the transmigration of souls, which appears indeed to be the most
characteristic of all their opinions, and was by its influence on real
life, by far the most important. We must in the first place remember,
and keep well in our minds, that, among those nations of primitive
antiquity, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not a mere
probable hypothesis, which, as with many moderns, needs laborious
researches and diffuse argumentations in order to produce conviction on
the mind. Nay, we can hardly give the name of faith to this primitive
conception; for it was a lively certainty, like the feeling of one's own
being, and of what is actually present; and this firm belief in a future
existence exerted its influence on all sublunary affairs, and was often
the motive of mightier deeds and enterprises than any mere earthly
interest could inspire. I said above that the doctrine of the
transmigration of souls was not unconnected with the Indian system of
castes; for the most honourable appellation of a Brahmin is _Tvija_,
that is to say, a second time born, or regenerated. On one hand this
appellation refers to that spiritual renovation and second birth of a
life of purity consecrated to God, as in this consists the true calling
of a Brahmin, and the special purpose of his caste. On the other hand
this term refers to the belief that the soul, after many transmigrations
through various forms of animals, and various stages of natural
existence, is permitted in certain cases, as a peculiar recompense, when
it has gone through its prescribed cycle of migrations to return to the
world, and be born in the class of Brahmins. This doctrine of the
transmigration of souls through various bodies of animals or other forms
of existence, and even through more than one repetition of human life,
(whether such migrations were intended as the punishment of souls for
their viciousness and impiety, or as trials for their further
purification and amendment)--this doctrine which has always been, and is
still so prevalent in India, was held likewise by the ancient Egyptians.
This accordance in the faith of these two ancient nations, established
beyond all doubt by historical testimony, is indeed remarkable; and even
in the minutest particulars on the course of migration allotted to
souls, and on the stated periods and cycles of that migration, the
coincidence is often perfectly exact. How strangely now it this most
singular error mixed up, I do not say with truth, but with a feeling
that is certainly closely akin to primitive truth! When an individual of
our own age, out of disgust with modern and well-known systems, or with
the vulgar doctrines, and from a love of paradox, adopted this ancient
hypothesis of the transmigration of souls; he merely considered the bare
transmutation of earthly forms.[48] But among those ancient nations this
doctrine rested on a religious basis, and was connected with a sentiment
purely religious. In this doctrine there was a noble element of
truth--the feeling that man, since he has gone astray, and wandered so
far from his God, must needs exert many efforts, and undergo a long and
painful pilgrimage before he can rejoin the Source of all
perfection;--the firm conviction and positive certainty that nothing
defective, impure, or defiled with earthly stains can enter the pure
region of perfect spirits, or be eternally united to God; and that thus,
before it can attain to this blissful end, the immortal soul must pass
through long trials and many purifications. It may now well be
conceived, (and indeed the experience of this life would prove it,) that
suffering, which deeply pierces the soul, anguish that convulses all the
members of existence, may contribute, or may even be necessary, to the
deliverance of the soul from all alloy and pollution, as, to borrow a
comparison from natural objects, the generous metal is melted down in
fire and purged from its dross. It is certainly true that the greater
the degeneracy and the degradation of man, the nearer is his
approximation to the brute; and when the transmigration of the immortal
soul through the bodies of various animals is merely considered as the
punishment of its former transgressions, we can very well understand the
opinion which supposes that man who, by his crimes and the abuse of his
reason, had descended to the level of the brute, should at last be
transformed into the brute itself. But what could have given rise to the
opinion that the transmigration of souls through the bodies of beasts
was the road or channel of amendment, was destined to draw the soul
nearer to infinite perfection, and even to accomplish its total union
with the Supreme Being, from whom, in all appearance, it seemed
calculated to remove it further? And as regards a return to the present
state and existence of man, what thinking person would ever wish to
return to a life divided and fluctuating as it is, between desire and
disgust, wasted in internal and external strife, and which, though
brightened by a few scattered rays of truth, is still encompassed with
the dense clouds of error;--even though this return to earthly existence
should be accomplished in the Brahminical class so highly revered in
India, or in the princely and royal race so highly favoured by fortune?
There is in all this a strange mixture and confusion of the ideas of
this world with those of the next; and how the latter is separated from
the former by an impassable gulf, they seem not to have been
sufficiently aware. Both these ancient nations, the Egyptians as well as
the Indians, regarded with few exceptions, the Metempsychosis, not as an
object of joyful hope, but rather as a calamity impending over the soul;
and whether they considered it to be a punishment for earthly
transgressions, or a state of probation--a severe but preparatory trial
of purification; they still looked on it as a calamity; which to avert
or to mitigate, they deemed no attempt, no act, no exertion, no
sacrifice, ought to be spared.
