PANTHEISM
By J. ALLANSON PICTON
RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN
PANTHEISM
Its Story and Significance
RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN.
_Foolscap 8vo. 1s. net per volume_.
It is intended in this series to present to a large public the SALIENT
FEATURES, first of the GREAT RELIGIONS, secondly of the GREAT
PHILOSOPHIES, and thirdly of the GREAT LITERARY and ARTISTIC REPUTATIONS
of the Human Race.
PANTHEISM: ITS STORY AND SIGNIFICANCE. By J. ALLANSON PICTON, M.A.
Author of _The Religion of the Universe_, etc.
RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE. By Miss JANE HARRISON, Fellow of Newnham
College, Author of _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, etc.
ANIMISM. By EDWARD CLODD, Author of _Pioneers of Evolution_.
RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA. By H.A. GILES, M.A., LL.D. (Aberd.),
Professor of Chinese at Cambridge University.
* * * * *
_The following Volumes are in preparation_:
ISLAM. Mr. T.W. ARNOLD, Assistant Librarian, India Office.
BUDDHISM. 2 vols. Prof. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D.
HINDUISM. Mr. T.W. ARNOLD.
FETISHISM AND MAGIC. Prof. ALFRED C. HADDON, F.R.S.
THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. Mr. CHARLES SQUIRE.
CELTIC RELIGION. Prof. ANWYL.
SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. Mr. W.A. CRAIGIE.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. FLINDERS PETRIE. F.R.S.
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA, Dr. THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES.
PANTHEISM
Its Story and Significance
BY J. ALLANSON PICTON
LONDON
1905
CONTENTS
CHAP.
FOREWORD
I. PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
II. POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
III. MODERN PANTHEISM
AFTERWORD
PANTHEISM
FOREWORD.
[Sidenote: Pantheism not Sectarian or even Racial.]
Pantheism differs from the systems of belief constituting the main
religions of the world in being comparatively free from any limits of
period, climate, or race. For while what we roughly call the Egyptian
Religion, the Vedic Religion, the Greek Religion, Buddhism, and others
of similar fame have been necessarily local and temporary, Pantheism has
been, for the most part, a dimly discerned background, an esoteric
significance of many or all religions, rather than a "denomination" by
itself. The best illustration of this characteristic of Pantheism is the
catholicity of its great prophet Spinoza. For he felt so little
antagonism to any Christian sect, that he never urged any member of a
church to leave it, but rather encouraged his humbler friends, who
sought his advice, to make full use of such spiritual privileges as
they appreciated most. He could not, indeed, content himself with the
fragmentary forms of any sectarian creed. But in the few writings which
he made some effort to adapt to the popular understanding, he seems to
think it possible that the faith of Pantheism might some day leaven all
religions alike. I shall endeavour briefly to sketch the story of that
faith, and to suggest its significance for the future. But first we must
know what it means.
[Sidenote: Meaning of Pantheism.]
[Sidenote: God is All.]
[Sidenote: But not Everything Is God.]
[Sidenote: Analogy of the Human Organism.]
Pantheism, then, being a term derived from two Greek words signifying
"all" and "God," suggests to a certain extent its own meaning. Thus, if
Atheism be taken to mean a denial of the being of God, Pantheism is its
extreme opposite; because Pantheism declares that there is nothing but
God. This, however, needs explanation. For no Pantheist has ever held
that _everything_ is God, any more than a teacher of physiology, in
enforcing on his students the unity of the human organism, would insist
that every toe and finger is the man. But such a teacher, at least in
these days, would almost certainly warn his pupils against the notion
that the man can be really divided into limbs, or organs, or faculties,
or even into soul and body. Indeed, he might without affectation adopt
the language of a much controverted creed, so far as to pronounce that
"the reasonable soul and flesh is one man"--"one altogether." In this
view, the man is the unity of all organs and faculties. But it does not
in the least follow that any of these organs or faculties, or even a
selection of them, is the man.
[Sidenote: The Analogy Imperfect but Useful.]
If I apply this analogy to an explanation of the above definition of
Pantheism as the theory that there is nothing but God, it must not be
supposed that I regard the parallelism as perfect. In fact, one purpose
of the following exposition will be to show why and where all such
analogies fail. For Pantheism does not regard man, or any organism, as a
true unity. In the view of Pantheism the only real unity is God. But
without any inconsistency I may avail myself of common impressions to
correct a common mis-impression. Thus, those who hold that the
reasonable soul and flesh is one man--one altogether--but at the same
time deny that the toe or the finger, or the stomach or the heart, is
the man, are bound in consistency to recognise that if Pantheism affirms
God to be All in All, it does not follow that Pantheism must hold a man,
or a tree, or a tiger to be God.
[Sidenote: Farther Definition.]
Excluding, then, such an apparently plausible, but really fallacious
inversion of the Pantheistic view of the Universe, I repeat that the
latter is the precise opposite of Atheism. So far from tolerating any
doubt as to the being of God, it denies that there is anything else. For
all objects of sense and thought, including individual consciousness,
whether directly observed in ourselves, or inferred as existing in
others, are, according to Pantheism, only facets of an infinite Unity,
which is "altogether one" in a sense inapplicable to anything else.
