, "we told you +so."--"Nothing of the kind!" said the Christians in reply; "did +not we set a saint on the beach at Epidaurus, before whom the +oncoming billow stopped, bowed its head, and retired?" Well; no +doubt that was so; but Alexandria was a perfect hotbed of +saints, one of whom, you might think, might have been lured down +to the beach and the perilous proximity of water for the +occasion. But let it pass! + +Ten years later the Law began to marshal its armies seriously for +the destruction of an obsolete world. The Huns crossed the Volga, +and fell upon the Ostrogoths, who had had a Middle-European +empire up through Austria and Germany. The Ostrogoths, somewhat +flattened out, joined with the Huns to fall upon the Visigoths; +who theeupon poured down through the Balkans to fall upon +the Romans; and defeated and killed the emperor Valens at +Adianople in 378. Theodosius, from 379 to 395, held precariously +together a frontier cracking and bulging all along the line as it +had never cracked and bulged before. When he died, the empire +finally split: of his two sons, Arcadius taking the East, +Honorius the West. + +In Honorius' half, from now on it is a record of ruin hurrying on +the footsteps of ruin. Ended the quiet _otium cum dignitate_ of +the great country gentlemen; the sterile culture, the somewhat +puritan morality, the placid refined life we read of in Ausonius. +You shall see now the well-ordered estate laid waste;--the +peasants killed or hiding in the woods;--the mansion smashed, and +its elegant furniture;--the squire, the kindly-severe religious +matron his mother the young wife,--gracious lady of the house,-- +and the bonny children:--they are hacked corpses lying at random +in the wrecked salons, or in the trampled garden where my lady's +flowers now grow wild. The land went out of cultivation; the +populace, what remained of it, crowded into the walled cities, +there to frowse in mental and physical stuffiness until the +Middle Ages were passed,--or else took to the wilds under any +vigorous mind, and became bandits. The open country was all +trodden down by wave after wave of marauding, murdering, +beer-swilling, turbulent giants from the north,--or by the still +more dreaded dwarfish horsemen whose forefathers Pan Chow had +driven long since out of Asia. They poured down into Greece; +they, poured down through Gaul and Spain into Africa; into Italy; +host after host of them;--civilization was a pathetic sand-castle +washed over and over by ruining seas. Rome, indeed, could still +command generals at times: Stilicho, Aetius, and afterwards +Belisarius and Narses; but they were all pitiful Partingtons +swishing their mops round against a most ugly Atlantic. In 410 +Rome itself was sacked by Alaric; in the same year Britain, +and then Brittany, rose and threw off the Roman yoke. In the +four-fifties came the keen point of the Hunnish terror, putting +the fear of death on even the worst of the barbarians that had +wrecked the Roman world. In 476, the pretense of a Western +Empire was abandoned.--So now to follow the great march of the +cycles eastward; with this warning: that next week we shall +glance at a little backwash in the other direction, and see +the disembodied soul of this now closed phase of human culture +'go west.' + +The split with Rome was altogether of value to the Eastern empire +of Constantinople. That empire lasted, from the time of Arcadius +to that of Constantine IX and Mohammed the Conqueror, "one +thousand and fifty-eight years," says Gibbon, "in a state of +premature and perpetual decay."--A statement which, taken as an +example of Gibbonese, is altogether delightful; but for the true +purposes of history it may need a little modification. The +position of this Byzantine Empire was a curious one: European in +origin, mainly West-Asian in location. Its situation permitted +it to last on so long into the West-Asian manvantara; its origin +doomed that long survival to be, for the most part, devoid of the +best characteristics of life. Yet during most of the European +pralaya it was far and away the richest and most civilized power +in Christendom; and, except during the reigns of extraordinary +kings in the west, like Charlemagne, the strongest too. It +specialized in military science; and the well-trained Byzantine +soldiers and highly scientific generals had little to fear, as a +rule, from the rude energies and huge stature of the northern and +western hordes. But culture remained there in the sishta state, +and could do nothing until it was transplanted. There were +cycles: weaknesses and recoveries; on the whole its long +life-period matters very little to history; it only became of +great importance when it died. + +The reason why it did not succumb when Rome did was that the +tides of life in the whole empire had long been flowing eastward, +and were now gathered there almost wholly: there was much more +activity in the east; there were much bigger cities, and a much +greater population. So that part was harder to penetrate and +conquer: there was more resistance there. The barbarian deluge +flowed down where it might flow down most easily: following, as +deluges and everything else gifted with common sense always do, +the lines of least resistance. The way through Gaul and Spain +was quite open; the way into Italy nearly so;--but the way into +Asia was blocked by Constantinople. That city is naturally one +of the strongest in the world, in a military sense; and, you +would say, inevitably the capital of an empire. If Dardanus had +had a little more intuition, and had founded his Troy on the +Golden Horn instead of on the Dardanelles, Anax andron Agamemnon +and his chalcho-chitoned Achaeans, I dare say, would have gone +home to Greece much sadder and wiser men;--or more probably, not +at all. But Troy is near enough to that inevitable site to argue +the strong probability of its having been, perhaps long before +Priam's time, a great seat of empire, trade, and culture. If one +dug in Constantinople itself, I dare say one should find the +remains of cities that had been mighty. Events of the last seven +years have shown how difficult it is to attack, how easy to +defend. Since its foundation by Constantine it has been besieged +nine times, and only twice taken by foreign enemies. When the +Turks took it, they had already overflowed all the surrounding +territories; and they were the strongest military power in the +world, and the Byzantines were among the weakest.--So it stood +there in the fifth century to hold back the hordes of northern +Europe from the rich lands of Asia Minor and Syria: a strength +much beyond the power of those barbarians to tackle; while all +Europe west-ward was being trampled to death. + +Further, the peace imposed on Jovian by Shah Sapor in 364 lasted, +with one small intermission of war, and that successful for the +Romans, for a hundred and thirty-eight years; during which time, +also, the powers that were at Constantinople ruled mainly wisely +and with economy. They were generally not the reigning emperor, +but his wife or mother or aunt, or someone like that. + +So then, in the year 400 we find the world in this condition:-- +western Europe going + + "With hideous ruin and combustion down + To bottomless perdition;" + +--the Eastern Empire weakish, but fairly quiet and advancing +towards prosperity: in pralaya certainly, and so to remain for +thirteen decades (395 to 527) from the death of Theodosius to +the accession of Justinian;--Persia, under an energetic and +intelligent Yazdegird II (399 to 420), a strongish military +power: Yazdegird held his barons well in hand, and even made a +brave effort to broaden the religious outlook; he tried to stop +the persecution of the Christians, and allowed them to organize a +national church, the Nestorian;--India, still and until 456, at +the height of her glory:--there is a continual rise as you go +eastward, with the climax in India. The next step is China; to +which now after all these centuries we return. + +As we have seen, since the Hans fell there had been a confusion +of ephemeral kingdoms jostling and hustling each other across the +stage of time: there had been too much history altogether; too +many wars, heroes, adventures and wild escapades. Life was too +riotous and whirling an affair: China seemed to have sunk into a +mere Europe, a kind of Kilkenny Christendom. Not that culture +ever became extinct; indeed, through this whole period the +super-refinement that had grown up under the Hans persisted side +by side with the barbarian excursions and alarms. It was not, as +in Rome, a case of major pralaya: men did not resort to +savagery; literary production seems never to have run quite so +sterile. But things were in the melting-pot, centripetalism had +gone; little dynasties flared up quickly and expired; and +amidst all those lightning changes there was no time for +progress, or deep concerns, or for the Soul of the Black-haired +People to be stirring to manifestation. + +You will, I dare say, have learned to look for a rise in China at +any falling-time in Europe; so would consider something should +have happened there in 365, the year of the great earthquake and +tidal wave, when the fifty thousand Alexandrians were drowned,-- +the second year after Julian's death. Well; in that 365 Tao +Yuan-ming was born, who later became known as Tao Chien: in +Japanese, Toemmei. There had been poets all along. During the +last thirty years of the Hans, 190 to 220, there had been the +Seven Scholars of the Chien An Period: among them that jolly +K'ung Jung who, because he was a descendant of Confucius, claimed +blood-relationship with the descendants of Laotse. Ts'ao Ts'ao +himself wrote songs: he was that bold bad adventurer and highly +successful general who turned out the last Han and set his own +son on the throne as Wei Wenti; who also was a poet, as was his +brother Ts'ao Chih. Of Ts'ao Chih a contemporary said: "If all +the talent in the world were divided into ten parts, Ts'ao Chih +would have eight of them."--"Who, then, would have the other +two?" asked somebody.--"I should have one of them myself," +was the answer, "and the rest of the world the other." Ts'ao +Chih enriched the language with one of its most familiar and +delicious quotations: + + "The Superior Man takes precautions, + And avoids giving rise to suspicion: + He does not pull up his shoes in a melon patch, + Nor adjust his cap while passing through an orchard of plums." + +It is indicative of his own position at court. + +Later in the third century came the Seven Sages of the Bamboo +Grove, a "club of rather bibulous singers"; and there are names +of many scholars besides to say that the time was not too barren; +yet on the whole it was, I suppose, a period of slump in literary +production, as it was of confusion in politics. But when Julian +had been dead two years in the west of the world, Tao Yuan-ming +was born in the east: I do not say the creator of a new time; +but certainly a sign of its coming. + +A large amount of his poetry survives; and it is filled with a +new spirit. Like Wordsworth, he went back to nature. Ambition, +of course, had been a great mark of the age: men raced after +office, and scrambled for the spoils. Tao Yuan-ming was called +to fill an official post, and went up reluctantly to the +capital; but very soon escaped back to the things he loved: +the mountains, and his chrysanthemum garden, and the country, +where he could hear the dogs barking in the far farms, and see +the chickens scratching in the lanes. We do not find in him, +perhaps, the flood of Natural Magic that came with the poets of +the Great Age three or four centuries later; but we do find a +heart-felt worship of the great unspoiled world under the sky: +he is there to say that China was returning to her real strength, +which is Nature-worship. While he pottered about in the front +garden, he tells us, his wife pottered about in the back garden; +they made an idol of their chrysanthemums, and started or +nourished the cult which has flourished so strongly since in +Japan. He was I suppose the greatest poet since Ch'u Yuan, who +came some seven centuries earlier; it is from him we get the story +some of you may know under the title _Red Peach-Blossom Inlet._ + +For about half a cycle (sixty-five years) barbarian dynasties had +been holding the north; with the result that the center of +gravity of the real Black-haired People had been shifted from the +puritan landscapes of North China to the pagan landscapes of the +Yangtse Valley,--a region of mountains and forests and lakes and +wild waters: Tsu the land of Laotse and Ch'u Yuan, and I think +Chwangtse too. It is here are the Hills of T'ang, the metropolis +of Natural Magic perhaps for all the world; and the mind and +imagination of China, centered here, were receiving a new +polarization; something richer and more luminous was being born. +Contemporary with Tao Yuan-ming was Ku Kaichih, the first supreme +name in painting. Fenollosa speaks of a "White Lotus Club," +organized by Hui Yuan, A Buddhist priest, and consisteing of +"mountain-climbers and thinkers,"--Tao Yuan-ming being a member. + +One would like to get at the heart of what happened in that last +quarter of the fourth century. This is what we see on our side: +Canton and Yangtse ports were being visited more and more by +Hindu, Arab, and Sassanian traders, bringing in new things and +ideas: the Hindus, especially, an impetus towards culture from +the splendor of the gupta period, then at its topmost height. +Also ther were new inventions, such as that of paper, which was +an incentive to literary output. The Chinese mind, in the south +especially, was quickened on the one hand by the magical wind +from the mountains, and on the other by a wind from the great +world over-seas: the necessary nationalistic and international +quickenings. But deeper quickenings also were taking place. +India was fast becoming, under the Gupta reaction towards +Brahmanism, no place for the Buddhists; and the Hindu ships that +put in at Canton and the Yangtse were bringing much to China +besides merchandise. A great propaganda of Buddhism was in +process; by Indian monks, and now too for the first time by +native Chinese. We read of a missionary who went about preaching +to an indifferent world; then in sorrow took to the mountains, +and proclaimed the Good Law to the mountain boulders; and they +"nodded as it were their heads in assent." * But there is +evidence that China was fast becoming the spiritual metropolis of +the world: Buddhism was drifting in, and mingling among the +mountains with mountain Taoism, that dear and hoary magic of the +Eastern World; and the result was an atmosphere in which +astounding events were to happen. + +------ +* Giles _Dictionary of Chinese Biography;_ from which work, +and from the same author's _Chinese Literature,_ the facts, +quotations, and enecdotes given in this lecture are taken. +------ + +In 401, Kumarajiva, the seventeenth Buddhist Patriarch, came from +India and took up his residence at the court at Changan, where a +Tibetan family was then reigning over the north; and this, when +you think that these Patriarchs were (as I believe) no popes +elected by a conclave of churchly dignities, but the Spiritual +Successors of the Buddha, each appointed by his predecessor, an +event momentous enough in itself. Still, Kumarajiva came (it +would appear) but to prepare the way for the great change that +was impending; left behind him a successor in India, or one to +fill the office at his death; in India the headquarters of +Buddhism remained. Two years before his arrival, Fa Hian, a +Chinese Buddhist monk, had set out on foot from Central China, +walked across the Gobi Desert, and down through Afghanistan into +India, a pilgrim to the sacred places: a sane and saintly man, +from whom we learn most of what we know about the Gupta regime. +He returned by sea in 412, landing at Kiao-chao in Santung,--a +place latterly so sadly famous,--bringing with him spiritual and +quickening influences. In the south, meanwhile, another Indian +teacher, Buddhabhadra, had been at work. Before very long, a +Renaissance was in full flow. + +The political events that led up to it were these: between 304 +and 319 a Tatar family by the name of Liu, from Manchuria, +succeeded in driving the House of Tsin out of northern China: +these Tsins were that effete, ladylike, chess-playing, fan-waving, +high-etiquettish dynasty I have spoken of before. In 319 +they took up their abode in Nanking, and there ruled corruptly +for a hundred years, leaving the north to the barbarians. In +420, a soldier in their employ, Liu-yu by name, deposed the +last Tsin emperor, and set himself on the throne as the first +sovereign of the Liu-song Dynasty. He was a capable man, and +introduced some vigor and betterment into affairs; he found +conditions ripe for a renaissance of civilization; and in his +reign we may say that the renaissance took shape. 420 is, so far +as a date can be given for what was really a long process, a +convenient date to give. We have seen Persia rise in the +two-twenties; India in the three-twenties; we shall not go far +wrong in giving the four-twenties to China. That decade, too, +marks a fresh step downward in the career of Rome: Honorius died +in 423. Fenollosa is definite upon 420 for the inception of +the great age of the Southern Renaissance of art. That age +culminated in the first half of the next century, and ended with +the passing of the Liang dynasty in the five-fifties: a matter +of thirteen decades again; which, I take it, is further reason +for considering our four-twenties epochal. + +I fancy we shall grow used to finding the twenties in each +century momentous, and marked by great political and spiritual +re-shapings of the world. We shall find this in our historical +studies; in the next few years we may find it in current events +too; and what we shall see may remind us that in these decades +the sun generally rises in some new part of the world,--the sun +of culture and power. Naturally enough:--in the last quarter of +each century you have the influx of spiritual forces; which +influx, it is to be supposed, can hardly fail to produce changes +inwardly,--a new temperature, new conditions in the world of +mind. So there must be readjustments; there is a disharmony +between outer and inner things, between the world of causes and +the world of effects; and one commonly finds the first two +decades of the new century filled with the noise and confusion of +readjustment. New wine has been poured into the old skin-bottles +of the world; and ferments, explodes, rends them. Then, in +the twenties or so, things calm down, and it is seen that +readjustments have been made. By 'readjustments,' one does not +mean the treaties of statesmen and the like; brain-mind affairs +for the most part, that amount to nothing. One means a new +direction taken by the tide of incarnating souls. As if the +readjusting cataclysms had blocked their old channels of these, +and opened new ones... + +A new _arpeggio_ chord, but rather a faint and broken one, sounds +in the five-twenties, or begins then. At Constantinople the +thirteen pralayic and recuperative decades since the death of +Theodosius and the split with the West have ended. Now an +emperor dies; and it becomes a question which of several likely +candidates can lay out his money to best advantage and secure the +succession. There is an official of some sort at court there, +one Justin, a Balkan peasant by birth; you will do well to bribe +him heavily, for he, probably, can manage the affair for you,-- +One of the candidates does so: hands him a large sum, on the +assurance from Justin that he shall be the man. But the old +fellow has peasant shrewdness, shall we say; and the money is +_used_ most thriftily; but not as its donor intended. Justin +duly ascends the throne. + +Nothing very promising in that, to insure manvantaric times +coming in. But the old man remembers a nephew of his back there +in Bulgaria or Jugoslavia or where it may have been; and sends +for him, and very wisely lets him do most of the running of +things. In 527, this nephew succeeds to the purple on his +uncle's death: as Justinian; and, for Europe and the Byzantine +empire, and for the times,--that is to say, 'considering,' +--manvantaric doings do begin. A man of hugely sanguine +temperament, inquisitive and enterprising and impulsive, he had +the fortune to be served by some great men: Tibonian, who drew +up the Pandects; Belisarius and Narses, who thrashed the +barbarians; the architect who built Saint Sophia. Against these +assets to his reign of thirty-eight years you must set the +factions of the circus, at Constantinople itself; and bloody +battle over the merits of the Greens, the Blues, the Whites, etc. +But certainly Justinian contrived to strike into history as no +other Byzantine emperor did; with his law code, and with his +church. So now enough of him. + +Four years after the accession of this greatest of the Byzantines, +the greatest of the Sassanids came to the throne in Persia: +Chosroes Anushirwan: a wise and victorious reign until 579. +There was an 'Endless Peace' sworn with Rome in 533; and +not peace merely, but friendship and alliance; it was to last +for all time, and did last for seven years. The Chosroes, +jealous of the western victories of Justinian, listened to the +pleadings of the Ostrogoths, and declared war; peace came again +in 563, on the basis of a yearly tribute from Rome to Persia,-- +but with compensations, such as toleration for the Christians in +Persia.--there were reforms in the army and in taxation; +improvements in irrigation; encouragement of learning; +revision of the laws; some little outburst in literature and +culture generally: the culmination, in all but extent of +territory, of the whole Sassanian period.--We may throw in one +item from the future,--that is from 620: in that year Sassanian +Persia had flowed out to the full limits of the empire of Darius +Hystaspes: held Egypt, Syria, all West Asia to within a mile of +the walls of Constantinople. Within three years the fall had +begun; within twenty it was completed. + +As to India, this (520) is among the hidden times: the +Ephthalites had overturned the Guptas; they were Huns of the +Hunniest; they had over-turned the Guptas and all else (in the +north). Tales come down of the fiendishness of their kings: of +a man that for his sport would have elephants hurled from the top +of precipices; it may be that the Indian manvantara closed with +the Gupta fall;--though we get the finical dandiacal 'great' +reign of Harsha in 700. The light certainly was dying from India +now: the Crest-Wave had been there, in all its splendor; they +had made good use of it in all but the spiritual sense, and very +bad use of it in that. The year in which you may say (as nearly +as history will tell you) the light died there, was precisely +this year of 520; and that effected a change in the spiritual +center of gravity of the world of the most momentous kind: so +much so that we may think of a new order of ages as beginning +then; and looking at world-history as a whole, we may say, Here +endeth the lesson that began where we took things up in the time +of the Six Great Teachers; and here beginneth a new chapter,-- +with which these lectures will hardly concern themselves. But we +may glance at the event that opens it. + +It made very little stir at the time. It was merely the landing +at Canton of an old man from India: a 'Blue-eyed Brahmin,'--but +a Buddhist, and the head of all the Buddhists at that;--and his +preaching there until Liang Wuti, the emperor at Nanking, had +heard of his fame, and invited him to court; and his retirement +thence to a cave-temple in the north. Beyond this there is very +little to tell you. He was a king's son from southern India; +his name Bodhidharma; and one would like to know what the records +of the Great Lodge have to say about him. For he stands in +history as the founder of the Dhyana or Zen School, another form +of the name of which is _Dzyan;_ when one reads _The Voice of +the Silence,_ or the Stanzas in _The Secret Doctrine,_ one might +remember this. Outwardly,--I think this is true,--he refused to +cut into history at all: was a grand Esoteric figure, whose +campaigns, (super-Napoleonic, more mirific than those of Genghiz +Khan), were all fought on spiritual planes whence no noise of the +cannonading could be heard in this outer world. He was the +twenty-eighth Successor of the Buddha; of a line of Masters that +included such great names as those of Vasubandhu, and of +Nagarjuna, founder of the Mahayana,--"one of the four suns that +illumine the world." We have seen that he had been preceded: +Kumarajiva had come to China a century before; but experimentally, +leaving the Center of the Movement in India; there must have +been thousands of disciples in the Middle Kingdom in 520 when +Bodhidharma came, bringing with him the Buddha's alms-bowl, +the symbol of the Patriarchate, to make in China his headquarters +and that of his successors. For a thousand years the Buddha's +Movement had been in India a living link with the Lodge;--in +that land of esoteric history which hides from us what it +means to be so linked and connected. Now India had failed. +The Guptas had reigned in great splendor; but they had flourished +upon a reaction away from the Light. I suppose it means this: +that the burden of fighting upward had been too much for this +people, now wearied with old age; they had dropped the burden +and the struggle, and found in the relief a phantom of renewed +youth to last them a little day. + +Whatever may be true of Buddhism now,--however the long cycles +may have wasted its vitality, and to whatever depths it may have +fallen,--we should remember this: that certainly for about +fourteen centuries there was contained within it a living link +with the Masters' Lodge. It was not like any other existing +religion (so far as one knows): like none of the dominant +religions of today, at any rate. At its head, apparently, +through all those long centuries, was a line of Adepts, men of +spiritual genius, members of the Lodge. So what Bodhidharma's +coming meant, I take it, was that in China that was established +actually which in the West first Pythagoras, and then Plotinus +had tried to establish, and tried in vain. It was, as you may +say, the transplanting of the Tree of Life from a soil that had +grown outworn to one in which it could flourish; and the result +was, it appears to me, a new impulse given to the ages, to +all history. + +Hitherto, in the main, we have seen (except in China) a downward +trend of cycles; from this point an upward trend began. We have +been dealing, latterly, with dullish centuries, and history in a +febrile and flickering mood;--but give this wonderful change time +to take effect, and the centuries begin to flame up, and history +to become a roaring conflagration. We might here spy out into +that time, which will lie beyond the scope of these lecture; and +see the glory of the T'angs begin in China in 618; Corea's one +historic age of splendor, in art and also in military prowess, at +its highest point about 680; the era of Shotoku Daishi, saint, +sage, prince and protagonist of civilization in Japan, from about +580 to 620; the rise of Siam, and of Tibet, into strength and +culture and Buddhism, in the first half of the seventh century;-- +then, looking westward, the wonderful career of Mohammed in +Arabia, who gave the impetus that rescued civilization first +in West Asia and then, when in the thirteenth century a new +European manvantara was ready to open, in Europe also: rescued +civilization first in West Asia and then, when in the thirteenth +century a new European manvantara was ready to open, in Europe +also; an impetus which worked on the intellectual-cultural plane +until it had brought things to the point where H. P. Blavatsky +might come to give things a huge twist towards the spiritual,-- +and where Katherine Tingley might accomplish that which all the +ages had been expecting, and the whole creation groaning and +travailing to see. Oh, on brain-mind lines you can trace no +connexion; but then the plane of causes lies deeper than the +brain-mind. We may understand now, I think, what place the +Buddha holds in human history: how it was not for nothing that he +was _the Buddha,_ the central Avatar, the topmost and Master +Figure of humanity for these last twenty-five hundred years, with +what other sublime men appeared as it were subordinate to him, +and the guides of tributary streams: Laotse and Confucius +preparing the way for him in China; Pythagoras carrying his +doctrine into the West.... Well; here is scope for thought; and +for much thought that may be true and deep, and illuminative of +future ages; and _yet not convenient to write down at this time._ + +But to Bodhidharma again. + +H. P. Blavatsky affirmed that Buddhism had an esoteric as well as +an exoteric side: an affirmation that was of course disputed. +But here is this from a Chinese writer quoted by Edkins: + +"Tathagata taught great truths and the causes of things. He +became the instructor of men and devas; saved multitudes, and +spoke the contents of more than five hundred books. Hence arose +the Kiaumen or Exoteric branch of the system, and it was believed +to hold the tradition of the words of the Buddha. Bodhidharma +brought from the Western Heaven the seal of truth, and opened the +Fountain of Dhyana in the east. He pointed directly to Buddha's +heart and nature, swept away the parasitic growth of book +instruction, and thus established the Esoteric branch of the +system containing the doctrine of the heart, the tradition of the +Heart of Buddha. Yet the two branches, while presenting of +necessity a different aspect, form but one whole." + +Now that Doctrine of the Heart had always been in existence; it +does not mean that Bodhidharma invented anything. But in a line +of Teachers, each will have its own methods, and, if there is +progress, there will be new and deeper revelations. The Buddha +gave out so much, as the time permitted him; Nagarjuna, founding +the Mahayana, so much further; Bodhidharma, now that with the +move to China a new lease of life had come, gave out, or rather +taught to his disciples, so much more again of the doctrine that +in its fulness is and always has been the doctrine of the Lodge. + +Lian Wuti, the emperor at Nanking, had been at the end of the +fifth century a general in the service of the last scion of a +dying dynasty there, and a devout Taoist; in 502 he became the +first of a new dynasty, the Liang; and presently, a devout +Buddhist. Chinese historians love him not; Fenollosa describes +him as too generous-minded and other-worldly for success. Yet he +held the throne for nearly fifty years; a time in which art was +culminating and affairs advancing through splendor and unwisdom +to a downfall. Twice he took the yellow robe and alms-bowl, and +went forth through his domains, emperor still, but mendicant +missionary preaching the Good Law.--The Truth? the Inner +doctrine?--I learn most about this poor Lian Wuti from the record +of an interview held once between him and the 'Blue-eyed Brahmin' +Master of Dzyan. Lian Wuti invited Bodhidharma to court, and +Bodhidharma came. Said the emperor: + +--"Since my accession I have been continually building temples, +transcribing books, and admitting new monks to take the vows. +How much merit may I be supposed to have accumulated?" + +--"None," said Bodhidharma. + +--"And why none?" + +--"All this," said the Master, "is but the insignificant effect +of an imperfect cause not complete in itself; it is but the +shadow that follows the substance, and without real existence." + +--"Then what," asked Wuti, "is real merit?" + +--"It consists in purity and enlightenment, depth and completeness; +in being wrapped in thought while surrounded by vacancy and +stillness. Merit such as this cannot be won by worldly means." + +Wuti, I suppose, found this kind of conversation difficult, and +changed the subject,--with an exotericist's question. Said he: + +--"Which is the most important of the holy doctrines?" + +--"Where all is emptiness," said Bodhidharma, "nothing can be +called holy." + +A neat compliment, thinks good externalist Wuti, may improve +things.--"If nothing can be called holy," says he, "who is +it then that replies to me?"--holiness being a well-known +characteristic of Bodhidharma himself. Who answered merely: + +--"I do not know"; and went his ways. The final comment on the +interview is given by a Japanese writer thus: "Can an elephant +associate with rabbits?" + +For the rest, he spent the remaining years of his life in a +cave-temple near Honanfu; and died after appointing a Chinaman +his successor. Besides this small stock of facts there is a +sort of legend; as for example: + +After leaving the court of Lian, he crossed the Yangtse on a +reed,--a theme in sacred art for thousands ever since,--and +because of this miraculous crossing, is worshiped still by +Yangtse boatman as their patron saint,--on the 28th of February +in each year.--Once, as he sat in meditation, sleep overcame him; +and on waking, that it might never happen again, he cut off his +eyelids. But they fell on the earth, took root and sprouted; +and the plant that grew from them was the first of all tea +plants,--the symbol (and cause!) of eternal wakefulness. He is +represented in the pictures as being footless; in his missionary +travels, it is said, he wore away his feet. Thus where there is +no known life-story, but all hidden away beneath a veil of +esotericism and a Master's seclusion, myths have grown, and a +story has been made.--He sat there in his cave silent through the +years, they say; his face to the wall. Chih Kuang came to him, +asking to be taught the doctrine; and for seven days stood in +the snow at the cave-mouth, pleading and unnoticed. Then, to +show that he was in earnest, he drew his sword and sliced off his +left arm; and the Master called him in, and taught him.--Legend +again, no doubt. + +I imagine we can only judge of the man and of his astounding +greatness by the greatness of the ages he illumined. It was as +if he gave, in East Asia, the signal for nation after nation to +leap into brilliant being. As for China, she became something +new. The Age of Han had been golden, strong, manly, splendid. +But Han was like other empires here and there about the world. +Henceforth during her cycle China was to be as a light-giving +body, a luminary wondrous in the firmament with a shining array +of satellite kingdoms circling about her. Her own Teachers of a +thousand years before had prepared the way for it: Confucius +when he gave her stability; Laotse when he dropped the Blue +Pearl into her fields. That Pearl had shone, heaven knows. Now +Ta-mo, this Bodhidharma, breathed on it; and it glowed, and +flame shot up from it, and grew, and foamed up beautiful, till it +was a steady fountain of wonder-fire spraying the far stars. +Heretofore we have had a background of Taoist wizardry: in its +highest aspects, Natural Magic,--the Keatsism of the waters and +the wild, the wood, the field, and the mountain; henceforth +there was to be a sacred something shining through and inmingled +with this: the urge of the Divine Soul, the holy purposes of +evolution. We may say this in Art, to take that one field alone, +the most perfect, the fullest, the divinest, expression of +Natural Magic + + "whereof this world holds record" + +was to come in the school of the Successors of Bodhidharma, +directly the result of his 'Doctrine of the Heart.' + +His school remained esoteric; but it was established, not among +the secret mountains, nor in far unvisited regions; but there in +the midst of imperial China: an extension of the Lodge, you may +say, visible among men. Bodhidharma--are you to call him a +_Messenger_ at all? He hardly came out into the world. It was +known he was there; near by was the northern capital;--he taught +disciples, when they had the strength to insist on it. Yet he +dwelt aloof too, and wrapped about in the seclusion Masters must +have, to carry on their spiritual work. One must suppose that +Messengers of the Lodge had been very busy in China between 375 +and 400, in the days of Tao Yuang-ming and Ku Kai-chih; that +they had been very busy again in the last quarter of the fifth +century; for it seems as if somehow or other there was such an +atmosphere in China in the first half of the sixth century,--when +ordinarily speaking the Doors of the Spiritual World would be +shut,--that the Lodge was enabled partly to throw off its +seclusion, and it was possible for at least one of its Members to +take up his abode there, and to be known to the world as doing +so. + +A Messenger was sent out into the Chinese world from the School +of Bodhidarma in 575: Chih-i, the founder of the Tientai School +which was the spiritual force underlying the glory of the +T'ang age; but he was a Messenger from the Dzyan School of +Bodhidharma, not its Head. As far as I have been able to +gather the threads of it, the line of those Heads, the Eastern +Patriarchs, Bodhidharma's successors, was as follows: He died in +or about 536, having appointed Chi Kuang to succeed him. Chi +Kuang appointed Hui Ssu, called the "Chief of the Chunglung +School of the followers of Bodhidharma." Hui Ssu died in 576, +having sent out Chih-i into the world the year before, and having +appointed Seng T'san to succeed him as head of Dzyan. Seng T'san +died in 606; Tao Hsin, his successor, in 651; Hung Jen, his, in +675. Hung Jen, it appears, left two successors: Lu Hui-neng in +the south, and Shen Hsiu in the north. It was the last quarter +of the century: I imagine Lu Hui-neng was the Messenger sent out +into the world; he spent the rest of his life teaching in the +neighborhood of Canton; I imagine Shen Hsiu remained the Head of +the Esoteric School. After that the line disappears; but the +school attained its greatest influence in the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries in China, and later still in Japan.--All +these were men living not quite in the world: it was known that +they were there, and where they might be found. After Shen Hsiu, +the last Northern Chinese Patriarch, the line probably withdrew +to Tibet, which had lately come into relations with China, and +where civilization had been established through the efforts of +T'ang Taitsong. And now I will close this lecture with a saying +of Shen Hsiu's which, in this modified form, is very familiar to +all of you: + +"Mind is like a mirror: it gathers dust while it reflects. It +needs the gentle breezes of soul wisdom to brush away the dust of +our illusions." + + + + +XXV. TOWARDS THE ISLANDS OF THE SUNSET + + +I had not thought to speak to you further about Celtic things. +But there is something in them here which concerns the spiritual +history of the race; something to note, that may help us to +understand the Great Plan. So, having beckoned you last week to +the edge of the world and the fountain of dawn, and to see +Bodhidharma standing there and evoking out of the deep a new +order of ages, I find myself now lured by a westward trail, and +must jump the width of two continents with you, and follow this +track whither it leads: into the heart and flame of mysterious +sunset. I hope, and the Gwerddonau Llion, the Green Spots of the +Flood,--Makarn Nesoi, Tirnanogue, the Islands of the Blest. + +We saw that while the great flow of the cycles from dying Rome +ran in wave after wave eastward, there was a little backwash +also, by reason of which almost the last glow we saw in the west +was in fourth century Gaul, in the literary renaissance there +which centers round the name of Ausonius. Now in later history +we find every important French cycle tending to be followed by +one in England: as Chaucer followed Jean de Meung; Shakespeare, +Ronsard and the Pleyade; Dryden and Pope, Moliere and Racine; +Wordsworth and Shelley, the Revolution. And we have seen China +wake in 420; and we have noted, in the first of these lectures, +the strange fact that whenever China 'gets busy,' we see a sort +of reflexion of it among the Celts of the west. And we shall +come presently to one of the most curious episodes in history,-- +the Irish Renaissance in the sixth century: when all Europe else +was dead and buried under night and confusion, and Ireland only, +standing like a white pillar to the west, a blazing beacon of +culture and creative genius. Now if you see a wave rising in +fourth-century Gaul, and a wave breaking into glorious foam in +sixth- and seventh-century Ireland,--what would you suspect?-- +Why, naturally, that it was the same wave, and had flowed through +the country that lies between: common sense would tell you to +expect something of a Great Age in fifth- and early sixth-century +Britain. And then comes tradition,--which is nine times out of +ten the truest vehicle of history,--and shouts that your +expectations are correct. For within this time came Arthur. + +You know that in the twelfth century Geoffrey of Monmouth +published what he claimed to be a History of the Kings of Britain +from the time of the coming there of the Trojans; and that it +was he mainly who was responsible for floating the Arthurian +Legend on to the wide waters of European literature. What +percentage of history there may be in his book; how much of it +he did not "make out of whole cloth," but founded on genuine +Welsh or Breton traditions, is at present unknowable;--the +presumption being that it is not much. But here is a curious +fact that I only came on this week. The Romans were expelled +from Britain in 410, remember. Arthur passed from the world of +mortals on the night after Camlan, that + + "last weird battle in the west," + +when + + "All day long the noise of battle rolled + Among the mountains by the wintry sea, + Till all King Arthur's Table, man by man, + Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their lord + King Arthur." + +Now the reign of Arthur may be supposed to represent the +culmination of a national revival among the British Celts; and, +--this is the detail I was pleased to come upon,--according to +Geoffrey, Camlan was fought in 542;--a matter of thirteen decades +(and two years) after the expulsion of the Romans. So that, I +say, it looks as if there were some cyclic reality behind it. +Geoffrey of Monmouth did not know that such periods of national +revival do last as a general rule for thirteen decades. He had +some other guide to help him to that 542 for Camlan. + +History knows practically nothing about fifth-century Britain. +It has been looking at it, since scientific methods came in, +through Teutonic (including Anglo-Saxon) or Latin eyes; and seen +very little indeed but confusion. Britain like the rest of the +western empire, suffered the incursions of northern barbarism; +but unlike most of the rest, it fought, and not as a piece of +Rome, but as Celtic Britain;--fought, and would not compromise +nor understand that it was defeated. It took eight centuries of +war, and the loss of all England, and the loss of all Wales, to +teach, it that lesson; and even then it was by no means sure. +In the twelve-eighties, when last Llewelyn went to war, he +was still hoping, not to save Wales from the English, but to +re-establish the Celtic Kingdom of Britain, Arthur's Empire, and to +wear the high crown of London. The men that marched to Bosworth +Field under Harri Tudor, two centuries later, went with the same +curious hope and assurance. It was a racial mold of mind, and +one of extraordinary strength and persistence,--and one totally +unjustified by facts in what were then the present and future. +But I do not believe such molds can ever be fudged up out of +nothing: _ex nihilo nihil_ is as true here as elsewhere. So we +must look for the cause and formation of this mold in the past. +Something, I think, within that first cycle of Welsh history must +have impressed it on the Welsh mind: some national flowering; +some great figure, one would say.--Arthur? He is like Vikramaditya +of Ujjain; no one know whether he existed at all. There is +no historic evidence; but rather the reverse. But then +there are all those mountains and things named after him, "from +the top of Pengwaed in Cornwall to the bottom of Dinsol in the +North"; and, there is the Arthurian Legend, with such great +vitality that it drove out the national Saxon legends from +England, and quenched the Charlemagne legend in France, and made +itself master of the mind of western Europe in the Middle Ages;-- +I imagine there would have been an Arthur. Some chieftain +who won battles; held up the Saxon advance for a long time, +probably; and reminded his people of some ancient hero, or +perhaps of a God Artaios, thought to be reincarnate in him. + +Not that I believe that the mold of mind of which we have +been speaking could have been created in the fifth and sixth +centuries. Whoever Arthur was--the Arthur of that time,--however +great and successful, he could but have reigned over some part of +Britain, precariously resisting and checking the barbarians; but +tradition tells of a very Chakravartin, swaying the western +world. No; that mold certainly was a relic of the lost Celtic +empire. It had grown dim during the Roman domination; but it +had survived, and the coming in of the Crest-Wave had put new +life into it. Nothing could have put new life into it, it seems +to me, but such a coming in of the Crest-Wave,--to make it endure +and inspire men as it did. I think it is certain the Crest-Wave, +--a backwash of it, a little portion of it, but enough to +make life hum and the age important,--was among the Welsh between +410 and 542. The wave was receding towards the Western Laya-Center; +and gathered force as it rolled from Ausonius' Gaul to Taliesin's +Wales, and from Tallesin's Wales to Ireland. + +Let us look at the probabilities in Britain in 410, seeing what +we can. Three hundred years of Roman rule had left that +province, I cannot doubt, rich and populous, with agriculture in +a better condition than it has been since:--remember the corn +Julian brought thence to feed Gaul. We must think of a large +population, Roman and Romanized, mixed of every race in the Roman +world, in the cities; and of another population, still Celtic, +in the mountains of northern England, in the western Scottish +Lowlands, and especially in Wales. It was the former element, +the cities, that appealed to Aetius for help against the Picts +and Scots; the latter, dwelling in less accessible places, +fought as soon as they felt the invaders' pressure. Wales itself +had never been all held by the Romans. The legions had covered +the south from Caerleon in Monmouthshire to Saint Davids in +Penfro, a region held by Silures and Gaelic Celts. They +had marched along the northern coast to the island of Mona, +establishing, just as Edward the Conqueror did in his day, +strongholds from which to dominate the dangerous mountains: +these regions also were held by Gaels. But just south of those +mountains, in what are now the counties of Meirionydd and +Montgomery, there was a great piece of Wales which they seem +never to have penetrated; and it was held by the Cymric +Ordovices, Welsh, not Irish, by language. + +About this time there was a great upheaval of the Irish; who +conquered western Scotland, and established there sooner or later +the Scottish kingdom of history. They also invaded Wales and +England, and sent their fleets far and wide: they were the +'Picts and Scots' of the history-books. There seems also to have +been an invasion and conquest of Wales, from the north, by the +Welsh; who, joining forces with the Welsh Ordovices whom they +found already in the unconquered un-Roman part, established in +the course of time the kingdom and House of Cunedda, which +reigned till the Edwardian Conquest. It is pretty safe to say +that the Romanized cities and the Romanized population generally +offered no great resistance to the Saxons; mixed with them +fairly readily, and went to form perhaps the basis of the English +race; that they lost their language and culture is due to the +fact that they were cut off from the sources of these on the +continent, and, being of an effete civilization, were far less in +vigor than the Saxon incomers. And as we saw in the first of +these lectures, there was probably a large Teutonic or Saxon +element in Britain since before the days of Julius Caesar. + +But there seems to have been a time during those thirteen decades +that followed the eviction of the Romans, when the Celtic +element, wakened to life and receiving an impulse from the +Crest-Wave, caught up the sovereignty that the Romans had dropped, +remembered its Ancient greatness, and nourished vigorous hopes. +To the Welsh mind, the age has appeared one of old unhappy +far-off things,--unhappy, because of their tragic ending at Camlan;-- +but grandiose. Titanic vague figures loom up: Arthur, the type +of all hero-kings; Taliesin, type of all prophet-bards; Merlin, +type of magicians. Tennyson caught the spirit of it in the grand +moments of the _Morte D'Arthur;_ and missed it by a thousand +miles elsewhere in the _Idylls._ The spirit, the atmosphere, is +that of a glory receding into the unknown and the West of Wonder; +into Lyonnesse, into Avallon, into the Sunset Isles. There is a +sense of being on the brink of the world; with the 'arm +clothed in white samite' reaching in from a world beyond,--that +Otherworld to which the wounded Arthur, barge-borne over the +nightly waters by the Queens of Faerie, went to heal him of his +wounds, and to await the cyclic hour for his retum. He is the +symbol of--what shall we say?