In the manner, however, in which these two nations conceived this
doctrine, there was a striking and fundamental difference; and if the
leading tenet was the same among both, the views which each connected
with it were very dissimilar. Deprived, as we are, of the old books and
original writings of the Egyptians, we are unable perfectly to
comprehend and seize their peculiar ideas on this subject, and state
them with the same assurance as we can those of the Indians, whose
ancient writings we now possess in such abundance, and which in all main
points perfectly agree with the accounts of the ancient classics. But we
are left to infer the ideas of the Egyptians on the Metempsychosis only
from their singular treatment of the dead, and the bodies of the
deceased; from that sepulchral art (if I may use the expression) which
with them acquired a dignity and importance, and was carried to a pitch
of refinement, such as we find among no other people; from that careful
and costly consecration of the corpse, which we still regard with wonder
and astonishment in their mummies and other monuments. That all these
solemn preparations, and the religious rites which accompanied them,
that the inscriptions on the tombs and mummies had all a religious
meaning and object, and were intimately connected with the doctrine of
the transmigration of souls, can admit of no doubt; though it is a
matter of greater difficulty to ascertain with precision the peculiar
ideas they were meant to express. Did the Egyptians believe that the
soul did not separate immediately from the body which it had ceased to
animate, but only on the entire decay and putrefaction of the corpse? Or
did they wish by their art of embalmment to preserve the body from
decay, in order to deliver the soul from the dreaded transmigration? The
Egyptian treatment of the dead would certainly seem to imply a belief
that, for some time at least after death, there existed a certain
connection between the soul and body. Yet we cannot adopt this
supposition to an unqualified extent, as it would be in contradiction
with those symbolical representations that so frequently occur in
Egyptian art, and in which the soul immediately after death is
represented as summoned before the judgment-seat of God, severely
accused by the hostile demon, but defended by the friendly and guardian
spirit, who employs every resource to procure the deliverance and
acquittal of the soul. Or did the Egyptians think that by all these
rites, as by so many magical expedients, they would keep off the
malevolent fiend from the soul, and obtain for it the succour of good
and friendly divinities? Now that the gates of hieroglyphic science have
been at last opened, we may trust that a further progress in the science
will disclose to us more satisfactory information on all these topics.
The Indians, however, who ever remained total strangers to the mode of
burial and treatment of the dead practised in Egypt, adopted a very
different course to procure the deliverance of the human soul from
transmigration:--they had recourse to philosophy--to the highest
aspirings of thought towards God--to a total and lasting immersion of
feeling in the unfathomable abyss of the divine essence. They have never
doubted that by this means a perfect union with the Deity might be
obtained even in this life, and that thus the soul, freed and
emancipated from all mutation and migration through the various forms of
animated nature in this world of illusion, might remain for ever united
with its God. Such is the object to which all the different systems of
Indian philosophy tend--such is the term of all their enquiries. This
philosophy contains a multitude of the sublimest reflections on the
separation from all earthly things, and on the union with the God-head;
and there is no high conception in this department of metaphysics,
unknown to the Hindoos. But this absorption of all thought and all
consciousness in God--this solitary enduring feeling of internal and
eternal union with the Deity, they have carried to a pitch and extreme
that may almost be called a moral and intellectual self-annihilation.
This is the same philosophy, though in a different form, which in the
history of European intellect and science, has received the denomination
of _mysticism_. The possible excesses--the perilous abyss in this
philosophy, have been in general acknowledged, and even pointed out in
particular cases, where egotism or pride has been detected under a
secret disguise, or where this total abstraction of thought and feeling
has spurned all limit, measure, and law. In general however, the
European mind, by its more temperate and harmonious constitution, by the
greater variety of its attainments, and above all, by the purer and
fuller light of revealed truth, has been preserved from those
aberrations of mysticism which in India have been carried to such a
fearful extent, not only in speculation, but in real life and practice;
and which, transcending as they do all the limits of human nature, far
exceed the bounds of possibility, or what men have in general considered
as such. And the apparently incredible things which the Greeks related
more than two thousand years ago, respecting the recluses of India, or
_Gymnosophists_, as they called those Yogis, are found to exist even at
the present day; and ocular experience has fully corroborated the truth
of their narratives.
END OF LECTURE IV.
LECTURE V.
A comparative view of the intellectual character of the four
principal nations in the primitive world--the Indians, the Chinese,
the Egyptians, and the Hebrews; next of the peculiar spirit and
political relations of the ancient Persians.