Because that Unity is not merely the aggregate of all the finite objects
which we observe or infer, but is a living whole, expressing itself in
infinite variety. Of that infinite variety our gleams of consciousness
are infinitesimal parts, but not parts in a sense involving any real
division. The questions raised by such a view of the Universe, many of
them unanswerable--as is also the case with questions raised by every
other view of the Universe--will be considered further on. All that I
am trying to secure in these preliminary observations is a general idea
of the Pantheistic view of the Universe as distinguished from that of
Polytheism, Monotheism, or Atheism.
[Sidenote: Various Forms of Pantheism.]
[Sidenote: Spurious Forms.]
[Sidenote: Exclusion of Creation.]
[Sidenote: Evolution and Decay applicable only to Parts, not to the
Whole.]
Of course, there have been different forms of Pantheism, as there have
been also various phases of Monotheism; and in the brief historical
review which will follow this introductory explanation of the name, I
shall note at least the most important of those forms. But any which
fail to conform, to the general definition here given, will not be
recognised as Pantheism at all, though they may be worth some attention
as approximations thereto. For any view of the Universe, allowing the
existence of anything outside the divine Unity, denies that God is All
in All, and, therefore, is obviously not Pantheism. Whether we should
recognise as true Pantheism any theory involving the evolution of a
finite world or worlds out of the divine substance at some definite
epoch or epochs, may be a debatable question, provided that the eternity
and inviolability of the divine oneness is absolutely guarded in
thought. Yet I will anticipate so far as to say that, in my view, the
question must be negatived. At any rate, we must exclude all creeds
which tolerate the idea of a creation in the popular sense of the word,
or of a final catastrophe. True, the individual objects, great or small,
from a galaxy to a moth, which have to us apparently a separate
existence, have all been evolved out of preceding modes of being, by a
process which seems to us to involve a beginning, and to ensure an end.
But in the view of Pantheism, properly so-called, the transference of
such a process to the whole Universe is the result of an illusion
suggested by false analogy. For the processes called evolution, though
everywhere operative, affect, each of them, only parts of the infinite
whole of things; and experience cannot possibly afford any justification
for supposing that they affect the Universe itself. Thus, the matter or
energy of which we think we consist, was in existence, every atom of it,
and every element of force, before we were born, and will survive our
apparent death. And the same thing, at least on the Pantheistic view, is
true of every other mode of apparently separate or finite existence.
Therefore no birth of a new nebula ever added a grain of matter or an
impulse of new energy to the Universe. And the final decease of our
solar system, if such an event be in prospect, cannot make any
difference whatever to the infinite balance of forces, of which,
speaking in anthropomorphic and inadequate language, we suppose the
Eternal All to consist.
[Sidenote: Limitation of Scope.]
These observations are not intended to be controversial, but only to
make clear the general sense in which the term Pantheism is here used.
Not that it would be possible at the outset to indicate all that is
implicit in the definition. I only wish to premise plainly that I am not
concerned with any view of the world such as implies or admits that,
whether by process of creation, or emanation, or self-division, or
evolution, the oneness of the Eternal has ever been marred, or anything
other than the being of God has been or can be produced.
[Sidenote: Pantheism either Philosophical or Religious or both.]
[Sidenote: Pantheism as a Religion almost Entirely Modern.]
[Sidenote: Mystics not necessarily Pantheist.]
But before passing on to the promised historical review, it is, perhaps,
necessary to refer again to a remark previously made, that Pantheism may
be considered either from the point of view of philosophy, or from that
of religion. Not that the two points of view are mutually exclusive.
But, as a matter of fact, Pantheism as a religion is, with certain
exceptions among Indian saints and later Neoplatonists, almost entirely
a modern development, of which Spinoza was the first distinct and devout
teacher. For this statement justification will be given hereafter.
Meantime, to deprecate adverse prejudice, I may suggest that a careful
study of the most ancient forms of Pantheism seems to show that they
were purely philosophical; an endeavour to reach in thought the ultimate
reality which polytheism travestied, and which the senses disguised. But
little or no attempt was made to substitute the contemplation of the
Eternal for the worship of mediator divinities. Thus, in the same spirit
in which Socrates ordered the sacrifice of a cock to Aesculapius for his
recovery from the disease of mortal life, philosophical Pantheists,
whether Egyptian or Greek, or even Indian,[1] satisfied their religious
instincts by hearty communion with the popular worship of traditional
gods. Or, if it is thought that the mediaeval mystics were religious
Pantheists, a closer examination of their devout utterances will show
that, though they approximated to Pantheism, and even used language such
as, if interpreted logically, must have implied it, yet they carefully
reserved articles of the ecclesiastical creed, entirely inconsistent
with the fundamental position that there is nothing but God. Indeed,
their favourite comparison of creature life to the ray of a candle is
not really a Pantheistic conception; because to the true Pantheist the
creature is not an emanation external to God, but a finite mode of
infinite Being. Still the mystics did much to prepare the devout for an
acceptance of Spinoza's teaching. And although so amazing a
transfiguration of religion rather dazzled than convinced the world at
first; nay, though it must be acknowledged that one, and perhaps more of
Spinoza's fundamental conceptions have increasingly repelled rather than
attracted religious people, yet it can hardly be disputed that he gave
an impulse to contemplative religion, of which the effect is only now
beginning to be fully realised.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: If Buddha occurs to the reader, it should be remembered
that he was not a Pantheist at all. His ultimate aim was the dissolution
of personality in the Nothing. But that is not Pantheism.]
CHAPTER I
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
[Sidenote: Its Origins Doubtful and Unimportant.]
[Sidenote: The Secret of Pantheism is Within us.]
It has been the customary and perhaps inevitable method of writers on
Pantheism to trace its main idea back to the dreams of Vedic poets, the
musings of Egyptian priests, and the speculations of the Greeks. But
though it is undeniable that the divine unity of all Being was an almost
necessary issue of earliest human thought upon the many and the one, yet
the above method of treating Pantheism is to some extent misleading; and
therefore caution is needed in using it. For the revival of Pantheism at
the present day is much more a tangible resultant of action and reaction
between Science and Religion than a ghost conjured up by speculation.
Thus, religious belief, driven out from "the darkness and the cloud" of
Sinai, takes refuge in the mystery of matter; and if the glory passes
from the Mount of Transfiguration, it is because it expands to
etherialise the whole world as the garment of God. Again, the
evanescence of the atom into galaxies of "electrons" destroys the only
physical theory that ever threatened us with Atheism; and the
infinitesimal electrons themselves open up an immeasurable perspective
into the abyss of an Unknowable in which all things "live and move and
have their being." Therefore it matters little to us, except as a matter
of antiquarian interest, to know what the Vedic singers may have
dreamed; or what Thales or Xenophanes or Parmenides may have thought
about the first principle of things, or about the many and the one. For
our spiritual genealogy is not from them, but from a nearer and double
line of begetters, including seers--in the true sense of the word--and
saints, for both are represented by Kepler and Hooker, Newton and Jeremy
Taylor, Descartes and Spinoza, Leibnitz and Wesley, Spencer and Newman.
And even these have authority not through any divine right of genius or
acquired claim of learning, but because they illumine and interpret
obscure suggestions of our own thoughts. Indeed, to the sacrament of
historic communion with the past, as well as to the chief rite of the
Church, the apostolic injunction is applicable: "Let a man examine
himself; and so let him eat of that bread."
[Sidenote: Suggestions of Nature.]
Obeying that injunction, any man possessing ordinary powers of
observation and reflection may, in the course of a summer day's walk,
find abundant reason for interest in the speculations of historic
Pantheism. For the aspect of nature then presented to him is one both of
movement and repose, of variety and harmony, of multiplicity and unity.
Thus the slight breeze, scarcely stirring the drowsy flowery the
monotonous cadences of the stony brook, and the gliding of feathery
flecks of cloud across the blue, create a peace far deeper than absolute
stillness, and suggest an infinite life in which activity and repose are
one. Besides, there is evident everywhere an interplay of forces acting
and reacting so as mutually to help and fulfil one another. For
instance, the falling leaves give back the carbon they gathered from the
air, and so repay the soil with interest for the subtler essences
derived therefrom and dissolved in the sap. The bees, again, humming
among the flowers, while actuated only by instincts of appetite and
thrift, fructify the blooms, and become a connecting link between one
vegetable generation and another. The heat of the sun draws up water
from ocean and river and lake, while chilly currents of higher air
return it here and there in rain. So earth, sea, and air are for ever
trafficking together; and their interchange of riches and force is
complicated ten thousandfold by the activities of innumerable living
things, all adapting themselves by some internal energy to the ever
varying balance of heat and cold, moisture and drought, light and
darkness, chemical action and reaction. And all this has been going on
for untold millions of years; nor is there any sign of weariness now.
[Sidenote: Sympathy thus awakened with the old Pantheistic Aspiration to
find the One in the Many.]
In the mood engendered by such familiar experiences of a holiday
saunter, it may well occur to anyone to think with interest and sympathy
of the poets and seers who, thousands of years ago, first dared to
discern in this maze of existence the varied expression of one
all-embracing and eternal Life, or Power. Such contemplations and
speculations were entirely uninfluenced by anything which the Christian
Church, recognises as revelation.[2] Yet we must not on that account
suppose that they were without religion, or pretended to explain
anything without reference to superhuman beings called gods and demons.
On the contrary, they, for the most part, shared, subject to such
modifications as were imperatively required by cultivated common sense,
the beliefs of their native land. But the difference between these men
and their unthinking contemporaries lay in this; that the former
conceived of one supreme and comprehensive divinity beyond the reach of
common thought, an ultimate and eternal Being which included gods as
well as nature within its unity. So, for them, Indra, Zeus, or Jove were
mere modes of the one Being also manifest in man and bird and tree.
[Sidenote: The Vedas and Related Literature.]
Every race possessing even the rudiments of culture has been impelled by
a happy instinct, which, if we like, we may call inspiration, to record
in more or less permanent form its experience of nature, of life, and
of what seemed the mysteries of both. To this inspiration we owe the
sacred books of the Jews. But it is now generally recognised that an
impulse not wholly dissimilar also moved prophetic or poetic minds among
other races, such, for instance, as the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans, and
the Aryan conquerors of India, to inscribe on papyrus or stone, or brick
or palm-leaf, the results of experience as interpreted by free
imagination, traditional habits of thought, and limited knowledge. Of
this ancient literature a considerable part is taken up by the mysteries
apparently involved in life, conduct, and death. Most notably is this
the case with the ancient Indian literature called the Vedas, and such
sequels as the Upanishads, Sutras, and--much later--the Bhagavad Gîtâ.
This collection, like our Bible, forms a library of writings issued at
various dates extending over much more than a thousand years.
[Sidenote: Indian Pantheism.]
The forgotten singers and preachers of this prehistoric wisdom were as
much haunted as we ourselves are with the harassing questions suggested
by sin and sorrow, by life and death, and by aspirations after a higher
state. And many, perhaps we may say most of them, found comfort in the
thought that essentially they belonged to an all comprehensive and
infinite Life, in which, if they acted purely and nobly, their seeming
personality might be merged and find peace. Their frame of mind was
religious rather than philosophical. But their philosophy was naturally
conformed to it; and in their contrast of the bewildering variety of
finite visible things with the unity of the Eternal Being of which all
are phases, those ancients were in close sympathy with the thoughts of
the modern meditative saunterer by field and river and wood.
[Sidenote: Differences between Ancient and Modern Conditions of
Thought.]
But the enormous interval of time separating us from those early Indian
thinkers necessarily involves very great differences in conditions of
thought. And we should not be surprised if amidst much in their writings
that stirs our sympathy, there is also a great deal which is to us
incongruous and absurd. Therefore, it may be well before quoting these
writings to note one or two points marking an almost incommensurable
difference between their mode and ours of regarding the world.
[Sidenote: 1. Survival In their day of Fetishistic and Animistic Ideas.]
1. First, they were much less removed than we are from the influence of
fetishistic and animistic traditions. Even in the Greek and Roman
classics the casual reader is often revolted by the grossly absurd
stories told of gods and heroes. And, indeed, it is impossible to
conceive of the amours of Zeus (or Jove), for instance, with Leda,
Europa or Danaë as having been first conceived during an age marked by
the poetic genius and comparative culture evinced in the most ancient
epics. But the most probable solution of the puzzle is that the earliest
civilization inherited a number of animal stories, such as are
characteristic of savagery in all parts of the world, and that the first
literary generations into whose poetic myths those stories were
transferred, being as much accustomed to them as to other surroundings
of their childhood, such as bloody sacrifices, mystic expiations, and
fantastic initiations, saw no incongruity in anything told them of the
gods. Besides, as those wild myths were associated with sacred rites,
the inveterate conservatism of religion, which insisted on stone knives
in sacrifices long after bronze and iron came in, was likely enough to
maintain the divine importance of those fables, just as the historicity
of Balaam's ass and Jonah's whale is in some churches piously upheld
still.
[Sidenote: 2. Ancient Ignorance of Natural Order.]
2. In the times from which the first known Pantheistic teaching dates,
ideas of nature's order were incongruous and indeed incommensurable with
ours. Not that the world was then regarded as a chaos. But such order as
existed was considered to be a kind of "balance of power" between
various unseen beings, some good, some evil, some indifferent. True,
some Indian prophets projected an idea of One Eternal Being including
all such veiled Principalities and Powers. But their Pantheism was
necessarily conditioned by their ignorance of natural phenomena. In
fact, an irreducible inconsistency marred their view of the world. For
while their Pantheism should have taught them to think of a universal
life or energy as working within all things, their theological habit of
mind bound them to the incongruous notion of devils or deities moulding,
or at least ruling, matter from without. And, indeed, the nearest
approach they made to the more genuine Pantheism of modern times was the
conception of a world emanating from and projected outside Brahma, to be
re-merged in him after the lapse of ages. Now, if I am right in my
definition of Pantheism as absolutely identifying God with the
Universe,[3] so that, in fact, there cannot be anything but God, the
inconsistency here noted must be regarded as fatal to the genuineness of
the Indian or indeed of any other ancient Pantheism. For the defect
proved during many centuries to be incurable, and was not indeed fully
removed until Spinoza's time.
[Sidenote: 3. Absence of Definite Creeds.]
3. Another difference between ancient Pantheists and ourselves was the
absence in their case of any religious creed, sanctioned by supernatural
authority and embodied in a definite form, like that of the three
Anglican creeds, or the Westminster Confession of Faith. Not that those
ancients supposed themselves to be without a revelation. For the Vedas,
at least, were considered to be of divine authority, and their words,
metres, and grammar were regarded with a superstitious awe, such as
reminds us of what has been called the "bibliolatry" of the Jewish
Rabbis. But subject to this verbal veneration, the Rishis, or learned
divines, used the utmost freedom in regard to the forced and fanciful
interpretations extorted from the sacred text, a freedom which again
reminds us of the paradoxical caprice shown by some schools of Jewish
Rabbis in their treatment of the volume they professed to regard with
awe. The various finite gods, such as Vishnu, Indra, Krishna, Marut, or
Varuna, were not the subjects of any church creed chanted every day, and
carefully stereotyped in the tender minds of children. On the contrary,
various rôles were assigned by successive generations to these
divinities. So that, for instance, Varuna was at one time the god of the
ocean, and at another of the sky. But the uniform tendency of all poets
and Rishis alike was to seek, beyond all these gods, one unbeginning,
unending, and all comprehensive Being, from whom these "devas" emerged,
and into whom they must return. Not only so, but it is clearly suggested
in many passages, of which an instance will presently be quoted, that
the Eternal, called Brahma who was the true Self of all gods, was also
the true Self of man and bird and beast. So that, in fact,
notwithstanding the illogical emanation theory, He was the only real
Being, the All in All.
[Sidenote: Illustration from the Upanishads.]
[Sidenote: Monism.]
