How many centuries did it take the Christians to rise to that level of wisdom and charity? How many Christians have reached it yet?
But the altruistic idea is very much older than Buddha, for it existed among forms of life very much earlier and lower than the human, and has, indeed, been a powerful factor in evolution.
Speaking of "The Golden Rule" in his Confessions of Faith of a Man of Science, Haeckel says:
In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as
self-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance
derived from our animal ancestors. It had already found a
place among the herds of apes and other social mammals; in a
similar manner, but with wider scope, it was already present
in the most primitive communities and among the hordes of the
least advanced savages. Brotherly love—mutual support,
succour, protection, and the like—had already made its
appearance among gregarious animals as a social duty; for
without it the continued existence of such societies is
impossible. Although at a later period, in the case of man,
these moral foundations of society came to be much more highly
developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown,
is to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among the
higher vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as among
the higher articulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.), also, the
development of social relations and duties is the indispensable
condition of their living together in orderly societies. Such
societies have for man also been the most important instrument
of intellectual and moral progress.
It is not to revelation that we owe the ideal of human brotherhood, but to evolution. It is because altruism is better than selfishness that it has survived. It is because love is stronger and sweeter than greed that its influence has deepened and spread. From the love of the animal for its mate, from the love of parents for their young, sprang the ties of kindred and the loyalty of friendship; and these in time developed into tribal, and thence into national patriotism. And these stages of altruistic evolution may be seen among the brutes. It remained for Man to take the grand step of embracing all humanity as one brotherhood and one nation.
But the root idea of fraternity and mutual loyalty was not planted by any priest or prophet. For countless ages universal brotherhood has existed among the bison, the swallow, and the deer, in a perfection to which humanity has not yet attained.
For a fuller account of this animal origin of fraternity I recommend the reader to two excellent books, The Martyrdom of Man, by Winwood Reade (Kegan Paul), and Mutual Aid, by Prince Kropotkin (Heinemann).
But the Christian claims that Christ taught a new gospel of love, and mercy, and goodwill to men. That is a great mistake. Christ did not originate one single new ethic.
The Golden Rule was old. The Lord's Prayer was old. The Sermon on the Mount was old. With the latter I will deal briefly. For a fuller statement, please see the R.P.A. sixpenny edition of Huxley's Lectures and Essays, and Christianity and Mythology, by J. M. Robertson.
Shortly stated, Huxley's argument was to the following effect: