[151] Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures on the History of Buddhism, p. 208.
[152] Hardy, Manual of Budhism, p. 505.
[153] Rhys Davids, op. cit. p. 209.
[154] Dinâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, xlvii. 6.
[155] Ibid. i. 54.
[156] Ibid. lvii. 15 sq.
[157] Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 495. Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 35.
[158] Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 301 sq.
[159] Ameer Ali, Ethics of Islâm, pp. 47, 49.
In Christianity the knowledge of truth became a necessary requirement of salvation. But here, as in the East, the truth which alone was valued was religious truth. All knowledge that was not useful to salvation was, indeed, despised, and science was regarded not only as valueless, but as sinful.[160] “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”[161] If it happened that any one gave himself to letters, or lifted up his mind to the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, he passed instantly for a magician or a heretic.[162] So also every mental disposition which is essential to scientific research was for centuries stigmatised as offensive to the Almighty; it was a sin to doubt the opinions which had been instilled in childhood before they had been examined, to notice any objection to those opinions, to resolve to follow the light of evidence wherever it might lead.[163] Yet we are told, even by highly respectable writers, that the modern world owes its scientific spirit to the extreme importance which Christianity assigned to the possession of truth, of the truth.[164] According to M. Réville, “it was the orthodox intolerance of the Church in the Middle Ages which impressed on Christian society this disposition to seek truth at any price, of which the modern scientific spirit is only the application. The more importance the Church attached to the profession of the truth—to the extent even of considering involuntary error as in the highest degree a damnable crime—so much the more the sentiment of the immense value of this truth arose in the general persuasion, along with a resolve to conquer it wherever it was felt not to be possessed. How otherwise,” M. Réville asks, “can we explain that science was not developed and has not been pursued with constancy, except in the midst of Christian societies?”[165] This statement is characteristic of the common tendency to attribute to the influence of the Christian religion almost anything good which may be found among Christian nations. But, surely, the patient and impartial search after hidden truth, for the sake of truth, which constitutes the essence of scientific research, is not congenial to, but the very opposite of, that ready acceptance of a revealed truth for the sake of eternal salvation, which was insisted upon by the Church. And what about that singular love of abstract knowledge which flourished in ancient Athens, where Aristotle declared it a sacred duty to prefer truth to everything else,[166] and Socrates sacrificed his life on its altar? It seems that the modern scientific spirit is only a revival and development of a mental disposition which was for ages suppressed by the persecuting tendencies of the Church and the extreme contempt for learning displayed by the barbarian invaders and their descendants. Even when they had settled in the countries which they had conquered, the Teutons would not permit their children to be instructed in any science, for fear lest they should become effeminate and averse from war;[167] and long afterwards it was held that a nobleman ought not to know letters, and that to write and read was a shame to gentry.[168]