Thus, one section of the Khandogya Upanishad[4] consists entirely of
instructions given by a father, Uddâlaka, to his son, Svetaketu, who had
gone through the ordinary courses of study in the Vedas, but who, in the
father's view, had failed to reach the true significance of life.
Accordingly, Uddâlaka inquires: "Have you ever asked for that
instruction by which we hear what cannot be heard, by which we perceive
what cannot be perceived, by which we know what cannot be known?"[5] The
youth, more accustomed than we are to teaching by paradox, expresses no
surprise at this mode of putting things, but simply asks: "What is that
instruction, sir?" The father then proceeds to give an explanation of
what in these days is called "Monism," that is, the absolute singleness
of ultimate Being, and traces all that is, or seems to be, up to one
ultimate Essence. Now, whether in the form given by Uddâlaka to his
exposition, his theory can properly be called Pantheism, according to
the definition of it assumed above, is perhaps questionable. But that it
was intended to be Pantheism there can be no doubt. "In the beginning,"
says Uddâlaka, "there was that only which is ([Greek: to hon]); one
only, without a second. Others say, in the beginning there was that only
which is not ([Greek: to mae hon]); one only, without a second; and from
that which is not, that which is was born." But Uddâlaka rejects this
latter doctrine as unthinkable--which, indeed, many explorers of Hegel
have found with pain and anguish of mind. And then the father traces all
the multiformity of the Universe to the desire or will of the original
One, "that which is."
[Sidenote: Evolution from the One through Desire.]
"It thought, 'may I be many; may I grow forth.' It sent forth fire." My
limits do not allow me to quote further the fantastic account given of
the farther process by which water and earth, plants, animals, and men
sprang out of that desire of the One: "May I become many; may I grow
forth." For our purpose it is more important to show that in the view of
Uddâlaka--however inconsistently he may express himself--the original
One was never really divided, but remains the true Self of every finite
being, however apparently separate. Thus, consider the following
dialogue, the first words being a direction of the father, Uddâlaka:--
"Fetch me from thence a fruit of the Nyagrodha tree." "Here is one,
sir." "Break it." "It is broken, sir." "What do you see there?" "These
seeds, almost infinitesimal." "Break one of them." "It is broken, sir."
"What do you see there?" "Not anything, sir." The father said: "My son,
that subtile essence which you do not perceive there, of that very
essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists. Believe it, my son. That which
is the subtile essence, in it all that exists has itself. It is the
True. It is the Self; and thou, O Svetaketu, art it."
Here we are clearly taught that the "self," or inmost reality of every
person and thing is the Eternal One, or Brahma, or God.
[Sidenote: Illustration from the Bhagavad Gîtâ.]
The same doctrine is taught in a more advanced form by the poem called
the "Bhagavad Gîtâ," the date of which is probably more than a thousand
years later than that of the Upanishad just quoted. In this poem,
Krishna, incarnate for the nonce as Arjuna's charioteer, reveals for a
special purpose his identity with Brahma, the Eternal All; and Arjuna,
when sufficiently instructed adores him thus:--
"O infinite Lord of Gods! the world's abode,
Thou undivided art, o'er all supreme.
Thou art the first of Gods, the ancient Sire,
The treasure-house supreme of all the worlds.
The Knowing and the Known, the highest seat.
From Thee the All has sprung, O boundless Form!
Varuna, Vayu, Agni, Yama thou,[6]
The Moon; the Sire and Grandsire too of men.
The Infinite in power, of boundless force,
The All thou dost embrace; the Thou art All."[7]
[Sidenote: Omission of Buddhism.]
These illustrations must suffice for Indian Pantheism. Because, with
Buddhism we have nothing to do. For, according to its ablest European
exponent (Professor T.W. Rhys Davids), that system of religion simply
ignored the conception of an All in All. And this not at all on
philosophical grounds, but because its aims were entirely practical. For
the aim of its founder was to show men how by a virtuous life, or lives,
they might at last attain annihilation--or, at any rate, the extinction
of the individual self, the apparent separateness of which was, in his
view, the source of all misery. And if he could teach his followers to
attain that salvation, he was entirely indifferent as to the opinions
they might hold about the ultimate nature of the world, provided only
that they did not fall into any heresy which proclaimed an immortal
soul.[8]
[Sidenote: Persian Religions, not strictly Pantheistic.]
[Sidenote: A World Drama or Process is a Human, not a Divine Aspect of
Things.]
The accounts given to us by the best authorities on Zoroaster and
Parseeism scarcely justify us in thinking the religion of the Zendavesta
to be Pantheistic in our sense of the term. For though it would appear
that Ormuzd (or Ahuramazda), the God of light and goodness, originated
in, or was born from and one with a nameless impersonal Unity, such as
may answer to Herbert Spencer's "Unknowable," it cannot be accurately
said that, according to the Persian view of the world, there is nothing
but God. For, to say nothing of the apparently independent existence of
the principle of darkness and evil called Ahriman, the relation of the
Amshaspands, or supreme spirits, and of the Izeds, or secondary spirits,
as well as of the Fereurs, or divine ideas to the impersonal Unity,
seems to be rather that of emanations, than parts of a Whole. Again, if
it be true that, according to the Zend Avesta, the conflict of light and
darkness will ultimately cease, and Ahriman with his demons be
annihilated, it is obvious that this implies a beginning and an end,
with a process originating in the one, and consummated in the other. But
such a process, though most actual on the finite scale, and joyfully or
painfully real to us, contemplating, as we do only infinitesimal parts
of the Universe, and always under the forms of time and space, is yet
incongruous and incommensurate with the thought of one All in All,
unlimited by time or space, and whose lifetime is an Eternal Now. Thus
true Pantheism takes the Universe, as it is, in its infinity; regards it
as without beginning or end; and worships it. Not that Pantheism denies
the existence of evil or is unmoved by the struggle between evil and
good, or is uninspired by faith in the reiterated triumph of good
wherever the local conflict arises. But it insists that evil is relative
to the finite parts of the Universe in their supposed isolation, and
cannot possibly affect the Eternal All. It allows of no creation or
emanation which would put any part of the "wondrous Whole" in opposition
to, or separation from, the Eternal. But from its point of view all
change, evolution, progress retrogression, sin, pain, or any other good
or evil is local, finite, partial; while the infinite coordination of
such infinitesimal movements make one eternal peace.
[Sidenote: Pantheism in Ancient Egypt]
[Sidenote: Permanent Effects of Prehistoric Animism.]
[Sidenote: Isis, according to Plutarch.]
Egyptian Religion need not detain us. For though, there are clear traces
of Pantheistic speculation among the Priests, it can scarcely be
contended that such speculations had the same influence on the cultured
laity as the teaching of the Rishis had in ancient India. But the truth
seems to be that the oldest popular theology of Egypt was only a variety
of Negro animism and fetishism.[9] Yet these grovelling superstitions,
as is often the case, evolved in unbroken continuity a higher faith.
For, in the attempt made to adapt this savage cult to the religious
needs of various districts, all alike gradually advancing in culture,
the number and variety of divinities became so bewildering to the
priests, that the latter almost inevitably adopted the device of
recognising in parochial gods only so many hints of one
all-comprehensive divine energy. Not that they ever embraced
monotheism--or the belief in one personal God distinct from the
Universe. But if Plutarch be accurate--as there seems no reason to
doubt, in his record of an inscription in a temple of Isis--they, or at
least the most spiritual of them, found refuge in Pantheism. For the
transfigured and glorified goddess was not regarded as the maker of the
Universe, but as identical with it, and therefore unknowable, "I am all
that hath been, is, or shall be; and no mortal has lifted my veil." The
prevalence of such Pantheism, at least among the learned and spiritual
of ancient Egypt, is, to a considerable extent, confirmed by other Greek
writers besides Plutarch. But the inscription noted by Plutarch gives
the sum and substance of what they tell us.
[Sidenote: Greek Pantheism]
[Sidenote: Evolved from Polytheism]
Before considering the classical and Neo-platonic Greek speculations
commonly regarded as Pantheistic, we may do well to recall to mind the
immense difference between the established habit of theological thought
in our day, and the vague, or at best, poetically vivid ideas of the
ancients. For the long tradition of nearly two thousand years, which has
made monotheism to us almost as fixed an assumption as that of our own
individuality, was entirely wanting in this case. Not that the idea of
one supreme God had never been suggested. But it was not the Hebrew or
Christian idea that was occasionally propounded; for in the ethnic mind
it was rarely, if ever, regarded as inconsistent with polytheism; and
consequently it verged on Pantheism. "Consequently," I say, because such
monotheism as existed had necessarily to explain the innumerable minor
deities as emanations from, or manifestations of the supreme God. And
though such conscious attempts at reconciliation of beliefs in many gods
and in one Supreme were confined to a small minority of meditative
priests and speculative philosophers, yet really, the combination was
implicit in the sort of polytheistic religion which possessed the
family affections and patriotic associations of the early Greek world.
[Sidenote: Not the Material Figure but the Divinity Suggested was the
Object of Worship.]
For though we may find a difficulty in ridding ourselves of a prejudice
wrought into the tissue of our early faith by the nursery lessons of
childhood, it was not the graven or molten image which was really
worshipped by the devout, but that form of superhuman power which, by
local accident, had been identified with the "idol." If, indeed, we
supposed every "idolator" to have received definite religious teaching,
analogous to that with which we ourselves were imbued in youth, we might
well find his attitude inconceivable. But he had nothing of the kind. He
only knew that in war, in hunting, in fishing, in farming, he was
confronted with powers which passed his comprehension; and tradition
permeated him with the expectation that such powers would be propitiated
by his worship of the images set up in their names. There was therefore
no reasoned creed, such as those of the Catholic and Reformed Churches,
but only a vague sentiment brought to a focus by the associations of the
shrine. From such a view of polytheism it is easy to understand how
most, if not all, of the old speculative philosophers could allow the
existence of the traditional gods, even while in reasoned contemplation
they saw that all deities were subordinate to and merged in one
universal God.
[Sidenote: Possible Influence of Oriental Pantheism.]
How far this unstable religious position was subject to the influence of
the oriental mysticism at which we have glanced already, is, at any
rate, so far as concerns the classical age of Greek philosophy, a matter
of conjecture. But the resurrection of a prehistoric and almost
forgotten civilization from the buried cities of Crete has brought to
light many evidences of frequent intercourse, two or three thousand
years before the Christian era, between European and Egyptian, or
Asiatic, centres of life. Therefore, we may well believe that during the
earliest stages of the evolution of thought in East and West, it was as
impossible as at the present time for any local school of thinkers to be
absolutely original or independent. Thus, later Greek philosophers,
whether themselves within sound of the echoes of Hindoo teaching or not,
may very well have grown up in an atmosphere impregnated with mythic
germs, whose origin they did not know. But however that may be, Greek
Pantheism, while it had many points of contact with Eastern speculation,
was more purely intellectual and less essentially religious than the
Pantheism of the Vedas, or the solemn dream that haunted Egyptian
temples. For while the aspiration of Hindoo Pantheists was to find and
assume the right attitude toward "the glory of the sum of things," the
Greeks, as St. Paul long afterward said, "sought after wisdom," and were
fascinated by the idea of tracing all the bewildering variety of Nature
up to some one "principle" ([Greek: archê]), beginning, origin.
[Sidenote: Thales, about 640 B.C.]
Thus Thales of Miletus, during the late seventh and early sixth century
B.C., is said to have been satisfied when he found in water--or
moisture--the ultimate principle out of which all things and all life,
including gods and men, were evolved. With such a speculation of infant
philosophy we are here not concerned, except to say that it was not
Pantheism as understood in modern times. For while his ablest exponents
admit that no sufficient evidence is left to show very clearly what he
meant, there seems no reason for supposing that to him the Universe was
a Living God.
[Sidenote: Successors of Thales.]
It would be fruitless to relate how successors of Thales varied his
theory of an ultimate "principle," by substituting air or fire for
water. But it is worth while to note that another citizen of Miletus,
Anaximander, after an interval of some forty years, pronounced that the
beginning, the first principle, the origin of all things, was neither
water, nor air, nor fire, but the Infinite ([Greek: to apeae on]). And
though the best authorities confess that they cannot be sure of his
meaning, this may very well be because he anticipated Herbert Spencer by
two and a half millenniums, in acknowledging that all things merge in
one and the same Unknowable. But, so far as our evidence goes, he made
no such attempt as the modern philosopher did, to persuade the religious
instinct that this Unknowable could supply the place of all the gods.
[Sidenote: Xenophanes of Elea, about 570 to 480 B.C.]
[Sidenote: His Pantheism Disputed but well Established.]
[Sidenote: His Religion.]
The position of Xenophanes, who, toward the latter part of the sixth
century B.C. migrated, apparently for political reasons, in fear of
Persian imperialism, from Colophon in Asia Minor to Elea in Italy, was a
little different, and, for our purpose, more interesting. For the few
fragments which are unfortunately all that is left to us of his
philosophical poetry, are strongly suggestive of Pantheism, and the
interpretation put upon them by later classical and sub-classical
writers, who had his works before them, would appear decisive. True, the
distinguished and enlightened scholar, Simon Karsten, who, in the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, found a labour of love in collecting
and editing the remains of early Greek philosophers, deprecated such a
judgment. Yet, while the motives for his special pleading were
honourable, seeing the odious misrepresentations of Pantheism still
prevalent in the Dutch scholar's native land,--misrepresentations
undissipated even by the splendour of Spinoza,--his protest remains
special pleading still. And he himself candidly quotes at large from an
alleged work of Aristotle--possibly, only a student's notes of the
latter's lectures--and also from Simplicius, as reported by Theophrastus
in a comment on Aristotle's Physics, sentences which describe the system
of Xenophanos as unquestionably Pantheistic. From, which description I
gather that the devout philosopher regarded God as the only real Being,
including all that in human language has been, is, and will be, without
beginning or end, living and perceiving equally everywhere throughout
His infinite essence. And if that essence is compared by Xenophanes to a
sphere, neither bounded nor boundless, neither moving nor immovable,
this is only because few, if any, in that age of the world, could
content themselves with loyally accepting the limits imposed on man by
the very nature of things, limits which now compel us to own that, while
the Eternal is more real than ourselves, yet, in the strict sense of
knowing, He is, from an intellectual standpoint, the Unknowable.
[Sidenote: Extent of his Sympathy with Popular Religion.]
[Sidenote: A Pantheistic Communion Feast.]
This Pantheism did not generate in Xenophanes any arrogant disdain for
the religion of his time. For, though he condemned, in words often
quoted, the folly which supposed the gods to have the human form,
senses, passions and appetites, he was yet glad to worship the divine
All as partially manifested in finite beings--perhaps personified powers
of nature. Thus among the fragments of his poetry fortunately preserved,
is one exquisite gem, a description of a festive repast in the open air.
There purity comes first, symbolised by clear floor, clean hands, and
spotless dishes. Upon purity waits beauty, not in the forms desired by
sensuous passion, but in garlands of flowers and in delicate scents. The
wine is unstinted, yet tempered with sparkling water. But, lest the
plentifulness of bread and honey and cheese upon the lordly table should
eclipse the highest sanctions of human joy, an altar prominent in the
festive scene is heaped with offerings of flowers. Then the first note
of music is the praise of God, a praise taking form in blameless poetic
myths and holy thoughts. In such a feast the minds of the guests are
kindled with a desire to be capable of doing right. "There is no harm in
drinking with reasonable moderation[10]; and we may honour the guest
who, warmed by wine, talks of such noble deeds and instances of virtue
as his memory may suggest. But let him not tell of Titan battles, or
those of the giants or centaurs, the fictions of bygone days, nor yet of
factious quarrels, nor gossip, that can serve no good end. Rather let
us ever keep a good conscience towards the gods."[11]
[Sidenote: Empedocles, Middle of Fifth Century B.C.]