As, after discord had broken out among mankind, humanity became split
and divided into a multitude of nations, races, and languages, into
hostile and conflicting tribes, castes rigidly separated, and classes
variously divided; as indeed, when once we suppose this original
division and primitive opposition in the human race, it could not be
otherwise from the very nature and even destiny of man; so in a
psychological point of view, the moral unity of the individual man was
broken, and his faculties of will and understanding became mutually
opposed, or followed contrary courses. The whole internal structure of
human consciousness was deranged, and in the present divided state of
the human faculties, there is no longer the full play of the harmonious
soul--of the once unbroken spirit--but its every faculty hath now but a
limited, or, to speak more properly, one half of its proper power.
The restoration of the full life and entire operation of the divided
faculties of the human soul must be considered now only as a splendid
exception--the high gift of creative genius, and of a more than ordinary
strength of character; and such a re-union of faculties must be looked
upon as the high problem which constitutes the ultimate object and ideal
term of all the intellectual and moral exertions of man. When in an
individual a clear, comprehensive, penetrative understanding, that has
mastered all sound science, is combined with a will not only firm, but
pure and upright, such an individual has attained the great object of
his existence; and when a whole generation, or mankind in general,
present this harmonious concord between science on the one hand, and
moral conduct and external life, or to characterize them by one word,
the general will, on the other, which is often in utter hostility with
science--we may then truly say that humanity has attained its destiny.
The great error of ordinary philosophy, and the principal reason that
has prevented it from accomplishing its ends, is the supposition it so
hastily admits that the consciousness of man now entirely changed,
broken and mutilated, is the same as it was originally, and as it was
created and fashioned by its Maker; without observing that, since the
great primeval Revolution, man has not only been outwardly or
historically disunited, but even internally and psychologically
deranged. The moral being of man, a prey to internal discord, may be
said to be quartered, because the four primary faculties of the soul and
mind of man--Understanding and Will, Reason and Imagination, stand in a
two-fold opposition one to the other, and are, if we may so speak,
dispersed into the four regions of existence. Reason in man is the
regulating faculty of thought; and so far it occupies the first place in
life and the whole system and arrangement of life; but it is
unproductive in itself, and even in science it can pretend to no real
fertility or immediate intuition. Imagination on the other hand is
fertile and inventive indeed, but left to itself and without guidance,
it is blind, and consequently subject to illusion. The best will, devoid
of discernment and understanding, can accomplish little good. Still less
capable of good is a strong, and even the strongest understanding, when
coupled with a wicked and corrupt character; or should such an
understanding be associated with an unsteady and changeable will, the
individual destitute of character, is entirely without influence.
To prove moreover how all the other faculties of the soul, or the mind,
elsewhere enumerated are but the connecting links--the subordinate
branches[49] of those four primary faculties; how the general
dismemberment of the human consciousness reaches even to them; how they
diverge from one another, and appear still more split and narrowed; to
prove this would lead me too far, and is the less necessary, as, in the
peculiar character of particular ages or nations, the historical
enquirer can observe but those four primary faculties mentioned above,
as the intellectual elements prevalent in each. As in the intellectual
character of particular men, or in any given system of human thought,
fiction, or science (and these can be better described and more closely
analyzed than the fleeting and transient phenomena of real life and the
social relations); as in every such individual production, I say, of
human thought and human action, either Reason will preponderate as a
systematic methodizer and a moral regulator, or a fertile, inventive
Imagination will be displayed, or a clear, penetrative understanding, or
again a peculiar energy of will and strength of character will be
observed; so the same holds good in the great whole of universal
history--in the moral and intellectual existence--the character, or the
mind of particular ages or nations in the ancient world.
