[Footnote 179: De Pressensé: The Ancient World and Christianity, p. 87.]
[Footnote 180: Schoolcraft: Notes on the Iroquois.]
[Footnote 181: Quoted by Morgan in St. Paul in Britain, p. 23.]
[Footnote 182: The full development of the doctrine was not reached till far on in the Christian centuries. Hardwick: Christ and Other Masters, p. 204.]
[Footnote 183: Aryan Witness, closing chapter.]
LECTURE IX.
ETHICAL TENDENCIES OF THE EASTERN AND THE WESTERN PHILOSOPHIES
It is not my purpose to discuss the comparative merits of philosophic systems, but only to consider some practical bearings of philosophy, ancient and modern, upon vital questions of morals and religion. There has been no lack of speculation in the world. For ages the most gifted minds have labored and struggled to solve the mysteries of the Universe and of its Author. But they have missed the all-important fact that with the heart, as well as with the intellect, men are to be learners of the highest wisdom, and that they are to listen to the voice of God not only in nature, but in the soul.
So the old questions, still unsolved, are ever asked anew. The same wearying researches and the same confident assertions, to be replaced by others equally confident, are found both in the ancient and in the modern history of mankind. By wisdom the present generation has come no nearer to finding out God than men of the remotest times. The cheerless conclusion of agnosticism was reached in India twenty-four centuries ago, and Confucius expressed it exactly when he said, with reference to the future, "We do not know life; how can we know death?" This same dubious negation probably has the largest following of all types of unbelief in our time. It is not atheism: that, to the great mass of men, is unthinkable; it is easier to assume simply that "we do not know." Yet almost every form of agnosticism, ancient or modern, claims to possess a vast amount of very positive knowledge. Speculative hypothesis never employed the language of dogmatic assurance so confidently as now. Even theosophic occultism speaks of itself as "science."
That which strikes one first of all in the history of philosophy is the similarity between ancient and modern speculations upon the great mysteries of the world.