--civilization, culture, or the +spiritual sources of these, the light that alone can keep them +sweet and wholesome; that light has died from the broken Roman +world, and passes now west-ward through the Gates of the Sunset: +through Wales, through Ireland, the Laya-Center; into the +Hidden, the Place of the Spirit; into Avallon, which is Ynys +Afallen, the 'Isle of Apple-trees';--whence to return in its +time:--_Rex quondam, rexque futurus._ + +There is a poem by Myrddin Gwyllt, traditionally of the sixth +century, about that Garth of Apple-trees; which he will have a +secret place in the Woods of Celyddon, the Occult Land, and not +an island in the sea at all; and in this poem it has always +seemed to me that one gets a clue to the real and interesting +things of history. He claims in it to be the last of the +white-robed Guardians of the Sacred Tree, the fruit of which +none of the black-robed,--no 'son of a monk,'--shall ever +enjoy. There has been a battle, in which the true order +of the world has gone down; but there Myrddin stays to guard +the 'Tree' against the 'Woodmen,'--whom also he seems to +identify with the 'black-robed' and the priests Myrddin +Gwyllt, by the by, is one of the two figures in Welsh tradition +who have combined to become the Merlin of European tradition; +the other was Myrddin Emrys the magician. I take great risks, +gentlemen but wish to give you a taste, as I think the sound +of some lines from the original may, and doubt any translation +can, of the old and haughty sense of mystery and grandeur +embodied in the poem; because it is this feeling, perhaps +the last echo of the Western Mysteries, that is so characteristic +of the literature that claims to come down to us from this age: + + Afallen beren, bren ailwyddfa, + Cwn coed cylch ei gwraidd dywasgodfa; + A mi ddysgoganaf dyddiau etwa + Medrawd ac Arthus modur tyrfa; + Camlan darwerthin difiau yna; + Namyn saith ni ddyraith o'r cymanfa. + + Afallen bere, beraf ei haeron, + A dyf yn argel yn argoed Celyddon; + Cyt ceiser ofer fydd herwydd ei hafon, + Yn y ddel Cadwaladr at gynadl Rhyd Theon, + A Chynan yn erbyn cychwyn y Saeson. + Cymru a orfydd; cain fydd ei Dragon; + Caffant pawb ei deithi; llawen fi Brython! + Caintor cyrn elwch cathl heddwch a hinon. + +What it means appears to be something of this sort: + + Sweet and beautiful Tree of the trees! + The Wood-dogs guard the circle of its roots; + But I will foretell, a day shall be + When Modred and Authur shall rush to the conflict; + Again shall they come to the Battle at Camlan, + And but seven men shall escape from that meeting. + + Sweet Apple-tree, sweetest its fruitage! + It grows in secret in the Woods of Celyddon; + In vain shall they seek it on the banks of its stream there, + Till Cadwaladr shall come to Rhyd Theon, + And Cynan, opposing the tumult of Saxons, + Wales shall arise then; bright shall be her Dragon; + All shall have their just reward; joy is me for the Brython! + The horns of joy shall sound then the song of peace and + calmness.... + +The sweet fruits of the Tree, he says, are the "prisoners of +words," (_carcharorion geirau_)--which is just what one would +say, under a stress of inspiration, about the truths of the +Secret Wisdom;--and they shall not be found, he says,--they shall +be sought in vain,--until the _Maban Huan,_ the 'Child of the +Sun,' shall come. The whole poem is exceedingly obscure; a +hundred years ago, the wise men of Wales took it as meaning much +what I think it means: the passing of the real wisdom of the +Mysteries,--of Neo-druidism,--away from the world and the +knowledge of men, to a secret place where the Woodmen, the +Black-robed, could not find to destroy it;--until, after ages, +a Leader of the Hosts of Light should come--you see it is +here Cadwaladr, but Cadwaladr simply means 'Battle-Leader,' +--and the age-old battle between light and darkness, Arthur +and Modred, should be fought again, and this time won, and +the Mysteries re-established.--If I have succeeded in conveying +to you anything of the atmosphere of this poem, I have given +you more or less that of most of the poetry attributed to +this period; there is a large mass of it: some of the poems, +like the long _Gododin_ of Aneurin, merely telling of battles; +others, like the splendid elegies of Llywarch Hen, being +laments,--but with a marvelous haughty uplift to them; and +others again, those attributed to Taliesin, strewn here and +there with passages that . . . move me strangely . . . and +remind me (to borrow a leaf from the Imagists) of a shower +of diamonds struck from some great rock of it; and of a +sunset over purple mountains; and of the Mysteries of Antiquity; +and of the Divine Human Soul. Much of this poetry is unintelligible; +much of it undoubtedly of far later origin; and the names of +Taliesin and Myrddin, all through the centuries spells for +Celts to conjure with, are now the laughing-stock of a brand-new +scholarship that has tidied them up into limbo in the usual +way. It is what happens when you treat poetry with the brain-mind, +instead of with the creative imagination God gave you to treat +it with: when you dissect it, instead of feeding your soul +with it. But this much is true, I think: out of this poetry, +the occasional intelligible flashes of it, rings out a much +greater note than any I know of in our Welsh literature since: +a sense of much profounder, much less provincial things: the +Grand Manner,--of which we have had echoes since, in the long +centuries of our provincialism; but only I think echoes; +--but you shall find something more than echoes of it, say +in Llywarch Hen, in a sense of heroic uplift, of the titanic +unconquerableness that is in the Soul;--and in Taliesin, in a +sense of the wizardly all-pervadingness of that Soul in space +and time: + + "I know the imagination of the oak-trees." + + "Not of father and mother, + When I became, + My creator created me; + But of nine-formed faculties, + Of the Fruit of fruits, + Of the fruit of primordial God; + Of primroses and mountain flowers, + Of the blooms of trees and shrubs, + Of Earth, of an earthly course, + When I became,-- + Of the blooms of the nettle, + Of the foam of the Ninth Wave. + I was enchanted by Math + Before I became immortal. + I was enchanted by Gwydion, + The purifier of Brython, + Of Eurwys, of Euron, + Of Euron, of Modron,-- + Of Five Battalions of Initiates, + High Teachers, the children of Math." + +--Now Math--he was a famous wizard of old--means 'sort,' 'kind'; +and so implies such ideas as 'differentiation,' 'heterogeneity.' +To say that you were enchanted by Math before you became +immortal, is as much as to say that before the great illumination, +the initiation, one is under the sway of this illusionary world +of separatenesses;--as for being 'enchanted by Gwydion,' that +name is, I suppose, etymologically the same as the Sanskrit +_Vidya,_ or _Budha;_ he is the 'Purifier' of those 'Five +Battalions of--_'Celfyddon,'_ the word is 'artists,' 'skillful +ones'; but again I imagine, it is connected with the word +_Celi,_ 'occult' or 'secret'; so that being 'enchanted by' him +would mean simply, being initiated into the Occult Wisdom. It is +difficult for a student of symbolism not to believe that there +were Theosophical activities in fifth- and sixth-century Britain. + +Another glimpse of the feeling of the age you get in the two +oldest Arthurian romances: _The Dream of Rhonobwy,_ and _Culhwch +and Olwen._ They were written, in the form in which we have +them, not until the last centuries of Welsh independence,--when +there was another national illumination; and indeed all the +literature of this early time comes to us through the bards of +the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They transmitted it; +wrote it down; added to and took away from it; altered it: a +purely brain-mind scholarship might satisfy itself that they +invented it; but criticism, to be of any use at all, must be +endowed with a certain delicacy and intuition; it must rely on +better tools than the brain-mind. Matthew Arnold, who had such +qualifications, compared the work of the later bards to peasants' +huts built on and of the ruins of Ephesus; and it is still +easier for us, with the light Theosophy throws on all such +subjects, to see the greater and more ancient work through the +less and later. I shall venture to quote from _Culhwch and +Olwen:_ a passage that some of you may know very well already. +Culhwch the son of Cilydd the son of the Prince of Celyddon rides +out to seek the help of Arthur: + +"And the youth pricked forth upon a steed with head dappled gray, +of four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed hoofs, +having a bridle of linked gold on his head, and upon him a saddle +of costly gold. In his hands were two spears of silver, sharp, +well-tempered, headed with steel, three ells in length, of an +edge to wound the wind and cause blood to flow, and that faster +than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of reed-grass upon +the earth when the dew of June is at its heaviest. A gold-hilted +sword was at his side, the blade of which was of gold, bearing a +cross of inlaid gold of the hue of the lightning of heaven; +his war-horn was of ivory. Before him were two brindled +white-breasted greyhounds, having strong collars of rubies about +their necks, reaching from the shoulder to the ear. And the one +that was on the right side bounded across to the left side, and +the one that was on the left to the right, and like two sea-swallows +sported they around him. And his courser cast up four sods with +his four hoofs like four swallows in the air, now above his head +and now below. About him was a four-cornered cloth of purple, +having an apple of gold at each corner; and every one of the +apples was of the value of a hundred kine. And there was +precious gold of the value of three hundred kine upon his shoes +and upon his stirrups, from his knee to the tip of his toe. And +the blade of reed-grass bent not beneath him, as he journeyed +towards the gates of Arthur's palace." + +So far we have the glittering imagination of the twelfth-century +bard; you might think working in a medium not wholly Celtic, but +Norman-influenced as well; imagining his Arthurian Culhwch in +terms of the knights he had seen at the courts of the Lords +Marchers,--were it not that just such descriptions are the +commonplaces of Irish Celticism, where they come from a time and +people that had never seen Norman knights at all. But now you +begin to leave regions where Normans can be remembered or +imagined at all: + +"Spake the youth, 'Is there a porter?'--'There is; and unless +thou holdest thy peace, small will be thy welcome. I am the +porter of Arthur's hall on the first day of January in every +year; and on every other day than this the post is filled by +Huandaw, and Gogigwc, and Llaescenym, and Penpingion who goeth +upon his head to save his feet, neither towards the heavens nor +towards the earth, but like a rolling stone upon the floor of +the court.'--'Open thou the portal.'--'I will not open it.'-- +'Wherefore not?'--'The knife is in the meat and the drink is in +the horn, and there is revelry in Arthur's court; and no man may +enter but a craftsman bearing his craft, or the son of the king +of a privileged country. But there will be refreshment for thy +dogs and for thy horse, and for thee there will be collops cooked +and peppered, and luscious wine and mirthful song,--and food for +fifty men shall be set before thee in the guest chamber, where +the stranger and the sons of other countries eat, who come not +into the precincts of the palace of Arthur. Said the youth, +'That will I not do. If thou openest the portal, it is well. If +thou dost not open it, I will bring disgrace upon thy lord and an +evil report upon thee. And I will set up three shouts at this +very gate, than which none were ever more deadly, from the top of +Pengwaed in Cornwall to the bottom of Dinsol in the North, and to +Esgair Oerfel in Ireland.'--'Whatsoever clamor thou mayest make,' +said Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr, against the rules of Arthur's court +thou shalt not enter until I first go and consult with Arthur.' + +"Then Glewlwyd went into the hall. And Arthur said to him, 'Hast +thou news from the gate?'--Half of my life is past, and half of +thine. I was heretofore in Caer Se and As Se, in Sach and +Salach, in Lotor and Ffotor, in India the Greater and India the +Less. And I was with thee in the Battle of Dau Ynyr, when the +twelve hostages were brought from Norway. And I have also been +in Europe and in Africa and in the islands of Corsica, and in +Caer Brythwch and Brythach and Ferthach; and I was present when +thou didst conquer Greece in the East. And I have have been +in Caer Oeth and Annoeth and Caer Nefenhir: nine supreme +sovereigns, handsome men, saw we there; but never did I behold a +man of equal dignity to him who is now at the door of the +portal.' Then said Arthur:--'If walking thou didst enter here, +return thou running. And everyone that beholds the light, and +everyone that opens and shuts the eye, let him show him respect +and serve him; some with gold-mounted drinking-horns, others +with collops cooked and peppered, until such time as food and +drink can be set before him." + +Culhwch came in, and asked a boon of Arthur; and Arthur answered +that he should receive whatsoever his tongue might name, "as far +as the wind dries and the rain moistens and the sun revolves and +the sea encircles and the earth extends; save only my ship and +my mantle, and Caledfwlch my sword, and Rhongomiant my lance, and +Wynebgwrthucher my shield, and Carnwenhau my dagger and Gwen +Hwyfar my wife. By the truth of heaven thou shalt receive it +cheerfully, name what thou wilt." So Culhwch made his request;-- +and it is really here that the ancient ages come trooping in:-- + +"I crave of thee that thou obtain for me Olwen the daughter of +Yspaddaden Head of Giants; and this boon I seek likewise at the +hands of thy warriors. I seek it from Cai, and Bedwyr, and +Greidawl Galldonyd, and Greid the son of Eri, and Cynddelig +Cyfarwvdd, and Tathal Cheat-the-Light, and Maelwys the son of +Baeddan, and"--well, there are hundreds of them; but I must +positively give you a few; they are all, it is likely, the +denizens of ancient Celtic God-worlds and fairy-worlds and +goblin-worlds,--"and Duach and Grathach and Nerthach the sons of +Gwawrddur Cyrfach (these men came forth from the confines of +hell); and Huell the son of Caw (he never yet made a request at +the hands of any lord.) And Taliesin the Chief of Bards, and +Manawyddan son of the Boundless, and Cormorant the son of Beauty +(no one struck him in the Battle of Camlan by reason of his +ugliness; all thought he was an auxiliary devil. Hair had he +upon him like the hair of a stag). And Sandde Bryd Angel (no one +touched him with a spear in the Battle of Camlan by reason of his +beauty; all thought he was a ministering angel). And Cynwyl +Sant (the third man who escaped from the Battle of Camlan; and +he was the last that parted from Authur upon Henrtoen his horse). +And Henwas the Winged the son of Erim; (unto these three men +belonged these three peculiarities: with Henbedestyr there was +not anyone that could keep pace, either on horseback or on foot; +with Henwas Adeiniog no fourfooted beast could run the distance +of an acre, much less could it go beyond it; and as to Sgilti +Ysgawndroed, when he intended to go on a message for his lord, he +never sought to find a path, but knowing whither he was to go, if +his way led through a wood he went along the tops of the trees. +During his whole life a blade of grass bent not beneath his feet, +much less did it break, so light was his tread.) Teithi Hen the +son of Gwynhan (his dominions were swallowed by the sea, and he +himself barely escaped, and he came to Arthur; and his knife had +this peculiarity: from the time he came there no haft would ever +remain on it; and owing to this a sickness came on him, and he +pined away during the remainder of his life, and of this he +died.) Drem the son of Dremidyd (when the gnat arose in the +morning with the sun, Drem could see it from Gelli Wis in +Cornwall as far off as Pen Blathaon in North Britain.) And Eidol +the son of Ner, and Glwyddyn Saer (who built Ehangwen, Arthur's +hall.) Henwas and Henwyneb, (an old companion unto Arthur). +Gwallgoyc another. (When he came to a town, though there were +three hundred houses in it, if he wanted anything, he would let +sleep come to the eyes of no man until he had it.) Osla +Gyllellfawr (he bore a short broad dagger. When Arthur and his +hosts came before a torrent, they would seek a narrow place where +they might cross the water, and lay the sheathed dagger across +the torrent, and it would be a bridge enough for the armies of +the Three Islands of the Mighty and the three islands near +thereby, with all their spoils.) The sons of Llwch Llawyniog +from beyond the raging sea. Celi and Cueli and Gilla Coes Hydd, +(who could clear three hundred acres at a bound: the chief +leaper of Ireland was he). Sol and Gwadyn Ossol and Gwadyn +Odyeith. (Sol could stand all day upon one foot. Gwadyn Ossol, +if he stood upon the top of the highest mountain in the world, it +would become a level plain under his feet. Gwadyn Odyeith,--the +soles of his feet emitted sparks when they struck upon things +hard, like the heated mass drawn out of the forge. He cleared +the way for Arthur when they came to any stoppage.) Hireerwm and +Hiratrwm (the day they went upon a visit three cantref provided +for their entertainment, and they feasted until noon and drank +until night and they they devoured the heads of vermin as if they +had never eaten anything in their lives. When they made a visit +they left neither the fat not the lean, the hot nor the cold, the +sour nor the sweet, the fresh not the salt, the boiled nor the +raw.) Huarwar the son of Aflawn (who asked Arthur such a boon as +would satisfy him; it was the third great plague of Cornwall +when he received it. None could get a smile from him but when he +was satisfied.) Sugyn the sone of Sugnedydd (who could suck up +the sea on which there were three hundred ships, so broad-chested +he was). Uchtryd Faryf Draws (who spread his red untrimmed beard +over the eight-and-forty rafters that were in Arthur's hall). +Bwlch and Cyfwlch and Sefwlch the three sons of Cleddyf Cyfwlch, +the three grandsons of Cleddyf Difwlch. (Their three shields +were three gleaming glitterers. Their three spears were three +pointed piercers. Their three swords were three griding +gashers,--Gles, and Glessic, and Gleisad.) Clust the son of +Clustfeinad; (though he were buried seven cubits beneath the +earth, he would hear the ant fifty miles off rise from her nest +in the norning). Medyr the son of Methredydd; (from Belli Wic +he could in a twinkling")-- + +Well; one must stop somewhere; Culhwch himself was in no hurry +to. He went on until the armies of the Island of the Mighty and +the chief ladies of Arthur's court, with all their peculiarities, +had been enumerated. But here, I say, you are let into an elder +world; beyond this one in space, beyond it in time. You are on +the precipice edge of the world's end, and mist fills the chasm +before you; and out of the mist, things vast and gigantic, +things half human and things not half human, present themselves, +stirring your wonder, and withdraw leaving your imagination +athirst. "These men came forth from the confines of hell" .... +Who wrote of them had news, I think, of terrific doings in +Atlantis, when earth shook to the tread of giant hosts. I +confess that to me all things European, after this, look a little +neat and dapper. I look from the cliffs at the limit of things, +out over + + .....the sunset bound of Lyonnesse, + A land of old upheaven from the abyss + By fire, to sink into the abyss again; + Where fragments of forgotten people dwelt: + +--it is not in this world; belongs not to this Fifth Race; but +is more ancient, fantasmal, and portentous. + +Has it ever occurred to you that no body of men, no movement, no +nation for that matter, can choose for itself a symbol that does +not actually express it? The flags of the nations are all, for +those that can read them, the sign manuals of the souls of the +nations, wherein the status of each is written plain; though +those that chose the symbol, and those that glory in it, may have +no idea how they are thus revealing or exposing themselves.--No, +I am not going to speak of the Dragon; which, by all traditions, +was the symbol chosen for the monarchy set up by the fifth-century +Britons; nor to remind you--and yet it is worth remembering,-- +that the Dragon is the symbol of the Esoteric Wisdom;--I am +going to speak of something else.--You take some form, some +picture; and it seems to you in some inexplicable way inspiring; +and you adopt it, and say _In hoc signo vincam._ Why? You +know nothing about symbolism; and yet, if you have any inner +life, those who understand symbolism can read your inner +life in you symbol. That is because symbolism is a universal +science, real, and with nothing arbitrary about it; and because +something in your subconsciousness wiser than you has directed +you choice, and means you to be expressed. + +Take one of the most universal symbols of all: the Cross. In one +form or another we find it all over the world. In ancient Egypt, +where it is called the _Ankh,_ and is drawn as a capital T with a +circle above. There it symbolizes life in the largest sense. +The circle above stands for Spirit; the Tau or cross below, for +matter: thus it pictures the two in their true relation the one +to the other.--The Christian Church, as it grew up in the last +centuries of the Roman empire, chose for itself a symbol,--in +which Constantine went forth to conquer. It was the four limbs +of the cross: simply the symbol of Matter. + +But somehow, the Christian Church in the Celtic Isles did not +adopt this symbol, or rather this form of it. It took what is +called the Celtic Cross: the Cross, which is matter, with the +Circle, which is Spirit, imposed over the upper part of it. Now +if you brought a man from India, or China, or anywhere, who knew +nothing about European history or Christianity, but understood +the ancient science of symbolism; and showed him these two +crosses, the Celtic and the Latin; he would tell you at once +that the one, the Latin, stood for a movement wholly unspiritual; +and that the other, the Celtic, stood for a movement with some +spiritual light in it. How much, I am not prepared to say. + +One of the chief formative forces in Christian theology was Saint +Augustine of Hippo, born in 354, died in 430. He taught that man +was Originally sinful, naturally depraved; and that no effort of +his own will could make him otherwise: all depended on the Grace +of God, something from without, absolutely beyond control of +volition. Then rose up a Welshman by the name of Morgan,--or he +may have been an Irishman; some say so; only Morgan is a Welsh, +not an Irish name; and evidence is lacking that there were Irish +Christians at that time; he was a Celt, 'whatever';--and went to +Rome, teaching and preaching. His doctrine was that man is not +originally sinful and naturally depraved; he had the temerity to +declare that pagans, especially those who had never heard of +Christianity, were not by God's ineffable mercy damned to +everlasting hell; that unbaptized infants were not destined to +frizzle eternally; that what a man ought to do, that he had the +power, within his own being, to do; and that his salvation lay +in his own hands. They translated his Welsh name (which means +'Sea-born') into the Greek--Pelagius; and dubbed his damnable +heresy 'Pelagianism'; and it was a heresy that flourished a good +deal in the Celtic Isles;--his writings came down in Ireland. +The incident is not much in itself; but something. Not that the +Celtic Church of David and Patrick was Pelagian; it was not. In +the matter of doctrine it is impossible to distinguish it from +the Church on the continent. But Pelagianism may suggest that +there were in Britain relics of an elder light. + +Did some echo of ancient wisdom, Druidic, survive in Britain from +Pre-roman days? It is a question that has been much fought over; +and one that, nowadays, the learned among my countrymen answer +very rabidly in the negative. You have but to propound it in a +whisper, to make them foam heartily at the mouth. Bless you, +they know that it didn't, and can prove it over and over; +because--because--it couldn't have, and you are a fool for +thinking it could. Here is the position taken by modern +scholarship (as a rule): we know nothing about the philosophy of +the Druids, and do not believe they had one. They could not have +had one; and the classical writers who said they had simply knew +nothing about it. It may be useful to quote what some of these +classical writers say. + +"They (the Druids) speak the language of the Gods," says Diodorus +Siculus (v, 31, 4); who describes them also as "exhorting +combatants to peace, and taming them like wild beasts by +enchantment" (v, 31, 5). They taught men, says Diogenes +Laertius, "to worship the Gods, to do no evil, and to exercise +courage" (6). They taught "many things regarding the stars and +their motions, the extent of the universe and the earth, and the +nature of things, and the power and might of the immortal Gods," +says Caesar (iv, 14.); and Strabo speaks of their teaching in +moral science (iv, 4, 4). "And ye, ye Druids," says Lucan, "to +you only is given knowledge or ignorance (whichever it be) of the +Gods and the powers of heaven. . . . From you we learn that the +borne of man's ghost is not the senseless grave, not the pale +realm of the monarch below." (i, 451 sq,) "The Druids wish to +impress this in particular: that souls do not perish, but pass +from one to another after death." (Caesar, iv, 14) Diodorus +testifies that "among them the doctrine of Pythagoras prevailed, +that the souls of men are immortal, and after completing their +term of existence, live again, the soul passing into another +body" (v, 28). Says Valerius Maximus: "They would fain make us +believe that the souls of men are immortal. I would be tempted +to call these breeches-warers fools, if their doctrine were not +the same as that of the mantle-clad Pythagoras"; and he goes on +to speak of the Celtic custom of lending money to be repaid in a +future life (vi, 6, 10). Timagenes, Strabo, and mela also bear +witness to their teaching the immortality of the soul. + +I may say at once that I copy all these quotations from a book +written largely to prove that the Druids were savage medicine-men +with no philosophy at all: it is, _The Religion of the Ancient +Celts,_ by Canon MacCulloch. The argument used by this learned +divine is very simple. The Druids were savage medicine-men, +and could have known nothing about Pythagoras' teachings or +Pythagoras himself. Therefore they didn't. All the classical +writers were exaggerating, or inventing, or copying from one +another.--It never occurs to our Canon to remember Iamblichus' +statement that the Druids did not borrow or learn from Pythagoras, +but Pythagoras from them. He quotes with no sign of doubt +the things said by the classical writers about barbaric Druid +rites; never dreaming that in respect to these there may +have been invention, exaggeration, or copying one from another-- +and that other chiefly the gentle Julius who--but I have +mentioned _his_ exploit before. + +Holding to such firm preconceptions as these,--and being in +total ignorance of the fact that the Esoteric Wisdom was once +universal, and therefore naturally the same with Pythagoras as +with anyone else who had not lost it, whether he and the Druids +had ever heard of each other or not,--it becomes quite easy for +my learned countryment to scout the idea that any such doctrine +or system could have survived among the Britons until the fifth +century, and revived then. Yet Nennius, by the way, asserts that +Vortigern (the king who called in the Saxons) had 'Magi' with +him; which word in the Irish text appears as 'Druids': and +Canon MacCulloch himself speaks of this as evidence of a +recrudescence of Druidism at that time. + +With those quotations from the classical writers in view--if +with nothing else,--I think we may call Reincarnation.... the +characteristic doctrine of Druidism. It so appeared to the +Romans; it was that doctrine, which with themselves had been +obscured by skepticism, worldliness, and the outwornness of their +spiritual perceptions, that struck them as the most noteworthy, +most surprising thing in Druidic teaching. It stood in sharp +contrast, too, with the beliefs of Christianity; so that, +supposing it, and the system that taught it, had died during the +Roman occupation of Britain, there really was nowhere from +which it might have been regained. Wales has been, until +very recently, extraordinarily cut off from the currents of +civilization and world-thought. She has dwelt aloof among her +mountains, satisfied with an interesting but exceedingly narrow +little culture of her own. You might almost say that from the +time the Romans left Britain there was no channel through which +ideas might flow in to her; and this idea, especially, was +hardly in Europe to flow in. And yet this idea has curiously +persisted in Wales, as a tradition among the unlettered, even to +our own day. Dr. Evans-Wentz, of Berkeley, Oxford, and Rennes +Universities, in this present twentieth century, found old people +among the peasantry who knew something about it, had heard of it +from their elders; there was nothing new or unfamiliar about it +to them; and this though nearly all Welsh folklore, even belief +in the fairies, almost suffered extinction during the Religious +Revivals of the eighteenth century and since. They say the +chapels frightened the fairies out of Wales; it is not quite +true; but you can understand how wave after wave of fervid +Calvinism would have dealt with a tradition like that of +Reincarnation. And yet echoes of it linger, and Dr. Wentz found +them. I myself remember hearing of a servant-girl from the +mountains to whom her mistress (from whom I heard it) introduced +the subject. The girl expressed no surprise whatever: indeed to +goodness she shouldn' wonder, so there; her father was a druid, +miss, indeed and had told her about it when she was a child. + +We have collateral evidence,--in Nennius, I believe,--for the +existence of several famed poets among the Welsh at that time; +and Tallesin' is one of the names mentioned. Seventy-seven poems +come down ascribed to him: I quoted some lines from one of them; +here now are some line from another. The child Taliesin is +discovered in the court of Maelgwr Gwynedd, where he has +confounded the bards with his magic; and is called forth to +explain himself. He does so in the following verses: + + Primary Chief Bard am I to Elphin, + And my original country is the Region of the Summer Stars; + Idno and Heinin called me Merddin; + At length every being shall call me Taliesin. + + I was with my Lord in the highest sphere + When Lucifer fell into the depths of hell; + I have borne a banner before Alexander; + I know the names of the stars from north to south. + + I was in Canaan when Absalom was slain; + I was in the Court of Don (the Milky Way) before the birth + of Gwydion; + I was on the high cross of the merciful Son of God; + I have been three periods in the prison of Arianrhod. + + I was in Asia with Noah in the Ark; + I saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; + I was in India when Rome was built; + I am now come here to the remnant of the Trojans. + + I was with my Lord in the ass's manger; + I strengthened Moses through the waters of Jordan; + I was in the firmament from the Cauldron of Ceridwen + I shall be on earth until the day of doom. * + +------ +* I quote it from Mr. T.W. Rollestone's _Myths and Legends of the +Celtic Race._ The poem appeares in the _Hanes Taliesin,_ in Lady +Guest's _Mabinogion._ +------ + +Now, what would common sense have to say about things like that? +Simply, I think, that they are echoes that came down in Wales +through the ages, of a teaching that once was known. They do +not,--they would not,--no one would expect them to,--give the +true and exact features and the inwardness of such teaching, but +they do reflect the haunting reminiscences of a race that once +believed in Reincarnation so firmly, that people were ready to +lend money not to be repaid until a future life on earth. If you +can prove that that poem not written until the thirteenth, or +sixteenth, or eighteenth century, all the better; it only shows +the greater strength, the longer endurance, of the tradition; +and therefore, the greater reality of that from which the +tradition came. It is the ghost of something which once was +living; and the longer you can show the ghost surviving,--the +more living in its day was the something it survived from. Your +Tamerlanes and Malek Rics can be used to frighten babies for +centures;--their ghosts walk in that sense; their memories +linger;--but your Tomlinsons die and are done with, and no wind +carries rumors of them after. + +And the name of Taliesin,--whom you may say we know to have been +a Welsh poet of the sixth century,--is made the peg on which to +hang these floating reminiscences of Druidic teaching;--and the +story told about him,--a story replete with universal symbolism, +--is, for anyone who has studied that science, clearly symbolic +of the initiation of a Teacher of the Secret Doctrine. + +What is it accounts for race-persistence? _Not_ just what you +see on the physical plane. There is what we should call an +astral mold; and this is fed and nourished,--its edges kept +firm and distinct,--by forces from the plane of causes, the +thought-plane. When this mold has been well established,--as by +centuries of national greatness and power,--all sorts of waves of +outer circumstance may roll over the race, and apparently wash +its raciality clean away; and yet something in the unseen +operates to resist, and, when the waves recede, to raise up first +the old race-consciousness, and finally national existence again. +Take Ireland for example. It has been over-run and over-run so +much that many authorities would deny the existence of any Celtic +blood there at all. But what is absolutely undeniable is that a +distinct and well-defined racial type exists there; and that it +corresponds largely to the racial type--I do not mean physical so +much as spiritual,--that the Greek and Roman writers ascribed to +the Celtic Gauls. It is often claimed that an Irishman is merely +an inferior kind of Englishman, and that there is little +difference in blood between the two; but those who make this +claim most loudly would not dream of denying the difference of +the mental types; they are generally the ones who see most +difference. Why was it that the children of the Norman invaders +of Ireland became _Hiberniores ipsis Hiberniis?_ Because of the +astral mold, certainly. It is race-consciousness that makes +race, and not the other way; and there is something behind that +makes race-consciousness; so that even where calamity has +smashed up the latter and put it altogether in abeyance, the +seeds of it remain, in the soil and on the inner planes, to +sprout again in their day; when the Crest-Wave rolls in; when +Souls come to revive them. It may be that this will never +happen, of course; but it seems to me that where Nature wishes +to put an end to these racial recrudescences, she must take +strong steps. + +Though the British Celts had been under Roman rule for four +centuries, their language today is Celtic.--Why?--Because there +was what you may call a very old, well-established and strong +Celtic-speaking astral mold. We absorbed a large number of Latin +words; but assimilated them to the Celtic mold so that you would +never recognise them; whereas in a page of English the Latin +borrowings stand out by the score. Look at that _ascend,_ for +instance: Latin _ascendere_ parading itself naked and unashamed, +and making no pretense whatever to be anything else. You shall +find _ascendere,_ too, on any page of Welsh; or rather, you +shall not find him, by reason of his skillful camouflage. He has +cut off his train, as in English; but he has cut off more of it: +the _d_ of the stem, as well as the ending. He has altered both +his vowels, and one of his three remaining consonants; and +appears as _esgyn,_ to walk the pages undetected for an alien by +that vigilant police, the Celtic sense of euphony. He is typical +of a thousand others. Wherefore the difference?--The English +were a new people in process of formation, and besides with a +whole heap of Latin blood in them from the Roman province; their +mold was faintly formed, or only forming; but the Celts had +formed theirs rigidly in ancient times. + +Again: when in the ninth century Hywel Dda king of Wales +codified the laws of his country, the result was a Celtic code +without, I think, any relation to Roman law; though Roman law +had prevailed in Roman Britain for three centuries or so. What +strong Celtic molds must have persisted, to cause this! Roman +law imposed itself on nearly all Europe, including many peoples +that never were under Roman rule; and yet here was this people, +that had been all that time under the Romans, oblivious of Roman +law, uninfluenced by it, practically speaking;--and returning at +the first opportunity to the kind of laws they had had before the +Romans were born or thought of. + +Druidism had been proscribed, as a practice, during Roman times. +The worship of the Celtic Gods had continued; but they had been +assimilated to those of the empire;--which would be a much more +difficult thing to do were the Gods, as your modern learned +suppose, mere fictions of the superstitious, and not the symbols +of, or the Powers behind, the forces of Nature. So Celtic +religion outwardly was submerged in Roman religion; and then +later. Christianity came in. But the science, the institutions, +and the philosophy of the Druids had been part and parcel of the +inner life of the race perhaps as long as their laws and language +had; and your Celt runs by nature to religion, or even to +religiosity,--ultra-religion. Is it likely that, while he kept +his laws and language, he let his religion go? And when it was +not an arbitrary farrago of dogmas, like some we might mention; +but a philosophy of the soul so vivid that he counted death +little more to fuss about than going to sleep? + +When should those old ideas have reappeared,--when should the +racial astral molds have been brought out and furbished up with +new strength to make them endure? Why, when the Roman dominion +came to an end; when the people were turning for inspiration to +their own things, and away from Latin things; when they were +forgoing Latin for Celtic; reviving Celtic laws and customs; +trying to forget they had been subjected to foreigners, and to +remember and resurrect the old Monarchy of Britain. Christianity +would not give them all the difference from Romanism that they +wanted,--that the most ardent among them wanted: the Romans were +Christians too;--but there was that other ancient thing which the +Romans had proscribed. It still existed, in Ireland for example; +and for that matter, there were plenty of places in Britain where +the Roman arm could never have reached it. Matthew Arnold saw +these things in his day, and argued for the Neo-druidism of the +sixth century. He was a man accustomed to deal in ideas. You +may easily train your mind to an acuteness and sagacity in +dealing with grammatical roots, and forms, that will not help you +in dealing with ideas. + +To sum up, then: I believe there was an influx of the Crest-Wave +into Britain, from about 410 to 540: a national awakenment, with +something of greatness to account for the Arthurian legend; and +with something of spiritual illumination, through a revival of +Druidic Wisdom to account for the rumor of Taliesin. I am not +sure but that this influenced the Celtic Church: I am not sure +but that David, and Cadoc, and Teilo, and Padarn, fathers of that +church, were men pervious to higher influences; and that the +monastery-colleges they presided over were real seats of lerning, +unopposed to, if not in league with, the light. + + + + +XXVI. "SACRED IERNE OF THE HIBERNIANS" * + + + "I could not put the pen aside + Till with my heart's love I had tried + To fashion some poor skilless crown + For that dear head so low bowed down." + --From the Celtic + + +It is but a step from Wales to Ireland. From the one, you can +see the "fair hills of holy Ireland" in the heart of any decent +sunset; from the other, you can see Wales shining landed in in +any shining dawn. No Roman legion ever landed in Ireland; yet +all through Roman times boats must have been slipping across and +across; there must have been constant communication, and there +was, really, no distinction of race. There was a time, I +believe, when they were joined, one island; and all the seas +were east of the Severn. Both peoples were a mixture of Gaels +and Cymry; only it happens that the Gaelic or Q language survived +in Ireland; the Cymric or P language in Wales. So, having +touched upon Wales last week, and shown the Crest-Wave flowing in +there, this week, following that Wave westward, + + I invoke the land of Ireland! + Shining, shining sea! + Fertile, fertile mountain! + Gladed, gladed wood! + Abundant river, abundant in water! + Fish-abounding lake! + + It was what Amargin the Druid sang, when the Gael first came +into Ireland. Here is the story of their coming:-- + +------ +* The stories told in this and the following lecture, and the +translations of Irish poems, etc., are taken from Mr. T.W. +Rollertone's delightful _Myths and Legends of the Celtic +Race,_ or from M. de Jubainville's _Irish Mythological Cycle,_ +translated and published in Dublin in the 'nineties. +------ + +Bregon built a tower in Spain. He had a son named Ith; and one +fine evening in winter Ith was looking out over the horizon from +Bregon's tower, and saw the coast of Ireland in the distance; +for "it is on a winter's evening when the air is pure that one's +sight carries farthest." So says the eleventh century bard who +tells the tale: he without knowing then that it was not in Spain +was Bregon's tower, but on the Great Plain, which is in the +Atlantic, and yet not in this world at all. Now this will tell +you what you ought to know about Ireland, and why it is we end +our lectures with her. We saw Wales near the border of things; +looking out from that cliff's edge on to the unknown and unseen, +and aware of mysterious things beyond. Now we shall see Ireland, +westward again, down where the little waves run in and tumble; +sunlit waves along shining sands; and with boats putting out at +any time; and indeed, so lively an intercourse going forward +always, that you never can be quite sure whether it is in mortal +Ireland or immortal Fairyland you are,-- + + "So your soul goes straying in a land more fair; + Half you tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there." + +For the wonder of Ireland is, that it is the West Pole of things; +there is no place else nearer the Unseen; its next-door +neighbor-land westward is this Great Plain, whither sail the +Happy Dead in their night-dark coracles,--to return, of course, +in due season; and all the peoplings of Ireland were from this +Great Plain. So you see why the Crest-Wave, passing from dying +Europe, "went west" by way of Ireland. + +I will tell you about that Great Plain: it is + +"A marvelous land, full of music, where primrose blossoms on the +hair, and the body is white as snow. + +"There none speaks of _mine and thine;_ white are the teeth and +black the brows; eyes flash with many-colored lights, and the +hue of the fox-glove is on every cheek. . . . + +"Though fair are the plains of Ireland, few of them are so fair +as the Great Plain. The ale of Ireland is heady, but headier far +the ale of the Great Country. What a wonder of a land it is! +No youth there grows to old age. Warm streams flow through +it; the choicest mead and wine. Men there are always comely +and blemishless." + +Well; Ith set sail from the Great Plain, with three times thirty +warriors, and landed at Corcaguiney in the south-west of Ireland; +and at that time the island inhabited less by men than by Gods; +it was the Tuatha De Danaan, the Race of the Danaan Gods, that +held the kingship there. Little wonder, then, that the first +name of Ireland we get in the Greek writings is "Sacred Ierne, +populous with the Hibernians." + +Well now, he found MacCuill, MacCecht, and MacGrene the Son of +the Sun, arranging to divide the kingdom between them; and they +called on him to settle how the division should be.--"Act," said +he, "according to the laws of justice, for the country you dwell +in is a good one; it is rich in fruit and honey, in wheat and in +fish; and in heat and cold it is temperate." From that they +thought he would be designing to conquer it from them, and so +forestalled his designs by killing him; but his companions +escaped, and sailed back to the Great Plain. That was why the +Milesians came to conquer Ireland. The chiefs of them were Eber +Finn, and Eber Donn, and Eremon, and Amargin the Druid: the +sons of Mile, the son of Bile the son of Bregon; thus their +grandfather was the brother of that Ith whom the Gods of +Ireland slew. + +It was on a Thursday, the first of May, and the seventeenth day +of the moon, that the Milesians arrived in Ireland; and as he +set his right foot on the soil of it, Amargin chanted this poem: + + I am the wave of the Ocean; + I am the murmur of the billow; + I am the ox of the seven combats; + I am the vuture upon the rock; + I am a tear of the sun; + I am the fairest of plants; + I am a wild boar in valor; + I am a salmon in the water; + I am a lake in the plain; + I am a word of science; + I am the spear-point that gives battle; + I am the god who creates in the head the fire of thought. + Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain, + if not I? + Who telleth the ages of the moon, if not I? + Who showeth the place where the sun goes to rest? + +They went forward to Tara, and summoned the kings of the Danaan +Gods to give up the island to them; who asked three days to +consider whether they would give battle, or surrender, or quit +Ireland. On that request Amargin gave judgment: that it would +be wrong for the Milesians to take the Gods unprepared that way; +and that they should go to their ships again, and sail out the +distance of nine waves from the shore, and then return; then if +they could conquer Ireland fairly in battle, it should be theirs. + +So they embarked, and put the nine waves between themselves and +the shore, and waited. And the Danaans raised up a druid mist +and a storm against them, whereby Ireland seemed to them no more +than the size of a pig's back in the water; and by reason of +that it has the name of Innis na Wic, the Island of the Pig. But +if the Gods had magic, Amargin had better magic; and he sang +that Invocation to the Land of Ireland; and at that the storm +fell and the mist vanished. Then Eber Donn was exulting in his +rage at the thought of putting the inhabitants to death; but the +thought in his mind brought the storm again, and his ship went +down, and he was drowned. But at last the remnant of them +landed, and fought a battle with the Gods, and defeated them; +whereafter the Gods put a druid invisibility on themselves, and +retired into the hills; and there in their fairy palaces they +remain to this day; indeed they do. They went back into the +inwardness of things; whence, however, they were always +appearing, and again vanishing into it; and all the old +literature of Ireland is thridded through with the lights of +their magic and their beauty, and their strange forthcomings and +withdrawings. For example: + +There was Midir the Proud, one of them. In the time of the great +Caesar, Eochaid Airem was high king of Ireland; and he had for +his queen Etain, reborn then as a mortal,--but a Danaan princess +at one time, and the wife of Miidir. It was a fine evening in +the summer, and Eochaid Airem was looking from the walls of Tara +and admiring the beauty of the world. He saw an unknown warrior +riding towards him; clad in purple tunic; his hair yellow as +gold, and his blue eyes shining like candles. A five-pointed +lance was in his hand; his shield was ornamented with beads +of gold. + +--"A hundred thousand welcomes to you," said the high king. "Who +is it you are?" + +--"I know well who you are," said the warrior, "and for a long +time." + +--"What name is on you?" said Eochaid. + +--"Nothing illustrious about it in the world," said the other. "I +am Midir of Bregleith." + +--"What has brought you hither?" + +--"I am come to play at chess with you." + +--"I have great skill at chess," said the high king; and indeed, +he was the best at it in Ireland, in those days. + +--"We shall see about that," said Midir. + +--"But the queen is sleeping in her chamber now," said Eochaid; +"and it is there the chessboard is." + +--"Little matter," said Midir, "I have here a board as good as +yours is." + +And that was the truth. His chessboard was of silver, glittering +with precious stones at each corner. From a satchel wrought of +shining metal he took his chessmen, which were of pure gold. +Then he arranged them on the board.--"Play you," said he. + +--"I will not play without a stake," said the king. + +--"What will the stake be?" said Midir. + +--"All one to me," said Eochaid. + +--"If you win," said Midir, "I will give you fifty broad-chested +horses with slim swift feet." + +--"And if you win," said Eochaid Airem, sure of victory, "I will +give you whatever you demand." + +Midir won that game, and demanded Etain the queen. But the rules +of chess are that the vanquished may claim his revenge,--a second +game, that is, to decide the matter; and the high king proposed +that it should be played at the end of a year. Midir agreed, +and vanished. + +The year ended, and Eochaid was at Tara; he had had the palace +surrounded by a great armed host against Midir; and Etain was +there with him. Here is the description of Etain: + +"A clear comb of silver was held in her hand, the comb was +adorned with gold; and near her, as for washing, was a basin of +silver whereon four birds had been chased, and there were little +bright gems of carbuncles on the rim of the basin. A bright +purple mantle waved round her; and beneath it another mantle +with fringes of silver: the outer one clasped over her bosom +with a golden brooch. A tunic she wore, with a long hood that +might cover her head attached to it; it was stiff and glossy +with green silk beneath red embroidery of gold, and clasped over +her breast with marvelously wrought clasps of gold and silver, so +that men saw the bright gold and the green silk flashing against +the sun. On her head were two tresses of golden hair, and each +tress plaited into four strands, and at the end of each strand a +little ball of gold. Each of her two arms was as white as the +snow of a single night, and each of her two cheeks of the hue of +the foxglove. Even and small the teeth in her head, and they +shone like pearls. Her eyes were blue as the blue hyacinth, her +lips delicate and crimson. . . . White as snow, or the foam of +the wave, was her neck. . . . Her feet were slim and white as the +ocean foam; evenly set were her eyes, and the eyebrows of a +bluish black, such as you see on the shell of a beetle." + +--What I call on you to note about that is something very +unpoetic. It is not the flashing brightness, the grace, the +evidence of an eye craving for beauty, and of a hand sure in the +creation of beauty;--but the dress. The Irish writers got these +ideas of dress without having contacted, for example, classical +civilization, or any foreign civilization. The ideas were +home-grown, the tradition Irish. The writer was describing what +he was familiar with: the kind of dress worn by an Irish princess +before Ireland had seen foreign fashions and customs. He was +heightening picture for artistic effect, no doubt; but he was +drawing with his eye on the object. I am inclined to think that +imagination always must work upon a basis of things known; just +as tradition must always be based on fact. Now then: try, +will you, to imagine primitive savages dressing like that, or +sufficiently nearly like that for one of their bards to +work up such a picture on the actualities he had seen. I +think you cannot do it. And this picture is not extraordinary; +it is typical of what we commonly find in the ancient Irish +stories. What it proves is that the Ireland that emerges +into history, war-battered and largely decivilized by long +unsettled conditions as she was, remembered and was the inheiritor +of an Ireland consummately civilized.--But to return to the +hall of Eochaid Airem: + +Every door in it was locked; and the whole place filled with the +cream of the war-host of the Gael, and apprehension on everyone, +they not knowing would it be war and violence with Midir, or what +it would be. So it had been all day; so it was now in the dusk +of the evening. Then suddenly there stood Midir in the midst of +them: Midir the Proud; never had he seemed fairer than then. +No man had seen him enter; none knew how he had come. And then +it was but putting his spear in his left hand for him, and +putting his right arm about the waist of Etain, and rising +through the air with her, and vanishing through the roof. And +when the men of Ireland rushed out from the hall, they saw two +swans circling above Tara and away, their long white necks yoked +together with a yoke of moon-bright silver. + +It was a long time the Gods were ruling in Ireland before the +Milesians came. King after king reigned over them; and there +are stories on stories, a rich literature for another nation, +about the time of these Danaan Gods alone. One of them was Lir, +the Boundless Deep. He had four children by his first wife; +when she died, he married her sister, Aoife by name. Aoife was +jealous of the love he had for his children, and was for killing +them. But when it came to doing it, "her womanhood overcame +her," and instead she put swanhood on the four of them, and the +doom that swans they should be from that out for nine hundred +years: three hundred on Lake Derryvaragh in West Meath, three +hundred on the Straits of Moyle between Ireland and Scotland, +three hundred on the Atlantic by Erris and Innishglory. After +that the enchantment would end. + +For that, Bov Derg, one of the Gods, changed her into a demon of +the air, and she flew away shrieking, and was heard of no more. +But there was no taking the fate from the swan-children; and the +Danaans sought them on their lake, and found they had human +speech left to them, and the gift of wonderful Danaan music. +From all parts they came to the lake to talk with them and to +hear them singing; and that way it was for three hundred years. +Then they must depart, Fionuala and her three brothers, the +swan-children, and wing their way to the northern sea, and be among +the wild cliffs and the foam; and the worst of loneliness and +cold and storm was the best fate there was for them. Their +feathers froze to the rocks on the winter nights; but they +filled the drear chasms of the tempest with their Danaan singing. +It was Fionuala wrapped her plumage about her brothers, to keep +them from the cold; she was their leader, heartening them. And +if it was bad for them on the Straits of Moyle, it was worse on +the Atlantic; three hundred years they were there, and bitter +sorrow the fate on them. + +When their time to be freed was near, they were for flying to the +palace of Lir their father, at the hill of the White Field in +Armagh. But long since the Milesians had come into Ireland, and +the Danaans had passed into the hills and the unseen; and with +the old centuries of their enchantment heavy on them, their eyes +had grown no better than the eyes of mortals: gorse-grown hills +they saw, and green nettles growing, and no sign of the walls and +towers of the palace of Lir. And they heard the bells ringing +from a church, and were frightened at the "thin, dreadful sound." +But afterwards, in their misery, they took refuge with the saint +in the church, and were converted, and joined him in singing the +services. Then, after a while, the swanhood fell from them, and +they became human, with the whole of their nine centuries heavy +on them. "Lay us in one grave," said Fionuala to the saint; +"and place Conn at my right hand, and Fiachra at my left, and Aed +before my face; for there they were wont to be when I sheltered +them many a winter night upon the seas of Moyle." So it was they +were buried; but the saint sorrowed for them till the end of his +days. And there, if you understand it, you have the forgotten +story of Ireland. + +She was once Danaan, and fortunate in the Golden Age. Then she +was enchanted, and fell from her high estate; and sorrow and the +wildness of ages of decivilizing wars were her portion; but +she retained her wonderful Danaan gift of song. Then came +Christianity, and she sang her swan-song in the services of the +Church;--when she had overcome her terror of the ominous sound of +the bells. She became human again: that is, enjoyed one more +period of creative greatness, a faint revival of her old +splendor; and then,--Ah, it was a long time ago; a long time +the hermit had been sorrowing over her grave! But listen, by the +lake of Derryvaragh, on the seas of Moyle, or by Erris and +Innishglory, and you will hear still the ghostly echoes of the +singing of Danaan swans. _Danaan_ swans: music better than of +the world of men! + + O Swan-child, come from the grave, and be bright as you were + of old + When you sing o'er the sun-bright wave in the Danaans' Age + of Gold! + Are you never remembering, darling, the truth that you knew + well then, + That there's nobody dies from the world, asthore, but is + born in the world again. + +It brings me naturally to the place where we take her up in our +history. At the end of the fourth century, "the sea," says the +Roman poet Claudian, "was foamy with the hostile oars of the +Irish." Niall of the Nine Hostages was high king of Tara; and +he was all for a life on the ocean wave and a home on the rolling +deep. He raided the coasts of Britain annually, and any other +coasts that came handy, carrying off captives where he might. +One of these was a boy named Sucat, from Glamorgan: probably +from Glamorgan, though it might have been from anywhere between +the Clyde and the Loire. In time this Sucat escaped from his +Irish slavery, entered the Church, took the Latin name of +Patrick, and made it his business to Christianize Ireland. That +was about the time when the Britons were throwing off the Roman +yoke. He was at the height of his career in the middle of the +fifth century. + +Even if he did not make a clean and bloodless sweep of the whole +country, Patrick was one of the most successful Christian +missionaries that ever preached. There was some opposition by +the druids, but it was not successful. He went to the courts of +the kings, and converted them; and to say you had baptized a +king, was as good as to say you had his whole clan captured; for +it was a fractious unnatural clansman who would not go where his +chieftain led. We are in an atmosphere altogether different from +the rancor and fanaticism of the continent. Patrick,--there must +have been something very winning and kindly about the man,-- +roused no tradition of animosity. He never made Ireland hate her +pagan past. When the Great Age came,--which was not till later, +--not till the Crest-Wave had passed from Wales,--and Christian +Irishmen took to writing down the old legends and stories, they +were very tender to the memories of the Gods and heroes. It was +in pity for the Children of Lir, that were turned into swans, +that they were kept alive long enough to be baptized and sent to +heaven. Can you fancy Latona and her children so received by +Greekish or Latin monks into the Communion of Saints? But the +Irish Church was always finding excuses for the salvation of the +great figures of old. Some saint called up Cuculain from hell, +converted him, and gave him a free pass that Peter at the Gates +should honor. There was Conchobar MacNessa again. He was king +of Ulster in the days of the Red Branch, the grand heroic cycle +of Irish legend; Cuculain was the chief of his warriors. A +brain-ball was driven through the skull of Conchobar from a +sling; but sure, his druid doctors would never be phased by a +trifle like that. They bound up the wound and healed him in a +cauldron of cure; but warned him never to get excited or +over-exert himself, or the brain-ball would come out and he would +die; barring such accidents, he would do splendidly. And so he +did for some years. Then one day a darkness came over the world, +and he put his druids to finding out the cause of it. They told +him they saw in their vision three crosses on a hill in the east +of the world, and three men nailed on them; and the man in the +middle with the likeness of the Son of God. With that the +battle-fury came on Conchobar, and he fell to destroying the +trees of the forest with his sword. "Oh that I were there!" he +cried; "thus would I deal with his enemies." With the excitement +and over-exertion, out came the brain-ball, and he died. And if +God Almighty would not take Conchobar MacNessa, pagan as he was, +into heaven for a thing like that,--sure, God Almighty was not +half such a decent kindly creature as the Irish monk who invented +the yarn. + +So nothing comes down to us that has not passed the censorship of +a race-proud priesthood, with perhaps never a drop of the wine of +true wisdom in them, to help them discriminate and truth to shine +through what they were passing on; but still, with a great deal +of the milk of human kindness as a substitute, so far as it +might be. They treasured the literary remains of druid days; +liberally twisting them, to be sure, into consonance with +Christian ideas of history and the fitness of things; but still +they treasured them, and drew from them inspiration. Thus the +whole past comes down euhemerized, cooked, and touched up. It +comes down very glorious,--because the strongest feeling in Irish +hearts was Irishism, race-consciousness. Whereas the Latin +Church was fiercely against antiquity and all its monuments, the +Celtic Church in Ireland was anxious above all things to preserve +Celtic antiquity,--having first brought it into line with the one +true faith. The records had to be kept,--and made to tally with +the Bible. The godhood of the Gods had to be covered away, and +you had to treat them as if they had been respectable children of +Adam,--more or less respectable, at any rate. A descent from +Noah had to be found for the legendary kings and heroes; and for +every event a date corresponding with that of someone in the +Bible. Above all, you had to pack the whole Irish past into +the few thousand years since Noah came out of the Ark.--You +get a glimpse in Wales of the struggle there was between +Hebrao-Christian chronology and the Celtic sense of the age of +the world: in the pedigree of an ancient family, where, it +is said, about half way down the line this entry occurs after one +of the names: "In his time Adam was expelled from Paradise." In +Ireland, indeed, there was at least one man from before the Flood +living in historic times: Fintan, whom, with others, Noah sent +into the western world while the Ark was building. Here is one +of Fintan's poems: + +"If you inquire of me concerning Ireland, I know and can relate +gladly all the invasions of it since the beginning of the +delightful world. Out of the east came Cessair, a woman, +daughter of Bith, with her fifty maidens, with her three men. +The flood came upon Bith on his mountain without mystery; on +Ladru at Ard Ladran; on Cessair at Cull Cesra. As for me, for +the space of a year, beneath the rapid flood, on the height of a +mighty wave, I enjoyed sleep which was exceeding good. Then, in +Ireland, I found my way above the waters until Partholan came out +of the East, from the land of the Greeks. Then, in Ireland, I +enjoyed rest; Ireland was void till the son of Agnoman came, +Nemed with the delightful manners. The Fir Bolg and the Fir +Galioin came a long time after, and the Fir Domnan also; they +landed at Erris in the west. Then came the Tuatha De Danaan in +their hood of mist. I lived with them for a long time, though +their age is far removed. After that came the sons of Mile out +of Spain and the south. I lived with them; mighty were their +battles. I had come to a great age, I do not conceal it, +when the pure faith was sent to Ireland by the King of the +Cloudy Heaven. I am the fair Fintan son of Bochra; I proclaim +it aloud. Since the flood came here I am a great personage +in Ireland." + +In the middle of the sixth century he was summoned as a witness +by the descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages against King +Dermot MacKerval, in a dispute as to the ancient divisions of +Ireland. He came to Tara with nine companies in front of him, +and nine companies behind: they were his descendants. This, +mind you, is in strictly historical times. The king and his +people received him kindly, and after he had rested a little, he +told them his story, and that of Tara from its foundation. +They asked him to give them some proof of his memory. "Right +willingly," said Fintan. "I passed one day through a wood in West +Munster; I brought home with me a red berry of the yew-tree, +which I planted in my kitchen-garden, and it grew there till it +was as tall as a man. Then I took it up, and re-planted it on +the green lawn before the house, and it grew there until a +hundred champions could find room under its foliage, to be +sheltered there from wind and rain, and cold and heat. I +remained so, and my yew remained so, spending our time alike, +until at last all its leaves fell off from decay. When afterwards +I thought of turning it to some profit, I went to it, and cut it +from its stem; and I made of it seven vats, and seven keeves, and +seven stans, and seven churns, and seven pitchers, and seven +milans, and seven medars, with hoops for all. I remained so with +my yew vessels until their hoops all fell off from decay and old +age. After that I re-made them; but could only get a keeve out +of the vat, and a stan out of the keeve, and a mug out of the +stan, and a cilorn out of the mug, and a milan out of the cilom, +and a medar out of the milan; and I leave it to Almighty +God that I do not know where their dust is now, after their +dissolution with me from decay." * + +------ +* De Jubainville, _Irish Mythological Cycle;_ when also Fintan's +poem quoted above. +------ + +Now here is a strange relic of the Secret Teaching that comes +down with this legend of Fintan. Each of the four Cardinal +Points, it was said, had had its Man appointed to record all the +wonderful events that had taken place in the world.* One of them +was this Fintan, son of Bochra, son of Lamech, whose duty was to +preserve the histories of Spain and Ireland, and the West in +general. As we have seen, Spain is a glyph for the Great Plain, +the Otherworld. + +------ +* See _The Secret Doctrine,_ for the Thesophical teaching. +------ + +From this universal euhemerization,--this loving preservation and +careful cooking of the traditions by the Christian redactors of +them,--we get certain results. One is that ancient Ireland +remains for us in the colors of life: every figure flashes +before our eyes in a golden mellow light of morning, at once +extremely real and extremely magical: not the Greek heroic age +appears so flooded with dawn-freshness, so realistic, so minutely +drawn, nor half so lit with glamor. Another result is that, +while strange gleams of Esotericism shine through,--as in that +about the Four Recorders of the Four Cardinal Points,--things +that it seemed undangerous to the monks, because they did not +understand their significance, to let pass,--we hear nothing in +Irish literature about the philosophy of the Druids. Ireland +retains her belief in magic to this day; and his would be a hard +skull that could know Ireland intimately and escape that belief. +So it seemed nothing irreligious to the monks to let the Druids +remain magicians. But philosophy was another matter entirely; +and must be ruled out as conflicting with the Christian scheme of +things. From this silence our Druid-Medicine-men Theorists draw +great comfort and unction for their pet belief. Reincarnation +appears in some stories as a sort of thing that might happen in +special cases; because "God is good to the Irish," and might be +willing to give them sometimes another chance. But nothing is +allowed to come down to imply it was known for a law in Nature; +no moral or philosophic bearing is attached to it. This is just +what you would expect. The Christian censors of the literature +had rejected it as unchristian doctrine. They would hate to have +it thought that Irishmen could ever have believed in such things; +they would cover such belief up in every possible way. You would +find peasant-bards in Wales to this day, men learned in the +national tradition, who are deacons in their chapels and druids +of the Gorsedd, and firm believers in Druidism. They have +founded a Gorsedd here in America lately, with an active +propaganda of Druidism, and lecturers touring. They think of it +as a kind of Pre-christian Christianity; and would open their +eyes wide to hear that Reincarnation was the cornerstone teaching +in it. This may throw a little light on the attitude of those +early Irish Christians.--But on the other hand there were tales +that could not be preserved at all, that you could not tell at +all, without bringing a touch of reincarnation into them. The +universal doctrine survived in that way in Ireland, as it +survived as a rumor in the folk-lore in Wales. + +There is the story, for instance, of Mongan son of Fiachta, a +historical chieftain killed in 625. According to Tigernach, the +oldest of the Irish annalists, Finn MacCool died in A.D. 274. +Finn, you will remember, is the central figure of the Fenian +Cycle of sagas; he was the father of Oisin and the leader of the +Fenians; next to Cuculain, he is the chiefest hero of Irish +legend. I quote this story from M. de Jubainville.* + +------ +* But without word-for-word exactitude; hence the absence of +inverted commas. The same remark applies to all the stories +quoted, or nearly quoted, from Mr. Rollerstone'e book. +------ + +Mongan had a quarrel with Forgoll, his chief bard or _file,_ as +to the place where Fothad Airgtech king of Ireland had been slain +by Cailte, one of Finn's companions. Mongan said it was on the +banks of the Lame in Ulster, near his own palace; Forgoll +said it was at Dubtar in Leinster. Forgoll, enraged at being +contradicted by a mere layman, threatened to pronounce awful +incantations against Mongan, which might put rat-hood on him, or +anything. The end of it was that Mongan was given three days to +prove his statement; if he should not have done so by that +time, he and all his possessions were to become the property +of the file. + +Two days passed, and half the third, and Mongan did nothing, but +remained at his ease entirely, never troubling in the world. As +for his wife, poor woman, from the moment he made the wager her +tears had not ceased to flow.--"Make an end of weeping," said he; +"help will certainly come to us." + +Forgoll came to claim his bond.--"Wait you till the evening," +said Mongan. Evening came, and if help was coming, there was no +sign of it. Mongan sat with his wife in the upper chamber; +Forgoll out before them waiting to take possession of everything. +Pitiless and revengeful the look of Forgoll; the queen weeping +and walling; Mongan himself with no sign of care on him.--"Be +not you sorrowful, woman," said he; "the one who is coming to +help us is not far off; I hear his footsteps on the Labrinne." +It is the River Caragh, that flows into Dingle bay in the +southwest; a hundred leagues from where they were in the palace +at Donegore in the north-east of Antrim. + +With that she was quiet for awhile; but nothing happened, and +she began weeping again.--"Hush now!" said Mongan; "I hear the +feet of the one that will help us crossing the Maine." It is +another river in Kerry, between the Caragh and the north-east: +on the road, that is, between Mongan's palace and the Great Plain. + +That way he was consoling her again and again; and she again and +again breaking out with her lamentations. He was hearing the +footsteps at every river between Kerry and Antrim: at the +Liffey, and then the Boyne, and then the Dee, and after that, at +Carlingford Lough, and at last at Larne Water, a little to the +south of the palace.--"Enough of this folly," said Forgoll; "pay +you me what is mine." A man came in from the ramparts;--"What +news with you?" asks Mongan.--"There is a warrior like the men of +old time approaching from the south, and a headless spear-shaft +in his hand."--"I told you he would be coming," said Mongan. +Before the words were out from between his teeth, the warrior had +leaped the three ramparts into the middle of the dun, and in a +moment was there between Mongan and the file in the hall.--"What +is it is troubling you?" said he. + +--"I and the file yonder have made a wager about the death of +Fothad Airgtech," said Mongan. "The file said he died at Dubtar +in Leinster; I said it was false." + +--"Then the file has lied," said the warrior. + +--"Thou wilt repent of that," cried Forgoll. + +--"That is not a good speech," said the warrior. "I will prove +what I say." Then he turned to Mongan. "We were with thee, Finn +MacCool," said he,-- + +--"Hush!" said Mongan; _"it is wrong for thee to reveal a +secret."_ + +--"Well then," said the warrior, "we were with Finn coming from +Alba. We met Fothad Airgtech near here, on the banks of Larne +Water. We fought a battle with him. I cast my spear at him, so +that it went through his body, and the iron head quitted the +shaft, and went into earth beyond, and remained there. This is +the shaft of that spear," said he, holding up the headless shaft +he had with him. "The bare rock from which I hurled it will be +found, and the iron head is in the earth a little to the east of +it; and the grave of Fothad Airgtech a little to the east of +that again. A stone chest is round his body; in the chest are +his two bracelets of silver, and his two arm-rings, and his +collar of silver. Over the grave is a stone pillar, and on the +end of the pillar that is in the earth is Ogham writing, and it +says, 'Here is Fothad Airgtech. He was fighting with Finn when +Cailte slew him.'" + +Cailte had been one of the most renowned of Finn's companions; +he had come now from the Great Plain to save his old master. You +will note that remark of the latter's when Cailte let the fact +escape him that he, Mongan, had been Finn: "Hush! it is wrong +for the to reveal a secret." That was the feeling of the +Christian redactors. Reincarnation was not a thing for baptized +lips to speak about. + +But we are anticipating things: the coming of Patrick did not +bring about the great literary revival which sent all these +stories down to us. Patrick Christianized Ireland: converted +the kings and established the church; and left the bulk of the +people pagan-hearted and pagan-visioned still,--as, glory be to +God, they have been ever since. I mean by that that under all +vicissitudes the Irish have never quite lost sight of the Inner +Life at the heart of things, as most of the rest of us have. +Time and men and circumstance, sorrow and ignorance and falsity, +have conspired to destroy the race; but there is a vision there, +however thwarted and hedged in,--and the people do not perish: +their woods and mountains are still full of a gay or mournful, a +wailing or a singing, but always a beautiful, life. Patrick was +a great man; but he never could drive out the Danaan Gods, who +had gone into the hills when the Milesians came. He drove out +the serpents, they say; and a serpent was a name for a Druid +Adept: Taliesin says, in one of his poems, _'Wyf dryw, wyf +sarff,'_ 'I am a druid, I am a serpent'; and we know from H.P. +Blavatsky how universal this symbol was, with the meaning of an +Initiate of the Secret Wisdom. So perhaps Patrick did evict his +Betters from that land of evictions; it may be so;--but not the +God-life in the mountains. But I judge from the clean and easy +sweep he made of things that Druidism was at a low pass in +Ireland when he came. It had survived there five centuries since +its vital center and link with the Lodge had been destroyed at +Bibracte by Caesar; and, I suppose, thus cut off, and faced with +no opposition to keep it pure and alert, might well, and would +naturally have declined. Its central light no longer burning, +political supremacy itself would have hastened its decay; +fostering arrogance for spirituality, and worldliness for true +Wisdom. How then about the theory that some life and light +remained or was revivable in it in Britain? Why claim that for +Britain, which one would incline to deny to Ireland and Gaul?-- +Well; we know that Druidism did survive in Gaul a long time +after the Romans had proscribed it. But Gaul became very +thoroughly Romanized. The Romans and their civilization were +everywhere; the Celtic language quite died out; (Breton was +brought in by emigrants from Britain;)--and where the Celtic +language had died, unlikely that Celtic thought would survive. +But in Britain, as we have seen, while the Romans and their +proscription were near enough to provide a salutary opposition +and constant peril, there were many places in which the survivors +of Suetonius' massacre in Mona might have taken refuge. I take +it that in Ireland it suffered through lack of opposition; in +Gaul, it died of too effective opposition; but in Britain there +were midway conditions that may well have allowed it to live on. + +Beyond Christianizing the country, it does not appear that +Patrick did much for it. It is not clear that Ireland made any +progress in material civilization then,--or for that matter, at +any time since. We should know by this time that these things +are a matter of law. Patrick found her essentially in pralaya, +essentially under the influence of centrifugalism; and you +cannot turn the ebbing tide, and make it flow before its time. +There was a queer mixture of intensive culture and ruthless +barbarism: an extreme passion on the one hand for poetry and the +things of the spirit,--and on the other, such savagery as +continual warfare always brings in its train. The literary class +was so strong that in the little kingdom of Tir Conall in Donegal +alone the value of ten thousand dollars of the revenue was set +aside yearly for its support and purposes;--whereby one would +imagine that for all things else they could but have had a nickel +or so left. This is culture with a vengeance. There was, +besides, wonderful skill in arts and crafts, intricate designing +in jewelry-work;--and all this is not to be called by another +name than the relics of a high civilization. But there was no +political unity; or only a loose bond under the high kings at +Tara, who had forever to be fighting to maintain their authority. +There was racial, but not national consciousness. + +But where in Europe was there national consciousness? We should +remember that it only began to exist, or to reincarnate from +times beyond the horizon of history, in the thirteenth century +A.D. There would be a deal less sneering at Ireland were only +these facts known. England was perhaps the first country in +which it became effective: the wars of the first and third +Edwards called it into being there. Joan lit the fires of it in +France; she mainly;--in the fourteen-twenties and thirties. +Spain had to wait for Ferdinand and Isabel; Sweden for Gustavus +Vasa; Holland for William the Silent; Italy for Victor +Emmanuel; Germany for Bismarck. Wales was advancing towards it, +in an imperfect sort of way, rather earlier than England; but +the Edwardian conquest put the whole idea into abeyance for +centuries. So too Ireland: she was half-conquered by the +Normans, broken, racked, ruined and crucified, a century before +the idea of Nationhood had come into existence, and while +centrifugalism was still the one force in Europe. It is thus +quite beside the point to say that she was never a nation, even +in the days of her native rule. Of course she was not. Nor was +England, in those times; nor any other. In every part of the +continent the centrifugal forces were running riot; though in +some there were strong fighting kings to hold things together. +This by way of hurling one more spear at the old cruel doctrine +of race inferiorities and superiorities: at Unbrotherliness and +all its wicked works and ways. I was the European pralaya; when +your duty to your neighbor was everywhere and always to fight +him, to get in the first blow; to kill him before he killed you, +and thank God for his mericies. So Ireland was not exceptional +in that way. Where she was exceptional, bless her sweet heart, +lay, as we shall see, in the fact that while all the rest were +sunk in ignorance and foulest barbarism, and mentall utterly +barren,--she alone had the grace to combine her Kilkenny Cattery +with an exquisite and wonderful illumination of culture. While +she tore herself to pieces with one hand, with the other she was +holding up the torch of learning,--and a very real learning too, +--to benighted Europe; and _then_ (bedad!) she found another hand +again, to be holding the pen with it, and to produce a literature +to make the white angels of God as green as her own holy hills +with envy! _That_ was Ireland! + +The Crest-Wave rolled in to her; the spiritual forces descended +far enough to create a cultural illumination, but not far enough +to create political stability. We have seen before that they +touch the artistic creative planes, in their descent, before +they reach the more material planes. So her position is +perfectly comprehensible. The old European manvantara was dying; +elsewhere it was dead. Its forces, when they passed away through +Ireland, were nearly exhausted; in no condition whatever to +penetrate to the material plane and make political greatnesses +and strengths. But they found in her very soil and atmosphere a +spiritual something which enabled them to produce a splendor of +literary creation that perhaps had had no parallel in Europe +since Periclean days: Yes, surely Ireland was much more creative +than Augustan Rome. + +Have any of you heard of literary savages? Of wild men of the +woods, your true prognathous primitives, that in a bare couple of +generations, and upon no contact with civilized races, rose from +their native pithecanthropism to be the wonderful beacon of the +West or East? You have not, and cannot imagine it; nor could it +ever be. A great literary habit is only acquired in long ages of +settled civilization; and there were long ages of settled +civilization behind Ireland;--and when, about thirteen decades +after Patrick's coming, she flamed up into cultural creation, she +was but returning to what was proper to her soul; in the midst +of her dissolution, she was but groping after an olden self. +That olden self, very likely, she had even by that time more than +half forgotten; and we now can only see it refracted, as it +were, through the lens of those first Christian centuries, and +with the eyes of those Christian monks and bards. How would they +have seen them?--There was that spirit of euhemerization: of +making ancient things conform to new Christian ideas. They had +the Kilkenny Catterwauling in their ears daily; would they have +allowed to any Pagan times a quieter less dissonant music? Could +they have imagined it, indeed?--I doubt. Kilkennyism would have +appeared to them the natural state of things. Were you to look +back into Paganism for your Christian millennium, to come not +till Christ came again? Were you to search there for peace on +earth and mercy mild?--there in the long past, when all the near +past was war?--Besides, there was that ancientest of Mariners, +Noah, but a few thousand years back; and you had to make things +fit. + +So I find nothing in it conclusive, if the legends tell of no +conditions different from those Patrick found: Kilkenny Cattery +in politics, intensive culture in the things of the spirit; and +I see no difficulty in the co-existence of the two. The cultured +habit had grown in forgotten civilized ages; the Cattery was the +result of national or racial pralaya; of the break-up of the old +civilization, and the cyclic necessary night-time between it and +the birth of another. Let us remember that during the Thirty +Years War, in mid-manvantara, Europeans sunk into cannibalism; +let us remember the lessons of our own day, which show what a +very few years of war, so it be intense enough, can do toward +reducing civilized to the levels of savage consciousness. So +when we find Ireland, in this fourth century, always fighting,-- +and the women as well as the men; and when we find a tribe in +Scotland, the Attacotti, with a reputation for cannibalism;--we +need not for a moment imagine that things had always been like +that. It is not that man is naturally a savage, and may from the +heights of civilization quickly relapse into savagery; it is +that he is a dual being, with the higher part of his nature +usually in abeyance, and its place taken, when it is taken at +all, by the conventions of law and order; and so the things that +are only thought, or perhaps secretly practised, in times of +civilization, as soon as war has broken down the conventions, +find their full expression in action,--and others along with +them. So Patrick found Ireland, what she has been mostly since, +a grand Kilkenny Cattery; but with the literary habit of an +older and better day surviving, and nearly ready to be awakened +into transcendent splendor. The echoes of the Danaan music were +ringing in her still; and are now, heaven knows;--and how would +they not be, when what to our eyes are the hills of her green +with fern, to eyes anointed, and to the vision of the spirit, +are the palaces of the Danaan Sidhe, and the topless towers +of Fairyland? + +I shall come to my history next week; meanwhile here for you +is the _Song of Finn in Praise of May,_ a part of it, as Mr. +Rollertone translates it, to give a taste of the literary habit +of Pre-christian Ireland: + + May day! delightful day! + Bright colors play the vales along; + Now wakes at morning's slender ray, + Wild and gay, the blackbird's song. + + Now comes the bird of dusty hue, + The loud cuckoo, the summer lover; + Broad-branching trees are thick with leaves; + The bitter evil time is over. + + Swift horses gather nigh, + Where half dry the river goes; + Tufted heather crowns the height; + Weak and white the bog-down blows. + + Corncrake singing, from eve til morn, + Deep in corn, the strenuous bird; + Sings the virgin waterfall, + White and tall, her one sweet word. + Loaded bough of little power + Goodly flower-harvests win; + Cattle roam with muddy flanks; + Busy ants go out and in. + +--------- + + Carols loud the lark on high, + Small and shy, his tireless lay, + Singing in wildest, merriest mood + Of delicate-hued delightful May. + +And here, from the same source, are the _Delights of Finn,_ as +his son Oisin sang them to Patrick: + + These are the things that were dear to Finn,-- + The din of battle, the banquet's glee, + The bay of his hounds through the rough glen ringing, + And the blackbird singing in Letterlee. + + The Shingle grinding along the shore, + When they dragged his war-boats down to the sea; + The dawn-wind whistling his spears among. + And the magic song of his ministrels three. + +Whereby you may know, if you consider it rightly, what great +strain of influence flows in from the Great Plain and the Land of +Youth, that may yet help towards the salvation of Europe. When +you turn your eyes on the diaphanous veil of the Mighty Mother, +and see it sparkling and gleaming like that, it is but a +step to seeing the motions of the Great Life behind; but a +step to seeing + + 'Eternal Beauty wander on her way;' + +--that Beauty which is the grand Theophany or manifestation of +God. It would not be, it could not exist, but that the Spirit is +here; but that the Gods are here, and clearly visible; talk not +of the Supreme Self, and shut your eyes meanwhile to the Beauty +of the World which is the light that shines from It, and the sign +of Its presence! And the consciousness of this Beauty is one +which, since Ireland, thrilled from the Otherworld, arose and +sang, has been forcing itself ever more and more through the +minds, chiefly of poets, of a Europe exiled from truth. I cannot +over-estimate the importance of this delight in and worship of +Beauty in Nature, which the wise Chinese considered the path to +the highest things in Art. Europe has inherited, mainly from the +Greeks and the time the western world fell into ignorance, a +preoccupation with human personality: in Art and Literature, I +mean, as well as in life. We are individuals, and would peg out +claims for ourselves even in the Inner World; and by reason of +that the Inner World is mostly shut away from us;--for there, as +the poem I quoted about the Great Plain says, "none talk +of 'mine' and 'thine.'" But down through the centuries of +Christendom, after our catching it so near its source in magical +Ireland, comes this other music: this listening, not for the +voices of passion, and indecision, and the self-conceit which is +the greatest fool's play of all, within our personal selves,--but +for the meditations of the Omnipresent as they are communicated +through the gleam on water, through the breath and delicacy of +flowers, through the + + 'blackbird's singing in Letterlee,' + +--this tendency to 'seek in the Impersonal' (Nature is impersonal) +'for the Eternal Self.' + +So here, in these fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, +I find the forces 'going west,' through Gaul, through Wales, +through Ireland, to the Great Plain; there to recover themselves +bathing in the magical Fountain of Youth which is so near to the +island the Greeks called "Sacred Ierne of the Hibernians." It +may be that the finest part of them has not come back yet; but +will re-emerge, spiritual and saving, through this same gateway. +One would be ashamed of the Host of the Gods, were they not doing +strenuous battle in the unseen for the regeneration of this poor +Ireland, that will yet mean so much to the world: and one would +marvel at the hellions, indeed one would, were they in their turn +not moving heaven and earth, with their best battle-breaking +champions in the fore-front, to maintain their strangle-hold on +her tortured and beautiful soul. + + + + +XXVII. THE IRISH ILLUMINATION + + +We put 420 for a date to the Southern Renaissance in China, and +410 to the age that became Arthurian in Wales. The next thing in +China is 527, and the coming of Bodhidharma; the next thing in +Celtdom is 520, and the coming of Findian. + +He was an Irishman, and had been studying in Wales; where, +certainly, there was great activity in churchly circles in those +days. Get a map of that country, and note all the place-names +beginning with _Llan,_--and you will see. There are countless +thousands of them. 'Llan' means 'the holy place of,' and the rest +of the name will be that of the saint who taught or preached +there: of whom, I believe, only David appears in the Catholic +calendar. They were most of them active in the fifth and +sixth centuries. + +Findian, according to the _Encyclopaedia Britannica,_ had come +under the influence of three of the foremost of them: David, +Gildas, and Catwg the Wise; who were perhaps great men, if +we may judge by the results of their teaching, as Findian +transmitted it to those that came after him. We have seen that +Patrick opened no kind of golden age in Ireland, gave no impulse +to civilization or letters. The church he founded had fallen on +rather evil days since his death; and now Findian came to reform +things in the light of what he had learned in Wales. He began by +founding at Clonard a monastery on the Welsh plan. That was some +twenty-two years before Geoffrey's date for the passing of +Arthur. By the time Camlan had been fought, and the Crest-Wave +had left Wales, Findian had made a channel through which it +might flow into Ireland, and in the five-forties the Irish +illumination began. + +We must say a word or two as to the kind of institution he +founded. There were several of them in Wales,--to be called +colleges, or even universities, as rightly as monasteries:--one +at Bangor in the north; two or three in Glamorgan; one at Saint +Davids. Students flocked to them by the thousands; there was +strict discipline, the ascetic life,--and also serious study, +religious and secular. It was all beautifully simple: each +student lived in his own hut, + + "of clay and wattles made," + +--or, where stone might be plentiful, as it is in most parts of +Wales, of stone. Like a military camp, the whole place would be +surrounded with fosse and vallum. They grew their own corn and +vegetables, milked their own cows, fished in the streams, and +supported themselves. The sky roofed their lecture-halls; of +which the walls, if there were any, were the trees and the +mountains. But these places were real centers of learning, the +best there were in Europe in those days; and you needed not to +be a monk to attend them. + +In Wales the strain of the Saxon wars kept them from their full +fruition. Celtic warfare was governed by a certain code: thus, +you, went to war only at such and such a time of the year; +invaded your neighbor's territory only through such and such a +stretch of his frontier; and no one need trouble to guard more +than the recognized doorway of his realm. Above all, you never +took an army through church lands. So through all the wars the +Britons might be waging among themselves to keep their hands in, +the monastery-colleges remained islands of peace, on friendly +terms with all the combatants. But Wales, with no natural +frontier, lay very open to invaders who knew no respect for +religion or learning. Twelve hundred of the student-monks of +Bangor, for example, were slaughtered in 613 by the Saxon +Ethelfrith;--whereafter the rest fled to Bardsey Island in +Cardigan Bay, and the great college at Bangor ceased to be. + +Augustine of Canterbury, sent by the Pope to convert the English, +had summoned the Welsh bishops to a conference, and ordered them +to come under his sway and conform to Rome. They hardly knew +why, but disliked the idea. Outwardly, their divergence from +Catholicism was altogether trivial: they had their own way of +shaving their heads for the tonsure, and their own times for +celebrating Easter,--though truly, these are the kind of things +over which you fight religious wars. However, it was not these +details that worried them so much; but an uneasy sense they +derived, perhaps, from the tone of Augustine's summons. The +story runs that they took counsel among themselves, and agreed +that if he were a man sent from God, they would find him +humble-minded and mannered; whereof the sign should be, that he +would rise to greet them when they entered. But Augustine had +other ideas; and as the ambassador of the Vicar of Christ, rose +to greet no man. So still, not quite knowing why, they would have +no dealings with him; and went their ways after refusing to +assimilate their Church of the Circled Cross to his of the Cross +Uncircled;--whereupon he, to teach them a sound lesson, impelled +the Saxon kings to war. Fair play to him, he was dead before +that war brought about the massacre of the monks of Bangor,--who +had marched to Chester to pray for the Briton arms. + +But when Findian went back to Ireland he found no such difficulties +in his way. Not till two hundred and seventy-five years later +was that island disturbed by foreign invaders; and whatever +domestic Kilkenny Cattery might be going forward, the colleges +were respected. His school at Clonard quickly grew* till +its students numbered three thousand; and in the forties, he +sent out twelve of the chief of them to found other such schools +throughout the island. Then the great age began; and for the +next couple of thirteen-decade periods Ireland was a really +brilliant center of light and learning. Not by any means merely, +or even chiefly, in theology; there was a wonderful quickening +of mental energies, a real illumination. The age became, as we +have seen, a sort of literary clearing-house for the whole Irish +past. If the surviving known Gaelic manuscripts were printed, +they would fill nearly fifty thousand quarto volumes, with matter +that mostly comes from before the year 800,--and which is still +not only interesting, but fascinating. + +------ +* _Encyclopaedia Britannica,_ article 'Ireland'; whence all re +Findian and the colleges. +------ + +The truth is, we seem to have in it the relics and wreckage of +the literary output of a whole foregone manvantara, or perhaps +several. For in the vast mass of epics and romances that comes +down, one distinguishes three main cycles: the _Mythological,_ +the _Red Branch,_ and the _Fenian._ The first deals with the +Five Races that invaded or colonized Ireland: Partholanians, +Nemedians, Firbolgs, Gods, and Irish;--in all of it I suspect the +faint memories and _membra disjecta_ of old, old manvantaras: +indeed, the summing up of the history of created man. You will +have noted that the number of the races, as in Theosophic +teaching, is five. M. de Jubainville points out that the +creation of the world, or its gradual assumption of its present +form, goes on _pari passu_ with the evolution of its humanities, +and under their eyes; thus, when Partholan, the first invader, +arrived, there were but three lakes in Ireland, and nine rivers, +and one plain. This, too, is an echo of the secret doctrine; +and incidentally indicates how tremendously far back that first +invasion was thought to have been. + +The Partholanians came into Ireland from the Great Plain, the +"Land of the Living," as the Irish called it, which is also the +Land of the Dead:--in other words, they came _into_ this world, +and not from another part of it. Their peculiarity was that they +were "no wiser the one than the other "; an allusion to the +mindlessness of the early humanities before the Manasaputra +incarnated in the mid-Third Root Race. Again, before their +coming, there was a people in Ireland called the Fomorians: they +came up from the sea, were gigantic and deformed; some of them +with but one foot or one arm, some with the heads of horses or +goats. That will remind you of the "water-men, terrible and bad" +in the Stanzas of Dzyan: the first attempts of the Earth or +unaided Nature to create men. But when the Partholanians fought +with and defeated these Fomoroh, they were said to have "freed +Ireland from a foreign foe"; this though the Fomorians were +there first, and though the Partholanians were "invaders," and +utterly ceased to be after a time, so that no drop of their blood +runs in Irish veins. Why, then, does Ireland identify itself +with the one race, and discard the other as "foreign foes"?-- +Because the Partholanians represent the first human race, but the +Fomoroh or 'Water-men' were unhuman, and a kind of _lusus +naturae._ 'Fomoroh,' by the way, may very well be translated +'Water-men'; _fo_ I take to be the Greek _upo,_ 'under,' and +'mor' is the 'sea.' Now the Battle of Mag Itha, between +Partholan and the Fomorians, is a very late invention; not +devised, I think, until the eleventh century. And of course +there was no war or contact between the First Race and the +Water-men, who had been destroyed long before. This is a good +example of what came down in Pagan Ireland, and how the Christian +redactors treated it. They had heard of the existence of the +Fomoroh before the coming of Partholan, and thought it wise to +provide the latter with a war against them. Later, as we shall +see, the Fomoroh stood for the over-sea people westward,--the +Atlantean giant-sorcerers. + +The second race of invaders, the Nemedians, were also given a war +with the Fomorians,--in the story of the seige of Conan's Tower. +But this story is told by Nennius as applying to the Milesians, +the Fifth Race Irish, and not to the Second Race Nemedians; and +probably relates to events in comparatively historical tiems,-- +say a million years ago, or between that and the submersion of +Poseidonis about nine thousand B.C. One would imagine that +Ireland, from its position, must have been a main battle-ground +between the men of the Fifth and the Atlanteans, between the +White and the Black Magicians. Mr. Judge's _Bryan Kinnavan_ +stories indicate that it was a grand stronghold of the former. + +The Nemedians were akin to the Partholanians: the Second Race to +the First,--both mindless: they came after their predecessors +had all died out; and in their turn died or departed to the last +man. So we find in _The Secret Doctrine_ that the first two +humanities passed utterly and left no trace. If I go into all +this a little fully, it is because it illustrates so well the +system of _blinds_ under which the Inner Teaching was hidden, and +at the same time revealed, by the Initiate of every land. These +Celtic things seem never to have come under the eye of Mme. +Blavatsky at all; or how she might have drawn on them! I think +that nowhere else in the mythologies are the Five Root-Races, the +four past and the one existent, mentioned so clearly as here in +Ireland. For historic reasons at which we have glanced,--the +Roman occupation, which was hardly over before the Saxon +invasions began,--Wales has preserved infinitely less of the +records of ancient Celtic civilization than Ireland has; and yet +Professor Kund Meyer told me,--and surely no living man is better +qualified to make suct a statement,--that the whole of the +forgotten Celtic mythology might yet be recovered from old MSS. +hidden away in Welsh private libraries that have never been +examined. How much more then may be hoped for from Ireland! + +The third invasion was by a threefold people: the Fir Domnan, or +Men of the Goddess Domna; the Fir Bolg, or Men of the Sacks; +and the Galioin. From these races there were still people in +Connacht in the seventeenth century who claimed their decent. +Generally all three are called by the one name of Firbolgs. They +were "avaricious, mean, uncouth, musicless, and inhospitable." +Then came the Tuatha De Danaan, "Gods and false gods," as Tuan +MacCarell told St. Finnen, "from whom everyone knows the Irish +men of learning are descended. It is likely they came into +Ireland from heaven, hence their knowledge and the excellence of +their teaching." Thus Tuan, who has just been made to allude to +them as "Gods and _false gods._" This Tuan, I should mention, +originally came into Ireland with Partholan; and, that history +might be preserved, kept on reincarnating there, and remembering +all his past lives. These Danaans conquered, and then ruled +over, the Firbolgs: it is a glyph of the Third or Lemurian +Race, of which the first three (and a half) sub-races were +mindless--the Fir Domnan, Fir Bolg and Galioin; then the Lords +of Mind incarnated and reigned over them, the Tuatha De Danaan, +wafted down from heaven in a druid cloud. So far we have a +pretty exact symbolic rendering of the Theosophic teaching. + +The Danaans conquered the Firbolgs, it is said, at the Battle of +Moytura. Now there were two Battles of Moytura, of which this +was the first; it alludes to the incarnation of the Manasaputra, +and with it the clear symbolic telling of human history comes to +an end. So much, being very remote, was allowed to come down +without other disguise than that which the symbols afforded. But +at this point, which is the beginning of the mind-endowed +humanity we know, a mere eighteen million years ago, further +blinds became necessary. History, an esoteric science, had +still more to be camouflaged, lest memories should seize upon +indications too readily, and find out too much. Why this should +be, it is not the time to argue; enough to say that the wisdom +of antiquity decreed it. + +There has always been some doubt as to the Second Battle of +Moytura. Because of a certain air with which it is invested, +scholars think now, for the most part, that it was a later +invention. But I do not think so: I think that air comes from +the extra layer of symbolism that is laid over it; from the +second coating of camouflage; from the fact that the few years +between the two battles represent several million years,--about +which the mythological history is silent, running them all +together, like street-lights you see a long way off. What +happened was this: + +In the first battle Nuada, king of the Danaans, lost his hand; +and, because a king must be blemishless, lost his kinghood too. +It went to Bres son of Elatha; whose mother was Danaan, but +whose unknown father was of the Fomoroh. Note the change: the +first battle was with the Firbolgs, the mindless humanity of the +early third Race; now we are to deal with Fomorians, who have +come to symbolize the Black Magicians of Atlantis: the second +half of the Lemurian, and nearly the whole of the Atlantean +period, have elapse.--In person, Bres was handsome like the +Danaans; in character he was Fomorian altogether. This is the +sum of the history of later Lemuria and of Atlantis; Moytura, +and Nuada's loss of his hand and kinghood there, symbolize the +incarnation of the Manasaputra,--descent of Spirit into matter,-- +and therewith, in time, their forgetting their own divinity. I +should say that it is Bres himself, rather than the Fomorians as +a whole, who stands symbol just now for the Atlantean sorcerers. +There is a subtle connexion between the Firbolgs and Fomoroh: +the former are the men, the latter the Gods, of the same race; +the Firbolgs stood originally for the mindless men of the early +third, men evolving up out of the lower kingdoms towards the +point of becoming human and mind-endowed; the Fomorians were the +Gods or so to say Spiritual Powers of those lower worlds; the +forces in opposition to upward evolution. So we see Bres of that +dual lineage: with magic from his Danaan mother, and blackness +from his Fomorian father: the Atlanteans, inheriting mind from +the Manasaputra, but turning their divine inheritance to the uses +of chaos and night. + +As his reign represents the whole Atlantean period, we might +expect it to have begun well enough, and worsened as it went. +This was so; had he shown his colors from the first, it is not +to be thought that the Danaans would have tolerated him at all. +But it came to be, as time went on, that he oppressed Ireland +abominably; and at last they rose and drove him out. Nuada, +whose missing hand had been replaced with one of silver, was +restored in the kingship; henceforth he is called Nuada of the +Silver Hand. Here we have the return or redescent of the Divine +Dynasties who came to lead the men of the early Fifth Race +against the Atlantean giants. I shall beg leave now to tell you +the story of the Second Battle of Moytura. + +Perhaps it was in Ireland that the White Adepts of the Fifth made +their first stand against the Atlanteans? Perhaps thence it +first got its epithet, _Sacred_ Ierne?--Bres, driven out by the +Gods, took refuge with his father the Fomorian king beyond the +western sea; who gave him an army with which to reconquer his +lost dominions. Now we come to the figure who represents the +Fifth Race. There are in Europe perhaps a dozen cities named +after Lugh Lamfada, the Irish (indeed Celtic) Sun-god: Lyons, +the most important of them, was Lug-dunum, the _dun_ or fortress +of Lugh. Lugh was a kind of counterpart to Bres; he was the son +of Cian, a Danaan, and a daughter of the Fomorian champion Balor +of the Mighty Blows, or of the Evil Eye. The story of his birth +is like that of Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae. Danae's son, +you remember, was fated to kill his grandfather Acrisius; so +Acrisius shut Danae in an inaccessable tower, that no son might +be born to her. The antiquity of the whole legend is suggested +by this nearness of the Greek and Irish versions;--even to the +similarity of the names of Dana and Danae: though Dana was not +the mother of Lugh, but of the whole race of the Gods: _Tuatha +De Danaan_ means, the 'Race of the Gods the Children of Dana.' +So you see it comes from the beginnings of the Fifth Race, a +million years ago; but how much better the history of that time +is preserved in the Irish than in the Greek version! As if the +Irish took it direct from history and symbolism, and the Greeks +from the Irish. And why not? since in the nature of things +Ireland must have been so much nearer the scene of action. + +Lugh grew up among his mother's people, but remembered his divine +descent on his father's side; and when it came to the War of the +Fomoroh against Ireland, was for fighting for his father's +people. So he set out for Tara, where Nuada and the Gods were +preparing to meet the invasion; and whoever beheld him as he +came, it seemed to them as if they had seen the sun rising on a +bright day in summer.--"Open thou the portal!" said he; but the +knife was in the meat and the mead in the horn, and no man might +enter but a craftsman bearing his craft. "Oh then, I am a +craftsman," said Lugh; "I am a good carpenter." There was an +excellent carpenter in Tara already, and none other needed.-"It +is a smith I am," said Lugh. But they had a smith there who was +professor of the three new designs in smithcraft, and none else +would be desired. Then he was a champion; but they had Ogma son +of Ethlenn for champion, and would not ask a better. Then he was +a harper; and a poet; and an antiquary; and a necromancer; +and an artificer; and a cup-bearer. But they were well supplied +with men of all those crafts, and there was no place for him.-- +"Then go and ask the king," said Lugh, "if he will not be needing +a man who is excellent in all those crafts at once"; and that +way he got admission. + +After that he was drawing up the smiths and carpenters, and +inquiring into their abilities, and giving them their tasks in +preparation for the battle. There was Goibniu, the smith of the +Danaans.--"Though the men of Ireland should be fighting for seven +years," said Goibniu, "for every spear that falls off its handle, +and for every sword that breaks, I will put a new weapon in its +place; and no erring or missing cast shall be thrown with a +spear of my making; and no flesh it may enter shall ever taste +the sweets of life after;--and this is more than Dub the smith of +the Fomorians can do." And there was Creidne the Brazier: he +would not do less well than Goibniu the Smith would; and there +was Luchtine the Carpenter: evil on his beard if he did less +than Creidne;--and so with the long list of them. + +It was on the first day of November the battle began; and when +the sun went to his setting, the weapons of the Fomorians were +all bent and notched, but those of the Gods were like new. And +new they were: new and new after every blow struck or cast +thrown. For with three strokes of his hammer Goibniu would be +fashioning a spear-head, and after the third stroke there could +be no bettering it. With three chippings of his knife, Luchtine +had cut a handle for it; and at the third chipping there would +be no fault to find with the handle either by Gods or men. And +as quickly as they made the spear-heads and the shafts, Creidne +the Brazier had the rivets made to rivet them; and if there were +bettering those rivets, it would not be by any known workmanship. +When Goibniu had made a spear-head, he took it in his tongs, and +hurled it at the lintel of the door so that it stuck fast there, +the socket outward. When Luchtine had made a spear-haft, he +hurled it out at the spear-head in the lintel; and it was good +hurling, not to be complained of: the end of the haft stuck in +the socket, and stuck firm. And as fast as those two men did +those two things, Creidne had his rivets ready, and threw them at +the spear-head; and so excellent his throwing, and the nicety of +his aim, no rivet would do less than enter the holes in the +socket, and drive on into the wood of the shaft;--and that way +there was no cast of a spear by the Gods at the hellions, but +there was a new spear in the smithy ready to replace it. Then +the Fomoroh sent a spy into the camp of the Gods, who achieved +killing Goibniu with one of the latter's own spears; and by +reason of that it was going ill with the Gods the next day in the +battle. And it was going worse with them because of Balor of the +Mighty Blows, and he taking the field at last for the Fomorians,-- + + "Balor as old as a forest, his mighty head helpless sunk, + And an army of men holding open his weary and death-dealing eye," + +--for wherever his glances fell, there death came. They fell on +Nuada of the Silver Hand, and he died,--albeit it is well known +that he was alive, and worshiped in Britain in Roman times, for a +temple to him has been found near the River Severn.--Then came +Lugh to avenge Nuada, and a bolt from his sling tore like the +dawn ray, like the meteor of heaven, over Moytura plain, and took +the evil eye of Balor in the midst, and drove it into his head; +and then the Fomorians were routed. And this, in truth, like +Camlan and Kurukshetra, is the battle that is forever being +fought: Balor comes death-dealing still; and still the sling of +Lugh Lamfada is driving its meteor shafts through heaven and +defeating him. + +As for the defeat of the Gods by the Milesians, and their +retirement into the mountains,--that too is actual history told +under a thinnish veil of symbolism: the Fifth Race having been +started, the Sons of Wisdom, its first Gods and Adept Kings, who +had sown the seeds of all bright things that were to be in its +future civilizations, withdrew into the Unseen. + +All this and much more,--the whole Mythological Cycle,-- +represents what came over into Irish literature from ancient +manvantaric periods, and the compression of the records of +millions of years. A century seems a very long time while it is +passing; but at two or three millenniums ago, no longer than a +few autumns and winters; and at a million years' distance, the +doings and changes, the empires and dynasties of a hundred +centuries, look to the eyes of racial memory like the contents of +a single spring. So it is the history and wisdom of remote +multiplied ages that come down to us in these tales. + +But with the Heroic Cycle we seem to be entering a near manvantara. +This is the noon-period of Irish literature, the Shakespeare-Milton +time; where the other was the dawn or Chaucer period. Or the +Mythological Cycle is the Vedic, and the Heroic, the Epic, +period, to take an Indian analogy; and this fits it better, +because the Irish, like the Indian, dawn-period is immensely +ancient and of immense duration. But when you come to the +Heroic time, with the stories of the high king Conary Mor, +and of the Red Branch Warriors, with for _piece de resistance_ +the epic _Tann Bo Cuailgne,_ you seem (as you do in the +_Mahabharata_) to be standing upon actual memories, as much +historical as symbolic. Here all the figures, though titanic, +are at least half human, with a definite character assigned to +all of importance. They revel in huge dramatic action; move in +an heroic mistless sunlight. You can take part in the daily life +of the Red Branch champions as you can in that of the Greeks +before Troy; they seem real and clear-cut; you can almost +remember Deirdre's beauty and the sorrow of the doom of the +Children of Usna; you have a shrewd notion what Cuculain looked +like, and what Conall Carnach; you are familiar with the fire +trailed from the chariot wheels, the sods kicked up by the +horses' hoofs; you believe in them all, as you do in Odysseus +and Ajax, in Bhishma and Arjuna, in Hamlet and Falstaff;--as I +for my part never found it possible to believe in Malory's and +Tennyson's well-groomed gentlemen of the Table Round. + +And then, after long lapse, came another age, and the Cycle of +the Fenians. It too is full of excellent tales, but all less +titanic and clearly-defined: almost, you might say, standing to +the Red Branch as Wordsworth and Keats to Shakespeare and Milton. +The atmosphere is on the whole dimmer, the figures are weaker; +there is not the same dynamic urge of creation. You come away +with an impression of the beauty of the forest through which the +Fenians wandered and camped, and less with an impression of the +personalities of the Fenians themselves. There is abundant +Natural Magic, but not the old Grand Manner; and you would not +recognise Finn or Oisin or Oscar, if you ment them, so easily as +you would Cuculain or Fergus MacRoy or Naisi. Civilization +appears to have declined far between the two ages, to have become +much less settled,--as it naturally would, with all that fighting +going on. I take it that all the stories of both cycles relate +to ages of the breakup of civilization: peaceful and civilized +times leave less impress on the racial memory. The Fenians are +distinctly further from such civilized times, however, than are +the Red Branch: they are a nomad company, but the Red Branch had +their capital at Emain Macha by Armagh in Ulster. But what +mystery, what sparkling magic environs them! Mr. Rollerstone +cites this as an example: Once three beautiful unknown youths +joined Finn's company; but stipulated that they should camp +apart, and be left alone during the nights. After awhile it fell +out what was the reason for this: one of them died between every +dusk and dawn, and the other two had to be watching him. That is +all that is said; but it is enough to keep your imagination at +work a long while. + +--And then, the manvantara dies away in a dolphin glory of +mystical colors in the many tales of wondrous voyages and islands +in the Atlantic: such as the Voyage of Maelduin, of which +Tennyson's version gives you some taste of the brightness, but +none at all of the delicacy and mysterious beauty and grace. + +Except the classical, this is the oldest written literature in +Europe; and I doubt there is any other that gives us such a wide +peep-hole into lost antiquity. Yes; perhaps it is the best lens +extant, west of India. It is a lens, of course, that distorts: +the long past is shown through a temperament,--made into poetry +and romance; not left bare scientific history. But perhaps +poetry and romance are after all the truest and final form of +history. Perhaps, in looking at recent ages, we are balked of +seeing their true underlying form by the dust of events and the +clamor of details; for eyes anointed they might resolve +themselves into Moyturas and Camlans endlessly fought; into +magical weapons magically forged; into Cuculains battling +eternally at the Watcher's Ford, he alone withstanding the great +host of this world's invaders, while all his companions are under +a druid sleep. . . . It is the most splendid scene or incident +in the _Tann Bo Cuailgne;_ and I cannot think of it, but it +calls up before my mind's eye another picture: that of a little +office in New York, and a desk, and rows of empty seats; and +another Irishman, lecturing to those empty seats . . . . but to +all humanity, really . . . . from the ranks of which his +companions should come to him presently; he would hold back the +hosts of darkness alone, waiting for their coming. And I cannot +think of this latter picture but it seems to me as if: + + Cuculain rode from out the ages' prime, + The hero time, spacious and girt with gold, + For he had heard this earth was stained with crime. + + With loud hoof-thunder, clangor, ring and rhyme, + With chariot-wheels flame-trailing where they rolled, + Cuculain rode from out the ages' prime. + + I saw his eyes, how darkening, how sublime, + With what impatient pity and power ensouled; + (For he had heard this earth was stained with crime!) + + Song on his lips--I heard the chant and chime. + The stars themselves danced to in days of old:-- + Cuculain rode from out the ages' prime. + + Love sped him on to out-speed the steeds of Time: + No bliss for him, and this world left a-cold, + Which, he had heard, was stained with grief and crime. + + Here in this Iron Age's gloom and grime + The Ford of Time, the waiting years, to hold, + Cuculain came . . . . and from the Golden prime + Brought light to save this world grown dark with crime.... + +Well; from the schools of Findian and his disciples missionaries +soon began to go out over Europe. To preach Christianity, yes; +but distinctly as apostles of civilization as well. Columba left +Ireland to found his college at Iona in 563; and from Iona, +Aidan presently went into Northumbria of the Saxons, to found his +college at Lindisfarne. Northumbria was Christianized by these +Irishmen; and there, under their auspices, Anglo-Saxon culture +was born. In Whitby, one of their foundations, Caedmon arose to +start the poetry: a pupil of Irish teachers. At the other end +of England, Augustine from Rome had Christianized Kent; but no +culture came in or spread over England from Augustine and Kent +and Rome; Northumbria was the source of it all. You have only +to compare _Beowulf,_ the epic the Saxons brought with them from +the continent, with the poetry of Caedmon and Cynewulf, or with +such poems as _The Phoenix,_ to see how Irishism tinged the minds +of these Saxon pupils of Irish teachers with, as Stopford Brooke +says, "a certain imaginative passion, a love of natural beauty, +and a reckless wildness curiously mingled with an almost +scientific devotion to metrical form." + +Ireland meanwhile was the heart of a regular circulation of +culture. Students poured in from abroad, drawn by the fame of +her learning; we have a poem in praise of generous Ireland from +an Anglo-Saxon prince who spent his exile there in study. Irish +teachers were at the court of Charlemagne; Irish teachers +missionarized Austria and Germany. When the Norsemen discovered +Iceland, they found Irish books there; probably Irish scholars +as well, for it has been noted (by Matthew Arnold) that the +Icelandic sagas, unlike any other Pre-Christian Teutonic +literature, bear strong traces of the Celtic quality of Style. +They had their schools everywhere. You hear of an Irish bishop +of Tarentum in the latter part of the seventh century; and a +hundred years later, of an Irish bishop of Salzburg in Austria. +This was Virgil--in Irish, Fergil, I imagine a native name of +Salzburg: a really noteworthy man. He taught, _at that time,_ +that the world is a globe, and with people living at the +antipodes; for which teaching he was called to order by the +Pope: but we do not hear of his retracting. Last and greatest +of them all was Johannes Scotus Erigena, who died in 882: a very +bright particular star, and perhaps the one of the largest +magnitude between the Neo-Platonists and the great mystics of +later times, who came long after the new manvantara had dawned. +He is not to be classed with the Scholastics; he never +subordinated his philosophy to theology; but approached the +problems of existence from a high, sane, and Theosophic +standpoint: an independent and illuminated thinker. He taught +at the court of Charles the Bald of France; and was invited to +Oxford by Alfred in 877, and died abbot of Malmesbury five years +later,--having in his time propounded many tough nuts of +propositions for churchmen to crack and digest if they could. +As, that authority should be derived from reason, and not, as +they thought, vice versa; and that "damnation was simply the +consciousness of having failed to fulfill the divine purpose,"-- +and not, as their pet theory was, a matter of high temperature of +eternal duration. The following are quotations from his work _De +Divisione Naturae;_ I take them from M. de Jubainville's _Irish +Mythological Cycle,_ where they are given as summing up Erigena's +philosophy,--and as an indication of the vigorous Pantheism of +Pre-christian Irish thought. + +"We are informed by all the means of knowledge that beneath the +apparent diversity of beings subsists the One Being which is +their common foundation." + +"When we are told that God makes all things, we are to understand +that God is in all things, that he is the substantial essence of +all things. For He alone possesses in himself all that which may +be truly said to exist. For nothing which is, is truly of +itself, but God alone; who alone exists _per se,_ spreading +himself over all things, and communicating to them all that which +in them truly corresponds to the notion of being." + +I think we can recognise here, under a not too thick disguise of +churchly phraseology, the philosophy of the _Bhagavad-Gita._ +Again: + +"Do you not see how the creator of the universality of things +hold the first rank in the divisions of Nature? Not without +reason, indeed; since he is the basic principle of all things, +and is inseparable from all the diversity which he created, +without which he could not exist as creator. In him, indeed, +immutably and essentially, all things are; he is in himself +division and collection, the genus and the species, the whole and +the part of the created universe." + +"What is a pure idea? It is, in proper terms, a theophany: +that is to say, a manifestator of God in the human soul." + +You would be mildly surprised, to say the least of it, to hear at +the present day a native, say in Abyssinia, rise to talk in terms +like these: it is no whit less surprising to hear a man doing so +in ninth-century Europe. But an Irishman in Europe in those days +was much the same thing as an Oxford professor in the wilds of +Abyssinia would be now;--with this difference: that Ireland is a +part of Europe, and affected by the general European cycles (we +must suppose). Europe then was in thick pralaya (as Abyssinia is +now); but in the midst of it all there was Ireland, with her +native contrariness, behaving better than most people do in +high manvantara. + +The impulse that made that age great for her never came far +enough down to awaken great creation in the plastic arts; but it +touched the fringes of them, and produced marvelous designing, in +jewel-work, and it the illumination of manuscripts. Concerning +the latter, I will quote this from Joyce's Short History of +Ireland; it may be of interest:-- + +"Its most marked characteristic is interlaced work formed by +bands, ribbons and cords, which are curved and twisted and +interwoven in the most intricate way, something like basket work +infinitely varied in pattern. These are intermingled and +alternated with zigzags, waves, spirals, and lozenges; while +here and there among the curves are seen the faces or forms of +dragons, serpents, or other strange-looking animals, their tails +or ears or tongues elongated and woven till they become merged or +lost in the general design. . . . The pattern is so minute and +complicated as to require the aid of a magnifying glass to +examine it. . . . Miss Stokes, who has examined the _Book of +Kells,_ says of it: 'No effort hitherto made to transcribe any +one page of it has the perfection of execution and rich harmony +of color which belongs to this wonderful book. It is no +exaggeration to say that, as with the microscopic works of +Nature, the stronger the magnifying power brought to bear on it, +the more is this perfection seen. No single false interlacement +or uneven curve in the spirals, no faint tiace of a trembling +hand or wandering thought can be detected.'" + +The same author tells us that someone took the trouble to count, +through a magnifying glass, in the _Book of Armagh,_ in a "small +space scarcely three quarters of an inch in length by less than +half an inch in width, no less than one hundred and fifty-eight +interlacements of a slender ribbon pattern formed of white lines +edged with black ones."--One of these manuscripts, sometimes, +would be given as a king's ransom. + +An unmasculine art, it may be said; and enormous laborious skill +spent upon tribial creation. But once again, the age was pralaya; +all Europe was passing into, or quite sunk in, pralaya. The Host +of Souls was not then holding the western world; there was but a +glint and flicker of their wings over Ireland as they passed +elsewhere; there was no thorough entering in to take possession. +But the island (perhaps) is the Western Lay-center, and a +critical spot; the veils of matter there are not very thick; +and that mere glint and flicker was enough to call forth all this +wonderful manifestation of beauty. If I emphasize over-much, it +is because all this talk about 'inferior races,'--and because +Ireland has come in for so much opprobrium, one way and another, +on that score. But people do not know, and they will not think, +that those races are superior in which the Crest-Wave is rearing +itself; and that their superiority cannot last: the Crest-Wave +passes from one to another, and in the nature of things can never +remain in any one for longer than its due season. It is as +certain that it will pass sometime from the regions it fills with +strength and glory now, as that it will sometime thrill into life +and splendor the lands that are now forlorn and helpless; and +for my part, seeing what the feeble dying away of it, or the far +foam flung,--no more than that,--raised up in Ireland once, I am +anxious to see the central glory of it rise there; I am keen to +know what will happen then. It will rise there, some time; and +perhaps that time may not be far off.--Oh if men could only look +at these national questions with calm scientific vision, +understanding the laws that govern national and racial life! +There would be none of these idiotic jealousies then; no +heart-burnings or contempt or hatred as between the nations; +there would be none of this cock-a-doodling arrogance that +sometimes makes nations in their heyday a laughing-stock +for the Gods. Instead we should see one single race, Humanity; +poured now into one national mold, now into another; but +always with the same duality: half divine, half devilish-idiotic; +--and while making the utmost best of each mold as they came +to inhabit it, the strong would find it their supreme business +to help the weak, and not exploit or contemn them. But it will +need the sound sense of Theosophy,--knowledge of Reincarnation, +the conviction of Human Brotherhood,--to work this change +in mankind. + +Well; now to the things that brought Ireland down. In 795 the +Norwegians began their ravages, and they seem to have had a +peculiar spite against the monastery-colleges. That at Armagh +was sacked nine times in the ninth, and six times in the tenth +century. In the same period Glendalough was plundered seven +times; Clonard four times; Clonmacnois five times betnveen 838 +and 845, and often afterwards. These are only samples: there +were scores of the institutions, and they were all sacked, burnt, +plundered, and ravaged, again and again. The scholars fled +abroad, taking their precious manuscripts with them; for which +reason many of the most valuable of these have been found in +monasteries on the continent. The age of brilliance was over. +For a couple of centuries, the Norwegians, and then the Danes, +were ruining Ireland; until Brian Boru did their quietus make at +Clontarf in 1014. Before the country had had time to recover, +the Norman conquest began: a thing that went on for centuries, +and never really finished; and that was much more ruinous even +than the invasions of the Norsemen. As to the Celtic Church, +which had fostered all that brilliance, its story is soon told. +In Wales, the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England were at +pains to bring the see of St. Davids under the sway of Canterbury +and into close communion with Rome: they and the Roman Church +fought hand in hand to destroy Celtic liberties. The Church of +the Circled Cross had never been an independent organization in +the sense that the Greek Church was: it had never had its own +Patriarchs or Popes; it was always in theory under Rome. But +secular events had kept the two apart; and while they did so, +the Celtic Church was virtually independent. In the eleventh and +twelfth Centuries the Welsh Church fought hard for its existence; +but Norman arms backed by Papal sanction proved too strong for +it; and despite the valor of the princes, and especially of that +gallant bishop-historian Gerald the Welshman, it succumbed. +As to Ireland: an English Pope, Adrian IV, born Nicholas +Brakespeare, presented the island to King Henry II; and King +Henry II with true courtesy returned the compliment by presenting +it to the Pope. The Synod of Cashel, called by Henry in 1172, +put Ireland under Rome; and the Church of the Circled Cross +ceased to be. There, in short and simple terms, you have the +history of it. + +And therein, too, as I guess, you may see all sorts of interesting +phases of karmic working. For the Church of the Circled Cross, +that had done so well by Ireland in some things, had done +marvelously badly in others. There was a relic of political +stability in ancient Ireland,--in the office of the High-kings +of Tara. It is supposed now that it had grown up, you may +say out of nothing: had been established by some strong +warrior, to maintain itself as it might under such of his +successors as might be strong too. I have no doubt, on the other +hand, that it was really an ancient institution, once firmly +grounded, that had weakened since the general decay of the Celtic +Power. The Gods in their day had had their capital at Tara; and +until the middle of the fifth century A.D. Tara stood there as +the symbol of national unity. When Patrick came the position was +this: all Ireland was divided into innumerable small kingdoms +with their kinglets, with the Ard-righ of Tara as supreme over +them all as he could make himself. The hopefullest thing that +could have happened would have been the abolition of the kingdoms +and kinglets, and the establishment of the Ard-righ's authority +as absolute and final. + +Dermot son of Fergus Kervall became High-king in 544. A chief +named Aed Guairy murdered one of Dermot's officers, and sought +sanctuary with St. Ruadan of Lorrha, one of Findian's twelve +apostles, to whom he was related. The king hailed him forth, and +brought him to Tara for trial. Thereupon the whole Church of +Ireland rose to a man against the mere layman, the king, who had +dared thus defy the spiritual powers. They came to Tara in a +body, fasted against him, and laid their heavy curse on him, on +Tara, and, in the result, on the kingship.--"Alas!" said Dermot, +"for the iniquitous contest that ye have waged against me, +seeing that it is Ireland's good I pursue, and to preserve her +discipline and royal right; but it is Ireland's unpeace and +murderousness ye endeavor after." * + +------ +* I quote this from Mr. Rollerstone's book. +------ + +Which was true. The same trouble came up in England six +centuries later, and might have ended in the same way. But the +dawn of a manvantara was approaching then, and the centrifugal +forces in England were slowly giving place to the centripetal: +national unity was ahead, and the first two strong Williams and +Henrys were able in the main to assert their kingly supremacy. +But in the Irish time not manvantara, but pralaya, was coming; +and this not for Ireland only, but for all Europe. In the +natural order of things, the centrifugal forces were increasing +always. That is why Dermot MacKervall failed, where Henry II in +part suceeded. There was nothing in the cycles to support him +against the saints. Tara, accursed, was abandoned, and fell into +ruin; and the symbol and center of Irish unity was gone. The +High-kingship, thus bereft of its traditional seat, grew weaker +and weaker; and Ireland, except by Brian Boru, a usurper, was +never after effectively governed. So when the Norsemen came +there was no strong secular power to defend the monasteries from +them, and the karma of St. Ruadan's churchly arrogance and +ambition fell on them. And when Strongbow and the Normans came, +there was no strong central monarchy to oppose them: the king of +Leinster invited them in, and the king of Ireland lacked the +backing of a united nation to drive them out; and Ireland fell. + +Well; we have seen how often things tend to repeat themselves,-- +but on a higher level,--after the lapse of fifteen centuries. +Patrick, probably, was born in or about 387. In 1887 or +thereabouts Theosophy was brought into Ireland. Patrick's coming +led eventually to the period of the Irish illumination; the +coming of Theosophy led in a very few years to the greatest Irish +illumination, in poetry and drama especially, that had been since +Ireland fell. But Patrick did not complete things; nor did that +first touch of Theosophy in the 'eighties and 'nineties of last +century. Theosophy, known in those days only to a score or so of +Irishmen, kindled wonderful fires: you know that English +literature is more alive in Ireland now than anywhere else in the +English-speaking world; and that that whole Celtic Renaissance +was born in the rooms of the Dublin Theosophical Society. Yet +there were to be eventualities: the Dublin Lodge was only a +promise; the Celtic Renaissance is only a promise. Theosophy +only bides its time until the storm of the world has subsided. +It will take hold upon marvelous Ireland yet; it will take hold +upon Sacred Ierne. What may we not expect then? When she had +but a feeble candle of Truth, in those ancient times, she stood +up a light-giver to the nations; how will it be when she has the +bright sun shining in her heart? + +------------- + +So now we have followed the history of the world, so far as we +might, for about a thousand years. We have seen the Mysteries +decline in Europe, and nothing adequate rise to take their place; +and, because of that sorrowful happening, the fall of European +civilization into an ever-increasing oblivion of the Spiritual +things. We have seen how in the East, in India and China, +spiritual movements did arise, and succeed in some sort in taking +the place of the Mysteries; and how in consequence civilization +there did in the main, for long ages, go forward undeclining and +stable. And we have watched the Crest-Wave, indifferent to all +national prides and conceits, flow from one race to another, +according to a defined geographical and temporal plan: one +nation after another enjoying its hour of greatness, and none +chosen of the Law or the Spirit to be lifted forever above its +fellows;--but a regular circulation of splendor about the globe, +like the blood through the veins: Greece, India, China; Rome, +Spain, Rome, Egypt, Persia, India, China: each repeating itself +as the cycles of its own lifetime might permit. And then, as the +main current passed eastward from dying Europe, a reserve of it, +a little European _Sishta,_ passing west: from Gaul to Britain, +from Britain to Ireland; from Ireland to Tirnanogue and +Wonderland,* there to hide for some centuries until the Great +Wave should roll westward again from China through Persia, Egypt, +Africa, Sicily and Spain, up into Europe: when the Little Wave, +returning magic-laden out of the Western Paradise should roll +back Europewards again through Ireland, twelfth-century Wales and +Brittany; and spray Christendom with foam from the sea! that +wash the shores of Fairyland: producing first what there was of +mystery and delicacy to uplift mankind in feudal chivalry; then +the wonder-note in poetry which has probably been one of the +strongest and subtlest antidotes against deathly materialism. +Hence one may understand the _raison d'etre_ for that strange +correspondence between Chinese and Celtic happenings which we +have noted: the main wave rolls east; the backwash west; and +they touch simultaneously the extremities of things, which +extremities are, Celtdom and China. In both you get the sense of +being at the limits of the world,--of having beyond you only +nonmaterial and magical realms:--Peng-lai in the East, Hy Brasil +in the West;--the Fortunate Islands of the Sunset, and the +Fortunate Islands of the Dawn. + +We have seen opportunities coming to each nation in turn; but +that how they used them depended on themselves: on whether they +would turn them to spiritual or partly spiritual, or to wholly +material uses: whether they would side, in their hour of +prosperity, with the Gods--as China did to some extent; or with +the hellions, as in the main Europe did. And above all, we have +seen how the Gods will never accept defeat, but return ever and +again to the attack, and are in perpetual heroic rebellion +against the despotism of materialism and evil and human blindness; +and we know that the victory they so often failed to achieve +of old, they are out to win now, and in the way of winning it: +that we are in the crisis and most exciting of times, standing +to make the future ages golden; that the measure of the victory +the Gods shall win is somewhat in our own hands to decide. The +war-harps that played victory to Heaven at Moytura of old are +sounding in our ears now, if we will listen for them; and +when Point Loma was founded, it was as if once more the shaft +of Lugh the Sunbright took the eye of Balor Balcbeimnech in +the midst. + +And so, at this point, we take leave of our voyaging together +through the past. + +------ + +* Perhaps, if we knew anything about American history, to +America. One is tempted to put two and two together, in the +light of what we have seen, and note what they come to. The +great American Empires fell before Cortes and Pizarro, between +1520 and 1533. That surely marked the end of a manvantaa or +fifteen hundred years period of cultural activity; which then +would have begun between 20 and 33 A.D.--upon a backwash of the +cycle from Augustan Rome? We are not to imagine that any outward +link would be necessary. Is it possibly a fact that in those +centuries, the first five of our era roughly, when both Europe +and China were somewhat sterile for the most part,--the high tide +of culture and creation was mainly in the antipodes of each +other, America and India? And that after the fall of the Tang +glory in China (750) and the Irish illumination in the west +(775), some new phase of civilization began, somewhere between +the Rio Grande del Norte and the borders of Chile? The Incaic +Empire, like the Han and the Western Roman, we know lasted about +four centuries, or from the region of 1100-A.D.--But there we +must leave it, awaiting the work of discovery. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREST-WAVE OF EVOLUTION*** + + +******* This file should be named 14587.txt or 14587.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/5/8/14587 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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