This is apparent not only in the very various manner, in which sacred
Tradition--the external word to man revealed--was conceived, developed
and disfigured among each of those nations; but in the peculiar form and
direction which the internal word in man--that is to say his higher
consciousness and intellectual life assumed among each. Such an
intellectual opposition evidently exists between those two great
primitive nations already characterized, that inhabit the extreme East
and South of Asia--an opposition between reason and imagination. In
regard to the intellectual and moral character of nations as well as of
individuals, Reason is that human faculty which is conversant with
grammatical construction, logical inferences, dialectic contests,
systematic arrangement; and in practical life it serves as the divine
regulator, in so far as it adheres to the higher order of God. But when
it refuses to do this, and wishes to deduce all from itself and its own
individuality, then it becomes an egotistical, over-refining, selfish,
calculating, degenerate Reason, the inventress of all the arbitrary
systems of science and morals, dividing and splitting every thing into
sects and parties. Imagination must not be considered as a mere faculty
for fiction, nor confined to the circle of art and poetry--it includes a
faculty for scientific discoveries, nor did a mind destitute of all
imagination ever make a great scientific discovery. There is even a
higher, purely speculative fancy which finds its proper sphere in a
mysticism, like the Indian, that has already been described. Even if a
mysticism, like that which constitutes the basis of the Indian
philosophy, were entirely free from all admixture of sensual feelings,
and were entirely destitute of images, we should certainly not be right
in refusing on that account to imagination its share in this peculiar
intellectual phenomenon. That in the intellectual character of the
Chinese, reason, and not imagination, was the predominant element, it
would, after the sketch we have before given of that people, and which
was drawn from the best and most recent sources and authorities, be
scarcely necessary to prove at any length--so clearly is that fact
established. Originally when the old system of Chinese manners was
regulated by the pure worship of God, not disfigured as among other
nations by manifold fictions, but breathing the better spirit of
Confucius, it was undoubtedly in a sound, upright Reason, conformable to
God, that the Chinese placed the foundation of their moral and political
existence; since they designated the Supreme Being by the name of Divine
Reason. Although some modern writers in our time have, like the Chinese,
applied the term _divine reason_ to Almighty God; yet I cannot adopt
this Chinese mode of speech, since, though according to the doctrine
from which I start, and the truth of which has been all along
pre-supposed, the living God is a spirit; yet it by no means follows
thence that God is Reason or Reason God. If we examine the expression
closely and in its scientific rigour, we can with as little propriety
attribute to God the faculty of reason, as the faculty of imagination.
The latter prevails in the poetical mythology of ancient Paganism; the
former, when the expression is really correct, designates rationalism or
the modern idolatry of Reason; and to this indeed we may discern a
certain tendency even in very early times, and particularly among the
Chinese. Among the latter people at a tolerably early period, a sound,
just Reason conformable and docile to divine revelation was superseded
by an egotistical, subtle, over-refining Reason, which split into
hostile sects, and at last subverted the old edifice of sacred
Tradition, to re-construct it on a new revolutionary plan.
Equally, and even still more strongly, apparent is the predominance of
the imaginative faculty among the Indians, as is seen even in their
science and in that peculiar tendency to mysticism which this faculty
has imparted to the whole Indian philosophy. The creative fulness of a
bold poetical imagination is evinced by those gigantic works of
architecture which may well sustain a comparison with the monuments of
Egypt; by a poetry, which in the manifold richness of invention is not
inferior to that of the Greeks, while it often approximates to the
beauty of its forms; and, above all, by a mythology which in its leading
features, its profound import, and its general connexion resembles the
Egyptian, while in its rich clothing of poetry, in its attractive and
bewitching representations, it bears a strong similarity to that of the
Greeks. This decided and peculiar character of the whole intellectual
culture of the Indians, will not permit us to doubt which of the various
faculties of the soul is there the ruling and preponderant element.
A similar, and equally decided opposition in the intellectual character
and predominant element of human consciousness is observed between the
Hebrews and Egyptians; though this was an opposition of a different
kind, and of a deeper import. To show this more clearly, I will take the
liberty of interrupting for a moment the order I have hitherto followed,
of characterizing each nation in regular succession, and with as much
accuracy and fullness as possible; in order by a comparative view of the
four principal nations of remote antiquity, to draw such a general
sketch of the first period of universal history as may serve at once for
a central point in our enquiries, and for the ground-work of subsequent
remarks. Such a comparison will tend to facilitate our survey of the
primitive ages of the world: and in this general combination of the
whole, each part will appear in a clearer light.
If I wished to characterize in one word the peculiar bearing and ruling
element of the Egyptian mind; however unsatisfactory in other respects
such general designations may be--I should say that the intellectual
eminence of that people was in its scientific profundity--in an
understanding that penetrated or sought to penetrate by magic into all
the depths and mysteries of nature, even into their most hidden abyss.
So thoroughly scientific was the whole leaning and character of the
Egyptian mind, that even the architecture of this people had an
astronomical import, even far more than that of the other nations of
early antiquity. I have already had occasion to speak of the deep and
mysterious signification of their treatment of the dead. In all the
natural sciences, in mathematics, astronomy, and even in medicine, they
were the masters of the Greeks; and even the profoundest thinkers among
the latter, the Pythagoreans, and afterwards the great Plato himself,
derived from them the first elements of their doctrines, or caught at
least the first outline of their mighty speculations. Here too, in the
birth-place of hieroglyphics, was the chief seat of the Mysteries; and
Egypt has at all times been the native country of many true, as well as
of many false, secrets. These few remarks may here serve to characterize
this people; we shall later have occasion to add many minuter traits to
complete this brief sketch of the Egyptian intellect.