changing manifestation. Pantheism admits of no freedom, no re- sponsibility, no conscious life after death. Cousin sums up the doctrine in this comprehensive paragrapli : " The God of con- sciousness is not an abstract God, a solitary monarch exiled beyond the limits of creation, upon the desert throne of a silent eternity, and of an absolute existence which resembles even the negation of existence. He is a God at once true and real, at once substance and cause, always substance and always cause, being substance only in so far as He is cause, and cause only so far as He is sub- stance, that is to say, being absolute cause, one and many, eternity and time, space and number, essence and life, indivisibility and totality, principle, end, and centre, at the summit of Being and at its lowest degree, infinite and finite together, triple, in a word, that is to say, at the same time God, nature, and humanity. In fact, if God be not everything, He is nothing." ^
History of Pantheism. Pantheism has proved itself to be the most persistent as well as the most wide-spread form of human thought relative to the ori- gin and nature of the universe, and its relation to the Infinite Being, whose existence in some form seems to be a universal and necessary assumption. Pantheistic ideas underlie almost all the forms of religion which have existed in the world. Polytheism, which has been almost universal, has its origin in nature worship ; and nature-worship rests on the assumption that Nature is God, or, the manifestation, or existence form of the infinite unknown. Of course it is only the briefest outline of the different forms of this portentous system of error, that can be given in these pages.
B. Brahminical Pantheism.
Ethnographically the Hindus belong to the same race as the Greeks, Romans, and other great European nations. In prehis- toric periods one division of the great Aryan family spread itself westward over the territory which now constitutes Europe. An- other division extended south and east and entered India, displa- cing almost entirely the original inhabitants of that large, diversi- fied, and fertile region.
Long before Greece or Rome became cultivated communities, and when Europe was the home only of uncivilized barbarians, India was covered with rich and populous cities ; the arts had
1 Philosop/iical Fragments, Preface to First Edition. See History of Modern Philosoph^h translated by Wight, N. Y. 1852, vol. i. pp. 112, 113.
310 PART I. —THEOLOGY. [Ch. m. — Anti-Theism.
reached the highest state of development ; a literature and lan- guage which, in the judgment of scholars, rival those of Greece and Rome, had been produced, and systems of philosophy as pro- found, as subtle, and as diversified as the human mind ever elab- orated, were already taught in her schools.
The Hindus number nearly two hundred millions of souls. They are now, in the essential principles of their philosophy, thoir relig- ion, and their social organization-, what they were a thousand years before the birth of Christ. Never in the history of the world has a form of religious philosopliy been so extensively embraced, so persistently adhered to, or so effective in moulding the character and determining the destiny of a people.
Few questions of the kind, therefore, are of deeper interest than what the true character of the Hindu religion actually is. The decision of that question is not free from difficulty : and it has, therefore, received very different answers. The difficulty in this case arises from various sources.
1. The religious books of the Hindus are not only written in Sanskrit, a language unintelligible, except to a small class of learned men, but they are exceedingly voluminous. The Vedas, the most ancient and authoritative, fill fourteen volumes folio. The Institutes of Menu, the Puranas, and the sacred poems, *' Ramayana " and "'' Mahabhrata," are equally extensive. The former of these poems consists of a hundred thousand verses, and the latter of four hundred thousand, while the jEneid has only twelve thousand, and the Iliad twenty-four thousand. Sir William Jones said that the student of the Hindu literature and religion, found himself in the presence of infinity.
2. It is not only, however, the voluminousness of the authorita- tive sacred books, but the character of their contents, which cre- ates the difficulty of getting a clear idea of the system which they teach. The Vedas consist mainly of hymns of various ages, inter- spersed with brief, obscure, philosophical or theological explana- tions and comments. The Puranas are filled with extravagant legends ; which are to be interpreted historically, and which myth- ically, it is difficult to decide.
3. The spirit of exaggeration is so characteristic of the Hindu mind that statements meant to be understood literally shock the mind by their extravagance. Thus their books make the earth a circular plane one hundred and seventy millions of miles in diame- ter ; they speak of mountains sixty miles high, and of periods of four thousand millions of millions of years.
§6, B.J mSTORY OF PANTHEISM. 311
The Religion of the Hindus not originally Monotheistic.
It is a common opinion that the Hindu rehgion was orio-inally and for centuries monotheistic ; that out of monotheism gradually rose the present complicated and monstrous polytheism, and that contemporaneously among the philosophical class, were developed the different forms- of Pantheism. But this is contrary to well es- tablished facts, and is altogether unsatisfactory as a solution of the great problem of Hindu life.
It is indeed true, as we know from the Bible, that monotheism was the earliest form of religion among men. And it is also true in all probability that the Vedas, which are collections of ancient hymns, contain some which belong to the monotheistic period. Most of those, however, which appear to assume the existence of one God, are to be understood in a pantheistic and not in a theistic tiense. These recognize one divine Being, but that one includes all the other forms of being. The history of religion shows that wheii monotheism failed among men because " they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," it was replaced by the worship of nature. This nature-worship assumed two forms. The different elements, as fire, air, and water, were personified, endowed with personal attributes and divine powers, giving rise to polytheism. Or nature as a whole was the object of worship, giving rise to Pan- theism.
It is evident that among the highly intellectual Aryans who settled in India, between one and two thousand years before Christ, the pantheistic view had obtained the ascendency, not as a philosophical theory merely, but as a religious doctrine. It be- came, and has continued until this day, the foundation of the relig- ious, civil, and social life of the Hindu. It is this which gives it its paramount importance. It stands alone in history. In no other case, among no other people, has Pantheism become the controlling form of religious belief among the people, so as to determine their institutions and to mould their character. The Hindus, therefore, have an interest for Christians and for the religious philosopher which attaches to no other heathen nation. They show, and were doubtless intended to show, what are the legitimate effects of Pan- theism. That doctrine has had dominant control for millenniums, over a highly cultivated and intelligent people, and in their char- acter and state we see its proper fruits.
S12 PART I. -THEOLOGY. [Ch. HI. - Anti-Thkism.
It was Pantheistic. That the rehgion of the Hindus is fundamentally pantheistic, is evident —
1. From what their sacred writings teach of the Supreme Being. It is designated by a word in the neuter gender, Brahm. It is never addressed as a person. It is never worshipped. It has no attributes but such as may be predicated of space. It is said to be eternal, infinite, immutable. It is said to have continued for un- told ages in the state of unintelligent, unconscious being. It comes to existence, to consciousness, and life, in the world. It unfolds itself through countless ages in all the forms of finite existence ; and then by a like gradual process all things are resolved into unconscious being. The illustrations of the origin of the world commonly employed are sparks issuing from a burning mass ; or, better, vapour rising from the ocean, condensing and falling back to the source whence it came. Being as such, or the Infinite, is, therefore, viewed in three aspects : as coming to existence, as de- veloping itself in the world, as receiving everything back into the abyss of simple being. These different aspects are expressed by the words, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, to which our terms, Cre- ator, Preserver, and Destroyer, answer very imperfectly.