[Sidenote: Not Properly a Pantheist]
Having given so much space to an ancient who seems to me specially
interesting as a prophet of the ultimate apotheosis of earthly
religions, I must be content to indicate, in a very few lines, the
course of the Pantheistic tradition among the Greeks after his day. The
arithmetical mysticism of Pythagoras has no bearing upon our subject.
Empedocles of Agrigentum, living about the middle of the fifth century
B.C., and thus, perhaps, in the second generation after Xenophanes, was,
in many respects, a much more imposing figure--clothed in purple,
wielding political power, possessing medical skill, and even working
miraculous cures, such as are apparently easy to men of personal
impressiveness, sympathy, and "magnetism." But he does not appear to
have so nearly anticipated modern Pantheism as did his humbler
predecessor. For though the fragments of Empedocles, much larger in
volume than those of Xenophanes, certainly hint at some kind of
everlasting oneness in things, and expressly tell us that there is no
creation nor annihilation, but only perpetual changes of arrangement,
yet they present other phases of thought, apparently irreconcileable
with the doctrine that there is nothing other than God. Thus he teaches
that there are four elements--earth, air, water and fire--out of which
all things are generated. He also anticipates Lucretius in his
pessimistic view of humanity's lot; and insists on the apparently
independent existence of a principle of discord or strife in the
Universe. It would be a forced interpretation to suppose him to have set
forth precociously the Darwinian theory of the struggle for life. For
his notion seems much more akin to the Zoroastrian imagination of
Ahriman. Again, he sings melodiously, but most unphilosophically, of a
former golden age, in which the lion and the lamb would seem to have
lain down together in peace; and trees yielded fruit all the year round.
At that time the only deity was Venus, who was worshipped with bloodless
offerings alone. Still, it must be remembered that, whether consistently
or not, Empedocles produced an elaborate work on the Nature of Things,
to which Lucretius makes eloquent and earnest acknowledgments. But that
very approval of Lucretius forbids us to regard the older poet as a
Pantheist in our sense of the term. For certainly to him the Universe
cannot have been a living God.
[Sidenote: Genesis of Modern Religious Pantheism.]
Between this philosophical idea of a Oneness, not thought of as God, and
the spiritual contemplation of a universal Life of which all things are
modes, the highest thoughts of men hovered during the process by which,
in some measure under extraneous influences, Greek speculation finally
produced Neo-platonism--or, as we might say in the current phraseology
of our time--a restatement of Plato's teaching. Of this school, arising
in the early Christian centuries, some leaders were undoubtedly
Pantheists. But we cannot say this of Plato himself, nor of his master
Socrates. For though these great men were more profoundly interested in
the moral order of the world than in any questions of physical nature,
or even of metaphysical subtleties, they were never given to the kind of
contemplation suggested above in extracts from the Classical Books of
the East, the contemplation which educes the moral ideal from
unreserved subordination of self to the Universe as of the part to the
Whole. Doubtless the inspiration imparted by Socrates to a disciple in
mere intellect his superior, and the resulting moral and religious
suggestions abounding in the Dialogues, did much to impel the current of
religious evolution toward that spiritual aspect of the Infinite All
which fascinated some of the Neo-Platonists, and received its most
splendid exposition from Spinoza. But the conditions imposed by
necessary brevity compel me to pass by those classic names with this
acknowledgment, and to hasten toward the fuller revelation of Pantheism
as a religion.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Some scholars think they can trace Christian, influences in
the exceptionally late Bhagavad Gîtâ, hereafter quoted. But it is a
disputed point; and certainly in the case of the Vedas and pre-Christian
literature arising out of them even Jewish influence was impossible.]
[Footnote 3: As imperious brevity excludes full explanation, I must
content myself with a reference to _The Religion of the Universe_, pp.
152-5. London: Macmillan & Co.]
[Footnote 4: According to the late Max Müller, with whom Prof. T.W. Rhys
Davids agrees, the word Upanishad is equivalent to our word "sitting" or
"session"; only that it is usually confined to a sitting of master and
pupil.]
[Footnote 5: _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i. p. 92. The immediately
following quotations are from the same Upanishad.]
[Footnote 6: "The gods of ocean, air and fire, and the judge of the
lower regions respectively" (Rev. John Davies).]
[Footnote 7: The "Bhagavad Gîtâ," translated by the Rev. J. Davies,
M.A.]
[Footnote 8: The Karma was _not_ a soul. What it was is, according to
our authorities, very difficult for the Western mind to conceive. But
its practical effect was, that on the death of the imperfect man,
another finite existence of some sort necessarily took his place. But
this new finite existence was not the former man. It is only on the
death of him who has attained Nirvana that Karma ceases to act, and no
new finite existence takes his place.]
[Footnote 9: See Prof. W. Max Muller, on "Egypt," in the _Encyc.
Biblica._]
[Footnote 10: "Capability of walking home without help," is the limit
quaintly fixed by the poet. To our modern feeling it seems rather wide.
Yet, practically, it is the limit professedly observed by our publicans
in serving their customers.]
[Footnote 11: Karsten, _Xenophanis Reliquiae_, p. 68 (Amsterdam, 1830).
Both the paraphrase and occasional translations which I give are of
course free; but I think the spirit and meaning are preserved.]