‘Unfortunate human nature,’ wrote the wise of Gaur against the wise of Jayasthal, ‘wanted no crowning indignity but this! You had already proved that the body is made of the basest element—earth. You had argued away the immovability, the ubiquity, the permanency, the eternity, and the divinity of the soul, for is not your favourite axiom, “It is the nature of limbs which thinketh in man?” The immortal mind is, according to you, an ignoble viscus; the god-like gift of reason is the instinct of a dog somewhat highly developed. Still you left us something to hope. Still you allowed us one boast. Still life was a thread connecting us with the Giver of Life. But now, with an impious hand, in blasphemous rage ye have rent asunder that last frail tie.’ And so forth.
‘Welcome! thrice welcome! this latest and most admirable development of human wisdom,’ wrote the sage Jayasthalians against the sage Gaurians, ‘which has assigned to man his proper state and status and station in the magnificent scale of being. We have not created the facts which we have investigated, and which we now proudly publish. We have proved materialism to be nature’s own system. But our philosophy of matter cannot overturn any truth, because, if erroneous, it will necessarily sink into oblivion; if real, it will tend only to instruct and to enlighten the world. Wise are ye in your generation, O ye sages of Gaur, yet withal wondrous illogical.’ And much of this kind.
Concerning all which, mighty king! I, as a Vampire, have only to remark that those two learned bodies, like your Rajaship’s Nine Gems of Science, were in the habit of talking most about what they least understood.
The four young men applied the whole force of their talents to mastering the difficulties of the life-giving process; and, in due time, their industry obtained its reward.
* * * * *
Then they determined to return home. As with beating hearts they approached the old city, their birthplace, and gazed with moistened eyes upon its tall spires and grim pagodas, its verdant meads and venerable groves, they saw a Kanjar,[142] who, having tied up in a bundle the skin and bones of a tiger which he had found dead, was about to go on his way. Then said the thief to the gambler, ‘Take we these remains with us, and by means of them prove the truth of our science before the people of Gaur, to the offence of their noses.’[143] Being now possessed of knowledge, they resolved to apply it to its proper purpose, namely, power over the property of others. Accordingly, the wencher, the gambler, and the atheist kept the Kanjar in conversation whilst the thief vivified a shank bone; and the bone thereupon stood upright, and hopped about in so grotesque and wonderful a way that the man, being frightened, fled as if I had been close behind him.
The bone thereupon stood upright, and hopped about.
Vishnu Swami had lately written a very learned commentary on the mystical words of Lokakshi:
‘The Scriptures are at variance—the tradition is at variance. He who gives a meaning of his own, quoting the Vedas, is no philosopher.